“Does this warrior take from his own family, his own tribe?” Chen Yi asked.
“No. He would be a criminal, beneath contempt if he did,” Genghis replied. Even before Chen Yi spoke again, he saw where the little man was going.
“Then what of your tribes now that they are bound together?” Chen Yi said, leaning forward. “What will you do if all Chin lands are yours?”
It was a dizzying concept. It was true that Genghis had already forbidden young tribesmen to raid each other, instead providing marriage gifts from his own herd. It was not a solution he could maintain for long. What Chen Yi suggested was merely an extension of that peace, though it would encompass lands so vast it was difficult to imagine.
“I will think on it,” he said, slurring slightly. “Such thoughts are too rich to be eaten in one sitting.” He smiled. “Especially as the Chin emperor remains safe in his city and we have barely begun. Perhaps next year I will be scattered bones.”
“Or you will have broken the nobles in their forts and cities,” Chen Yi said, “and have a chance to change it all. You are a man of vision. You showed that when you spared Baotou.”
Genghis shook his head blearily. “My word is iron. When all else is lost, there is still that. But if I had not spared Baotou, it would have been another city.”
“I do not understand,” Chen Yi replied.
Genghis turned his hard gaze on him again. “The cities will not surrender if there is no benefit to them.” He raised a clenched fist and Chen Yi’s gaze was drawn to it. “Here, I have the threat of bloodshed, worse than anything they can imagine. Once I raise the red tent, they know they will lose every man within the walls. When they see the black, they know they will all die.” He shook his head. “If death is all I offer, they have no choice but to fight to the last man.” He dropped the fist and reached again for a fresh cup, which Chen Yi filled with shaking hands.
“If I spare even one city, the word will spread that they do not need to fight. They can choose to surrender when the white tent goes up. That is why I spared Baotou. That is why you still live.”
Genghis recalled his other reason for seeking the meeting with Chen Yi. His mind seemed to have lost its customary sharpness, and he thought perhaps he should not have drunk quite so much.
“Do you have maps in this city? Maps of the lands to the east?”
Chen Yi felt dazed at the insight he had been given. The man who faced him was a conqueror who would not be stopped by the feeble Chin nobles and their corrupt armies. He shivered suddenly, seeing a future filled with flames.
“There is a library,” he said, stammering slightly. “It has been forbidden to me until now. I do not think the soldiers destroyed it before they left.”
“I need maps,” Genghis replied. “Will you look over them with me? Help me plan the destruction of your emperor?”
Chen Yi had matched him drink for drink and his thoughts spun themselves to wisps in his head. He thought of his dead son, hanged by nobles who would not even look at a man of low birth. Let the world change, he thought. Let them all burn.
“He is not my emperor, lord. Everything in this city is yours. I will do what I can. If you want scribes to write new laws, I will send them to you.”
Genghis nodded drunkenly. “Writing,” he replied, scornfully. “It traps words.”
“It makes them real, lord. It makes them last.”
The morning after his meeting with Chen Yi, Genghis awoke with a pounding headache so bad he did not leave his ger all day except to vomit. He could not remember much after the sixth bottle had been brought out, but Chen Yi’s words came back to him at intervals and he discussed them with Kachiun and Temuge. His people had only known a khan’s rule, with all justice stemming from one man’s judgment. Even as things stood, Genghis could have spent each day deciding arguments and punishing criminals in the tribes. It was already too much for him, yet he could not allow the small khans to resume their roles, or risk losing it all.
When Genghis gave the order to move on at last, it was strange to leave a city without seeing flames on the horizon behind them. Chen Yi had given him maps of Chin lands all the way to the eastern sea, more precious than anything they had won before. Though Chen Yi remained in Baotou, the mason Lian had agreed to accompany Genghis to Yenking. Lian seemed to regard the walls of the emperor’s city as a personal challenge to his skill, and he had come to Genghis to make the offer before he could be asked. His son had not beggared his business in his absence, and Genghis privately thought it was a matter of going on with the invading army or settling for a quiet retirement.
