“I have exceeded my authority even in that, my friend.”
Chen Yi made a snarling sound in his throat. “Do not call a man ‘friend' as you leave him to be killed.” His anger was clear now and Lujan could not meet his eyes as he went on.
“The wheel will turn, Lujan. Your masters will pay for their cruelty even as you pay for this shame.”
“I must leave now,” Lujan said, staring into the distance. “You could empty the city before the Mongols come. Many could be saved if you order it.”
“Perhaps I will, Lujan. After all, there will be no other authority in Baotou when you are gone.”
Both men knew it was impossible to evacuate the population of Baotou. The Mongol army was no more than two days away. Even if they filled every boat and used the river to escape, there would not be enough places for more than a few. The people of Baotou would be slaughtered as they ran. Picturing the rice fields running red with blood, Lujan let out a long breath. He had already delayed too long.
“Good luck,” he murmured, glancing at Chen Yi's eyes. He could not understand the triumph he saw sparkling there, and he almost spoke again before he thought better of it. He strode to the front of the column, where his horse was held for him. As Chen Yi watched, the barracks gates opened and those in the front rank stiffened as the crowd fell silent.
The roads were lined with people staring in. They had left the way clear for the Imperial soldiers and their carts, but the faces were cold with hatred and Lujan snapped loud orders for his crossbowmen to be ready, letting the crowd hear as he trotted out. The silence was unnerving and he expected a barrage of abuse to start at any second. His men fingered their swords and pikes nervously, trying not to see the faces of people they knew as they left the barracks behind. The same scene would be happening at the other barracks, and they would meet the second and third column outside the city before moving east to Yenking and the Badger's Mouth pass. Baotou would then be defenseless, for the first time in its history.
Chen Yi watched the column of guards leave, heading toward the river gate. Lujan could not know that many of the crowd were his own men, there to keep order and prevent the more reckless citizens from showing their disgust at the withdrawal. He did not want Lujan to delay his departure, but he had not been able to resist seeing his shame before he left. Lujan had been a sympathetic voice in the garrison for many years, though they had not been friends. Chen Yi knew the orders to leave would have been hard on the man, and he had enjoyed every moment of his humiliation. It had been a struggle not to show his inner satisfaction. There would be no dissenting voice when the Mongols came, no soldiers ordered to fight to the last. The emperor's betrayal had given Baotou into Chen Yi's hands in one morning.
He frowned to himself as the column of soldiers reached the river gate and Lujan passed under the shadow of the deserted archer platforms. Everything depended on the honor of the two Mongol brothers he had aided. He wished he could know for certain whether Khasar and Temuge could be trusted, or whether he would see his precious city torn apart. The crowd at the barracks watched the retreating soldiers in eerie silence, and Chen Yi offered up prayers to the spirits of his ancestors. Remembering his Mongol servant, Quishan, he mouthed a final prayer to the sky father of those strange people, asking for his help in the coming days.
Leaning on the wooden bar of a goat pen, Genghis smiled at the sight of his son Chagatai, hearing the boy's whoops across the encampment. He had given the ten-year-old a set of armor that morning, specially made for his small frame. Chagatai was too young to join the warriors in battle, but he had been delighted with the armor, riding around and around the camp on a new pony to show the older men. There were many smiles as they saw him brandishing his bow and alternating between war cries and laughter.
Genghis stretched his back, running a hand along the thick cloth of the white tent he had raised before the walls of Baotou. It differed from the gers of his people, so that those in the cities would know it and beg their leaders to surrender. Twice as high as even his own great ger, it was not so solidly built and shivered in the wind, its sides snapping in and out like breath. White horse-tail standards stood on tall pikes on either side of it and whipped around as if alive.
Baotou stood closed to them and Genghis wondered if his brothers were correct in their judgment of this Chen Yi. The scouts had brought news of a column of soldiers marching from the city just the day before. Some of the young warriors had ridden close enough to score distant kills with their bows before being driven off. If they had estimated the numbers correctly, the city had no soldiers to defend it, and Genghis found himself in a mellow mood. One way or another, the city would fall like the others.
