‘He would be proud of you, I think,’ Kublai said.
Uriang-Khadai chuckled in the darkness.
‘And Genghis would be proud of you, my lord. Now let us leave shadows to the night. We must find a river for the horses and I will fall out of the saddle if I don’t rest soon.’
Kublai laughed, yawning again at the very idea of sleep.
‘Your will, orlok. We will make our fathers and grandfathers proud, you and I.’
‘Or join them,’ Uriang-Khadai replied.
‘Yes, or join them, one or the other.’ Kublai paused for a moment, rubbing grit from his eyes. ‘Arik-Boke will not stop now, not with us heading for the capital. He will push his men to complete exhaustion behind us.’
‘You wanted him to be desperate, with everything he has focused on the city. If Bayar does not come …’
‘He will come, orlok.’
The three days that followed were some of the strangest Kublai had ever known. He had been right about Arik-Boke pushing the tumans to their limits. On the second day, the armies passed four yam stations and knew they had covered a hundred miles between dawn and dusk. