Lords of the Bow

by Conn Iggulden

  “One of you killed a boy of the Uriankhai. Let him speak and only one will die. If he does not, your lives are mine to take.” He drew his father’s sword slowly, letting them hear the sound. Outside the ring of lamps, he sensed the presence of a growing crowd, called from sleep by the prospect of seeing justice. He would not disappoint them. Genghis stood over the youngest of the brothers and raised the sword as if it weighed nothing.

  “I can find him, my lord,” Kokchu said softly from the edge of the darkness. The brothers looked up to see the shaman enter the dim light, his eyes terrible. “I have only to lay my hand on each head to know the one you seek.”

  The brothers were visibly trembling as Genghis nodded, sheathing his sword.

  “Work your spells, shaman. The boy was torn apart. Find me who did it.”

  Kokchu bowed low and stood before the brothers. They did not dare look at him, though their frozen expressions were strained and quivering.

  Genghis watched in fascination as Kokchu pressed his hand lightly to the first man’s head and closed his eyes. The words of the shaman’s tongue erupted forth from him in a liquid roll of sound. One of the brothers jerked away and almost fell before struggling upright.

  As Kokchu lifted his hand, the first brother swayed, dazed and pale. The crowd outside the light had grown and hundreds murmured in the dark. Kokchu moved to the second man and took an indrawn breath, closing his eyes.

  “The boy . . .” he said. “The boy saw. . .” He stood very still and the camp held their breath to watch him. At last Kokchu shook himself, as if shrugging off a heavy weight. “One of these men is a traitor, lord. I have seen it. I have seen his face. He killed the boy to stop him telling what he saw.”

  With one sharp step, Kokchu stepped to the fourth man in the line, the oldest of the brothers. His hand snapped out and his fingers writhed like bones in the man’s black hair.

  “I did not kill the boy!” the brother shouted, struggling.

  “If you lie, the spirits will steal your soul,” Kokchu hissed into the shocked silence. “Now lie again and show the lord khan the fate of traitors and murderers.”

  The warrior was slack-faced with terror as he cried out, “I did not kill the boy. I swear it!” Under Kokchu’s heavy hand, he convulsed suddenly and the crowd shouted in fear. They watched in horror as the man’s eyes rolled up in his head and his jaw flopped open brokenly. He fell to one side, breaking the awful grip as he jerked and spasmed, his bladder releasing a great rush of steaming urine onto the frozen grass.

  Kokchu stood watching until the man was still, his eyes still showing white in the gleam from the lamps. The silence was immense, filling the camp. Only Genghis could break it and even he had to struggle to overcome the sense of awe and dread that gripped him.

  “Cut the bonds of the other men,” he said. “The boy’s death has been answered.” Kokchu bowed to him then and Genghis dismissed the crowd to their homes to wait fearfully for the sun to return.

  CHAPTER 15

  ALARM BELLS RANG ACROSS BAOTOU as they hurried through the night, following Lian. Even the dark was lifting in places, as householders woke and lit lamps from every gate. They ran through pools of light where the rain showed as gold flecks, then on into blackness.

  The soldiers had not seen them leave, though it had been close. Lian clearly knew the area well and darted through tiny alleys behind the houses of the rich without hesitation. Most of the Imperial guards had turned out in the area of the gates, but they were working their way inwards to the center of the city, tightening their grip as they searched for the criminals who had killed their men.

  Temuge panted weakly as he struggled on. They were heading along the wall, though at times, Lian turned away from it to avoid open courtyards and street crossings. Khasar loped at his side, watching for soldiers. After the fight, he was smiling whenever Temuge looked at him, though Temuge suspected it was the smile of an idiot who could not imagine the consequences of being caught. His own imagination was brutal enough for both of them, and he cringed as he ran, imagining hot irons on his flesh.

  Lian halted near a quiet section of the wall. The antlike scurrying of soldiers had been left behind, but the warning bells had brought the people out to their doorways, peering fearfully at the running men.

  Lian turned to them, breathing heavily.

  “The wall is being repaired here. We can climb the ropes for the rubble baskets. You won’t find another way out of Baotou tonight.”

