by Brent Reilly
CHAPTER 58
Billy reached the Mongol capital, pre-paid a room for a month, then filled several backpacks with food to hide outside the city.
He cursed his predictability. That’s how he got his mother killed. They should have left Venice as soon as he landed. His mistake burned him like a fireball. The need to lash out at his enemies drove him like a bull seeing red.
The Khan hated buildings and famously never stayed in one long. Since the Americans destroyed the sira-ordo (Golden Residence), his famous "felt palace," one hundred thousand quads guarded it and the capital. This was the core of the Khan’s rapid reaction force to counter the American raiders. But they couldn’t deter one lone flier.
After a good night’s sleep, it took him all morning to find his next target. Billy shrieked a greeting before landing in the huge rural estate. "We got him!" he yelled excitedly, holding up a box while pocketing his hand wands to appear non-threatening -- now would be a terrible time to get blasted by accident. “The Red Baron is a dead baron.”
A dozen quads stood outside drinking. Buddies instead of guards, one of them shouted for Hulagu like an old friend. The conqueror of Persia and Arabia emerged from the mansion with a drink in his hand to see what everyone was yelling about.
"What the hell is that stench?" he demanded.
Billy held up the box. "Proof! The Red Baron is now deathly white!"
Hulagu took in Billy's imperial uniform, the size of the box, then yelled in joy. As the men gathered around, Billy set down the box and took off the top for Hulagu. The Khan’s grandson reached in past the melting snow and pulled out a head by the hair, examining it closely. Everyone focused on the face, so Billy sidestepped to position himself while launching his wands. He impaled the closest with his boot wands and the rest with his hand wands. It ended without a single blast.
“Yes,” Billy told Hulagu, his intestines falling between his fingers. “I’m the Red Baron. And now I’m gonna rape your women and kill your children. Or was it the other way around?”
Nobody came out of the house, so Billy transferred wands according to how soon they’d die -- what veterans call “wand triage.” He only had two sets left when a boy his age stepped outside, screamed, and drew wand. Billy thrust a steel rod through his chest from twenty meters away -- the look on the kid’s face was priceless.
Billy flew into the mansion and found several adults and children running towards him. His fireballs engulfed them and set the home on fire. Someone shot at him from behind a door, so he thrust a blade with such force that it penetrated the wood and pierced the guy through the gut.
He flew outside and shot at two women getting out. A beautiful lady carrying an infant flew out, but he easily swallowed them in a fireball, thinking of the four unborn babies he lost. Another woman fled in the opposite direction, but he quickly overtook her as well.
Two women and five teenagers blew open a wall and escaped the inferno, but not Billy. He surprised them as they took off their burning clothes. Their numbers didn’t win the fight, despite their obvious wand power. An older lady took longer to kill than the rest of them combined, despite her hair on fire, so he transferred her wands as she bled to death. He stopped her cursing by kicking in her teeth, then flayed her alive once he recognized her.
His fury not yet satiated, Billy beheaded them all and had them face the same way in the vegetable garden. He packed Hulagu's head in the box and added snow on the way to the Khan's tent city.
One day before his 16th birthday, Billy wished he waited until tomorrow. As he descended, he recorded himself: “Either Genghis Khan or I will die today.” He turned his wand to show thousands of troops turning to look up at him before pointing the wand back to his face. “Maybe I should have given this more thought.” His voice trembled with doubt. “Papa, sorry if I fail you. Mama, maybe I’ll see you soon.”
Instead of greeting unobtrusively, he emphasized his presence to attract the guards. As soon as he landed, he yelled out the good news: they finally got the Baron! Hundreds of guards cheered him on as he held up the box that he said contained the Baron’s head. They all escorted him in, only for Empress Borte to inform Billy that the Immortal was unavailable. Apparently the old man was in another of his killer moods.
Well, that screwed everything up. Billy was hoping to end this whole thing today. Even if it killed him.
“Would you like it see it, Empress?” Billy asked, placing the box on the ground. They only let him get within thirty meters of her. Everyone gathered around excitedly. The Empress couldn’t refuse. The head of security, at a gesture from her, reached inside to pull out a severed head.
With everyone’s eyes on Hulagu, Billy flew over them to plunge a blade into Borte’s gut from twenty meters away. His shoulder knocked the wind out of her as she collapsed on him without his feet ever touching the ground. His momentum carried him far into the giant tent. He frantically searched for his nemesis.
“Genghis! I’m gonna rape her!”
Having run out of time, he burned a hole in the ceiling and flew through it. He popped up over the camp and fired at every tent within range.
Alarms beget other alarms. With thousands rising towards him, he showed them his primal scream, burned four wands, then shot at more tents that he drifted over.
As soon as the alarms sounded, his guards covered Genghis Khan in shields and carried him to a nearby steel room that they used as a bomb shelter. Somebody shouted that the Red Baron was attacking and Genghis pushed aside a great-grandson guarding an arrow slit to look up at the Baron shooting fireballs at his royal palace. As thousands rose, so did hope that they’d capture him. Oh, would that be satisfying! To get his hands on the guy who made him suffer so much. Then his heart sank when he heard the powerful scream and the four burning wands -- much longer than the last time he saw them in person. He must have fought a million times, Genghis whispered under his breath, to power wands that much. He must be ancient!
They won't catch him, Genghis sadly realized. Which is why the arrogant bastard took the time to show off while elite troops chased him. The arrogant pig certainly recorded the royal tent city burning for the propaganda.
What the hell is he carrying? Genghis felt his soul shrivel up. Somebody pointed to the incoming balls of fire, but Genghis shrugged off their hands, watching them strike where he slept a moment ago.
Some days he really felt his age.
He heard someone yell that the Baron took the Empress and ran to see for himself. He questioned a stunned guard who cried out, “When she said you were unavailable, he just took her. He said he was gonna rape her.”
She had already been raped for several months, as a teenager, because Genghis married her. His father kidnapped his mother, making Genghis the result of a rape. His mother’s tribe got their revenge on the son by raping his wife until impregnating her. Genghis loved his wife so much that he treated the son of this kidnapping as his own.
The Great Khan promised her that it’d never happen again. So to have her taken from him while in her own palace -- to be raped at over three and a half centuries old -- was intolerable.
“I’ll never see her again,” the Great Khan whispered out loud, the tone of his voice melting in pain. And with Borte he lost his backup Millennial Wands. No one had any idea how many good Mongols he had to kill to get his Millennials back.
The enormity of losing the love of his life struck him down. He collapsed, hardly able to breathe. Denial and reality fought, neither winning, yet neither losing. Much later, one of her maids would show him the video so he could see for himself. Among hundreds of the world’s best quads, the Red Bully kidnapped his wife.
What kind of man has the balls to waltz into the enemy’s den and, surrounded by lions, take the mother of the pride? Who could conceive of such a thing, much less get away with it? The Great Immortal shuddered at the thought of defeating such a man.
Genghis wa
s now on the receiving end of the implacable rage that he inspired in so many others. For him, war was total. If his men caught the Baron's wife, he knew what they’d do to her. They’d kill any kids they caught. That’s just how things had to be. The Baron showed he played by Mongol rules. And reminded Genghis that he faced a Mongol. A really great Mongol.
His four legitimate sons -- drunks all -- died centuries ago. Then most of his grandchildren. He now outlived everyone who knew him before he ever touched a wand. While everyone held up Genghis as the oldest Mongol alive, he failed to point out that Borte was actually a year older. Women hate to be reminded of their age and, really, she didn't look more than seventy.
Of course, keeping her alive meant she had to kill and drain the wands of hundreds of imprisoned quads a year, but slaying tens of thousands of jailbirds over three centuries seemed a small price to pay for immortality. In fact, Genghis saw everything as worth the price of immortality.
Long after he scared the doctors, healers, and shamans away, Genghis finally noticed the box stinking up what was left of the burning tent.
"What the hell is that?"
A guard held up the head so the Khan could see Hulagu’s face. Genghis grabbed his chest at the sight of his favorite grandson. “Why couldn't it be that fat bastard, Kublai?” was his first reaction. Something that his last legitimate grandson would intensely resent.
Genghis flew to his grandson's estate. There he found Hulagu's dead family and still smoking home. He counted 27 heads among the tomatoes, including the Imperial Guard commander. When one head moved he almost wet himself, but it was only a rabbit, going after another carrot. It looked either spooky or comical. Genghis had no doubt that all the world would soon see what he looked at now. Mongols would shudder while everyone else would applaud. If nothing else, this one image would turn the Baron into a near-holy hero to Arabs and Persians. Neither had yet recouped the populations they enjoyed before Hulagu decimated them two centuries ago.
Genghis found that he could identify every single frozen face. All twenty-seven. How could one guy defeat so many? Hulagu’s assassination team must have killed someone the Baron loved for him to risk his life like this. It looked like Hulagu’s mother died the hardest, given that he took the time to skin her alive. Genghis made his drunkest son marry her because she was the best female dueler of her day. Ugly as scorched earth, but among the best duelers he had ever seen. Yet, judging by the position of the bodies, the Baron apparently beat her and several others at the same time.
Genghis Khan had never felt out-classed before. Unable to think and too able to feel, the Immortal walked the grassy steppe until late at night, nursing his vengeance til his fingers cramped.