Bones Of the Hills c-3

by Conn Iggulden

  He pursed his lips at the thought of city-dwellers making new walls and burying their dead. That thought did not sit well with the khan of the Mongols. When he knocked a man down, he stayed down, but a city could rise again.

  He thought of Otrar then, of the wasteland he had left behind him. Not one stone had been allowed to sit on another and he did not think there would be a city there again, even in a hundred years. Perhaps to kill a city, you had to dig the knife in deep and wrench it back and forth until the last breath escaped. That too was a prospect that pleased him.

  As he rode slowly around Samarkand, Genghis’ thoughts were interrupted by the thin notes of warning horns. He reined in, jerking his head back and forth to hear the sound more clearly. Jochi and Chagatai had heard, he could see. Between Genghis and the city, they too had come to a halt to listen.

  In the distance, Genghis could see scouts riding in at full gallop. The horns had been theirs, he was almost certain. Could there be an enemy in sight? It was possible.

  As his mount reached down to wrench a mouthful of dry grass, Genghis saw the gates of Samarkand swing open and a column ride out. He showed his teeth, welcoming the overconfidence of the enemy. He had Jebe’s tuman as well as ten thousand of his own veterans. Between those and the tumans of Jochi and Chagatai, they would crush any army Samarkand could vomit at them.

  The scouts reached Genghis, their horses almost dead under them from the manic ride.

  ‘Armed men to the east, lord,’ the first one called before two of his companions. ‘As many as three tumans of Arab warriors.’

  Genghis swore softly. One of the other cities had responded to Samarkand after all. Jochi and Chagatai would have to meet them. He made his decisions quickly, so that his warriors saw only certainty in his responses.

  ‘Ride to my sons,’ Genghis said to the scout, though the young warrior still panted like a dog in the sun. ‘Tell them to attack this enemy to the east. I will hold against whatever Samarkand can bring to the field.’

  The tumans of his sons moved quickly away, leaving Genghis with just twenty thousand men. His lines formed with the khan at the centre of a shallow crescent, ready to move easily into enveloping horns.

  More and more riders and men came out of the city, almost as if Samarkand had been a barracks for a wing of the shah’s army. As Genghis moved his mount into a slow trot and checked his weapons, he hoped he had not sent too many warriors away to take the victory. It was possible, but if he attacked only one city at a time, it would be the work of three lifetimes to subdue the Arab lands. The cities of the Chin had been even more numerous, but he and his generals had taken ninety in a single year before reaching Yenking. Genghis had ridden against twenty-eight of them.

  If Tsubodai or Jebe had been there, or even Jelme or one of his brothers, he would not have worried. As the plain blackened with roaring Arabs, Genghis laughed aloud at his own caution, making the warriors around him chuckle. He did not need Tsubodai. He did not fear such enemies, nor a dozen armies like them. He was khan of the sea of grass and they were just city men, soft and fat for all their bluster and sharp swords. He would cut them down.

  Jelaudin sat cross-legged on a narrow beach, staring over the choppy waters of the Caspian at the black shore he had left earlier that day. He could see fires of driftwood burning there and moving shadows flickering around them. The Mongols had reached the sea and there was nowhere left to run. Jelaudin wondered idly if he and his brothers should have killed the fishermen and their families. The Mongols would not have known then where he had taken the shah and perhaps they would have given up the chase. Jelaudin grimaced at his own desperation. He did not doubt the fishermen would have fought. Armed with knives and sticks, the dozen boatmen would probably have overwhelmed his small family.

  The island was barely a mile offshore. Jelaudin and his brothers had dragged the boat into the cover of straggling trees, but they might as well have left it. No doubt the fishing families had told the Mongols where they had gone. Jelaudin sighed to himself, more tired than he could ever remember before. Even the days in Khuday seemed a dim dream. He had brought his father there to die, and after that he half suspected his own end would come quickly. He had never known an enemy as implacable as the Mongols, who stayed on his trail through snow and rain, always coming closer until he could hear their horses in his sleep. Sound carried across the water between them and occasionally Jelaudin could hear reedy yells or voices raised in song. They knew they were close to the end of the hunt, after more than a thousand miles. They knew the prey had gone to ground at last, with all the hopelessness of a fox vanishing into its den, waiting in terror to be dug out.

