Lords of the Bow c-2

by Conn Iggulden

  "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 brother 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.

  GenghisLordsoftheBow

  CHAPTER 19

  T HE CITY OF B AOTOU 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.

  Chen Yi had to struggle not to show his nervousness as Genghis strolled around the inside of his house, examining items. The khan seemed tense and Chen Yi was unsure how to begin the conversation. His guards and servants had been sent away for the meeting, and the house felt oddly empty.

  "I am glad my mason could be of use to you, my lord," Chen Yi said to break to silence. Genghis was inspecting a black lacquered pot and didn't look up as he placed it back on its stand. He seemed too large for the room, as if at any moment he could take hold of the beams and bring the whole place crashing down. Chen Yi told himself it was just his reputation that made him seem powerful, but then Genghis turned pale yellow eyes on him and his thoughts froze.

  Genghis ran a finger over the pot's decoration of figures in a garden, then turned to his host.

  "Do not fear me, Chen Yi. Ho Sa says you are a man who has made much of little, a man who has been given nothing but yet survived and become wealthy in this place." Chen Yi glanced at Ho Sa at hearing the words, but the Xi Xia soldier showed him nothing. For once in his life, Chen Yi felt at a loss. Baotou had been promised to him, but he did not know if the khan would keep his word. He did know that when a great wind destroys a man's home, he can only shrug and know it was fate and could not be resisted. Meeting Genghis was like that for him. The rules he had known all his life had been thrown away. At a single command from the Mongol khan, Baotou would be razed to the ground.

  "I am a wealthy man," Chen Yi agreed. Before he could continue, he felt Genghis's eyes on him, suddenly interested. The khan picked up the lacquered pot once more and gestured with it. In his hands, it looked incredibly fragile.

  "What is wealth, Chen Yi? You are a man of cities, of streets and houses. What do you value? This?"

  He spoke quickly and Ho Sa bought Chen Yi time to reply by translating it. ChenYi flashed a grateful glance at the soldier.

  "That pot took a thousand hours of labor to make, lord. When I look at it, it gives me pleasure."

  Genghis turned the pot in his hands. He seemed obscurely disappointed and Chen Yi glanced at Ho Sa again. The soldier raised his eyebrows, urging more.

  "But it is not wealth, lord," Chen Yi went on. "I have starved, so I know the value of food. I have been cold, so I know the value of warmth."

  Genghis shrugged. "A sheep knows as much. Do you have sons?" He knew the answer, but still he wanted to understand this man who came from a world so different from his own.

  "I have three daughters, lord. My son was taken from me."

  "Then what is wealth, Chen Yi?"

  Under the questions, Chen Yi became very calm. He did not know what the khan wanted, so he answered honestly.

  "Revenge is wealth, lord, for me. The ability to reach out and strike down my enemies. That is wealth. Having men who will kill and die for me is wealth. My daughters and my wife are my wealth." With great gentleness, he took the pot from Genghis's hands, then dropped it on the wooden floor. It shattered into tiny pieces, exploding across the polished wood.

  "Anything else is worthless, lord."

  Genghis grinned briefly. Khasar had spoken the truth when he said Chen Yi would not be cowed.

  "I think if I had been born in a city, I might have led your life, Chen Yi. Though I would not have trusted my brothers, knowing them as I do."

  Chen Yi did not reply that he had trusted only Khasar, but Genghis seemed to guess his thoughts.

  "Khasar speaks well of you. I w
ill not go back on his word, given in my name. Baotou is yours. It is just a step on the path to Yenking for me."

  "I am glad, lord," Chen Yi replied, almost shuddering with relief. "Will you share a cup of wine?"

  Genghis nodded and a vast pressure left the room. Ho Sa relaxed visibly as Chen Yi looked around automatically for a servant and found none. Stiffly he gathered the cups himself, his sandals crunching on shards of priceless pottery that had once adorned the home of an emperor. His hand shook slightly as he poured three cups, and only then did Genghis sit down. Ho Sa took another seat, his armor creaking as he settled. He dipped his head a fraction to Chen Yi when their eyes met again, as if he had passed some sort of test.

  Chen Yi knew the khan would not be taking the time to sit unless there was something he wanted. He watched the dark, flat face as Genghis accepted the cup from his hand. Chen Yi realized the khan too was ill at ease and searching for words.

  "Baotou must seem small to you, lord," Chen Yi ventured as Genghis sipped at the rice wine, pausing at a taste he had not known before.

  "I have never been inside a city, except to burn it down," Genghis replied. "Seeing one so quiet is a strange thing for me." He emptied the cup and refilled it himself, offering the bottle to Chen Yi and then Ho Sa.

  "One more, but it is potent and I want a clear head," Chen Yi replied.

  "It is horse piss," Genghis replied with a snort, "though I like the way it warms."

  "I will have a hundred bottles sent to your camp, lord," Chen Yi said quickly.

  The Mongol leader watched him over the edge of his cup and nodded. "You are generous."

  "It is not much in return for the city of my birth," Chen Yi said.

  Genghis seemed to relax at that, leaning back on the couch. "You are a clever man, Chen Yi. Khasar told me that you ruled the city even when the soldiers were here."