Horselords

by David Cook

  The khahan did not acknowledge the compliment. “Have the Khazari surrendered, anda?” he asked casually.

  “They have agreed to all your terms, including the dong chang and the Shou ambassadors. There is only one question they ask,” Koja guardedly said. “The envoys wish to know who will rule Manass once they surrender. Will Prince Ogandi still have command?”

  Yamun clapped his hands in satisfaction. “I’ve considered your words about ruling the country, priest. I’ve decided to put Jad in charge of Khazari. He’ll make sure they keep the peace. Besides, he is my son. He should rule.”

  “This is a wise choice, Yamun.” Koja was pleased. Apparently he was having some effect on Yamun’s policies.

  The two drank their kumiss and tea for a little while longer. Finally, Koja spoke again. “Yamun, what do you know of Shou Lung?”

  “Many things, anda. You don’t think I’m ignorant, do you?” Yamun reached out and refilled his ladle while watching the priest’s reaction. “Shou Lung has an emperor, and it is a large country with much wealth, so much that this emperor sends me gifts of great value and princesses of his own blood.”

  “But what of their army, their defenses, their land?” Koja pressed. “Do you really know how big Shou Lung is?”

  “Their army is mostly foot soldiers. They carry machines that shoot arrows—”

  “Crossbows,” Koja explained.

  “Their soldiers are slow and can’t keep up with riders. They have some horsemen, but Shou cavalry has never been very good. Even in my father’s time, they rode beyond their borders to punish us for raiding. They never had much luck on these trips. So, to protect themselves they keep a wall around their land. These things every khan knows.” Yamun presented it all rather matter-of-factly, as if none of it affected him at all.

  “Yamun, the Shou are a numerous people, with warriors many times what the Tuigan have. They have many cities much larger than Manass.”

  “Cities are traps for soldiers, easy to capture.” Yamun stretched lazily.

  “But there is the Dragonwall,” countered Koja.

  “Ah, yes, this is the wall they built around their lands,” Yamun commented.

  “Not all their lands, Great Lord,” Koja corrected. “Only along the border with what they call the Plain of Horses—your lands, the steppe.”

  “Then they are afraid of us.” The thought made Yamun even more confident.

  “Do you know how long the Dragonwall is?” the priest asked in exasperation. “It runs for hundreds of miles—thousands of miles.” The khahan was unimpressed.

  “There is a story that tells how it was built,” Koja went on. Perhaps if the khahan knew how the wall was made, he would understand the power of Shou Lung.

  “So now you are a storyteller, too,” the khahan said indulgently. He poured out another ladleful of kumiss. “Very well, tell your tale.”

  Koja sighed, sensing that Yamun was not going to be swayed. Nonetheless, the priest untucked his legs and began.

  “The Dragonwall is very old, but it has not been there forever. They say that long ago warriors used to ride out of the Plain of Horses and raid the lands of Shou Lung. In those days, the Shou army could not stop these riders. Each year the raiders took many horses and cattle.” Koja paused to sip at his tea.

  “At that time a wise emperor ruled Shou Lung. When he saw what the riders did and that his army could not stop them, he went to his advisor, a powerful wizard, and asked him, ‘How can I stop these riders?” ’

  Yamun yawned and waved for the lama to hurry along. The priest spoke more quickly.

  “The wizard told the emperor of a dragon khan who lived beneath the ocean—a lake so wide you could not see across it. The wizard said, ‘Trick the dragon out of the ocean and tell him to go to the west. There I will meet him, and we will stop the invaders.’ ”

  “Wizards,” Yamun snorted. “What am I supposed to learn from this, anda?”

  “Please, Lord Yamun, let me finish.” Koja sighed and then took up the story again. “So the emperor went out in a boat and rowed to the center of the ocean. He stirred up the water with a big stick, churning the mud up from the bottom. Then the dragon khan came out of the water.

  “ ‘Who has disturbed me?’ cried the dragon.” Koja resisted giving the dragon a deep, booming voice, though that is how he imagined the creature would sound.

  “The emperor pointed to the west. ‘The one who disturbed you ran far away, to a land where there is no ocean. If you hurry, you can catch him.’ So the dragon flew into the sky to chase the offender.” Koja paused to catch his breath.

