by Various
Toregene worked her way down, and Ögedei felt his muscles loosen. He was tight, but it wasn’t that half-remembered tightness, that lower back tension that came from being in the saddle overlong. “Tonight,” he sighed, “I have to go to dinner and eat over-spiced foreign food with golden chopsticks. I have to pretend to be interested in talking to overstuffed diplomats. That’s all I am now. A man who sits on benches and chairs, who eats and talks. That is all I do.”
“Somebody has to be Khan,” said Toregene. “You’ve done a better job of ruling the empire than even your father.”
Ögedei scowled. “The empire rules itself. They just need someone to grovel to.” After a beat he added, “And no one compares to my father.”
He felt Jachin shift to his other side, and her elbow descended into the softer flesh below his shoulder. “Before you were Khan this was all empty grassland,” she reminded him. “Because of you, there is a palace now. The grandest palace the world has ever known.”
“It would’ve been better off staying grassland. A palace for the Chinese is a prison for Mongols.” He flexed his shoulders, shooing his wives off him, and sat up. Their hands were deft, but their words were not helping him relax. He looked at Jachin, and then Toregene, making sure they were paying attention to him. “Would it not be simpler if we rode off together? We could leave all of this to someone else, and go live in a ger on the edge of a river like we used to. We could live off the land again. Eat what I kill.”
His wives said nothing, but they curled up close to him, running their hands through his hair. He clasped his hands on their shoulders, feeling their warm skin. “I think when I die the empire will die with me,” he mused. “I have no worthy heirs. Kadan is too enamored with foreign religions. Khashi is more interested in chasing pretty women than fighting. Onghwe…” He shook his head. “Onghwe is worst of all.”
“What about Guyuk?” asked Toregene. “He will be a worthy Khan.”
“Guyuk is too quick to anger. Remember what he did in Rus.”
“Batu is an arrogant fool,” said Toregene. “Guyuk was—”
“Wars aren’t won by being cruel to your own men.” Ögedei cut her off. “Guyuk is too temperamental. He does not understand how to rule. And his cousins… they would be like wolves in the dead of winter: they would look upon Guyuk as the weakest member of the pack.”
“They wouldn’t dare!” Toregene’s eyes flashed.
“They would,” Ögedei sighed. “And perhaps…” His shoulders sagged and his hands pressed down more firmly on his wives’ shoulders.
“What is it?” Jachin asked. “It isn’t the dream of the steppe that haunts you, is it?”
Ögedei shook his head. “An emissary from Chagatai came today, bearing a message.”
“What message?”
“He sent some stripling to keep an eye on my drinking.”
The women were quiet for a moment, and when one of them spoke, her voice was almost too quiet to be heard. “There might be some benefit to such a man,” Jachin said.
Ögedei whirled on her, and she met his gaze for an instant. She dropped her chin, but the damage was done. Ögedei had seen the sharp glitter of her eyes.
“I am Khagan,” he roared. The headache pulsed in his head, returning with furious hammering. “I will do as I please. When I please. How I please. No one—not my brother, not you, and certainly not some dust-covered, boodog-eating horse archer—will tell me what I may and may not do.”
Toregene leaned against him, her weight holding his arm down. Had he raised it to strike Jachin? He had no memory of trying. There was nothing in his head but the pounding reminder of how long it had been since he had had a drink, and that sensation only proved Jachin’s point. He pulled away from Toregene, dismissing Jachin with a wave of his hand. “You can’t expect a man not to drink from time to time. My father drank. His father drank. Drinking is the only freedom I still have.”
Toregene put her hands on his shoulders. Her braids brushed against his back as she rested her head against his. “Your brother’s not trying to insult you, Ögedei. He just cares about you.”
“Does he?” Ögedei stared at the flickering light of the lantern hanging on the wall. “If he really cares about me, then why doesn’t he come here himself?”
• • •
Ögedei could not see the sky for all the dust in the air. Men and horses—and the wind, even—had stirred up the dry ground of the Khalakhaljid Sands. The Kereyid army was endless; every time a break appeared in the clouds of dust, it was only to unleash more riders upon Genghis Khan’s beleaguered army.