He had spoken to the Baotou mason and been reassured that Chen Yi would not have forgotten his agreement. Lian's family remained inside the walls he had helped to build, and he had many reasons for wanting a peaceful submission. Genghis looked up at the white tent. They had until sunset to surrender, or they would see the red tent the following day. No agreement would save them then.
Genghis felt eyes on him and turned to see his oldest son, Jochi, on the opposite side of the milling goats. The boy was watching him in silence, and despite what he had promised to Borte, Genghis felt himself respond as if to a challenge. He held the boy's eyes coldly until Jochi was forced to look away. Only then did Genghis speak to him.
“It is your birthday in a month. I will have another set of armor made for you then.”
Jochi wrinkled his lip into a sneer. “I will be twelve. It will not be long before I can ride with the warriors. There is no point in playing children's games until then.”
Genghis's temper prickled. The offer had been generous. He would have spoken again, but they were both distracted by Chagatai's return. The boy thundered up on his pony and leaped to the ground, barely stumbling as he steadied himself on the wooden pen and whipped the reins around a post in a quick knot. The goats in the pen bleated in panic and pressed away from him to the other side. Genghis could not help but smile at Chagatai's uncomplicated joy, though he felt Jochi's gaze settle on him again, always watching.
Chagatai gestured toward the silent city of Baotou, less than a mile away. “Why are we not attacking that place, father?” he said, glancing toward Jochi.
“Because your uncles made a promise to a man inside it,” Genghis replied patiently. “In return for the mason who helped us win all the others, this one will be allowed to stand.” He paused for a moment. “If they surrender today.”
“And tomorrow?” Jochi said suddenly. “Another city, and another after that?” As Genghis turned to him, Jochi straightened. “Will we spend all our lives taking these places one by one?”
Genghis felt blood rush into his face at the boy's tone, then he recalled his promise to Borte that he would treat Jochi the same as his brothers. She did not seem to understand the way he needled him at every opportunity, but Genghis needed peace in his own ger. He took a moment to master his temper.
“It is not a game we are playing here,” he said. “I do not choose to crush Chin cities because I enjoy the flies and the heat of this land. I am here, you are here, because they have tormented us for a thousand generations. Chin gold has had every tribe at the throat of all the others for longer than anyone can remember. When we have peace for a generation, they set the Tartars on us like wild dogs.”
“They cannot do that now,” Jochi replied. “The Tartars are broken and our people are one nation, as you say. We are too strong. Is it vengeance then that drives us?” The boy did not look directly at his father, only risking glances at him when Genghis turned away, yet there was genuine interest in his gaze.
His father snorted. “For you, the history is only stories. You were not even born when the tribes were scattered. You did not know that time and perhaps you cannot understand it. Yes, this is vengeance, in part. Our enemies must learn they cannot ride us down without a storm coming after.” He drew his father's sword and turned it into
the sun, so that the shining surface flashed a golden line onto Jochi's face.
“This is a good blade, made by a master. But if I buried it in the ground, how long would it keep its edge?”
“You will say the tribes are like the sword,” Jochi said, surprising him.
“Perhaps,” Genghis replied, irritated to have had his lecture interrupted. The boy was too sharp for his own good. “Anything I have won can be lost, perhaps by a single foolish son who does not have the patience to listen to his father.” Jochi grinned at that and Genghis realized he had acknowledged him as a son even as he sought to wipe the arrogant expression off his face.
Genghis pulled open the gate to the goat pen and stepped inside, holding his sword up. The goats struggled to get away from him, climbing over each other and bleating mindlessly.
“In your cleverness, Jochi, tell me what would happen if the goats attacked me.”
“You would kill them all,” Chagatai said quickly behind him, trying to be involved in the contest of wills. Genghis did not look back as Jochi spoke.