The great trek continued into Chin lands, the central mass of carts and gers moving slowly, but always surrounded by tens of thousands of horsemen looking for the slightest chance to earn the praise of their commanders. Genghis had allowed messengers to travel from Baotou to other cities on their route to the mountains west of Yenking, and the decision quickly bore fruit. The emperor had stripped the garrison from Hohhot, and without soldiers to bolster their nerve, the city surrendered without a single arrow being shot, then provided two thousand young men to be trained in the art of sieges and the pike. Chen Yi had shown the value of that with his own draft, choosing the best of his city to accompany the Mongols and learn the skills of battle. It was true that they had no horses, but Genghis gave them as infantry to Arslan and they accepted the new discipline without question.
Jining’s garrison had refused to obey the emperor’s order, and the gates remained closed. It had been burned to the ground after the black tent was raised on the third day. Three other cities had surrendered after that. Those men who were young and strong were taken as prisoners, driven like sheep. There were simply too many to use as soldiers without seeing the tribes outnumbered. Genghis did not want them, but he could not leave so many at his back. His people drove half their number again over the land, and every day, there were bodies in their wake. As the nights grew colder, the Chin prisoners huddled together and whispered, a constant susurration that was eerie in the darkness.
It had been one of the hottest summers any of them had ever known. The old men said a freezing winter would follow, and Genghis did not know whether he should move on the capital or leave the campaign for another year.
The mountains before Yenking were already visible and his scouts raced after mounted observers for the emperor whenever they appeared in the distance. Though their horses were swift, some of the Chin watchers were caught, and each one added detail to the picture Genghis was building.
On a morning where the ground had frozen in the night, he sat on a pile of wooden saddles and stared into the weak sun. It rose over the range of steep green crags that protected Yenking from him, shrouded in mist. Taller than the peaks between the Gobi and Xi Xia, they made even the mountains he remembered from home seemed less impressive. Yet the captured observers spoke of the pass known as the Badger’s Mouth and he felt he was being drawn to it. The emperor had gathered his strength there, gambling on a single massive force that dwarfed the army Genghis had brought to that place. Everything could end there and all his dreams would become ashes.
He chuckled to himself at the thought. Whatever the future held, he would meet it with his head raised and his sword drawn. He would struggle to the end, and if he fell against his enemies, it would have been a life well spent. Part of him felt a pang at the thought that his sons would not long survive his death, but he crushed the weakness. They would make their own lives as he had made his. If they were swept up in the wind of greater events, that would be their fate. He could not protect them from everything.
In the ger at his back, he heard one of Chakahai’s children squalling. He could not tell if it was the son or the daughter. He brightened at the thought of the little girl who, though barely walking, toddled over to press her head affectionately against his leg whenever she saw him. He had seen a terrible jealousy in Borte when she had witnessed the simple act, and he sighed at the memory. Conquering enemy ci
ties was far less complicated than the women in his life, or the children they bore for him.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his brother Kachiun approach, strolling along one of the camp paths in the morning sun.
“Have you escaped out here?” Kachiun called to him. Genghis nodded, patting a place next to him on the saddles. Kachiun joined him and handed Genghis one of two hot pouches of mutton and unleavened bread, thick with warm grease. Genghis took his gratefully. He could smell snow on the air and he longed for the cold months to come.
“Where is Khasar this morning?” Genghis asked, tearing off a piece of the bread with his fingers and chewing it.
“Out with Ho Sa and the Young Wolves, teaching them how to charge against groups of the prisoners. Have you seen it? He gives the prisoners pikes! We lost three young men yesterday against them.”
“I heard,” Genghis said. Khasar used only small groups of the prisoners to train. It surprised Genghis how few were willing to take part, even with the promise of a pike or a sword. Surely it was better to die like that than in listless apathy. He shrugged to himself at the thought. The young men of the tribes had to learn to fight, as they would once have done against their own people. Khasar knew what he was doing, Genghis was almost certain.
