Birth of an Empire

by Conn Iggulden

  Temujin watched the brown-gold head turn back and forth in agitation. He guessed the bird could remain there all day, and he did not enjoy the thought of being exposed on the ledge below the nest. One blow from a claw there and he would be torn loose. He tried to remember anything he had ever heard about the wild birds. Could he shout to frighten the mother away? He considered it, but he did not want to summon Bekter and Khasar up to the lonely peak, not until he had the chicks wrapped in cloth and close to his chest.

  At his shoulder, Kachiun clung to the sloping red rock in the cleft. Temujin saw he had prized out a loose stone and was weighing it in his hand.

  “Can you hit it?” Temujin asked.

  Kachiun only shrugged. “Maybe. I’d have to be lucky to knock it down, and this is the only one I could find.”

  Temujin cursed under his breath. The adult eagle had disappeared for a time, but the birds were skilled hunters and he was not tempted to be lured out of his safe haven. He blew air out of his mouth in frustration. He was starving, with a difficult climb down ahead of him. He and Kachiun deserved better than to leave empty-handed.

  He remembered Bekter’s bow, far below with Temuge and the ponies, and cursed himself for not having thought to bring it. Not that Bekter would have let him lay a hand on the double-curved weapon. His elder brother was as pompous about that as he was about all the trappings of a warrior.

  “You take the stone,” Kachiun said. “I’ll get back up to the nest, and if she comes, you can knock her away.”

  Temujin frowned. It was a reasonable plan. He was an excellent shot and Kachiun was the better climber. The only problem was that it would be Kachiun who had taken the birds, not him. It was a subtle thing, perhaps, but he wanted no other claim on them before his own.

  “You take the stone. I’ll get the chicks,” he replied.

  Kachiun turned his dark eyes on his older brother, seeming to read his thoughts. He shrugged. “All right. Have you cloth to bind them?”

  Temujin used his knife to remove strips from the edge of his tunic. The garment was ruined, but the birds were a far greater prize and worth the loss. He wrapped a length around each palm to have them ready, then craned out of the cleft, searching for a moving shadow, or a speck circling above. The bird had looked into his eyes and known what he was trying to do, he was certain. He had seen intelligence there, as much as any dog or hawk, perhaps more.

  He felt his stiff muscles twinge as he climbed out into the sunlight. Once more he could hear thin screeching from the nest, the chicks desperate for food after a night alone. Perhaps they too had suffered without their mother’s warm body to protect them from the storm. Temujin worried that he could hear only one call and that the other might have perished. He glanced behind him in case the adult eagle was soaring in to hammer him against the rock. There was nothing there and he pulled himself onto the high ledge, dragging up his legs until he crouched as Kachiun had the previous evening.

  The nest was deep in a hollow, wide and steep-sided, so that the active young birds could not clamber out and fall before they could fly. As they caught sight of his face, both of the scrawny young eagles scuttled away from him, wagging their featherless wings in panic and cawing for help. Once more, he scanned the blue sky and said a quick prayer to the sky father to keep him safe. He eased forward, his right knee pressing into the damp thatch and old feathers. Small bones crunched under his weight and he smelled a nauseating gust from ancient prey.

  One of the birds cowered from his reaching fingers, but the other tried to bite him with its beak, raking his hand with talons. The needle claws were too small to do more than lightly score his skin, and he ignored the sting as he held the bird up to his face and watched as it writhed.

  “My father will hunt for twenty years with you,” he murmured, freeing a strip from one hand and trussing the bird by wing and leg. The second had almost climbed out of the nest in panic, and Temujin was forced to drag it back by one yellow claw, causing it to wail and struggle. He saw that the young feathers had a tinge of red amidst the gold.

  “I would call you the red bird, if you were mine,” he told it, pushing them both down inside his tunic. The birds seemed quieter against his skin, though he could feel claws scrabble at him. He thought his chest would look as if he’d fallen in a thorn bush by the time he was down.

