Great bonfires had been built of the pike poles and flags, leaving only food and the dead. The families had come slowly through the pass behind the warriors, bringing carts and forges to melt down the pike heads for their steel. The Chin supplies were dragged into snowbanks where they would remain fresh. There was no tally of the Chin corpses, nor need for one. No one who saw the mountains of broken flesh would ever forget it. The children and women helped to strip the bodies of their armor and anything else of value. The stench was awful after only a day, and the air was rich with flies that crackled and burned in the swirling smoke of the bonfires.
On the edge of it, Genghis waited for his generals. He wanted to see the city that had sent such an army against him. Kachiun and Khasar rode out to join him, staring back in awe across the field of blood and fire that stretched into the distance. The bonfires threw flickering shadows on the mountains of the valley, and even the tribes were subdued as they sang in low voices for the dead.
The three brothers waited in silence as the men Genghis had summoned trotted up, their backs stiff. Tsubodai came first, pale and proud with ugly black stitches running the length of his left arm. Jelme and Arslan rode together, dark against the fires. Ho Sa and Lian the mason came last of all. Only Temuge remained behind to move the camp to a river ten miles north. The flames would burn for days yet, even without the tribes to feed them. The flies were getting worse and Temuge was sickened by the constant buzzing and the rotting dead.
Genghis could hardly drag his gaze away from the plain. It was the death of an empire he was seeing, he was certain of it. He had never come so close to defeat and destruction as in the battle through the pass. It had left its mark on him and he knew he would always be able to close his eyes and summon the memories. Eight thousand of his own men had been wrapped in white cloth and taken up to the mountains. He glanced up to where they lay like fingers of bone in the snow, far away. Already, hawks and wolves tore at their flesh. He had stayed only to see them sky buried, to honor them and give their families honor.
“Temuge has the camp,” he told his generals. “Let us see this Yenking and this emperor.” He dug in his heels and his horse jerked into a run. The others followed him, as they always had.
Built on a great plain, Yenking was by far the largest construction any of them had ever seen. As it grew before him, Genghis recalled the words of Wen Chao, the Chin diplomat he had met years before. He had said that men could build cities like mountains. Yenking was such a place.
It rose in dark gray stone that was at least fifty feet from bedrock to the crest. Genghis sent Lian and Ho Sa around the city to count the wooden towers that rose even further. When they returned, they had traveled more than five miles around and reported almost a thousand towers, like thorns along the walls. Even worse were the descriptions of huge bow weapons on the battlements, manned by silent, watching soldiers.
Genghis studied Lian for some sign that the mason was not intimidated, but the man visibly drooped in the saddle. Like the Mongols, he had never visited the capital and could not think of a way to break walls of that size.
On the corners of the immense rectangle, four forts stood apart from the main walls. A wide moat ran between the forts and the walls and yet another girdled them on the outside. A huge canal was the only breach in the walls themselves, running through an immense water gate of iron that was in turn protected by platforms for archers and catapults. The waterway stretched into the south, as far as any of them could see. Everything about Yenking was on a scale too great for the imagination. Genghis could not begin to think of a way to force the gates.
At first Genghis and his generals kept as close as they had to Yinchuan, or some of the other Chin cities to the west. Then a hammer blow sounded on the evening air and a dark blur shot past them, staggering Kachiun’s horse with the power of its wake. Genghis almost lost his seat as his own mount reared and could only gaze in amazement at a shaft half-sunk in the soft ground, more like a smooth tree trunk than an arrow.
Without a word, his generals retreated past the range of the fearsome weapon, their spirits sinking even lower as they understood another part of the defenses. To come closer than five hundred paces was to invite more of the great poles with their iron tips. Just the thought of one of them striking a mass of his riders was appalling.
Genghis turned in the saddle to the man who had broken lesser walls.
“Can we take this place, Lian?” he demanded. The mason would not meet his stare and looked over the city. At last he shook his head.
“No other city has a wall so wide at the top,” he said. “From that height, they will always have more range than anything I can make. If we built stone ramparts, I might be able to protect the counterweighted catapults, but if I can reach them, they can certainly reach me to smash them to firewood.”
Genghis glared in frustration at Yenking. To have come so far and yet be baulked at the final obstacle was infuriating. Only the day before, he had been congratulating Khasar on taking the fort in the pass and Kachiun for his inspired charge. He had believed then that his people were unstoppable, that conquest would always come easily. His army certainly believed it. They whispered that the world was his to take. Facing Yenking, he could almost feel the emperor’s scorn at such ambition.
Genghis kept the cold face as he turned to his brothers.
“The families will find good land here for grazing. There will be time to plan an attack on this place.”
Khasar and Kachiun nodded uncertainly. They too could see that the great sweeping conquest had halted at the foot of Yenking. Like Genghis himself, they had become used to the fast and exciting pace of taking cities. The carts of their people were now so laden with gold and wealth that they broke axles on any long trip.
“How long will it take to starve such a city?” Genghis demanded suddenly.