  Once again, Jelaudin wondered if the Mongols could swim. If they could, it would not be with swords at least. He heard his brothers talking amongst themselves and could not summon the energy to rise and tell them again to be quiet. The Mongols already knew where they were. The final duty of the shah’s sons was to watch him die, to allow him the dignity he deserved.

  Jelaudin rose, his knees protesting as he unbent and cracked his neck. Though the island was tiny, it was covered in trees and thick foliage, so that he and his brothers had been forced to hack a path. He followed the route they had cut, using his hands to remove the slim branches that snagged his robe.

  In a clearing formed by a fallen tree, his father lay on his back with his sons around him. Jelaudin was pleased to see the old man was awake to see the stars, though every catch and wheeze of breath made his chest shudder with effort. In the moonlight, he saw his father’s eyes turn to him and Jelaudin bowed his head in greeting. His father’s hands gestured feebly and Jelaudin came close to hear the man he had always thought was too vital to fall. Those truths of his childhood had crashed around him. He knelt to listen and even there, so far from home, part of him yearned to hear his father’s old strength, as if his frailty could be banished by will and need. His brothers shuffled closer and for a time they forgot the Mongols across the deep waters.

  ‘I am sorry,’ the shah said, gasping. ‘Not for me. For you, my sons.’ He broke off to suck at the air, his face red and sweat running freely.

  ‘You do not have to speak,’ Jelaudin murmured. His father’s mouth jerked slightly.

  ‘If not now,’ he wheezed, ‘when?’ His eyes were bright and Jelaudin ached at seeing the gleam of an old, dry humour.

  ‘I am… proud of you, Jelaudin,’ the shah said. ‘You have done well.’

  The old man choked suddenly and Jelaudin rolled him onto his side and used his fingers to wipe a gobbet of phlegm from his lips. As he turned his father back, his eyes were wet. The shah gave out a long breath, then filled his tortured lungs slowly.

  ‘When I am gone,’ the old man whispered. Jelaudin began to object, but his words died away. ‘When I am gone, you will avenge me,’ he said.

  Jelaudin nodded, though he had left his own hopes long behind him. He felt his father’s hand clutch at his robe and he gripped it in his own.

  ‘Only you, Jelaudin. They will follow you,’ the shah said.

  The effort of forcing out the words was hastening the end and every breath came harder. Jelaudin wanted the old man to find peace, but he could not look away.

  ‘Go to the south and call holy war on… this khan. Call the devout to jihad. All of them, Jelaudin, all.’

  The shah tried to struggle up, but it was too much for him. Jelaudin gestured to Tamar and together they helped their father to a sitting position. As they did so, he breathed out completely and his mouth fell slack. His thin body jerked in their hands as it struggled for air and Jelaudin wept as he felt the bristles of his father’s beard brush across his hand. The shah threw his head back in a great spasm, but breath did not come and the shuddering became twitches and then nothing. Jelaudin heard a hiss of foul air as the old man’s bowels opened and his bladder released, pungent urine drenching the sandy ground.

  Gently, the two brothers laid the old man back. Jelaudin opened out the clawed fingers,
stroking the hand as he did so. He watched as Tamar closed their father’s eyes and still they waited, hardly believing that he was truly gone. The chest did not move and one by one the sons stood and looked down at him. The world was quiet and the stars shone overhead. Jelaudin felt they should not, that there should be something more than the gentle lap of waves to mark the passing of a great man.

  ‘It is over,’ Tamar said, his voice catching.

  Jelaudin nodded and, to his surprise and shame, he felt a great weight lifted from his shoulders.

  ‘The Mongol animals will come here in the end,’ he said softly, glancing back to where he knew they camped, though the dark trees hid them from sight. ‘They will find the… they will find our father. Perhaps it will be enough for them.’