  “Show me,” Chen Yi said.

  Lian glanced around him at the pale faces watching from every window in sight. He swallowed nervously and nodded, leading them to where they could lay their hands on the ancient stones of the city wall.

  Ropes lay coiled in the darkness and they could see the bulbous shapes of the soft baskets used to carry rubble up to the crest, where it was dumped into the core of the wall. Three of the ropes were taut and Chen Yi gripped one of them with a pleased exclamation.

  “You have done well, Lian. Are there no ladders?”

  “They are locked away at night,” Lian replied. “I could break the locks easily enough, but it would delay us.”

  “Then this will do. Take this one and show how it is done.”

  The mason dropped his roll of tools to the ground and began climbing, grunting with the effort. It was difficult to judge the height of the wall in the dark, but it seemed huge to Temuge as he stared upwards. He clenched his fists in the darkness, desperate not to be humiliated again in front of Khasar. He would climb it. The thought of being lifted like a sack of hammers was too awful to contemplate.

  Ho Sa and Khasar went up together, though Khasar looked back at Temuge before starting to climb. No doubt he thought his weak brother would slip and fall on Chen Yi like divine retribution. Temuge stared furiously at him until Khasar grinned and climbed like a rat, making it look easy despite his wound.

  “The rest of you will wait here,” Chen Yi murmured to his men. “I will go up with these, then return to you once they are safely down. Someone will have to pull the lines back from the other side.”

  He handed a thick rope to Temuge and watched as the younger man began to ascend, pulling himself up the wall with shaking arms. Chen Yi shook his head in exasperation.

  “Do not fall, fearful one,” he said. A small man, Chen Yi ascended quickly, leaving Temuge climbing alone in the dark. His arms were burning and sweat poured into his eyes, but he forced himself to walk up the rough stone, hanging out over the men below. There was no light near the top and he almost let go in shock when strong hands grabbed him and dragged him onto the crest.

  Temuge lay panting, ignored by the others and desperately relieved. His heart pounded wildly as they stood and looked back into the city. Below, the baskets of rubble had been cut free and they pulled the ropes up quickly, dropping them over the other side.

  The wall was ten feet wide at the crest and the rope stretched over it. Lian swore under his breath as he saw the ropes would not reach right to the ground outside the city.

  “We will have to jump the last part and hope no one breaks a leg,” he said.

  The last rope had to be pulled up. It bumped its way to the top with the bundle of Lian’s tools, Khasar’s bow, and three plain swords all wrapped together. Lian lowered it down the outside of the wall and paused, waiting for Chen Yi to give the order.

  “Go now,” Chen Yi said. “You will have to walk unless you can find a place to buy mules.”

  “I am not riding a mule,” Khasar said immediately. “Are there no ponies worth stealing in this land?”

  “It is too much risk. Your people lie to the north, unless you intend to return by way of the Xi Xia. It is not more than a few hundred li from here, but there will be garrisons of Imperial soldiers on every road and pass. You would do better to head west past the mountains, traveling only by night.”

  “We’ll see,” Khasar said. “Goodbye, little thief. I will not forget how you have helped us.” He crouched o
n the far edge, then slid over to hang on his elbows before reaching for the dangling rope. Ho Sa followed with merely a nod to Chen Yi, and Temuge too would have gone without a word if the little man hadn’t laid a palm on his shoulder.

  “Your khan has what he wanted. I will hold him to promises made in his name.”

  Temuge nodded briskly. He did not care whether Genghis torched Baotou to the ground. “Of course,” he said. “We are an honorable people.”

  Chen Yi watched as he climbed down, as ungainly and feeble as before. When the leader of the Blue Tong was alone on the wall, he sighed. He did not trust Temuge, with his shifting eyes and visible cowardice. In Khasar he had sensed a fellow spirit; a ruthless man, but one he hoped would share his sense of honor and debt. He shrugged as he turned back to the city. He could not be certain. He did not enjoy the thrill of gambling and had never understood it in those who did. “The tiles are flying,” he murmured. “Who knows where they will fall?”