  “A pretty story, anda, but what’s the point?” Yamun asked impatiently.

  “Well, the dragon flew to the edge of the Plain of Horses. There it saw the wizard, standing on the top of a mountain. ‘Are you the man-thing who disturbed my peace?’ it shouted out.

  “The wizard did not answer. Instead, he uttered a word. The dragon fell from the sky. It’s huge coils crashed for hundreds of miles across the ridges of the land. The ground shook, and the body of the dragon turned into the brick and stone of the Dragonwall. All from the power of a single word of a wizard and, ever since, no one has broken through the Dragonwall.” Koja waited for Yamun’s reaction.

  The khahan rose from his seat and stretched. He looked to the sky. In the distance, the mountains were dull blue-gray, fading up to shimmering white peaks. A few storm clouds hung low on the far horizon. Turning back to Koja, Yamun said evenly but forcefully, “You claim that the Dragonwall is more powerful than me. You forget I am the khahan. I can stand in the heart of Teylas’s lightning and not get hurt. I’ll break the Dragonwall. It is the will of Teylas.”

  Yamun’s words reminded Koja of the most fanatical priests of the Red Mountain Temple, men who could not be reasoned with at all. The lama sat silent while Yamun paced back and forth. The sunlight glinted off the khahan’s metal shirt, sending sparkling rays in myriad directions. Finally Koja asked, “What will you do when you get to the Dragonwall?”

  “I will smash it like a giant hammer,” Yamun boasted, without a trace of doubt in his voice.

  A day later, the Khazari accepted the khahan’s terms of surrender. Yamun met with the ambassadors for the first time and swore an oath to Teylas with them and formally set forth the terms of their capitulation. All through the brief ceremony, the representatives of Prince Ogandi shot hateful glares at the Khazari priest who sat among their enemies.

  The wizard Yamun had demanded be handed over presented a problem; someone had warned him of his fate and he managed to escape. Although he was displeased, the khahan modified the terms so that the sorcerer was named as an outlaw, and the oath-taking continued. At the end of the ceremony, after the ex-governor of Manass was surrendered to the Kashik, Yamun summoned his son, Jad, and gave him command over the Khazari. The prince was presented as the new governor of Manass. From that point on, all judgments concerning Khazari were to pass through his hands. A single tumen, more than enough warriors to keep the peace, the khahan pointed out, was detached and placed under Jad’s command.

  The next morning, Yamun’s army broke camp and began the march to Shou Lung. For six days, the troopers rode northeast, heading for the First Pass Under Heaven, the gateway to the broad lands of Shou Lung. Even in early spring, the ground here was dry; the land they traveled marked the very fringe of a cold desert. Compared to their previous trek, Koja found the pace of this journey almost casual, leisurely. As the army moved, it collected more tumens: first the forces strung along the Khazari frontier and then a huge contingent that rode in from the west. The slow march was intentional, giving the army time to swell in size. At the start of the march there were about fifty thousand warriors. By the dawn of the sixth day, Koja estimated there were two hundred thousand men, snaking along the trail toward the Dragonwall.

  It was late in the afternoon of that sixth day when Koja saw the khahan’s banner finally reach the top of the First Pass Under Heaven. The yurtch
is responsible for the day’s march met the khahan there and, after presenting themselves, explained what their scouts found. Koja was too far away to hear them, but his eyes followed their sweeping gestures as they pointed down toward the plain that spread out from the base of the mountains.

  From the top of the still snow-covered pass, the plain appeared to be nothing but a smooth expanse of green and brown, broken only occasionally by the darker cuts of gullies and streams. From so far away, in this realm of rock and ice, it looked like a promised land, though it was nothing but grassland, sparsely dotted with stands of trees. In the distance, the smooth ground gave way to rugged terrain. The horizon rose and fell several times, hinting at the chance of more mountains somewhere beyond.

  The dark line of what seemed to be a ravine crookedly traversed the scene far out on the plain; the yurtchis were pointing at it with some excitement. Studying it closely, Koja realized that it was the shadow of the Dragonwall. Fascinated, Koja traced it with his finger. The wall rose, fell, twisted, curved, and disappeared from sight, only to reappear farther away.