  Temujin saw the adult eagle coming as a flicker of darkness above his head. It was moving faster than he would have believed possible, and he only had time to raise an arm before he heard Kachiun yell and their single stone thumped into the bird’s side, knocking it off its strike. It screamed in rage as real as he’d ever heard from an animal, reminding Temujin that this was a hunter, with a hunter’s instincts. He saw the bird try to flap its huge wings, scrabbling at the ledge for balance. Temujin could do nothing but crouch in that confined space and try to protect his face and neck from the lunging claws. He heard it screech in his ear and felt the wings beat against him before the bird fell, calling in anger all the way. Both boys watched the eagle spiral down and down, barely in control of the descent. One wing was still, but the other seemed to twist and flutter in the updraft. Temujin breathed more slowly, feeling his heart begin to slow. He had the bird for his father and perhaps he would be allowed to train the red bird for himself.

  Bekter and Khasar had joined Temuge with the ponies by the time Temujin made his slow way down. Kachiun had stayed with him, aiding where he could so that Temujin never had to scramble for a hold, or risk his precious cargo. Even so, when he finally stood on the flat ground and looked up to the heights, they seemed impossibly far away; already strange, as if other boys had climbed them.

  “Did you find the nest?” Khasar asked, seeing their answer in their pride.

  Kachiun nodded. “With two eagle chicks in it. We fought off the mother and took them both.”

  Temujin let his young brother tell the story, knowing that the others would not understand what it had been like to crouch with the world under his feet and death beating against his shoulders. He had not been afraid, he’d found, though his heart and body had reacted. He had experienced a moment of exhilaration on the red hill, and it disturbed him too much to talk of it, at least for the moment. Perhaps he would mention it to Yesugei when the khan was in a mellow mood.

  Temuge too had spent a miserable night, though he had been able to shelter with the ponies and had occasional squirts of warm milk to sustain him. It didn’t occur to the other four to thank him for his sighting of the eagle. Temuge hadn’t climbed with them. All he had from his brothers was a hard clip from Bekter when he discovered that Temuge had emptied the mare’s teats during the night. The little boy howled as they set off, but the others had no sympathy. They were all parched and starving, and even the usually sunny Khasar frowned at him for his greed. They had soon left him behind as they trotted together across the green plain.

  The boys saw their father’s warriors long before they were in sight of the gers of the tribe. Almost as soon as they were out of the shadow of the red hill, they were spotted, the high-pitched horn calls carrying a long way.

  They did not show their nervousness, though the presence of riders could only mean their absence had been noticed. Unconsciously, they rode a little closer together as they recognized Eeluk galloping toward them and saw that he did not smile in greeting.

  “Your father sent us out to find you,” Eeluk said, addressing the words to Bekter.

  Temujin bristled automatically. “We’ve spent nights out before,” he replied.

  Eeluk turned his small, black eyes on him and ran a hand over his chin. He shook his head. “Not without warning, not in a storm, and not with your mother giving birth,” he said, speaking sharply as if to scold a child.

  Temujin saw Bekter was flushing with shame and refused to let the emotion trouble him. “You have found us, then. If our father is angry, that is between him and us.”

  Eeluk shook his head again, and Temujin saw the flash of spite in his eyes. H
e had never liked his father’s bondsman, though he could not have said why. There was malice in Eeluk’s voice as he went on.

  “Your mother almost lost the child through worrying about the rest of you,” he said.

  His eyes demanded Temujin lower his gaze, but instead the boy felt a slow anger building. Riding with eagles next to his chest gave him courage. He knew his father would forgive them anything once he saw the birds. Temujin raised a hand to stop the others, and even Bekter reined in with him, unable just to ride on. Eeluk too was forced to turn his pony back to them, his face dark with irritation.

  “You will not ride with us, Eeluk. Go back,” Temujin said. He saw the warrior stiffen and shook his head, deliberately. “Today we ride only with eagles,” Temujin said, his face revealing nothing of his inner amusement.

