“The empire has grown mighty, my Khan,” Chucai said silkily. “It has done so under your guidance, and many are thankful every day. The spirits are pleased with your efforts.”
Ogedei stretched in the saddle, working out the tension that had settled in the middle of his back from the ride. “The spirits stir slowly in this disused body,” he said.
Chucai hesitated, and then swallowed his words with a quiet “mmm.” He turned his attention to the forest around them, taking particular note of the lichens that mottled the bark of many trees.
Ogedei considered insisting that Master Chucai reveal what was on his mind, but the Khagan could guess what words had been repressed. He knew he was rotund and out of shape, just as he knew where he had hidden a pair of wineskins in his saddlebags. Chucai would speak in the obsequious language of the court for only so long before his tongue would get the better of him, and in this case, he would be speaking the truth. All he had to do was stretch out his right hand, dig around in the saddlebag on that side of his horse, and he could lay his hand on that disappointment. He hadn’t been able to abandon his thirst entirely. His strength of will had improved immeasurably, but it was still nothing more than a newborn babe. Easily smothered.
There was too much silence in the air for the Khagan’s comfort, and he turned to Namkhai and said, by way of changing the subject, “Have you ever brought down a beast as mighty as this?”
Namkhai shook his head. “The great bear is going to be a mighty challenge, my Khan,” he said. “Arrows alone might not be enough to penetrate its hide.”
“The dogs will weary it.” Ogedei waved a hand in the direction of the snapping pack who yearned to be freed of their yokes. “When they are done, when they have blooded it, then it will be my turn.”
“It may take down one of our hunters before then,” said Namkhai. “A wounded beast is dangerous. Perhaps we could set a trap for it with spears. Harass it until we can drive it into impaling itself.”
Ogedei shook his head. “Where is the honor in that?”
Namkhai looked at him with heavily lidded eyes and only shrugged.
“Harass it, bleed it even, if that allows us to trap it, but I must kill it. That is what the spirits want. I must deliver the killing blow so that I can take in its spirit. How else will the spirit of the Great Bear know who it must fill?
Namkhai shook his head. “You have a great challenge before you, O Great Khagan,” he said. “May the Blue Wolf favor you.”
Ogedei felt his blood surge in his ears, a sudden pounding as his heart beat more heavily in his chest. Just like Chucai, he thought wildly, he doubts that I can do it. His hands tightened on his reins, and he felt his neck muscles tense in preparation of the shout that was beginning to swell from his belly. With a great deal of difficulty, he swallowed his ire. He has no faith, he realized, and instead of letting his anger out, he shoved it back down, deep into his belly. I will show him. I will show them all.
In his mind, he could see himself wrestling with the bear, armed only with a curved sword. Towering on its hind legs, foam flecking its enormous jaws, it raged and snarled at him. He stabbed it, over and over, ignoring its ineffective swipes at his armor with its giant paws. It tried to pin him, tried to bite his throat with its sharp teeth, but he plunged his sword deep within that open mouth, ramming the blade back and up and into the bear’s brain.
Let them doubt me, Ogedei thought. I can-I will-do this.
On the last stroke, his hand had been steady. He did not waver. He did not hesitate.
Gansukh rode on the right rear flank of the hunting party, his eyes scanning the forest. A beast as old and venerated as the Darkhat spoke of would have terrorized this area for so long that it would make little effort to hide itself. He watched the groupings of smaller saplings for signs that some of them had been rudely forced aside. He read the patterns on the bark, looking for the white scars left by claws being sharpened. Would it hide its kills? Gansukh doubted so, and he kept an eye out for the carrion birds that would circle around the rotting carcasses of the bear’s prey, picking at the dead until there was nothing left.
He also kept watch for Munokhoi. The ex-Torguud captain was not part of the hunting party. He had carefully examined every face of the forty-plus men the Khagan had brought with him. Nor had he expected that Munokhoi would have joined the group. Too many of the men would have noticed the ostracized ex-captain’s presence and said something. No, Munokhoi was in the woods, though he did not know how close.