“They would knock you down,” Jochi said. “Are we goats then, united as a nation?” The boy seemed to find the idea amusing and Genghis lost his temper, snapping out an arm to heave Jochi over the rail and send him sprawling among the animals. They ran in bleating panic, some trying to leap the barrier.
“We are the wolf, boy, and the wolf does not ask about the goats it kills. It does not consider the best way to spend its time until its mouth and paws are red with blood and it has conquered all of its enemies. And if you ever mock me again, I will send you to join them.”
Jochi scrambled to his feet, the cold face dropping over his features like a mask. In Chagatai, the discipline would have earned approval, but Genghis and Jochi stood facing each other in strained silence, neither willing to be the first to turn away. Chagatai leered on the edge of Jochi's vision, enjoying his humiliation. In the end, Jochi was still a child and his eyes filled with hot tears of frustration as he broke his father's gaze and clambered back over the wooden bar.
Genghis took a deep breath, already looking for some way to smooth over the anger he had felt.
“You must not think of this war as something we do before we return to quieter lives. We are warriors, if talk of swords and wolves is too fanciful. If I spend my youth breaking the strength of the Chin emperor, I will consider every day a joy. His family has ruled for long enough and now my family has risen. We will not suffer their cold hands on us any longer.”
Jochi was breathing heavily, but he mastered himself to ask one more question.
“So there will be no end to it? Even when you are old and gray, you will still be looking for enemies to fight?”
“If there are any left,” Genghis replied. “What I have begun cannot be given up. If we ever lose heart, if we ever falter, they will come for us in greater numbers than you can imagine.” He struggled to find something to say that would raise the boy's spirits. “But by then, my sons will be old enough to ride to new lands and bring them under our rule. They will be kings. They will eat greasy food and wear jeweled swords and forget what they owe to me.”
Khasar and Temuge had walked past the edge of the camp to stare up at the walls of Baotou. The sun was low on the horizon, but the day had been hot and both men were sweating in the thick air. They never sweated in the high mountains of home, where dirt fell as dust from their dry skin. In the Chin lands, their bodies became foul and flies tormented them constantly. Temuge in particular seemed pale and sickly and his stomach roiled as he remembered the last time he had seen the city. He had spent too many evenings in the smoke-filled ger of Kokchu, and some of the things he had seen distressed him still. As his throat tightened, he coughed. The action seemed to make it worse until he felt dizzy and ill.
Khasar watched him recover without a trace of sympathy.
“Your wind is broken, little brother. If you were a pony, I would cut you up to feed the tribes.”
“You understand nothing, as always,” Temuge replied weakly, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. The flush in his cheeks was draining away and his skin looked waxy in the sunlight.
“I understand you are killing yourself to kiss the feet of that filthy shaman,” Khasar replied. “You are even beginning to smell like him, I've noticed.”
Temuge might have ignored his brother's barb, but as he looked up, there was a wariness in Khasar's eyes that he had not seen before. He had sensed it in others who associated him with the great khan's shaman. It was not exactly fear, unless it was fear of the unknown. He had dismissed it before as the ignorance of fools, but seeing the same caution in Khasar was strangely pleasing.
“I have learned much from him, brother,” he said. “At times, I have been frightened by the things I have seen.”
“The tribes mutter many things about him, but nothing good,” Khasar said softly. “I heard he takes the babies whose mothers don't want them. They are not seen again.” He did not look at Temuge as he spoke, preferring to fix his gaze on the walls of Baotou. “They say he killed a man with just a touch.”
Temuge straightened slowly from the cramp of his coughing. “I have learned to summon death in such a way,” he lied. “Last night, while you were sleeping. It was agony and it is why I cough today, but the flesh will recover and I will still know.”
Khasar looked sideways at his brother, trying to see if he was telling the truth. “I'm sure it was a trick of some kind,” he said.
Temuge smiled at him and the fact that his gums were stained from the black paste made the expression terrible. “There is no need to be frightened of what I know, brother,” Temuge said softly. “Knowledge is not dangerous. Only the man is dangerous.”