Lian had no better idea than any of them, but did not want to admit his ignorance. “I have heard more than a million of the emperor’s subjects live in Yenking. To feed so many is difficult to imagine, but they will have vast granaries and stores. They have known we were coming for months, after all.” He saw Genghis frown and hurried on. “It could be as long as three years, even four, lord.”
Khasar groaned aloud at the estimate, but the youngest of them, Tsubodai, brightened.
“They have no army left to break a siege, lord. You will not need to keep us all here. If we cannot bring the walls down, perhaps you will allow us to raid in this new land. As things stand, we don’t even have maps beyond Yenking.”
Genghis glanced at his general, seeing the hunger in his eyes. He felt his own mood lift.
“That is true. If I have to wait until this emperor is skin and bone before he submits, at least my generals will not be idle.” He swept an arm across the landscape that blurred into distance too great for any of them to imagine.
“When the families are settled, come to me with a direction and it will be yours. We will not waste the time here and grow fat and sleepy.”
Tsubodai grinned, his enthusiasm kindling that of the others to replace the dark mood of moments earlier.
“Your will, my lord,” he replied.
In shining, black-lacquered armor, General Zhi Zhong paced angrily as he waited for the emperor’s ministers to join him in the coronation hall. The morning was peaceful and he could hear the creaking squawks of magpies outside. No doubt the omen takers would read something into the quarrelsome birds, if they saw them.
The funeral of Emperor Wei had taken almost ten days, with half the city tearing their clothes and rubbing ash into their skin before the body was cremated. Zhi Zhong had suffered through endless orations by the noble families. Not one of them had mentioned the manner of the emperor’s death, not with Zhi Zhong glowering at them and his guards standing with their hands on their sword hilts. He had taken the head from the Imperial rose, nipping it off with a single blow so that everything else remained.
The first few days had been c
haotic, but after three ministers had been executed for speaking out, any further resistance collapsed and the great funeral went ahead just as if the young emperor had died in his sleep.
It had been useful to find that the governing nobles had made a plan for the event long before it was needed. The Chin empire had survived upheaval and even regicide before. After the initial spasm of outrage, they had fallen into the routines almost with relief. The peasants in the city knew nothing except that the Son of Heaven had left his mortal flesh. They wailed ignorantly in the streets of the city, mindless in hysteria and grief.
The emperor’s young son had not wept when he heard of his father’s demise. In that, at least, Emperor Wei had prepared his family well. The boy’s mother had enough sense to know that any protest would mean her own death, so she had remained silent through the funeral, pale and beautiful as she watched her husband’s body burned to ash. As the funeral pyre collapsed with a cough of flame, Zhi Zhong thought he had felt her gaze on him, but when he looked up, she had her head bowed in supplication to the will of the gods. His will, he thought, though the result was much the same.
The general ground his teeth in irritation as he paced. First the funeral had taken longer than he would have believed possible, and then he had been told the coronation would take another five days. It was infuriating. The city mourned and none of the peasants actually worked while great events played themselves out. He had borne the endless fittings for new robes to mark his position as regent. He had even remained still while the ministers lectured him nervously on his new responsibilities. All the while, the Mongol khan prowled like a wolf at the door, watching the city.
In his free hours, Zhi Zhong had climbed the steps to a dozen places on the wall to watch the filthy tribes settle themselves on Imperial land. He thought sometimes that he could smell their rancid mutton and goats’ milk on the breeze. It was galling to have been beaten by sheepherders, but they would not take Yenking. The emperors who had built the city had intended it to demonstrate their power. It would not fall easily, Zhi Zhong told himself.
He still woke at night from nightmares of being chased, the humming of arrow shafts like mosquitoes whining in his ears. What else could he have done? No one thought the Mongols could climb the highest peaks to flank him. Zhi Zhong felt no more shame at the defeat. The gods had been against him and yet they had given the city into his hands as regent. He would watch the Mongols shatter their army against the walls, and when they were bloody, he would take the head of their khan in his hands and bury it in the deepest shit hole in the city.
The thought lightened his mood as he waited for the boy emperor to make his appearance. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear gongs booming, announcing the presence of a new Son of Heaven to the people.
The doors to the coronation chamber opened to reveal the sweating face of Ruin Chu, the first minister.
“My lord regent!” he said on seeing Zhi Zhong. “You are not wearing your robes! His Imperial Majesty will be here at any moment.” He seemed about to collapse, after days of organizing the funeral and the coronation. Zhi Zhong found the fat little man irritating and took pleasure from the impact his words would have.
“I have left them in my rooms, Minister. I will not need them today.”
“Every moment of the ceremony has been planned, lord regent. You must—”
“Do not tell me ‘must,’ ” Zhi Zhong snapped. “Get the boy in here and place a crown on him. Chant, sing, light tapers of incense, whatever you want, but say one more word to me about what I must do and I will have your head.”
The minister gaped at him, then lowered his eyes, shuddering visibly. He knew that the man he faced had murdered the emperor. The general was a brutal traitor and Ruin Chu did not doubt he would even shed blood on the day of a coronation. He bowed as he walked backwards, opening the doors. Zhi Zhong heard the slow pace of the procession and waited in silence as the minister reached it. He chuckled as he heard the pace increase.