Kachiun was watching him in silence, a wry smile on his face.
“You never ask about Temuge,” he said.
Genghis grimaced. His youngest brother made him uneasy and Khasar seemed to have fallen out with him. In truth, he could not make himself care about Temuge’s latest enthusiasms. He surrounded himself with captured Chin scrolls, reading them even by lamplight in darkness.
“So why are you sitting here?” Kachiun asked to change the subject.
His brother snorted. “Do you see the men waiting nearby?”
“I noticed one of the Woyela sons, the eldest,” Kachiun admitted. His sharp eyes missed nothing.
“I have told them not to approach me until I stand. When I do, they will come with questions and demands, as they do every morning. They will make me decide which one of them has the right to a particular colt, as one owns the mare and one the stallion. Then they will want me to commission new armor from some metalworker who just happens to be a relative. There is no end to it.”
He groaned at the thought. “Perhaps you can delay them long enough for me to get away.”
Kachiun smiled at his brother’s predicament. “And I thought nothing could frighten you,” he said. “Appoint another to deal with them. You must be free to plan the war with your generals.”
Genghis nodded, reluctantly. “You have said it before, but who can I trust in such a position? At a single stroke, he would have as much power as any man in the tribes.” An answer occurred to both of them at the same time, but it was Kachiun who spoke.
“Temuge would be honored to take on the work. You know he would.”
Genghis did not reply and Kachiun went on as if he sensed no objection.
“He is less likely to steal from you than other men, or to abuse the position. Give him a title like ‘Master of Trade.’ He will be running the camp in a few days.” Seeing that his brother was unmoved, Kachiun chose another approach.
“It might also force him to spend less time with Kokchu.”
Genghis looked up at that, seeing the waiting men take a step forward in case he was about to rise. He thought back to the conversation with Chen Yi in Baotou. Part of him wanted to make every decision himself, but it was true that he had a war to win.
“Very well,” he said reluctantly. “Tell him the task is his for a year. I will send him three warriors who have been maimed in battle for the work. It will give them something to do and I want one of them to be your man, Kachiun, reporting only to you. Our brother will have many chances to skim the cream from whatever passes through his hands. A little will not hurt, but if he is greedy, I want to know.” He paused for a moment. “And make sure he understands that Kokchu is to have nothing to do with his new role.” He sighed then. “If he refuses, who else is there?”
“He will not refuse,” Kachiun said with certainty. “He is a man of ideas, brother. This role will give him the authority he wants to run the camp.”
“The Chin have judges to pass on the laws and decide disputes,” Genghis said, looking off into the distance. “I wonder if our people would ever accept such men among them?”
“If they were not from your own family?” Kachiun asked. “It would be a brave man who tried to settle blood feuds, no matter what title he was given. In fact, I will send another dozen guards to Temuge to keep him safe. Our people are not beyond showing their resentment with an arrow in the back. He is not their khan, after all.”
Genghis sneered. “No doubt he would have his dark spirits snatch it out of the air. Have you heard the stories growing around him? It’s worse than with Kokchu. I sometimes wonder if my shaman knows what he has created.”
“We are from a line of khans, brother. We rule wherever we are placed.”
Genghis clapped him on the back. “We will find out if the Chin emperor feels the same way. Perhaps he will have his army stand down when he sees us coming.”
“Will it be this year, then? In winter? I think it will snow before too long.”
“We cannot remain here, without better grazing. I must make the decision quickly, but I do not like the thought of leaving their army at this Badger’s Mouth without a challenge. We can stand cold that will leave them slow and useless.”
“But they will have fortified the pass, sown spikes on the ground, dug trenches, anything they can think of,” Kachiun said. “It will not be easy for us.”
Genghis turned his pale eyes on his brother, and Kachiun looked away at the mountains they would dare to cross.