  ‘We cannot leave him here for them,’ Tamar replied. ‘I have a tinderbox, brother. There is enough dry wood and what does it matter now if we are seen? We should burn the body. If we live to return, we will build a temple here to honour him.’

  ‘That is a good thought, brother,’ Jelaudin said. ‘Very well, but when the fire takes hold, we will leave this island and cross the sea beyond. The Mongols are not sailors.’ He recalled the maps he had seen in his father’s library at Bukhara. The sea had not looked too wide to cross. ‘Let them try to follow us across the deep waters where we leave no trail.’

  ‘I do not know the lands across the sea, brother,’ Tamar replied. ‘Where will we go?’

  ‘Why south, Tamar, as our father told us. We will raise a storm with the Afghans and in India. We will return with an army to crush this Genghis. On my father’s soul, I swear it.’

  Jochi and Chagatai caught up with the Arab army as it began to descend into a bowl of hills to the east of Samarkand. The scout’s estimate of numbers had been low if anything. As Jochi conferred quickly with his younger brother, he thought the best part of forty thousand men had come to the aid of the shah’s jewelled city. He did not let the thought worry him. In Chin lands and Arab, Genghis had shown quality of men was more important than sheer numbers. Tsubodai was credited with winning against the best odds when he had routed a city garrison of twelve thousand with only eight hundred men on a scouting raid, but all the generals had proved themselves against larger forces. They were always outnumbered.

  The bowl of hills was a gift and neither brother delayed long as they sighted the enemy. Veterans of mounted battles, they knew the extraordinary benefit of having the high ground. Arrows flew further and horses became unstoppable in a charge as they struck the enemy. Chagatai and Jochi talked briefly, their enmity put aside for the moment. Chagatai merely grunted his assent when Jochi suggested he ride around the bowl and hit the Arab formations on the left flank. It would be Jochi’s task to meet them head on at the foot of the valley.

  Jochi’s men formed under his orders into the widest line the land would allow, the rest assembling in a block behind the warriors with the heaviest armour. Jochi could see spears and bows ready in the Arab ranks, though he was disappointed they had not brought elephants with them. The Arab princes seemed very attached to the idea of elephants in warfare. In return, the Mongols enjoyed sending them wild with arrows, then delightedly watching them trample their own troops.

  Jochi looked down into the valley, judging the steep slope he would descend. It was criss-crossed with wild goat tracks, but scrub grass grew and the horses would fare well charging on such soil. He glanced left and right along the lines as he took his position in the very centre of the front rank. His bow would sound with the first volley and he felt the swelling confidence of men around him as they stared down at the army marching stolidly towards them. The Arabs blew horns and crashed drums as they marched, their horsemen visibly nervous on the flanks. The sloping ground was already compressing them and Jochi thought they had to be led by some young fool promoted for his blood rather than talent. The irony of his own position amused him as he gave the signal to walk the ponies down the central defile. There could be very few sons of kings or khans who led despite their fathers rather than because of them.

  As his tuman moved to a slow trot, Jochi constantly scanned the lines, looking for flaws. His scouts were out for many miles, as Tsubodai had taught him. There would be no ambush, no sudden appearance of reserves. Whoever led the force to relieve Samarkand had treated the Mongols too lightly and would pay for it. Jochi blew a single note on the horn around his neck and saw the heavy lances brought out of saddle cups, held now only by shoulders and arms trained to iron strength. As he increased the speed to a canter, Jochi nodded to a flag-bearer and watched the order to widen the line stretch across them. For this moment, he had practised and practised until the men’s hands were bloody from shooting arrows at the gallop or punching lance points into straw targets a hundred times a day.

  The army they faced loosed a volley of shafts on a barked order. Too early, Jochi thought, watching half of them fall short while the rest skipped uselessly off shields and helmets. He moved into a smooth gallop then and he could not have held back his men if he had wanted to. He put aside his nervousness and let the rhythm of his mount control his movement as he stood in the stirrups and placed a shaft on the cord.