When the doors opened again, there was a definite look of fear in the entourage around the six-year-old boy who would become emperor. Zhi Zhong saw he was bearing up well, despite having little sleep over the previous days.
The procession slowed again as it passed Zhi Zhong, heading toward the golden throne. Buddhist monks waved censers, filling the air with white smoke. They too were nervous to find the general in his armor, the only man with a sword in the room. He stalked behind them as Emperor Wei’s son took his place on the throne. It was only the beginning of the final stage. Reciting the titles alone would take until noon.
Zhi Zhong watched sourly as the ministers settled themselves comfortably, sitting like peacocks around the center of the ceremony. The incense made him drowsy and he could not help but think of the Mongols on the plain outside the city. At first, he had seen the need for the rituals, a way of keeping order after he had killed the emperor. The city could have erupted without a strong hand to rule it, and it had been necessary to allow the nobles the comfort of their traditions. Now he was tired of it. The city was calm in its grief and the Mongols had begun building great trebuchets, raising walls of stone to protect the weapons.
With an exclamation of impatience, Zhi Zhong strode forward, interrupting the droning voice of a priest. The little boy froze as he looked up at the dark-armored figure. Zhi Zhong took the Imperial crown from where it lay on a gold silk cushion. It was surprisingly heavy, and for an instant, he was touched with awe at the thought of handling it. He had killed the man who wore it last.
He placed it firmly on the new emperor’s head.
“Xuan, you are emperor, the Son of Heaven,” he said. “May you rule wisely.” He ignored the shock in the faces of the men around him. “I am your regent, your right hand. Until you are twenty years of age, you will obey me in everything, without question. Do you understand?”
The little boy’s eyes filled with tears. He could hardly comprehend what was happening, but he stammered a response.
“I . . . I understand.”
“Then it is done. Let the people rejoice. I am going to the wall.”
Zhi Zhong left the stupefied ministers behind with their charge as he flung open the doors and strode out of the palace. It had been built high on the edge of Songhai lake, which fed the great canal, and the view at the top of the steps allowed him to look out on the city as the subjects waited for news. Every bell would sound and the peasants would be drunk for days. He took a deep, shuddering breath as he stood there, looking out at the dark walls. Beyond those, his enemies looked for a weakness. They would not get in.
Temuge sat staring dreamily at three men who had once been khans amongst the people. He could see their arrogance in every action, their disdain for him held barely in check. When would they understand they had no power in the new order his brother had created? There was only one gurkhan, one man superior to them all. His own brother sat before them, yet they dared to speak to Temuge as if they were his equal.
As the tribes erected their gers on the plain in front of Yenking, it had pleased Temuge to keep the men waiting on his pleasure. Genghis had shown his trust in him with the title of “Master of Trade,” though Temuge himself had defined the role against surly opposition. He delighted in the power he exercised and still smiled when he thought of how long he had kept Kokchu waiting to see him the previous day. The shaman had been pale with fury by the time Temuge finally allowed him into the khan’s ger. In allowing him to use it for his work, Genghis showed his approval, a gesture not wasted on the supplicants. There was no point appealing to Genghis if they disliked a ruling made in his name. Temuge had made sure they understood. If Kokchu wanted to gather men to explore an ancient temple a hundred miles away, the request had to be granted and the spoils looked over by Temuge himself.
Temuge laced his hands in front of him, barely listening to the men who had been khans. The father of the Woyela was supported by two of his sons, unable to stand on his own. It would have been a courtesy
to offer him a chair, but Temuge was not one to let old wounds be forgotten. They stood and droned on about grazing and timber, while he looked into the distance.
“If you will not allow the herds to move to new grazing without one of your little tokens,” the Woyela was saying, “we will be slaughtering healthy animals as they starve.” He had increased in bulk since Genghis had cut the tendons in his legs. Temuge enjoyed seeing the man grow red in the face with anger and only glanced lazily at him without a reply. Not one of them could read or write, he reminded himself with satisfaction. The tokens had been a fine idea, carrying the symbol of a wolf burned into the squares of pine wood. He had men in the camp who would demand to see such a token if they saw warriors cutting trees, or bartering looted wealth, or any one of a thousand things. The system was not yet perfect, but Genghis had supported him in sending back the ones who complained, their faces pale with fear.
When the men had finished their tirade, Temuge spoke to them as gently as if they discussed the weather. He had found the soft tone served to heighten their anger and it amused him to prick them in that way.
“In all our history, we have never gathered so many in one place,” he said, shaking his head in gentle reproof. “We must be organized if we are to thrive. If I let trees be cut as they are needed, there will be none left for next winter. Do you understand? As I have it now, we take timber only from woodland that is more than three days’ ride away, dragging it back. It takes time and effort, but you will see the benefit next year.”
As much as his soft speech galled them, the delicious part was that they could not fault his logic. They were men of the bow and sword and he had found he could think circles around them now that they were forced to listen.
“The grazing, though?” the crippled Woyela khan demanded. “We cannot move a goat without one of your maimed men demanding a token to show your approval. The tribes are growing restless under a controlling hand they have never known.”
The Khan Series 5-Book Bundle Page 74