  His brothers grinned around him, enjoying the secret and the frown that troubled Eeluk’s hard features. The man looked to Bekter and saw that he was staring into nothing, his gaze fixed on the horizon.

  Then he snorted. “Your father will beat some humility into your thick skins,” he said, his face mottling with anger.

  Temujin looked calmly at the older man, and even his pony was absolutely still.

  “No. He will not. One of us will be khan one day, Eeluk. Think of that and go back, as I told you. We will come in alone.”

  “Go,” Bekter said, suddenly, his voice deeper than any of his brothers’.

  Eeluk looked as if he had been struck. His eyes were hidden as he spun his mount, guiding only with his knees. He did not speak again, but at last he nodded sharply and rode away, leaving them alone and shaking with an odd release of tension. They had not been in danger, Temujin was almost certain. Eeluk was not fool enough to draw steel on Yesugei’s sons. At worst, he might have thrashed them and made them walk back. Still, it felt as if a battle had been won, and Temujin sensed Bekter’s gaze on his neck the whole way to the river and his father’s people.

  They smelled the tang of urine on the wind before they saw the gers. After a winter spent in the shadow of Deli’un-Boldakh, the scent had sunk into the soil in a great ring around the families. There was only so far a man was willing to walk in the dark, after all. Still, it was home.

  Eeluk had dismounted near their father’s ger, obviously waiting to see them punished. Temujin enjoyed the skulking man’s interest in them and kept his head high. Khasar and Kachiun took their lead from him, though Temuge was distracted by the smell of cooking mutton and Bekter assumed his usual sullen expression.

  Yesugei came out as he heard their ponies whinny a welcome to the others in the herd. He wore his sword on his hip and a deel robe of blue and gold that reached down to his knees. His boots and trousers were clean and well brushed, and he seemed to stand even taller than usual. His face showed no anger, but they knew he prided himself on the mask that all warriors had to learn. For Yesugei it was no more than the habit of a lifetime to assess his sons as they rode up to him. He took note of the way Temujin protected something at his chest and the barely controlled excitement in all of them. Even Bekter was struggling not to show pleasure, and Yesugei began to wonder what his boys had brought back.

  He saw too that Eeluk hovered nearby, pretending to brush down his pony. This from a bondsman who let his mare’s tail grow thick with mud and thorns. Yesugei knew Eeluk well enough to sense his sour mood was directed at the boys rather than himself. He would have shrugged if he had not adopted a warrior’s stillness. As it was, he dismissed Eeluk’s concerns from his mind.

  Khasar and Kachiun dismounted in such a way that Temujin was hidden for a moment. Yesugei watched closely and saw in a flash that Temujin’s tunic was moving. His heart began to beat faster in anticipation. Still, he would not make it too easy for them.

  “You have a sister, though the birth was harder for your absence. Your mother was almost blood lost with fear for you.”

  They did lower their gazes at that. He frowned, tempted to thrash each one of them for their selfishness.

  “We were at the red hill,” Kachiun murmured, quailing under his father’s gaze. “Temuge saw an eagle there and we climbed for the nest.”

  Yesugei’s heart soared at the news. There could only be one thing squirming at Temujin’s breast, but he hardly dared hope for it. No one in the tribe had caught an eagle for three generations or more, not since the Wolves had come down from the far west. The birds were more valuable than a dozen fine stallions, not least for the meat they could bring from hunting.

  “You have the bird?” Yesugei said to Temujin, taking a step forward.

  The boy could not hold back his excitement any longer, and he grinned, standing proudly as he fished around inside his tunic.

  “Kachiun and I found two,” he said.

  His father’s cold face broke at this and he showed his teeth, very white against his dark skin and wispy beard.

  Gently, the two birds were brought out and placed in their father’s hands, squalling as they came into the light. Temujin felt the loss of their heat next to his skin as soon as they were clear. He looked at the red bird with an owner’s eyes, watching every movement.