  This is what Yamun proposes to attack with men alone, the priest thought sadly. He was suddenly certain that the task was hopeless, whether Yamun had fifty thousand or five hundred thousand warriors. The khahan had no heavy equipment—towers, catapults, and rams—needed for a siege. He had no way to break the masonry wall. Whatever protective magic the wall might possess only made matters worse.

  The shouted commands of the Kashik officers roused Koja out of his reverie as the horde started moving again. Carefully, the priest picked his way down the darkening eastern slope toward the campsites chosen by the yurtchis, leaving behind the First Pass Under Heaven.

  Chanar was not sleeping well. For the past several nights there had been dreams, dreams he couldn’t remember but knew were somehow disturbing. Another had just passed, so forceful that he tossed and turned, nearly awake.

  Just then, the door flap to his yurt, which wasn’t really his, opened by itself. The slight motion was enough to bring him to consciousness. The general’s hand darted to his sword, carefully laid beside his bed. Glaring through the open door, he could not see any sign of an intruder. Just as he was about to rise and investigate, the flap closed, again by itself. There was a quick shimmer and suddenly Bayalun, dressed in a dark fur cloak, was kneeling by the doorway, fastening down the ties. She quickly looked up and pressed her fingers to her lips, silencing Chanar before he could even react to her sudden appearance.

  “Quiet,” Bayalun quickly whispered, crossing to his side. “Prepare to leave.”

  Chanar looked at her and blinked as his sleep-choked mind tried to sort out what was happening. Clumsily he groped for her, thinking she came to join him at his bed. Fiercely Bayalun pushed aside his advances and jabbed him in the side with her staff. “Get up!” she hissed sharply, clearly not in the mood for romance.

  Startled as much by the pain as the widow’s ferocity, Chanar sat straight up, ruefully rubbing his side. Awake, the general looked at the khadun, his eyes clearer and his mind starting to function. “What’s going on?”

  “We must go somewhere, tonight—now,” she said with passionate urgency. “Get your robes on.”

  “Are we under attack? What’s going on?” Chanar demanded, making no effort to keep quiet as he scrambled out from under the blankets.

  “Quiet!” she ordered. “We must go to a meeting, you and I. A meeting with the Shou.” Bayalun walked to the tent door, preparing to leave.

  Chanar pulled on his trousers and boots, feeling an unaccountable sense of dread. “Where?” he asked.

  “Just come with me.” The woman didn’t wait to explain more, but stooped to undo the door fastenings. Chanar hastily pulled on his mail shirt and grabbed the sword and belt nearby, buckling them on as Bayalun peeked out through the opening. “Keep quiet,” she instructed. “We don’t want the guards to see us leave.”

  Chanar shrugged, trying to get his armor to settle into place. “Why don’t you cast a spell like you did when you came?”

  “Too risky. You do not know how to move invisibly. You’ll trip over your own feet. That will certainly attract attention.”

  Chanar started to rebuke Bayalun, but she slipped out through the door before he could get a word out. Angrily clapping his mouth shut, Chanar followed her into the camp.

  The moon was waning, casting a faint light over the camp. With the brilliance of Anjar dimmed, the sparkling points of the Nine Old Men, the stars that trailed behind the moon, showed brightly. Chanar and Bayalun carefully picked their way through the small cluster of tents in the royal compound. They stopped short once, narrowly avoiding the notice of a Kashik guard who was relieving himself just beyond the confines of the khahan’s ground.

  Once outside Yamun’s camp, the two moved much more quickly. Hosts of men lay stretched out on the ground, wrapped in thick blankets, sound asleep. Horses on long tethers wandered among the dozing soldiers. A few men hastened to and fro, since the business of the camp never really stopped. Picking their way past the clumps of sleeping men, the conspirators took an hour to reach the edge of the camp, but no sentry challenged them along the way.

  Bayalun softly released a sigh of tension, thankful for avoiding discovery. “Quickly. This way,” she whispered, pulling Chanar toward a ravine that cut across a nearby slope. Bayalun set off at a brisk pace, adroitly avoiding stones and clumps Chanar could barely see. Behind her, Chanar cursed under his breath as he stumbled to keep up.