  All along the Mongol lines, men followed suit. The lancers began to dip the points, judging the moment when they would strike and kill.

  Jochi released his arrow and six hundred more followed it on the instant. As they reached for another, the lancers dug in their heels and came together as an armoured spike, lunging ahead of the rest. They hit at full speed and went through or over anything they touched, ripping a hole like a red mouth. Those behind could not stop and Jochi lost sight of falling men as he was carried deep into the enemy, bending his bow once more.

  Ahead of him, his lancers threw down the shattered poles and drew swords as one. The archers behind them loosed another volley to the sides, widening the hole and driving men back as if burned. It was the best use of lances and bows Jochi had found and he exulted at the destruction they had wrought in just a few heartbeats. His rear lines rode out wide to overwhelm the wings, the tactic almost the reverse of his father’s favoured horn manoeuvre. In just instants, the head of the enemy column boiled, all order lost as it fell back on itself.

  Jochi drew his own sword as his mount came almost to a stop, unable to press any further through the ranks facing him. He could feel the moment was perfect for the flank attack and looked up for his brother. He had time only for a single glance at the steep left flank before he was defending desperately, knocking aside a spear point that threatened to sweep him off the saddle. He looked again, not believing, yet Chagatai’s tuman remained where it was on the slope.

  Jochi could see the figure of his younger brother quite clearly, sitting his horse with relaxed hands resting on the saddle horn. They had not arranged a signal to bring him into the flank, but Jochi blew his horn anyway, the note ringing over the heads of his men. They too saw their kinsmen standing still and those who did not understand gestured furiously for them to join the fight before it turned.

  With a curse, Jochi let the horn fall loose, fury filling him so that the next two strokes seemed effortless, his strength surging in his right arm. He wanted it to be Chagatai as he caught a man in the joint between his armour and neck, gashing him terribly as he fell beneath the hooves.

  Jochi stood in his stirrups once more, this time searching out a way to free his men from the crush. The odds were good that he could disengage, with the front ranks still embroiled in the horns of his finest warriors. If they had not been betrayed, they might have fought clear, but he sensed the shock running through his men and it cost them in lives. The enemy had no idea why a Mongol general would sit and do nothing, but they were quick to take advantage.

  Jochi called orders in frustration, but the Arab cavalry widened its line, arcing heavy horse ranks up to the rising ground and then hammering back down against his beleaguered men. Even then, they did not dare to pass too close to the left flank, where Chagatai wait
ed to see Jochi butchered. In breathless moments between blows, Jochi could see senior men remonstrating with his brother, but then he was swept back into the fight.

  His own officers were looking to him to call for a retreat, but Jochi was filled with fury. His arm ached and his father’s sword had lost part of its edge on armoured men, but he felt berserk rage fill him and everyone he killed was his brother or Genghis himself.

  His men saw that he no longer looked to the hills. The son of Genghis fought with his teeth bared and his sword arm swung lightly as he dug in his heels and sent his pony over dead men. They grinned to see his lack of fear and followed with a howl. Those who were cut ignored the wounds, or did not feel them. They too were lost for a time as their blood responded. They had pledged their lives to Jochi and they had ridden an army into the ground. There was nothing they could not do.

  His Chin soldiers fought with insane intensity, cutting their way deeper and deeper into the enemy column. As the Arab cavalry impaled them with spears, they grabbed the weapons, pulling the riders from their mounts and stabbing wildly as both men died. They would not turn from the swords and arrows of the enemy with their friends in ranks around them. They could not.

  Under the relentless pressure of madmen who grabbed with bloody hands at swords that killed them, the Arabs turned and broke, their fear rippling even to those who had not yet joined the fight. Jochi saw one of his Chin officers wielding a broken lance as a club, stepping over dying men to smash it into the face of an Arab on a fine stallion. The Arab fell and the Chin soldier roared in triumph, calling a challenge in his own language to men who could not understand. The Mongols laughed to hear his bragging tone and fought on as their arms became leaden and wounds sucked at their strength.