Dragonwall

by Troy Denning

  “Great Khahan,” Batu answered, “when a man goes too long without wine, it becomes more valuable than gold, does it not?”

  The khahan scowled, but he said, “This is true. No man can drink gold.”

  “Then, in all of your camps, there is only one gift equal to the wine I brought,” Batu replied, pointing at Ju-Hai. “Him.”

  Koja quickly grasped Batu’s arm. “No!” the lama hissed. “He tried to kill the khahan, so he must die. If you try to save him, you will perish with him.”

  Batu shook the man off and pointed at Ju-Hai again. “Him,” he repeated.

  “What Koja says is true,” the khahan warned. “Ju-Hai Chou must die.”

  Ju-Hai could not understand the Tuigan language, but he clearly knew he was being discussed. He looked at Batu with a hopeful expression, though his complexion remained pale.

  “I know,” Batu answered. “I merely ask for the privilege of killing him.”

  The khahan smiled. “What you ask is a great gift, but I am a man of honor and will keep my word. Bring the prisoner forward.”

  Two officers rose and led Ju-Hai into the center of the circle. Batu drew his sword. “Minister Ju-Hai, please turn around,” he said, speaking Shou.

  “What are you going to do?” the ex-mandarin demanded, his voice trembling.

  Ju-Hai had ridden all the way from Tai Tung to Shou Kuan with his head held high, but the renegade general did not blame him for being frightened now.

  “Turn around,” Batu repeated. “It will be quicker and less painful.”

  As he realized that his friend had not saved him, Ju-Hai began to shake. Nevertheless, he did as instructed. “I understand,” he began. “My grat—”

  Batu swung. The sword bit into the back of Ju-Hai’s neck, killing him instantly and mercifully.

  “What do you mean by that?” Chanar demanded. Even before Ju-Hai’s body had hit the snowy cobblestones, the Tuigan had risen to his feet and pointed an angry finger at Batu.

  “This man was a friend,” Batu responded simply, cleaning his blade on Ju-Hai’s samfu. “I did not want to see him die like an animal.”

  “You’ve insulted the khahan!” Chanar insisted.

  “I will decide when I have been insulted,” Yamun responded. “The prisoner’s death was Batu’s gift. If he wished to waste it, that is his privilege. Now sit down, Chanar, We have much to discuss.”

  After Chanar returned to his rug, the khahan turned to Batu. “Your loyalty to your friend is impressive, and I no longer doubt your motivations. If you are going to fight in my army, you must learn that I am the Illustrious Emperor of All Peoples. Obviously, this other emperor, the one who allowed your wife and children to die under his protection, must be an imposter. Is this not so?”

  “Clearly, you are correct, Mighty One,” Batu said, bowing. He could not help but compare the magnificence of the summer palace to the disorder of the khahan’s besieged court, but he also knew there was more to being an emperor than the trappings of priceless and pointless luxury.

  “You swear allegiance to me?” Yamun asked.

  “For as long as you feed and pay me,” Batu replied.

  The khahan grinned. “Honestly spoken,” he said. “Sit down.” The khahan waved Batu to his side.

  “I am honored,” the Shou said, taking the seat to the khahan’s right. “I look forward to fighting at your side.”

  After Batu was seated, the khahan began a general discussion about where his armies should attack next. Chanar favored breaking their word and riding on the Shou capitol. Another officer wanted to invade Tabot, the mountain kingdom on Shou Lung’s southwestern border. One man, clearly a fool in Batu’s opinion, even suggested capturing a fleet and sailing against the islands of Wa.

  After listening patiently to each recommendation, the khahan turned to Batu. “You know this land better than any of us,” he said. “Which option do you recommend?”

  Batu did not even have to consider his answer. “None,” he said. “You know less about sailing than Shou do about horsemanship, so I would not recommend attacking the Wa Islands. In the high mountains of Tabot, horses would prove more of a hindrance than an advantage, so attacking there would be bad judgment.”

  “And what about the Shou capitol?” the khahan asked, studying Batu with a raised eyebrow.