His mouth filled with the taste of dirt and blood, Ögedei whipped the reins of his horse and drove it on through the sands. All around him, he heard the cacophony of battle: men shouting, the clanging of swords, the shrill screams of horses dying. He could not tell if his father’s armies were winning or losing. Ögedei’s world was reduced to a red cloud, filled with ghosts.
He beat his heels against the ribs of his horse, trying to keep the animal under control, but it sensed his fear and refused to mind him. Starting at every clang of steel around it, the horse kept shying first one direction and then another.
He had seen seventeen winters; he did not think he would see another.
The dust swirled in front of him, billowing out from the shape of a charging horse and rider. There was something wrong with his head, and as he emerged from the cloud, Ögedei glimpsed the warrior’s helmet more fully and realized the approaching rider was not from Genghis’ army. The Kereyid, the long feather on his helm broken and bent, flicked his spear down and drove its point into his horse’s flank.
Ögedei felt the shock of the thrust in his legs, and his horse reared, lurching to the right. The reins jerked from Ögedei’s grasp, and as he tumbled toward the ground, he caught a glimpse of the sky through the dust. Blue sky.
The fall knocked the wind from his lungs and made his ears ring. He tried to spit out the dust in his throat, but nothing came out when he retched. His sword was gone, and he tried to remember when it had fallen from his grip. When his horse had thrown him, or when he had hit the ground? The dust had swallowed it up.
The ground shook. A horse. His ears were still echoing with the shock of his fall, and everything was muffled. But he could feel the horse coming at him, and he rolled to the side as the Kereyid thundered past. The tip of the man’s sword caught the edge of his helmet, ringing from one of the metal studs in the leather. His head was yanked back and his helmet flew off, eagerly devoured by the dust.
The Kereyid pulled his horse to a stop, wheeling it around again, and as it trotted toward Ögedei, he slipped off its back in a fluid motion. Sword raised, he charged Ögedei.
Scrambling for the dagger in his belt, Ögedei pushed himself off the ground. The wind gusted between them, and the Kereyid’s blow came slowly, as if all the particulate in the air was causing resistance against the blade.
Ögedei crouched under the strike, and thrust up into the Kereyid’s belly. His dagger hit the edge of the warrior’s breastplate, skipped down, and then slid into flesh. Ögedei pulled the blade along the edge of the hard breastplate and blood splashed over his hands. The Kereyid howled, and Ögedei shoved him down. He was still holding his sword, and Ögedei kicked it from his hands and then stomped on the man’s face. The Kereyid continued to yell, and Ögedei kept kicking until his boots were covered in red mud.
His horse was still alive. It lay on its side, kicking and convulsing around the Kereyid’s spear. Ögedei coughed and spat up sand. His legs trembled as he bent and picked up the Kereyid’s sword. It was heavier than his, and the cross-guard wider and thicker than he was used to. It will do. He squeezed the hilt tightly as he staggered toward his dying horse.
It had been a good steed, sure-footed and responsive to his guidance. It had carried his uncle for several months before Jochi gave it to him. There was blood smeared on the horse’s nose and its eyes were wide and frenzied. Incredibly, it
was trying to stand as Ögedei approached, but its front right leg failed to hold its weight.
“Run,” Ögedei croaked. “Run to the Eternal Blue Sky.” His stroke was clumsy, but the blade was sharp enough. The horse’s back legs kicked twice as it died, and Ögedei ground the heel of his hand against his face, fighting the sting of sand and salt in his eyes.
An arrow landed in the side of the dead horse, and Ögedei looked at it dumbly. It was a short Mongol arrow, but the fletching was unfamiliar. A Kereyid arrow. He was still on the battlefield. He couldn’t stay here; he had to find his way out of the sand cloud. He didn’t know whether to advance or fall back, wouldn’t even know where to advance or fall back to. Perhaps he would never see the sky again. He was being buried underground. He wrapped his scarf over his face to keep out the dust, still tasting grit on his tongue.
