CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Kublai rode in pouring rain, his horse labouring and snorting as it plunged through thick mud. Whenever they stopped, he would change to a spare horse. The sturdy animals were the secret of his army’s power and he never envied the much larger Arab stallions, or the Russian plough horses with shoulders higher than his head. The Mongol ponies could ride to the horizon, then do it again the next day. He was not so sure about himself. His numb hands shook in the cold and he coughed constantly, sipping airag from a skin to ease his throat and let a trickle of warmth spread down his chest. He did not need to be sober to ride and it was a small comfort.
Twelve tumans rode with him, including the eight who had fought their way to within reach of Hangzhou. There was no road wide enough for such a horde and they left a trail of churned fields half a mile wide. Far ahead, his scouts rode without armour or equipment, taking over the yam stations and holding the riders there long enough for the tumans to arrive and swallow them up. He was able to judge the distance they travelled each day by the number of them he passed - the regular spacing set by the laws of Genghis himself. Passing two meant he had ridden fifty miles, but on a good day, when the ground was firm and the sun shone, they could pass three.
This was not that day. The front ranks did better, but by the time the second or third tuman rode over the same ground, it had become deep, churned clods that wearied the mounts and cut the distance they could travel.
Kublai raised his hand to signal one of his personal bondsmen. The drummer boys on camels could not have kept up the pace of the previous fifteen days of hard riding. No camel alive could run fifty or seventy miles a day over rough terrain. Kublai grinned at the sight of the man. His bondsman was so spattered with mud that his face, legs and chest were almost completely black, his eyes showing as red-rimmed holes. The bondsman saw the gesture and raised a horn to his lips, sounding a low note that was immediately echoed by others down the lines.
It took time to stop so many, or even for them to hear the order. Kublai waited patiently as the lines ahead and behind began to slow to a walk, and finally he was able to dismount, grunting in discomfort as tired muscles creaked. He had been riding at speed for a morning and if his men felt half as tired as he did, it was time to rest and eat.
Three hundred thousand horses needed to graze for hours each day to keep up the pace. Kublai always chose stopping points by rivers and good grass, but they had been hard to find as they pushed into the west. Xanadu was over a thousand miles behind him, his half-built city showing clearly what it would become in a few more years. The wide streets had been laid in fine, smooth stone, perfect and ready to be worn down by his people. Great sections were finished and he had brought life to silent streets with his people. The excitement on their faces had pleased him as they claimed empty houses and moved in together, chattering at every new wonder. He smiled as his mind embellished the memories, making parks and avenues where there were still pegs and saplings. Yet it was real and it would grow. If he left nothing else behind, he would have made a city from nothing.
Since then, the terrain had changed many times, from wet river plains to rough hills with nothing but scrub thorn bushes. They had passed a hundred small towns, with the inhabitants hiding themselves away. That was one thing about riding with twelve tumans - Kublai had nothing to fear from bandits or scavengers. They rode through an empty landscape as every potential enemy vanished at the sight of them.
Each group of ten warriors had two or three whose job it was to lead thirty horses to water and grass. They carried grain, but problems of weight meant they could take only enough for an emergency supply. Kublai handed over his reins to another and stretched his back with a groan. In the downpour, he hadn’t bothered looking for woodland to provide fuel. It would be a cold meal of stale bread and meat scraps for most of the men. Xanadu had provided enough salted lamb and goat to last a month, an amount that had left the entire population on half-rations behind them until the herds replenished themselves. They were not yet at the point of drinking mare’s blood from the living animals, but it was not far away.
Kublai sighed, taking pleasure in watching the routines around him, enjoying the lessening of eye strain as he focused on something close instead of miles ahead. He missed his wife, though he had learned not to grow too attached to a baby until he was sure it would survive. His son Zhenjin rode with the bondsmen, white with fatigue by the end of a day, but doggedly determined not to let his father down. He was on the edge of true manhood, but thin and wiry like his father. There were worse ways to grow into a man - and worse companions than the tumans around him.
As Kublai stretched, Uriang-Khadai walked over to him, shaking clods of mud from his feet as he went. They were all covered in the muck that spattered up from hooves and Kublai had to grin at the sight of the dignified orlok made to look as if he’d rolled down a wet hill. The force of the rain increased suddenly, washing away the worst of it as they stood and stared at each other. It made a dull thunder as it hammered down and somewhere close lightning cracked across the sky, a dim flash behind the heavy clouds. Kublai began to laugh.
‘I thought we were going to cross deserts, orlok. A man could drown standing up here.’
‘I prefer it to heat, my lord, but I can’t get the maps out in this. We’ve taken two yam stations today. I suggest we let the horses and men rest until tomorrow. I doubt it will last much longer.’
‘How far to Samarkand now?’ Kublai asked. He saw the older man raise his eyes to heaven and recalled he’d asked the same question many times.
‘Some seven hundred miles, my lord. About fifty less than this morning.’
Kublai ignored the orlok’s sour tone and worked it out. Twelve more days, maybe ten if he forced the men to the edge of ragged exhaustion and changed mounts more often. He had been careful with his resources to that point, but perhaps it was time to push for their highest possible speed.