As the hunting party made its way through the woods, Gansukh drifted farther and farther away from the main host. If Munokhoi was trailing them, waiting for an opportunity, then it would be best if he was out of sight of the Khagan’s host. Offering himself as bait.
Sometimes the easiest way to catch a predator was to pretend to be prey.
As the morning wore on, he found his vigilance flagging. There were too many shadows under the trees. Hunting in the woods was much more tiring than hunting on the steppes.
His horse shifted its gait, dancing around the moss-covered hump of an old log, and Gansukh squirmed in his saddle. He was no stranger to riding long distances with a full bladder, but that didn’t make the experience any less uncomfortable. He had pissed from saddleback often enough, but it was easiest when he could look ahead and see that his horse wouldn’t need to change its gait. Here, in the forest, the ground was uneven and the occasional branch tried to grab his horse. Performing the necessary contortions and managing his horse was a little more complicated. Stopping to relieve himself would be simpler.
He pulled his horse to a halt, dismounted, and looped his reins around a low branch of a nearby sapling. He opened one of his saddlebags and retrieved a handful of dried berries. His horse snorted as he offered the treat, its breath warm on his palm. “I’ll be right back,” he said with an affectionate pat between its ears.
He walked a few paces away, adjusting the bow slung over his shoulder. He undid his sash to make water over the gnarled roots of an immense oak. The tree leaned crookedly, an aged malingerer that refused to point in the same direction as its surrounding brethren. Gansukh let out a sigh of satisfaction as the pressure of his bladder lessened.
He was, not unlike other wild animals in the forest, marking his territory. If the hunting party was anywhere near the bear’s cave-and the lack of bear sign suggested they weren’t very close-he would have been more circumspect in his pissing. It wasn’t so much that such behavior was rude-one animal to another; it was that four-legged predators had a much better sense of smell than the two-legged kind. Urine carried a very distinct odor, and leaving such a stain would only alert them of his presence.
A grim smile touched his lips as he finished. Munokhoi had pissed all over his gear. Such a feral response, one wolf marking the territory of another.
He started to retie his sash, and then paused, his senses suddenly alert. He didn’t turn his head, but he tried to read as much of his peripheral surroundings as he could. He listened intently to the sounds of the forest: the rustling of the leaves as they were stroked by the gentle caress of the wind, the creaking and croaking of insects, the crunching sound of his horse’s jaws as it chewed on long grass that it had pulled up, and the distant chatter of birds.
Close by, it was too quiet. An uneasy silence.
His horse raised its head, ears flicking. Its nostrils widened as it smelled the breeze.
Gansukh left his sash half tied and, slowly, put his hands on his bow.
His horse wasn’t frightened by the scent, which meant whatever was out there in the woods wasn’t the bear-or a wolf or some other predator.
He heard the arrow, a rustling that whispered through the trees. It hit its target with a meaty thwap, and his horse let out a dreadful scream. It reared, a long black-fletched arrow protruding from its neck. Blood spattered from the wound, and the beast stumbled as it found its range of movement limited by the reins tied to the sapling. It snorted, its eyes wide with fear and pain, and th
en it stumbled again, falling heavily against the nearby tree.
Gansukh had instinctively dropped to a crouch as soon as he had heard the arrow, his back pressed against the thick trunk of the leaning oak. He unslung his bow and quickly reset the string, a series of motions his hands performed automatically, unconsciously.
His horse collapsed, its body shuddering with pained breaths. Each one was shorter and more violent than the last. The grass around its head glistened with blood. It couldn’t lie its head down; the reins were still caught in the tree. The fletching on the arrow in its neck matched the arrow he had broken the day before.
Gansukh’s eyes were drawn to the quiver of arrows nestled among his saddlebags. He had no idea where Munokhoi was. The other man would be moving to a better position, but he had no idea how long that would take. He couldn’t stay where he was for long.
If he could just reach his arrows… Even one would be enough.
He shifted his weight, readying himself, and his foot slipped. He glanced down, remembering why the roots of the tree would be wet, and noticed a fist-size rock close to his left boot. He pitched it downslope, hoping it would make a great deal of noise as it rolled through the brush. As soon as he hurled the rock, he made a mad dash for his fallen steed. He didn’t have time to release his quiver from the straps holding it in place; all he could do was grab a handful of arrows.
He kept running, his eyes scanning for a suitable hiding place. An arrow sang past his head, and he changed his direction, forcing Munokhoi to adjust his aim. Gansukh spotted the ragged shape of a giant stump, nearly waist-high, and he dashed toward it, skidding across the ground as he tried to slow his headlong rush. An arrow smacked heavily into the moss-covered wood above his head as he scrambled to cover.
The upper part of the stump had become hollow over time, and there were numerous gaps in the bark. Shifting back and forth between several of the larger holes, he spied on the upward slope. Such scouting was torturous, but he kept at it, hoping to catch some flicker of movement that would indicate Munokhoi’s position.
A shaft of light was eclipsed, and Gansukh fumbled with one of his precious arrows. Holding its fletching with his right hand, he tried to lay the arrow across his bow but it didn’t seem to catch, and he tore his gaze away from his secret spy hole to see what was wrong.
The arrow in his hand was too short, missing its head and a portion of the shaft. It had snapped off during his dash to safety. Cursing, he threw it aside and grabbed another one, visually checking this one before laying it across his bow.
He peered through the bark hole again, moving his head from side to side to increase his field of view. Had he missed his chance? He ground his teeth in frustration and leaped to his feet, drawing his string back and loosing an arrow. He immediately fell back to his crouched position, peering through the gaps.
He didn’t expect to hit Munokhoi, but his arrow drew a response. He heard a hollow thock as one of Munokhoi’s arrows sunk into the old bark. He prepped another arrow and stood up again. He tried not to focus on anything in particular, waiting a fraction of a second for something to move, some target to suggest itself. He sensed motion without actually seeing it, and loosed his second arrow.
At this range, without having time to aim properly, it was next to impossible to hit his target. He could only hope to draw Munokhoi closer. He counted his remaining arrows-three-and decided he didn’t have enough to play this game with Munokhoi.
A booming noise echoed through the forest, and something heavy crashed into the stump, knocking great holes in the wood. Bark pelted Gansukh, and like a startled deer, he sprinted away from his hiding place. He dashed through a clump of spiny bushes, branches clawing at his bow and clothing, and slid to a stop behind an aged spruce. His heart pounded in his chest, and the echo of the thunder still rang in his ears.
Smoke came through the trees, a gray haze that drifted slowly downslope. The upper portion of his previous hiding place looked as if it had been clawed by a giant bear; ragged strips of bark poked up from the crown of the stump like crooked fingers.
There was no bear. Gansukh had heard nothing prior to the sudden boom, nor had there been any subsequent sound of a large animal crashing through the underbrush. It could not have been a lightning strike either. The sky was clear of clouds, and no fire had been started. It had to have been Munokhoi, but what sort of sorcery was it?
Gansukh remembered the night of the Chinese raid. When he had been chasing Lian, he had heard similar booming noises. Afterward, some of the Torguud had spoken of a Chinese weapon, a portable cannon that used fire to hurl shards of metal and pottery with incredible force.
Looking at the wreckage of the stump, Gansukh imagined what such a weapon would do to him. His armor would offer no protection. But the handheld cannon had to be cumbersome to wield, otherwise Munokhoi would have used it when he had first attacked. He wouldn’t have waited until Gansukh had been hiding. In fact, Gansukh theorized, he had only used it because he hadn’t been able to get a clear shot with his bow. I would have done the same, he thought, risking another glance. If your target is obscured, make him move or make his hiding place no longer safe.
Munokhoi had both bow and fire thrower, and Gansukh had only three arrows. He was at a disadvantage, but he thought he knew what Munokhoi was thinking.
An arrow struck the trunk of the tree above Gansukh’s head, and he didn’t flinch. He glanced at it, noting its angle and orientation in the tree, and rose to his feet, mentally reversing its flight path as he drew his bow back and loosed an arrow. It disappeared into a thicket to the right of the last tendrils of drifting smoke, and as he ducked back behind the tree, he noted movement in the brush.