Something bumped into him, and he fell back against the corpse of his pony. Wildly, he looked around, trying to spot a shadow or a shape in the dust. Who was there? Horses charged past on his right. Their hooves pounded against the sand, kicking up swirling clouds of dust. He brought up a hand to shield his face and pain lanced his neck and shoulder. Glancing down, he saw the bloody tip of an arrow protruding from beneath his chin.
His scarf was tangled in the arrow, and he couldn’t reach over his shoulder to pull it out. His fingers brushed the shaft, and pain shot through his neck. Screaming, he fell to his knees.
There was blood inside his armor. His scarf was turning red, and what wasn’t absorbed by the cloth was running down his chest. His hands were red too, and he realized he was kneeling in the bloody mud of his horse. He shivered, suddenly cold.
The dead Kereyid, though he didn’t have much of a face left, seemed to be laughing at him. Ögedei tried to steady himself on his horse. So warm, he thought and the tears started again. He didn’t try to hide them this time. He let them run. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, though there was no one there to hear him.
The Kereyid kept laughing. Ögedei could hear his voice—a roaring, rippling sound in his head, like a flash flood in the spring as it filled the dry riverbed. It wasn’t just the Kereyid, it was the dead on the battlefield. All of the spirits were laughing at him now.
Dark spots swam in his vision. He dug his fingers into the short hair of the horse, and tried to remember what it was like to ride.
So much blood, he thought as he toppled over.
• • •
He was having trouble breathing. His mouth was clogged with sticky mud, and bristly hairs tickled at his nose. Sit up. His body seemed so far away. Ögedei tried to move his arms and felt nothing. I’ll try again soon, he thought. Maybe when the sun comes out. Until then he would lie still and listen to the faint rhythm of his heartbeat.
A muffled noise interrupted his reverie, and he realized it was coming from his throat. The sun had come out, and its light was burning a hole in his neck. The pain burned straight through to his throat, and his scream was escaping through the ragged hole.
Above him, there was nothing but blue sky. No dust, no clouds, only the endless expanse of the sun-lit heavens. But for the intense pain in his neck, he would have thought he had gone into the next world. It shouldn’t hurt, he thought, not anymore.
It did, though, and the pain kept digging deeper into his belly. He kept trying to spit it out, but nothing came out of his mouth. Everything seemed to be coming out his neck in crimson gouts.
A shadow passed between him and the sky, a dust-covered cloud. Its surface arranged itself as he focused on it: red-rimmed eyes, a mustache flecked with dirt and blood, lips cracked and dry. The lips were moving far above him, but he could still only hear the sound of his own scream leaking through the hole in his neck. The face dipped down and the smell of sweat and oil from the man’s hair filled Ögedei’s nostrils. Underneath the stink of battle, he recognized the man’s scent. When the face raised itself up again and spat out a mouthful of black blood, a name came to Ögedei.
Boroghul. One of the orphans adopted by his grandmother. The tall one with the face like red stone. Family, yet not-family. Not-blood, and yet—Ögedei watched Boroghul spit out another mouthful of his blood—a blood-brother.
The sky grew dark, and Ögedei found the strength to move his hands. He grabbed on to the cloth and leather of Boroghul’s armor and held on. Stars came out, tiny eyes winking at him like animals hidden in the tall steppe grasses, and eventually he could hear the wind again. Stay with me, Ögedei, it said. Or maybe it was Boroghul, whispering in his ear.
It didn’t matter. He had been found.
CHAPTER 3: The Ghost of Rus
IT WAS GOOD that she did not have time to make herself comfortable in the chapterhouse, or else going back out into the Great Khan’s Empire would have been unendurable.
She rode now, since it was impossible to move stealthily in such a large group. Finn, when he spoke at all, favored a guttural lowland tongue she could barely understand and had poor Latin. Still, he seemed to know the ground better than she, or perhaps he just sensed things more acutely. So she and Finn scouted ahead and signaled Haakon and Raphael when it was safe to move forward, and in that manner, they made good time until twilight and for half of the following day. After that, the forest grew so dense that the horses became more trouble than they were worth. They left them in the care of a local woodcutter whom they found by following the sound of his axe.