  “You have made a peace agreement with Shou Lung,” Batu responded, meeting Yamun’s gaze with an intentionally blank expression.

  “As you have said, in war, there are no rules,” the khahan countered.

  “True,” the Shou replied cautiously. “In war, there are no rules. In personal conduct, however, there are. You have given your word, and I cannot recommend that you break it.”

  Batu paused, studying the khahan. The ruler’s expression was unreadable, but he did not doubt the man was seriously considering riding against Shou Lung once more.

  But to his surprise, the Tuigan ruler said, “What you say is wise, Batu. A man should keep his word.” The khahan studied the faces of his officers for a moment, then returned to the Shou and asked, “So, where do we go?”

  “If you cannot go east, north, or south, there is only one direction left,” Batu answered. “West.”

  18

  To the West

  As Batu stepped into the khahan’s yurt, the Illustrious Emperor of All Peoples asked, “Where are the kingdoms you promised?”

  Accustomed to the khahan’s impatience and no longer concerned by it, Batu did not respond immediately. Instead, he stamped the snow off his boots and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. After the brilliance of the snow-covered wasteland outside, the interior of the yurt was as dark as a bear’s den.

  It also smelled like one. The air was heavy with the stringent scent of unwashed bodies, the acrid smell of burning dung, and the putrid sour-milk stench of kumiss. For over two months now, Batu had been traveling across the barren horse plains with the Tuigan. He was still astonished by the incredible filth of the horse nomads. They never cleaned themselves, or even changed clothes. The khahan himself still wore the same silk kalat in which he had been dressed when Batu met him. The renegade could not imagine why the grimy thing had not rotted away.

  Batu removed his del, a heavy robe-like coat given to him by the khahan, and hung it from a hook on a support post. The khahan had installed the hook so that Batu would have a place to hang his del. The Tuigan required no such amenities, for they wore their coats inside as well as outside. In this and a hundred other things, the renegade Shou remained an outsider to the people of his ancestors.

  When his eyes finally adjusted to the light, Batu faced his commander and kneeled, his gaze taking in the near-empty yurt. Besides himself, the ever-present Kashik guards, and a slave, the only other person in the room was one of the khahan’s wives. Batu did not know which one, for he no longer had any interest in women, at least in Tuigan women, and paid them no attention.

  “I should have listened to Chanar,” the khahan said testily, motioning Batu to rise. “Perhaps you are leading us into an empty wasteland to protect your home.”

  An angry knot formed in Batu’s chest and he narrowed his eyes at the khahan. “My home is where I stand,” he said sharply, repeating one of the Tuigan’s favorite mottos. “If I am no longer trusted here, I will find a different place to stand.” He stood and reached for his del

  “Leave your coat on the post,” the khahan ordered. “Around Chanar and the others, it is fine to be arrogant. But I am the khahan, and your pride is nothing to me. If we cannot speak freely between ourselves, our friendship is worthless.”

  Batu returned his coat to the hook, unimpressed by the Yamun’s profession of friendship. He and the khahan had developed a certain rapport, but the renegade would hardly have described it as friendship. He still felt like a visitor in the Tuigan camp.

  The fault was his, he knew. Batu dutifully spent his evenings drinking sour kumiss with Yamun and the khans, but he made poor company. Though it ha
d been close to three months since he had learned of his family’s fate, he still had not accepted the loss. He could not shake the feeling that he was just on campaign, that he would soon return to his home in Chukei to find Wu waiting and his children an inch taller than when he had last seen them.

  That could never happen, of course, but the realization did not change what his heart felt. On most nights he was so lonely he could only fall asleep by pretending that his family still lived, or by drinking so much kumiss that the slaves had to carry him back to his own yurt. It was a terrible circle: the more he thought of his family, the more he withdrew from his Tuigan companions. The more he withdrew from them, the more he thought of Wu and Ji and Yo.