The Chagatai khanate was well established and there would be yam lines running right through it in all directions. Though he took the riders from each one, he still worried that someone would get ahead of him. It would take a superb rider to stay in front of his tumans, but a man without armour on a fresh horse only had to reach one station ahead and then change horses at every point. It could be done and he dreaded the news that someone had already gone racing through.
Uriang-Khadai had waited patiently while the khan thought, knowing Kublai well.
‘What can you tell me about the land to come?’ Kublai asked.
The orlok shrugged, glancing south. If it had not been for the rain, he would have seen the white-capped mountain peaks that led down into India. They were skirting the edges of the range, taking a path almost straight south-west that would lead them into the heart of the Chagatai khanate and its most prosperous cities.
‘The maps show a pass through the final range of mountains. I do not know how high we must go to get over it. Beyond the peaks, the land is flat enough to make up whatever time we lose there.’
Kublai closed his eyes for a moment. His men could endure the cold far better than heat and he had spare deel robes on the packhorses. The problem was always food, for so many men and animals. They were already on short rations and he did not want to arrive in the Chagatai khanate like refugees from some disaster. They had to come fresh enough to fight and win quickly.
‘Fifteen days then. In fifteen, I want to see Samarkand’s walls before me. We’ll stop for the night here, where the grass is good, to let the horses fill their bellies. Tell the men to go out and seek firewood; we have almost nothing left.’
It had become his practice to carry enough old wood for a fire each night, if he could. Even that was in short supply. Kublai wondered if Tsubodai had faced the same problems as he drove north and west beyond the boundaries of the nation of Genghis.
He stretched again as his men erected a basic awning held with poles. It would keep the rain off long enough to make a fire from the
dry wood they unwrapped. Who would have known what a precious resource a few sticks and logs would become? Kublai’s mouth filled with saliva at the thought of hot food. Most of the men would eat the cheese slop they made by mixing the iron-hard blocks with water. A few dried sticks of meat would give them strength, though it was never enough. They would go on. They would endure anything while they rode with their khan.
General Bayar loved the cold north. From his youth, he had dreamed of what it must have been like to ride with Tsubodai into the white vastness, the land without end. In fact, he had been surprised how green the Russian steppes were in spring, at least the lowlands. His mother had brought him up with stories of Tsubodai’s victories, how he took Moscow and Kiev, how he broke the knights of Christ in their shining armour. To ride in those footsteps was a joy. Bayar knew Christians and Moslems visited holy places as part of their faith. It amused Bayar to think of his journey into Batu’s lands as his own pilgrimage. The rashes and infections that had plagued his men in the humid south slowly vanished, finally able to scar once the pus dried. Even lice and fleas were less active in the cold and many of the men smoked their clothes over open fires to give them relief while they could find it.
Bayar understood he had to be a stern leader for his men. He knew he faced battle ahead and the warriors of three tumans looked to him for leadership. Yet he wanted to whoop like a little boy as his horse plunged through snow, with white hills all around him.
At that height, it was always winter, though the steppes stretched into a green and dun horizon far below. It was open land, without the trappings of civilisation he had come to loathe among the Sung. There were no roads to follow there and his tumans cut their own path. The cold made his bones ache and each breath bit into him, but he felt alive, as if the years in Sung lands had been under a blanket of warm moistness that he was only then clearing from his lungs. He had never been fitter and he rose each day with fresh energy, leaping into his saddle and shouting to his officers. Kublai depended on him and Bayar would not let him down while he lived.
His tumans had not been with Kublai in the south. All of them were warriors Mongke had been bringing against the Sung. They did not have the lean look of those who had been at war for years, but Bayar was satisfied. They had given their oath to the khan and he did not worry about their loyalty beyond that. Part of him exulted at being in sole command of so many, a force to strike terror into Kublai’s enemies. This was the nation: the raiding force of ruthless warriors, armed with sword, lance and bow.
Batu’s khanate was part of the history, its story told around fires a thousand times since. His father Jochi had rebelled against Genghis, the only man ever to do so. It had cost him his life, but the man’s khanate remained, given to Batu by the hand of Ogedai Khan. Bayar had to struggle not to grin at the thought of meeting a grandson of Genghis, first-born to first-born. Batu was one among many who could have been khan, with more right than most. Instead, the line had passed to Ogedai, Guyuk and then Mongke, descendants of different sons. Bayar hoped to see some trace of the Genghis bloodline in the man he would meet. He hoped he would not have to destroy him. He had come to declare Kublai’s khanate and demand obedience. If Batu refused, Bayar knew what he would have to do. He would make his own mark in the history of the nation, as a man who ended a noble line from the great khan himself. It was a bitter thought and he did not dwell on it. Kublai was khan, his brother a weak pretender. There was no other way to see it.