“They are so arrogant, Kachiun. They made a mistake in letting me know where they are,” Genghis said. “They want us to ride against them where they are strongest, where they wait. Their wall did not stop me coming. Their mountains and their army will not.”
Kachiun smiled. He knew the way his brother thought. “I saw you have all the scouts in the foothills. That is strange if we are to risk it all on a strike through the pass.”
Genghis smiled wryly. “They think their mountains are too high to be climbed, Kachiun. Another of their walls runs across the range, and only the highest peaks are left as their own protection, too high for men.” He snorted. “For Chin soldiers, perhaps, but we are born in the snow. I remember my father turning me out of the ger naked when I was just eight years old. We can stand their winter and we can cross this inner wall.”
Kachiun too had wailed at the door of their father’s ger, calling to be let back in. It was an old custom that many believed would make children strong. Kachiun wondered if Genghis had done the same with his own boys, and even as he formed he thought, he knew he had. His brother would not allow weakness, though he could break his sons in the process of making them strong.
Genghis finished his meal, sucking hardening grease from his fingers. “The scouts will find trails around the pass. When the Chin are shivering in their tents, we will come at them from all sides. Only then, Kachiun, will I ride down the Badger’s Mouth, driving their own people before me.”
“The prisoners?” Kachiun asked.
“We cannot feed them,” Genghis replied. “They can still be useful if they soak up the arrows and bolts of our enemies.” He shrugged. “It will be faster for them than starving to death.”
At that, Genghis rose to his feet, glancing up at the heavy clouds that would turn the Chin plain into a wilderness of snow and ice. Winter was always a time of death, when only the strongest survived. He sighed as he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. The watching men had seen him rise and they hurried closer before he could change his mind. Genghis stared sourly at them.
“Tell them to go and see Temuge,” he said, striding away.
CHAPTER 20
THE TWO SCOUTS WERE STARVING. Even the porridge of cheese and
water in their packs had frozen as they climbed high above the pass of Badger’s Mouth. To the north and south, the second Chin wall ran across the mountains. It was less massive than the wall the tribes had crossed to enter Chin lands, though this one had not been allowed to crumble over the centuries. Preserved in ice, it wound its way through distant valleys, a gray snake in the whiteness. It might once have been a marvel to the Mongol scouts, though now they merely shrugged. The Chin armies had not sought to build their wall right to the peaks. They thought no one could survive the rocks and slopes of solid ice, so cold at that height that the blood would surely freeze. They were wrong. The scouts climbed past the level of the wall into a world of snow and ice, looking for a way over the mountains.
Fresh snow had come to the plains, whirling from storm clouds on the peaks that blinded them. There were moments when the gales punched a hole in the whiteness, revealing the pass and the spider legs of the inner wall stretching away. From that height, both men could see the dark smudge of the Chin army on the far side. Their own people were lost to sight on the plain, but they too were there, waiting for the scouts to return.
“There is no way through,” Taran shouted over the wind. “Perhaps Beriakh and the others had better luck. We should go back.” Taran could feel the ice in his bones, the crystals in every joint. He was certain he was close to dying, and it was hard not to show his fear. His companion, Vesak, merely grunted without looking at him. Both were part of a group of ten, one of many who had gone into the mountains to find a way to attack the rear of the Chin army. Though they had become separated from their companions in the night, Taran still trusted Vesak to smell out a route, but the cold was crippling him, too vicious to resist.
Vesak was an old man of more than thirty, while Taran had yet to see his fifteenth year. The other men in his group said Vesak knew the general of the Young Wolves, that he greeted Tsubodai like an old friend whenever they met. It could have been true. Like Tsubodai, Vesak was of the Uriankhai tribe far in the north and he did not seem to feel the cold. Taran clambered down an icy slope, almost falling. He caught himself by hammering his knife into a fissure, his hand nearly slipping from the hilt as he jerked to a stop. He felt Vesak’s hand on his shoulder, then the older man was trotting again and Taran staggered on, trying to match his pace.
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