  The fighting to which Batu had hoped to dedicate himself, and which had been his reason for joining the Tuigan, had not materialized. Anxious to reach the kingdoms of the west, the khahan had led his army through the barren wastes of the horse plains. After passing the smoking peaks that marked the end of the territory known to the Tuigan, Yamun had turned the responsibility for guiding the army over to Batu.

  Realizing that he had lost himself in his thoughts and was ignoring his commander, Batu turned his attention to the khahan. “You wished to see me?”

  Yamun motioned to a nearby pillow. “Come and sit with me, or must I wait until Chanar’s return for lively company?”

  The Tuigan ruler was trying to use Chanar’s rivalry with Batu to draw the Shou’s thoughts away from his family. It was a trick the khahan had tried many times before. The tactic would never work, for Chanar’s rivalry was one-sided. Batu did not care to play at politics with the lanky general. It was not a game he had enjoyed in Shou Lung, and he had no intention of concerning himself with it now.

  Without responding to the khahan’s barbed question, Batu took his place. As the renegade sat, the Tuigan ruler observed, “You are not the man I fought in Shou Lung.”

  “How do you mean?” Batu asked, adjusting his cushion.

  “The man I fought in Shou Lung did not fear death,” the khahan replied.

  Batu absentmindedly accepted a cup of kumiss from a quiverbearer. “My contempt for death has not changed,” the Shou responded. “I fear nothing.”

  “I know,” the khahan said. “That is why Chanar is leading the scouts and you are here with me.”

  Batu scowled, for the khahan had touched upon a sore point. After two months of crossing the frozen deserts between Shou Lung and their present location, the Tuigan armies had reached a range of high mountains that seemed to block further progress. It had taken Batu’s scouts several days to locate a narrow pass.

  Yamun had sent five thousand men through the gap to reconnoiter the lands beyond. Batu had wanted to lead the expedition, but the khahan had sent Chanar instead.

  That had been seven days ago, and the renegade had been quietly fuming about the decision ever since. Now that the khahan seemed willing to discuss the matter, Batu was determined to find out why he had been overlooked.

  The renegade asked, “Why should my fearlessness disqualify me for command?”

  “As you say, you no longer fear anything—including defeat.”

  “What?” Batu demanded. “How can you say such a thing?”

  “It is true,” the Tuigan ruler retorted, pointing a dirt-covered finger at the Shou. “Do not make the mistake of believing I am blind to the strife between Chanar and you. I have seen how you allow him to turn others against you, provided he is careful not to offend your honor.”

  The khahan picked a curd out of his cup and paused to chew it. Finally, he continued, “If that is how you want things to be, it is not my place to interfere. All I can say is that the general I fought in Shou Lung would not hide behind his memories, especially not from a petty rival like Chanar.” The khahan spoke with a deliberately contemptuous tone.

  “Do not think I will accept an insult lightly, even from you,” Batu hissed. The Shou had no sooner uttered his threat than the Kashik guards drew their sabers and started forward.

  Without taking his steely eyes off Batu, the khahan waved his guards away. “Of course, you should be killed for that,” he said, “but that is what you want, is it not? I will not make dying so easy for you.”

  Yamun fell silent, then furrowed his brow as if recalling a distant memory. “When you came to me,” he said, “you said it was because you had an appetite for war.”

  “That has not changed,” Batu replied.

  The khahan regarded the renegade Shou with a judgmental air. “Know this, then: if you wish to sate your appetite in my service, you must stop using your past to shield yourself from Chanar’s rivalry.”

  Batu’s first instinct was to be angry with Yamun. The khahan was clearly telling him to forget about his family, and that was something the Shou would never do. After Ting’s execution, Batu had vowed to honor his dead family as long as he lived, and he had taken great care to make sure others knew that he would avenge even the slightest insult to their memories.

  Still, the khahan’s blunt order was not entirely misplaced and Batu knew it. As Yamun said, the renegade had been using his vow as a shield—not to protect himself from Chanar, but to protect himself from the truth.