  The four men were dusty and footsore by the tenth day. Unused to walking, Khasar had developed a limp and his mood was surly as they trudged on. Once out of reach of Chen Yi, Lian too had asked only a few questions before settling into a grim silence. He walked with his tools over his shoulder, and though he shared the hares Khasar killed with his bow, he made no attempt to join in the conversations as the others planned their route. A biting wind made them walk with one hand on their robes, bunching the cloth tight.

  Khasar had wanted to take the shortest trails north. Temuge had argued and been ignored, but Ho Sa had swayed him with descriptions of the Chin forts and the wall that guarded the empire from invaders. Though it was broken, there were still guards enough to pose a danger to four men alone. The only safe path was to head west along the banks of the Yellow River until they reached the mountains that straddled the Xi Xia kingdom and the Gobi desert.

  At the end of the tenth day, Khasar had insisted on entering a Chin village to look for ponies. He and his brother still carried a small fortune in silver and gold—enough to terrify peasants who would not have seen anything like that level of wealth. Even finding a merchant willing to change a few silvers into bronze was difficult. They left empty-handed and set off again as night fell, unwilling to remain in one place for long.

  As the moon rose, the four weary men were deep in pine woods, making slow time on animal paths and trying to keep sight of the stars to guide them. For the first time in his life, Temuge had become aware of his own smell of sweat and dirt and wished for another opportunity to bathe in the Chin style. He looked back on his first experience of a city with nostalgia, remembering the cleanliness of Chen Yi’s house. He cared nothing for the beggars, or the mass of people like maggots in flyblown meat. He was the son and brother of a khan and would never fall to such a low estate. To find that wealthy men could live as he had seen was a revelation, and he asked questions of Lian as they walked in the darkness. The mason seemed surprised that Temuge should know so little of city life, hardly understanding how each new fact was like water to a dry soul. He told Temuge of apprenticeship and universities, where great thinkers came to exchange ideas and argue without bloodshed. As a mason, he spoke of sewers being laid even in the poorest sections of the city, though corruption had stalled the works for more than a dozen years. Temuge drank it all in, and as he walked he dreamed of strolling with learned men in sunlit courtyards, discussing great issues with his hands clasped behind his back. Then he would stumble on a hidden root and Khasar would laugh at him, shattering the images.

  It was Khasar who stopped on the trail without warning, letting Ho Sa thump into his back. The Xi Xia soldier was too much of an old hand to break the silence. Lian stopped in confusion and Temuge raised his head from private thoughts, his breath catching in his throat. Surely they had not been tracked? They had seen a guard post on a road two days behind, giving it a wide berth. Could the word have gone out to find the fugitives? Temuge felt a stab of despair, suddenly certain that Chen Yi had given them up in exchange for his life. It was what Temuge would have done and as panic overwhelmed him in the darkness, he saw enemies in every shadow.

  “What is it?” Temuge hissed to his brother’s back.

  Khasar turned his head this way and that, searching for sound. “I heard voices. The wind has changed now, but they were there.”

  “We should head south for a few miles to lose them,” Ho Sa whispered. “If they are looking for us, we can use the woods to lay up for a day.”

  “Soldiers don’t camp in woods,” Khasar said. “It’s too easy to creep up on a man. We’ll go ahead, but slowly. Have your weapons ready.”

  Lian removed a long-handled hammer from his roll of tools, swinging the head onto his other shoulder.

  Temuge stared at Khasar in growing anger. “What do we care who else is in these woods?” he demanded. “Ho Sa is right, we should go around them.”

  “If they have horses, it’s worth the risk. I think it’s going to snow and I’m tired of walking,” Khasar replied. Without another word, he padded stealthily on, forcing them to follow. Temuge cursed him in silence. Men like Khasar would not walk the avenues in the city of his imagination. They would guard the walls perhaps, while better men were given the honor and dignity they deserved.

  As they walked along the narrow track, the glow of a fire could be seen through the trees and they all heard the noises Khasar’s sharp ears had picked out. Laughter came clearly on the night air and Khasar beamed when he heard the whinny of a mare.