The woodcutter claimed to know nothing of Mongols, and cared little more.
Raphael said it was a toss of the coin as to whether the horses would still be there when they got back, but this was better than simply letting them go. They camped in a ravine that night, risking a fire as the smoke and firelight would be lost in the ever-present fog.
Before midday on the next day, they came in view of the village of Czeszow, and Cnán was then able to use it as a guidestar by which to find the hovel where Illarion had been surviving for the last fortnight. Raphael and Haakon caught up with them, and Finn showed with a smile and a gesture that he thought her tracking skills were impressive.
The hovel lay on the edge of a leveled estate. Houses and huts had been burned, livestock slaughtered and butchered where they lay, fields torched. Bones and half-rotted corpses lay in heaps. None of the corpses had two ears.
“Local nobility,” Finn opined, pinching his nose. “Dead, not so noble.”
Haakon had clearly never seen such devastation. His throat bobbed, and his face turned sickly green. His eyes wandered as if he sought a place to throw up. Cnán wondered that the others put up with him at all, he was so poor in life experience.
“Get used to it. Such is the way of Mongols,” she said.
“Of men in general,” Raphael said. “In Jerusalem they—”
“These are worse,” Cnán said.
A sudden light breeze from the east carried an especially penetrating stench, one so strong that even Raphael gagged and drew up his scarf. He offered perfume to the others for their cloths, but Cnán, who wore none, noted that none other took it—not even Haakon, whose snotrag was a filthy wonder.
“The town?” Finn said softly, turning west, as if that might help.
Cnán nodded.
They pushed through the half-hanging door into the hovel. In the gloom, a man coughed and a knife blade tossed a dismal gleam.
“Who is it?” came a harsh, low voice.
“Friends, brought here by your messenger,” Finn said.
“The other girl,” the man husked. His skin was bright and slick with sweat. He tried to get up, but the effort was poor, and his legs failed him. Raphael went to his side… carefully. He was feverish and might strike at phantoms.
“We’re relieved you’re among the living,” Raphael said. “Feronantus cherishes you and sends greetings.”
“Feronantus,” the man said through another racking cough. “Master and monster, where was he, they bound her hands, they bound her feet, she cried and died… a hand’s breadth from my face. This far,
no farther.” He twisted his hand, dark with old blood. Raphael gripped the hand and lowered it. Then he gently took hold of Illarion’s jaw and turned his head.
“Let me see that ear,” he murmured
“Gone,” Illarion said, his tongue heavy. He flinched in pain with each movement of his jaw, but the words forced themselves out. “I’m sure the bastard took it with him. Let’s all go to hell and find it, soak it in wine, sew it back on. Illarion of the purple ear. I’ll trade that Mongol lackey my ear for his guts. They smear my leggings even now.”
Raphael withdrew ointment and simples from his pouch. He looked up as a shadow darkened the single room.
A slight blonde girl in a frayed robe tied with a sash stood in the doorway. She did not flinch or cry out when she saw the big men. Hanging from her sash was a cloth bag filled with leaves. Green juice leaked from one corner of her lips. She had been chewing leaves when she came in the door—no doubt for a poultice.
“Brave lass,” Raphael said, rising from his knee. “Where be you from, and who protects you?”
The girl remained mute, eyes distant. She focused with an effort on Illarion and smiled. Her smile was simple, her face untouched by any other emotion.
Cnán was about to explain the arrangement—that the girl was hired to fetch herbs and tend Illarion, for food and jade—when another, older boy, old as Haakon but as dark as she, appeared in the door and gently pushed the girl aside. He faced into the hut with dagger drawn, saw Cnán, and hesitated.
She took advantage of that moment. “We mean you no harm,” she said in Tocharian.
The boy considered her words, and then indicated the others with a thrust of his chin. “Are they taking him?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Good. He’s mad and makes noises in the night. There are still gleaners and ghouls out there. They will find him eventually. They’ll find us all if we stay.”
“You shouldn’t stay, then,” Cnán said.
The boy shrugged. “God protects,” he said. “We’ve survived this long.”