Conqueror (2011) c-5

by Conn Iggulden

  Two of Arik-Boke’s tumans had swung out from the battle to reach a good position. As Kublai watched, they drove back in, sending arrows before them, then shoving the bows into the saddle hooks and drawing swords. They believed Kublai was already dead and it gave them heart to keep fighting. He grimaced to himself, then nodded, turning to his bondsmen.

  ‘Raise them up,’ he shouted. ‘Let them see how we fooled them.’

  They grinned wildly as they unrolled great yellow streamers, sliding metal rings over the tips of banner-poles with practised efficiency. With a nod to each other, six of them raised the poles at the same time, sending Kublai’s banners fluttering in the wind.

  His tumans raised their swords and bows as they saw it, roaring at the top of their lungs. The crash of sound seemed to send Arik-Boke’s tumans reeling back, but the reality was that Kublai’s men surged forward. Nothing pleased the Mongols more than a good trick on the field of battle. Not only was Kublai alive, but Arik-Boke had wasted the lives of many thousands to tear down a false position. For a short time, Kublai’s warriors laughed as they bent their bows and struck with swords, then the momentary giddiness dissolved and they were back to the grim-faced killing men of the tumans.

  Over thousands of heads, Kublai could see his brother’s banners, half a mile distant. He had ignored the position, with no desire to see his brother dead. He wanted him alive if possible, though if the sky father took him with a shaft or a blow, he would not regret the loss. His own bondsmen pressed close around him as those of Arik-Boke’s archers in range sent looping shots high, hoping for a lucky strike. Kublai set his jaw as the air above him filled with whining shafts. He wished for a shield then, but he had not been able to carry one and maintain the deception. One of his bannermen was plucked away with a grunt and another man caught the falling banner as it was jolted out of his hand. Kublai made a growling sound as he saw he would have to pull back. The charge against the exposed flank had carried his rank deep into the enemy and he was exposed to the counter-attack that would surely come now his brother realised his true position.

  For a frozen instant of time, Kublai searched the horizon for some sign of Bayar’s tumans. His men had fought well and his officers had shown themselves as an elite. Perhaps four of his brother’s tumans had been slaughtered for the loss of half that number, but the battle was far from over and Kublai was in desperate danger.

  Even as he formed the thought, Uriang-Khadai brought tumans across him, forcing the enemy back and allowing him time to get clear.

  Kublai shouted to his men to find him a position out of the front ranks and they began to drift through the warriors. They cheered him as he went, still delighted at the deception that had allowed them to humiliate Arik-Boke. Men he knew from years among the Sung raised their swords in salute as he passed them, then pressed on with their tumans.

  The battlefield had spread almost a mile from the original site, as the tumans shifted and struck, pulled back and charged again. As Arik-Boke’s men pressed on in rage, Uriang-Khadai pulled four tumans out, leaving a sudden space. The enemy warriors rushed in after them, lost in the need to cut down the jeering horsemen, still hooting and calling to them as they went.

  Uriang-Khadai made them run into fresh volleys of arrows from a halted line, emptying quivers by the ten thousand shafts. The broken lines they faced were torn apart, building lines of the dead. Their own archers replied without the massed force of a volley and were quickly cut from their saddles. Uriang-Khadai raised and dropped his arm to signal the shots, then rotated the front ranks to allow those who still had shafts to race forward. In the heart of the battle, the perfection of the manoeuvre broke the centre of Arik-Boke’s forces. Those who survived it pulled back from their mad rush and formed up around their khan, ready to be sent in again.

  Kublai had moved back three hundred paces, frustrating the enemy archers who sought him out. From that position, he saw Uriang-Khadai take over and heard the beat of volleys snap once more. He turned his head to see a huge block of fresh warriors detach from his brother’s position and come swinging out. They rode around the wavering centre and Kublai swallowed hard when he saw Uriang-Khadai could be hit from the flank and rear in turn. He looked around for the forces available to him, sending runners to his generals as fast as he could speak and shove them away.