  The four men crept slowly toward the light, the noise of their own movement hidden by shouts and cheering. When they were close enough, Khasar lay down on his stomach and peered into a tiny clearing where ancient roots overlaid each other in twisted patterns.

  A mule was there, yanking at the leather strap that bound it to a branch. To Khasar’s pleasure, three shaggy ponies were tethered on the edge of the clearing. They were small and thin, standing with their heads drooping. Khasar’s gaze hardened at seeing the white lines of scars on their haunches, and he unstrapped his bow, laying arrows on the briars.

  There were four men around the fire, three of them taunting the fourth. He was a small figure in a robe of dark red. His shaven head shone with sweat in the firelight. The others wore no armor, but they carried knives in their belts and one had a short bow leaning against a tree. Their faces were cruel as they continued their sport, darting in and out again to strike the small man. His features were bruised and swollen, but one of the men bled freely from his nose and did not join in the laughter with the others.

  As Khasar watched, the one with the bloody nose hit out with a stick, making the small man stagger. The thump of the blow could be heard across the clearing, and Khasar grinned wolfishly as he strung his bow by feel. He wormed his way back to Ho Sa away from the light, his voice the barest whisper.

  “We need their horses. They don’t look like soldiers and I can take two with the bow if you rush the last. There is another young one with a head like an egg. He’s still fighting, but he hasn’t a chance against all three.”

  “He may be a monk,” Ho Sa said. “They are hard men, for all they spend their time begging and in prayer. Do not underestimate him.”

  Khasar raised his eyes, amused. “I spent my childhood learning weapons from dawn till dusk. I’ve yet to see one of your people who could stand against me.”

  Ho Sa frowned, shaking his head. “If he is a monk, he will be trying not to kill his attackers. I have seen them show their skills to my king.”

  Khasar snorted softly. “You are a strange people. Soldiers who cannot fight and holy men who can. Tell Lian to get his hammer ready to crack a head when I shoot.”

  Khasar inched forward once more, coming slowly up to a kneeling position. To his surprise, he saw the man with the bloody nose was lying on the ground, writhing in agony. The other two had fallen into grim silence. The young monk stood straight despite the bruises he had taken, and Khasar heard him speak calmly to his tormentors. One of the
m sneered, tossing aside his stick and pulling a wicked-looking dagger from his belt.

  Khasar bent his bow, and as it creaked, the monk looked through the fire at him, suddenly light on his feet as if ready to leap away. The others hadn’t noticed and one of them rushed the monk, the dagger held to punch into his chest.

  Khasar let out a breath and loosed an arrow that took the bandit in the armpit, hammering him off his feet. The other swung round as Lian and Ho Sa shouted, leaping up. As they moved, the monk stepped very close to the remaining man and landed a blow to his head that knocked him into the fire. Ho Sa and Lian came roaring in then, but the monk ignored them, dragging his attacker out of the flames and patting him down where his hair had begun to smoke. The man was limp, but the weight did not seem to trouble the monk at all.

  When that was done, he stood to face the newcomers, nodding to them. The one with the bloody nose now moaned in fear as well as pain. Khasar nocked another arrow as he walked, Temuge following at his heels.

  The monk saw what Khasar intended and darted forward, so that Khasar’s view of the writhing figure was blocked. The bald skull made him look little older than a boy.

  “Step aside,” Khasar told him.

  The words were received blankly, but the monk did not move and only folded his arms to stare down the arrow.

  “Tell him to step away, Ho Sa,” Khasar said, gritting his teeth against the strain of holding the drawn bow. “Tell him we need his mule, but otherwise he can go on his way once I’ve killed this one.”

  Ho Sa spoke and Khasar saw the monk’s face light up as he heard words he recognized. A blistering exchange followed, and when it showed no sign of ceasing, Khasar swore in the Chin language and eased off the strain.

  “He says he did not need us and the man’s life is not ours to take,” Ho Sa said at last. “He also said he will not give up the mule, as it is not his, but only loaned to him.”

  “Does he not see the bow I am holding?” Khasar demanded, jerking it in the monk’s direction.