Khasar snorted. “That's the sort of childish talk he teaches you, is it? You sound like that Buddhist monk, Yao Shu. There's one who doesn't stand in awe of Kokchu, at least. They're like spring rams on each other's territory whenever they meet.”
“The monk is a fool,” Temuge snapped. “He should not be teaching the children of Genghis. One of them may be khan one day and this ‘Buddhism' will make them soft.”
“Not with the monk teaching it,” Khasar replied with a grin. “He can split boards with his hands, which is more than Kokchu can do. I like him, though he can hardly speak a word of proper speech.”
“ ‘He can split boards,’ ” Temuge said, mocking his brother's voice. “Of course you would be impressed by such a thing. Does he keep dark spirits from entering the camp on moonless nights? No, he makes firewood.”
Despite himself, Khasar found he was growing angry. There was something about this new assurance in Temuge that he disliked, though he could not have put it into words.
“I've never seen one of these Chin spirits Kokchu claims to banish. I do know I can use firewood.” He chuckled scornfully as Temuge flushed, his own temper rising. “If I had to choose between them, I'd rather have a man who can fight the way he fights and I'll take my chances with the spirits of dead Chin peasants.”
Furious, Temuge raised his arm to his brother, and to his astonishment, Khasar flinched. The man who would charge into a group of soldiers without a thought took a pace back from his younger brother and dropped his hand to his sword. For an instant, Temuge almost laughed. He wanted to make Khasar see the joke, and recall that they had once been friends, but then he felt coldness steal into him and he exulted in the fear he had seen.
“Do not mock the spirits, Khasar, nor the men who control them. You have not walked the paths when the moon has gone and seen what I have seen. I would have died many times if Kokchu had not been there to guide me back to the land.”
Khasar knew his brother had seen him react to nothing more than an open palm, and his heart pounded in his chest. Part of him did not believe little Temuge could know anything that he did not, but there were mysteries, and at the feasts he had seen Kokchu push knives into his flesh without a drop of blood falling.
Khasar stared at his brothe
r in frustration, before turning on his heel and striding back to the gers of his people, to the world he knew. Left alone, Temuge felt like howling in triumph.
As he faced Baotou, the city gates opened and warning horns sounded across the camp behind him. The warriors would be racing for their horses. Let them run, he thought, giddy with the victory over his brother. The sickness had passed and he strolled confidently toward the open gate. He wondered if Chen Yi would have archers on the walls, ready for treachery. It did not matter to him. He felt invulnerable and his feet were light on the stony ground.
CHAPTER 19
THE CITY OF BAOTOU WAS SILENT as Chen Yi welcomed Genghis into his home. Ho Sa accompanied the khan and Chen Yi bowed deeply to him, acknowledging that promises had been kept.
“You are welcome in my home,” Chen Yi said in the language of the tribes, bowing again as he came face to face with Genghis for the first time. Genghis towered over him, taller even than Khasar had been. The khan wore full armor and had a sword belted on his hip. Chen Yi could feel the inner force of him, as strong as anyone he had ever met. Genghis did not reply to the formal greeting, merely nodding as he strode into the open courtyard. Chen Yi had to move quickly to lead him into the main house, and in his hurry, he did not see Genghis glance at the immense roof and steel himself to enter. Ho Sa and Temuge had described it to him, but he was still curious to see how a wealthy man lived in the heart of a city.
Outside, the streets were empty even of beggars. Every house was barricaded against the tribesmen who wandered through the streets, peering through gates and looking for items worth taking. Genghis had given orders to leave the city intact, but no one thought the order could include stores of rice wine. Household images of gods were in particular demand. The tribesmen reasoned that they could not have enough protection in their own gers and collected any small statue that looked suitably potent.
An honor guard of warriors waited outside at the gate, but in truth Genghis could have walked alone anywhere in the city. The only possible danger came from men he could command with a word.
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