  Once again, he looked for Bayar on the horizon. Ever since his return from the Sung, he had dreaded the thought of a battle so closely fought that the armies of the nation destroyed themselves. He had already lost count of the dead, and if it went on, the empire of Genghis would be defenceless, with wolves all around them. He needed the men his warriors were killing. He needed them all. He looked for Bayar and sat frozen, his right hand clenching tight on the sword hilt. Tumans had appeared in the distance, dark lines of racing horsemen.

  Kublai felt his initial surge of excitement fade as he saw the number of them. Too many. He breathed harder, feeling fear sink its teeth into him once again. Too many! He had sent only three tumans to Russia with Bayar. The army galloping towards him was far larger.

  Kublai closed his eyes and bowed his head, breathing so hard and fast he felt his blood heat soar and his face grow flushed with every beat of his heart. He could surrender, or he could fight to the last man, the worst of all decisions. He wiped blood from his cheek in a spasm of anger, but Arik-Boke’s men were shouting and the formations were moving again, as if to counter a new threat. Kublai’s head jerked up, his breath held in his throat.

  Not a reserve, then! Arik-Boke was already shifting his banners around, moving them away under a shield of tumans. Kublai felt dizzy and ill as his pounding pulse dwindled in his ears. He had known the agony of defeat, accepted it. He was not certain what he would have done, even then, but as the men around him shouted and cheered, he bawled with them, waving his sword to the tumans coming in at full speed.

  ‘Lay down your swords!’ Kublai shouted to the enemy.

  His generals took up the cry, then his minghaan officers, then the men who ran each jagun of a hundred. In moments, thousands of voices were yelling the order at Arik-Boke’s men and all the time, six tumans were galloping closer, fresh and deadly with full quivers and unbroken lances. Kublai repeated his order and his tumans repeated it like a chant. Uriang-Khadai pulled them back further, opening a new space between the armies. No one raced to close the gap and the tumans of Arik-Boke sat their mounts in stunned silence, watching sixty thousand men riding hard at them.

  Kublai didn’t see the first of Arik-Boke’s men to throw his sword to the ground, followed by the empty quiver from his back. The officer was a senior minghaan and his thousand copied the gesture. Many of them dismounted and stood by their horses, their chests heaving. It spread through Arik-Boke’s tumans, one after the other, beginning with those furthest away from their khan. By the time Kublai could read the banners of Bayar and Batu Khan with him, only a single tuman with Arik-Boke remained armed and ready, surrounded by their own men calling on them to surrender.

  Arik-Boke’s last tuman waited in grim silence as Uriang-Khadai gathered his tumans in silent ranks and Bayar and Batu Khan came into range with bows ready.

  Under that threat, with a fresh army against them, the last tuman threw down their swords and walked away from the small knot of bannermen with Arik-Boke. He roared at their backs in furious anger, but they ignored him.

  Kublai rode with the feeling that he had never been in more danger that day. He did not have to order his generals to form up around him. A single arrow could take his life and then Arik-Boke might yet rally his tumans again. He did not doubt his brother would fight to the end and leave the nation weak and wounded. He nudged his horse forward across the battlefield, not looking left or right as his men shouldered aside warriors they had been trying to kill just before.

  It seemed to take an age before he found Arik-Boke. His brother looked older, Kublai saw, his ruined nose bright red with emotion. He still carried a drawn sword in his hand and Ku
blai murmured a command to those at his back. They bent their bows with an audible creak, a dozen shafts focused on one man who stared balefully at Kublai.

  ‘Surrender, brother,’ Kublai called to him. ‘It’s finished now.’