In the cold months, Batu could not have had scouts out for weeks at a time without them losing fingers and toes to the frost. Bayar was not surprised to see isolated stone houses as he led his men down from the high hills. From a great distance, he could see smoke drifting up from dwellings with thick walls and sharply angled roofs, designed to let the snow fall rather than build up a crushing weight. He could also see riders galloping away from them as they caught sight of the tumans, no doubt to inform Batu of the threat. Bayar had broken his last yam station some miles before, taking the furious riders with him. Kublai’s orders no longer applied, now that he had made contact. Arik-Boke would soon hear, as they wanted him to hear, and he would know his northern lands were cut off. Bayar hoped Kublai and Uriang-Khadai had reached Samarkand. Between them, they would isolate Karakorum, snatching away the two great suppliers of grain and herds to the capital.
With battle horns droning, Bayar picked up the pace, his thirty thousand men moving well as they dragged the tail of spare horses behind them. At the far rear, he had men with long sticks to force the herds on when they wanted to stop and graze. They would get a chance to rest and eat when he was done with Lord Batu.
Bayar was able to judge the man he would face by the speed of his response to the incursion. He had to admit it was impressive how fast Batu’s tumans appeared. Even without the warning from yam lines, in a long-settled land with no close enemies, Bayar made barely ten miles across a valley of ice-rimed grass before he heard distant horns and saw black lines of galloping horses coming in fast. Kublai’s general watched in fascination as the numbers visible kept growing, pouring into the valley from two or three different directions. The Batu khanate was barely a generation old and he had no idea how many men could take the field against his incursion. He had planned for a single tuman of warriors, possibly two. By the time they had formed up in sold ranks, blocking his path, he suspected they almost equalled his force - some thirty thousand men ready to defend their master’s lands and people.
Kublai had been away from home too long, Bayar realised. When he had left for Sung lands, Batu’s khanate had barely registered in the politics of Karakorum. Yet Batu’s people had bred and taken in many more over the years. For the first time, Bayar considered that he might not be able to bring crushing force against the man. He had seen the way the tumans moved, recognising the shifting patterns of smaller jaguns and minghaans in the host. It was no wild horde he faced, but trained men, with bows and swords just like his own.
Bayar halted his tumans with a raised fist. He had been given a free hand by Kublai, but for the first time in years he felt his inexperience. These were his own people and he did not know instantly how to approach them as a hostile commander. He waited for a time in the front rank, then breathed in relief as a group detached on the other side and rode into a middle ground. They bore the red flags of the Golden Horde khanate, but also pure white banners. There was no one symbol for truce among the khanates, but white was gaining ascendancy and he could only hope they thought it meant the same as he did. Bayar gestured to his bondsmen.
‘Raise white banners. Two jaguns forward with me,’ he said, digging in his heels before they could move. He focused on the others as he rode forward - wondering if he could think of them yet as the enemy. There was an older man at their centre, surrounded by warriors in full armour with bows in their hands. Bayar headed for him, knowing his men would be forming behind him without further orders.
The tension seemed to swell in the air as his two hundred closed on the detachment. Bayar felt himself shudder slightly as he passed the point where he knew he was in arrow range. He wore layered scale armour in the Chin style, but he knew as well as any man alive that the long Mongol arrows could pierce it. He felt sweat trickle from his armpits and showed them only the cold face. Kublai depended on him.
At a hundred yards, Bayar wanted to call a halt, but it was too far to speak with whoever led them and he forced himself to ride on as if he didn’t face armed men able to send shafts down his throat at that distance. Batu’s detachment watched him come with no expression, though they shifted their bows in growing tension as he came to barely twenty paces. In the sudden silence, he could hear the banners in the wind, furling and snapping. He took a deep breath, controlling his nerves so his voice would be strong and steady.
‘Under flags of truce, I seek Lord Batu Borjigin,’ he shouted.
‘You have found him,’ the man at the centre responded. ‘Now why have you come onto my lands with tumans? Has the
great khan declared war on my people?’
For an instant, Bayar fought not to smile. He faced death in a heartbeat and his physical reaction was to grin.
‘I do not know what the pretender is doing, my lord. I know Kublai Khan offers you peace in exchange for loyalty.’
Batu’s mouth fell slightly open. He spluttered as he spoke, his dignity forgotten.
‘What? Kublai Khan? Who are you to come here and talk of Kublai?’
Bayar laughed at the man’s confusion, finally letting out some of the tension in him.
‘Offer me guest rights in your camp, my lord. I have ridden a long way and my throat is dry.’
Batu stared at him for a moment that seemed endless, until Bayar’s threatening laughter grew still in him. The man was around fifty, Bayar judged, with hair that had gone dark grey and heavy lines around his mouth and eyes. He wondered if he resembled Genghis as he waited, memorising the face.
‘Very well, I grant you guest rights for this evening and no longer. Until I have heard what you have to say to me.’
Bayar relaxed slightly. He would never be completely safe, even after such an offer, but it was never given lightly. Until the following morning, Batu would be his host, even to the point of defending him if he were attacked. He dismounted and nodded to his men to do the same. Batu followed the action and came stalking over the frozen grass, his face full of curiosity.
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