  Batu had often told his men that soldiers were dead men. As such, they had no business with families. Eventually, every soldier would perish on the battlefield, leaving behind lonely wives and children. It was a truth Batu had known all along, but he had always told himself that this axiom did not apply to him. If he fell, his family would not have suffered financially, so the general had always believed his death would be no more than an inconvenience. Now, he saw that he had been wrong. Wu’s anguish and Ji’s and Yo’s grief would have been no easier for them to bear than his own sorrow was for him. It had been wrong to expect them to suffer such hardship on his behalf. Batu understood now that the day he had fallen in love was the day that he should have laid aside his weapons.

  Yet, that had never been an option he would have chosen. The first time he had picked up a sword, Batu had decided to become a soldier. He had never known anything else, and had never wanted to. Instead of laying his weapons aside, Batu realized, it would have been better to harden his heart against love—as he hardened it against the death and agony of those who served under him.

  As he reflected on his past blindness, Batu slowly realized that the time had come for him to command again. It was true that he had been wrong to take a family. Having taken one, it was equally true that he had been wrong to continue life as a soldier. But those were errors that he had made in the past. By refusing to face them now, he was shaming himself and minimizing the sacrifice that his family had made on his behalf. If Batu was to venerate his wife and children properly, he had to stop using their memories to shield him from his own guilty feelings. He had to start living again.

  The renegade waved the quiverbearer to his side, then gave the servant his kumiss cup. “Take this away and get me some water.”

  The khahan raised an eyebrow. “Are you feeling ill?” he asked.

  Batu shook his head. “No. It’s time I started keeping a clear head.”

  The khahan smirked. “Don’t get carried away. Chanar Ong Kho isn’t that much of a rival.”

  Batu snorted. “I’m not worried about Chanar,” he said. “I want to be ready for command when it’s time to fight.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” the khahan warned. “You will have to deal with Chanar.”

  Yamun remained silent for several moments. Finally, he changed the subject and said, “Since you have decided to keep a clear head, let me make use of it and ask your advice.”

  “Certainly.”

  “I am thinking that if Chanar had found anything beyond the mountains, we would have heard about it by now.” The khahan absentmindedly swirled the contents of his cup.

  Batu did not hazard his own opinion. It was clear that the Mighty One’s mood had shifted, but he did not know to where. Undoubtedly, Yamun was leading up to some
thing.

  “While we sit here, the snows only grow deeper and the men feel more restless,” the khahan added, looking into his cup.

  “This is true,” Batu agreed. In the last week alone, more than ten thousand men had left camp, claiming the need to return to their clans, their ordus, to see that their families were fed through the winter. Although both Yamun and Batu knew that the real reason for the exodus was sheer boredom, the khahan had allowed them to go. He was a perceptive commander who knew that resentful men made poor warriors. Besides, once he sent word back to the plains that the battle had been joined, recruits would come streaming across the snowy waste by the thousands.

  “I am thinking we should take the army and follow Chanar through the gap,” Yamun said, still studying the contents of his cup.

  “It is certainly possible that nothing lies beyond the mountains,” Batu ventured. “But I would not want to gamble all my armies on it. After passing the gap, we could easily be cut off and destroyed.”

  “By what?” the khahan snapped, looking up from the study of his kumiss. “Since you advised me to leave Shou Lung, we have not seen a hundred men in one place, much less a kingdom that could field an army. The men are saying that I am lost or afraid.”

  “There is a great difference between fear and caution,” Batu countered.

  Yamun pointed at the renegade, then thumped his own chest. “You and I know this,” he said. “But our soldiers do not. To them, inaction is cowardice.”

  Batu knew that the khahan spoke the truth. The men in most armies would have been elated to rest for a week, but not so with the Tuigan. They seemed born to ride and to fight, and were at their most miserable when not doing one or the other.

  “Great Khahan,” Batu said. “The courage of the Tuigan warrior is legend, but he is no less vulnerable to an ambush than any other soldier.”

  “Then you advise against following Chanar through the gap?”

  Though he knew his answer would not please the khahan, Batu did not hesitate. “I do, though I appreciate your uneasiness at letting Chanar out of sight for so long.”