  Bayalun was even more surprised than Chanar when a shadowy shape rose in front of them. At first she thought it was a Shou soldier sent to escort them. Then the figure spoke. “Stop!” the shape commanded, speaking perfect Tuigan.

  Bayalun jolted to a halt, Chanar almost crashing into her. “A sentry!” she hissed under her breath. “Quickly, speak to him.” She pulled Chanar ahead of her.

  “I’m Chanar Khan. Do you challenge me?” the general demanded. “Advance and name yourself.” Behind the general, Bayalun slipped off to the left, disappearing into the darkness.

  The sentry came forward cautiously, his sword drawn, until he was close enough to recognize Chanar’s clothes. The man was only a common trooper. Flustered and nervous in the presence of a khan, the sentry finally remembered his place and dropped to one knee, bowing his head. “Do not be angry, Chanar Khan,” he stammered. “I was only following the instructions of my commander.”

  “Good work, soldier … What lies beyond?” Chanar was at a loss for what he was supposed to do now. Bayalun left him stranded there, and he was beginning to think that she’d used him for a fool.

  “General, this leads—” Suddenly a black shape sprang out of the darkness onto the sentry’s back. The attacker struck with a knife. The guard gave a muffled, bubbling gasp. The two bodies crashed to the ground. Chanar sprang back, drawing his saber, ready to strike. The bodies thrashed about, and then the guard stopped moving.

  “Help me up,” commanded Bayalun from on top of the sentry. Chanar started, then recognized the black shape as the second empress. He was amazed she could move so quickly and with such strength.

  Chanar pulled her up. Her hands were warm and slippery. Panting from the exertion, the khadun leaned against the general to catch her breath. The sentry’s blood dripped from her fingers onto Chanar’s gleaming mail.

  “Help me find my staff,” she said weakly.

  “You killed him,” Chanar said, still disbelieving the speed with which she had struck. He found Bayalun’s staff and handed it to her.

  “He saw us. Now drag his body into that ravine, out of sight,” Bayalun commanded, pointing ahead into the darkness.

  Startled into motion, the general grabbed the dead man’s heels and pulled the body, facedown, through the dirt, leaving a trail of blood behind. There was a thud and then a clatter of rocks as the body slid down the slope into the gully. Rubbing the blood off his hands with a fistful of dust, Chanar stood at the top of the gully. He was lookin
g into the thick shadows when Bayalun joined him.

  “This is a bad omen,” Chanar cursed as they wound their way along the bottom of the gully. He fumed quietly. “The guard’s death’ll be noticed. It’s certain to betray us.”

  “Listen,” Bayalun said, her fiery spirit rising, “they’ll think the Shou did it. No one knows we are here.”

  Chanar’s tension eased, seeing the wisdom of her words. “It’s too bad that man had to die,” he finally allowed, “but it was his fate.”

  Bayalun said nothing, carefully picking her way through the stones. The tumbled slopes of the ravine widened, creating a small, level circle of ground, free of broken rocks. The weak moonlight cast a dim radiance at the center of the clearing, leaving heavy, dark shadows along the edges. Bayalun stopped in one of these shadows, holding Chanar close alongside her. He could tell the second empress was excited; she trembled slightly and her breath came in rapid gasps.

  They stood still, waiting. The air was chill, threatening to leave a heavy frost. Chanar thrust his hands into the wide sleeves of his robes to keep them warm and shifted uneasily, trying to maintain his patience.

  A whispery voice sounded from the deep shadow on the other side of the clearing. “Welcome, Second Empress Eke Bayalun of the—”

  “Enough greetings,” the widow interrupted with a sharp thump of her staff. “I’ve come. Is Ju-Hai Chou here?”

  “I speak for the Minister of State,” answered the shadow, speaking with the shaky voice of an old man.

  “Then know that if Ju-Hai Chou seeks our help to destroy the khahan of the Tuigan he must come himself. We do not deal with kharachu,” Bayalun noted angrily. Chanar doubted the speaker on the other side knew he’d just been called a slave by the khadun.

  “The second empress and her general seek our help to gain the throne of the Tuigan. She will talk to whomever Ju-Hai Chou sends,” the voice whispered back in icy tones. Although softly spoken, the words were clear. Bayalun’s first demand had failed, and she now considered her next course of action.