  Yesugei could not find words. He saw that Eeluk had come closer to see the chicks, and he held them up, his face alight with interest. He turned to his sons.

  “Go in and see your mother, all of you. Make your apologies for frightening her and welcome your new sister.”

  Temuge was through the door of the ger before his father had finished speaking, and they all heard Hoelun’s cry of pleasure at seeing her youngest son. Kachiun and Khasar followed, but Temujin and Bekter remained where they were.

  “One is a little smaller than the other,” Temujin said, indicating the birds. He was desperate not to be dismissed. “There is a touch of red to his feathers and I have been calling him the red bird.”

  “It is a good name,” Yesugei confirmed.

  Temujin cleared his throat, suddenly nervous. “I had hoped to keep him, the red bird. As there are two.”

  Yesugei looked blankly at his son. “Hold out your arm,” he said.

  Temujin raised his arm to the shoulder, puzzled. Yesugei held the pair of trussed chicks in the crook of one arm and used the other to press against Temujin’s hand, forcing his arm down.

  “They weigh as much as a dog, when they are grown. Could you hold a dog on your wrist? No. This is a great gift and I thank you for it. But the red bird is not for a boy, even a son of mine.”

  Temujin felt tears prickle his eyes as his morning’s dreams were trampled. His father seemed oblivious to his anger and despair as he called Eeluk over.

  To Temujin’s eye, Eeluk’s smile was sly and unpleasant as he came to stand by them.

  “You have been my first warrior,” Yesugei said to the man. “The red bird is yours.”

  Eeluk’s eyes widened with awe. He took the bird reverently, the boys forgotten. “You honor me,” he said, bowing his head.

  Yesugei laughed aloud. “Your service honors me,” he replied. “We will hunt with them together. Tonight we will have music for two eagles come to the Wolves.” He turned to Temujin. “You will have to tell old Chagatai all about the climb, so that he can write the words for a great song.”

  Temujin did not reply, unable to stand and watch Eeluk holding the red bird any longer. He and Bekter ducked through the low doorway of the ger to see Hoelun and their new sister, surrounded by their brothers. The boys could hear their father outside, shouting to the men to see what his sons had brought him. There would be a feast that night and yet, somehow, they were uncomfortable as they met each other’s eyes. Their father’s pleasure meant a lot to all of them, but the red bird was Temujin’s.

  That evening, the tribe burned the dry dung of sheep and goats and roasted mutton in the flames and great bubbling pots. The bard, Chagatai, sang of finding two eagles on a red hill, his voice an eerie combination of high and low pitch. The young men and women of the tribe cheered the verses, and Yesugei was pressed into sh
owing the birds again and again while they called piteously for their lost nest.

  The boys who had climbed the red hill accepted cup after cup of black airag as they sat around the fires in the darkness. Khasar went pale and silent after the second drink, and after a third, Kachiun gave a low snort and fell slowly backwards, his cup tumbling onto the grass. Temujin stared into the flames, making himself night-blind. He did not hear his father approach and he would not have cared if he had. The airag had heated his blood with strange colors that he could feel coursing through him.

  Yesugei sat down by his sons, drawing his powerful legs up into a crouch. He wore a deel robe lined with fur against the night cold, but underneath, his chest was bare. The black airag gave him enough heat and he had always claimed a khan’s immunity from the cold.

  “Do not drink too much, Temujin,” he said. “You have shown you are ready to be treated as a man. I will complete my father’s duty to you tomorrow and take you to the Olkhun’ut, your mother’s people.” He saw Temujin look up and completely missed the significance of the pale golden gaze. “We will see their most beautiful daughters and find one to warm your bed when her blood comes.” He clapped Temujin on the shoulder.

  “And I will stay with them while Eeluk raises the red bird,” Temujin replied, his voice flat and cold. Some of the tone seeped through Yesugei’s drunkenness and he frowned.