He had to coax Munokhoi close enough that the ex-Torguud captain would try to use the Chinese weapon again. Gansukh suspected it would take Munokhoi some time to ready the weapon-his attention would be devoted to that task. That would be Gansukh’s opportunity to get a clear shot. He had to have time to aim his arrows. He had to see his target without being seen.
Gansukh poked his head out once more, and another arrow hissed past. He darted in the other direction, up slope but still away from Munokhoi. He paused behind every large tree-varying the time spent in cover so that Munokhoi couldn’t anticipate when he would emerge again. He kept looking for a suitable hiding place, and finally spotted a fallen tree that had lodged between two other trees. The trio of trees made for excellent cover-he could stand upright and still be hidden from view-and the long trunk of the fallen tree provided him the means to crawl away from cover without being seen.
He made it to the other side of the barrier without being hit by an arrow, and he caught his breath before he carefully poked his head out for a quick peek. He saw no sign of Munokhoi, and he shifted to the center of his cover. Grabbing onto the thick bark of the fallen tree, he hoisted himself up to risk another look. An arrow skipped off the bark, not far from his head. It vanished into the forest behind him as he dropped back down.
Munokhoi was still coming. Gansukh didn’t have a lot of time with which to accomplish his ruse. He dropped to his belly and began worming his way along the ground. When he had gone several body lengths, he got to his knees and slowly rose to a half crouch, peering over the dead tree. He had chosen a spot where a leafy fern had spouted from the trunk, and he was confident he wouldn’t be seen.
His ruse had worked. He could see Munokhoi clearly, kneeling behind a large bush. His bow lay on the ground beside him, and he was busy stuffing something into an iron tube held cradled in one arm.
Gansukh nocked one of his two remaining arrows and, holding the bow sideways so that he wouldn’t reveal himself prematurely, he drew back the string. Rising slowly to a standing position-his thighs quivering at the glacial pace of his motion-he aimed carefully. Munokhoi sensed his presence right before he let go of the bowstring, and Gansukh had a brief glimpse of the ex-Torguud captain’s wild eyes before he ducked back down behind the log.
G
ansukh scrambled farther to his left, not worrying too much about being quiet, and finding another fern to obscure him, he risked another glance over the log.
Munokhoi was gone, but he had left a leather satchel on the ground. Gansukh wasted a few seconds peering at where Munokhoi had been crouching, trying to ascertain any other sign that his arrow had struck its target, and movement in the nearby bush warned him in time. Munokhoi’s arrow shredded the leaves of the fern as he ducked. That one would have hit him if he hadn’t moved.
He saw a gap between the tree trunk and the ground and realized he had gone as far as he readily could. The gap grew wider on his left, and Munokhoi would be able to track his movement.
The Chinese weapon thundered again, and Gansukh flinched even though he was protected by the dead tree. Wood splintered and cracked nearby, and he looked upslope to see a spindly tree start to topple. Munokhoi’s cannon blast had destroyed the tree’s trunk, and the tree was falling right toward him. Its looming branches were like a hundred eager hands, reaching for him.
Gansukh scrambled out of the tree’s path, and the trunk missed him-striking the heavy log and rebounding. It slid downhill, its branches clawing and tearing at his clothes. He tripped and struggled to free himself of the tree’s clutches. After being dragged a few paces, he managed to roll free of the branches, still clutching his bow.
But he had lost his last arrow.
His heart racing, he ran, weaving through the trees to spoil Munokhoi’s aim. Arrows whistled through the branches around him as he fled, and some of them smacked into trees, sounding like a flat hand swatting a horse’s rump. Run faster, young pony, run faster.
As the arrows faltered, he began to pay closer attention to his surroundings: Where was the brush thickest? Could he find a hollow log to hide inside? Were the shadows beneath a copse of evergreens dark enough?
None of these places mattered though if he didn’t have an arrow. All he needed was one clear shot, but there had to be some bait for Munokhoi. How to best the hunter at his game? Where could he hide that Munokhoi wouldn’t think to look for him?
The Mongoliad: Book Three tfs-3 Page 51