  There was a bright gleam in Arik-Boke’s eyes as he glared round at his men. His face was well made for the contempt he showed them and he leaned over to hawk and spit on the ground. For an instant, Kublai thought he would kick his horse forward at him and die, but his brother shook his head as if he could hear the thought. Slowly, he opened his hand and let the wolf’s-head sword fall onto the grass.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Kublai stood alone in the throne room of the palace in Karakorum, looking out of the open window over the roofs of the city below. He hadn’t noticed the grime and odour he carried with him before entering the palace. The clean rooms with the polished stone floors made him feel oddly out of place, like an ape in a garden. He smiled at the thought, imagining how he must look. The armour he wore was a far cry from the scholar’s robe he had worn for much of his youth. Palms that had once been ink-stained were ridged with sword callus. He held up his right hand with a wry expression, seeing the pale scars on the skin. The grime that had worked its way into every seam and crevice of his fingernails was a mixture of blood, earth and oil.

  He had not seen the city of his youth for many years and from the first steps through the gate, he had been struck by both the familiarity and the differences. The short ride through the streets to reach the palace had been a surreal experience. In his years away, he had entered many Sung cities, too many to count or remember. Karakorum had once seemed large and open to him, a place of wide streets and strong houses. To the man who came home, it was somehow small and shabby. None of the people within the walls had ever seen the delicate gardens and streams of a Sung city, or the vast hunting parks that were being shaped in Xanadu. Even the palace library where he had spent countless hours had shrunk in his absence, once golden treasures failing to live up to his memories. Walking alone through the palace corridors, he had visited many of the places of his youth. In the room where he had once slept, he found the spot where he had carved his name in oak. Standing there, he had lost himself in reverie for a time, tracing the primitive lettering.

  Even the palace gardens were different, with shaded rows of trees grown huge. They changed the views and altered the sense of the garden, spreading patterns of shadows so that nothing looked the same. He had sat for a time at the bench and pergola built after Ogedai’s death. There had been peace there, as the pale blossoms of a cherry tree stirred in the wind around him. The war was over. He had realised it truly as he sat there in the silence. All he had to do was rule.

  The knowledge should have filled him with joy, but he could not shake the feeling of disappointment that weighed on him, as if all his years at war had won him only echoes of memories. He tried to dismiss the sensation as nostalgia, but the reality hung in the thick summer air, already sweet with the smouldering herbs that were said to ward off disease.

  With an effort, he turned away from the window looking out over the streets below. If Karakorum was flawed, it was still the first city of his people, the boundary marker that Ogedai Khan had built to take them from nomadic tribes to a settled nation. It had been a grand dream, but he would do better in Xanadu. He would do better as emperor of China, with all the wealth of those vast lands at his disposal. Kublai realised he would have to appoint a governor for Karakorum, someone he could trust to make the city bright and clean again. Uriang-Khadai sprang to his mind and he considered the idea carefully, finally nodding to himself.

  The place Kublai thought of as home had become a city of strangers. His place was in Xanadu, a bridge between the lands of the Chin and the Mongol homeland, exactly as he had planned it. From there, he would send out the tumans to dominate the Sung for all time. He clenched his fist as he stood in the silence. They had almost fallen to a Mongol general. They would fall to the great khan.

  He heard footsteps approaching the polished copper doors that closed off the room from the rest of the palace. Kublai gathered his will once again, ignoring the weariness that made his legs and arms feel leaden. He had ridden and fought all day. He stank of horses and blood and the summer sun was setting at last, but there was still one thing he had to do before he could bathe, eat and sleep.

  There were no servants there to answer the fist thumping on the outer door. No doubt they had all vanished as the conqueror came into the city, expecting slaughter and destruction. As if he would harm a single one of his people, the nation of his birth. He crossed the room swiftly and heaved open the copper doors. He was not aware of how his right hand dropped to his sword hilt, an action that had become part of him.

  Uriang-Khadai and Bayar stood there, with his brother between them. Their expressions were grim and Kublai did not speak, gesturing for them to enter. Arik-Boke was forced to shuffle forward, his feet tied so he could take only the smallest of steps. He almost fell and General Bayar gripped him by the shoulder to keep him upright.

  ‘Wait outside,’ Kublai said softly to the two men.

  They bowed briefly without protest, sheathing their swords as they went. Uriang-Khadai pulled the doors shut and Kublai watched the gap close on the orlok’s cold eyes.

  He was alone with his brother, for the first time in many years. Arik-Boke stood with his arms behind his back, straight and strong as he looked around the room. The only sound was the hissing wheeze from the old scar across his nose. Kublai looked for some sign of the boy he had known, but the face had coarsened, grown heavy and hard, as Arik-Boke’s eyes glittered under the inspection.

  It was difficult not to think of the last time they had met in that place, with Mongke full of life and plans and the world before them. Much had changed since then and Kublai’s heart broke to think of it.

  ‘So tell me, brother,’ he said, ‘now that the war is over, were you in the right, or was I?’

  Arik-Boke turned his head slowly, his face growing mottled as he flushed in slow anger.

  ‘I was in the right …’ he said, his voice grating, ‘but now you are.’

  Kublai shook his head. To his brother, there was no morality beyond the right of strength. Somehow the words and everything they revealed infuriated him. He had to struggle to find calm once again. He saw some gleam of triumph still in Arik-Boke’s eyes.

  ‘You gave an order, brother,’ Kublai said. ‘To butcher the women and children of my men in the camps around the city.’

  Arik-Boke shrugged. ‘There is a price for all things,’ he said. ‘Should I have allowed you to destroy my tumans without an answer? I am the khan of the nation, Kublai. If you take my place, you will know hard decisions in turn.’

  ‘I do not think it was a hard decision for you,’ Kublai said quietly. ‘Do you still think it was carried out? Do you believe the captain of the Guard would murder defenceless women while their children hung around their legs?’

  Arik-Boke’s contemptuous expression faded as he understood. His shoulders dipped slightly and some of the spite and anger seeped out of him, making him look worn and tired.

  ‘I trusted the wrong man, it seems.’

  ‘No, brother. You were the wrong man. Even so, it is hard for me to see you like this. I wish it could have gone another way.’

  ‘You are not the khan!’ Arik-Boke snapped. ‘Call yourself whatever you want, but you and I know the truth of it. You have your victory, Kublai. Now tell me what you intend and don’t waste my time lecturing me. From you, scholar, I have nothing to learn. Just remember that our mother held this city and our father gave his life for the nation. They are watching you as you put on your false expression of regret. No one else knows you the way I do, so don’t preach to me. You would have done the same in my place.’

  ‘You’re wrong, brother, but it doesn’t matter now,’ Kublai replied. He walked to the copper doors and thumped on them with his fist. ‘I have an empire to rule,
one that has grown weak under your hand. I will not fail in strength or will. Take solace in that, Arik-Boke, if you care about the nation at all. I will be a good master for our people.’

  ‘And bring me out each month to parade me in my defeat?’ Arik-Boke said, his face flushing once again. ‘Or shall I be exiled for you to show the peasants your famous mercy? I know you, brother. I looked up to you once, but no longer. You are a weak man and for all your fine talk, for all your scholarship, you will fail in everything you do.’

  In the face of his brother’s spite, Kublai closed his eyes for a moment, making the decision with a wrench that felt like ripping the scab from a wound. Family was a strange thing and even as he felt Arik-Boke’s hatred battering at him, he still remembered the young boy who had swum in a waterfall and looked at him in simple adoration. They had laughed together a thousand times, grown drunk and shared precious memories of their parents. Kublai felt his throat grow thick with grief.

  Uriang-Khadai and Bayar entered the room once more.

  ‘Take him outside, general,’ Kublai said. ‘Orlok, stay for a moment.’

  Bayar took his brother into the corridor, the shuffling steps somehow pitiful.

  Kublai faced Uriang-Khadai and took a deep, slow breath before he spoke.

  ‘If he hadn’t ordered the death of the families, I could spare him,’ Kublai said.

  Uriang-Khadai nodded, his eyes dark pools. His own wife and children had been in the city, at his home.

  ‘The tumans expect me to have him killed, orlok. They are waiting for the word.’

  ‘But it is your decision, my lord. In the end, it is your choice.’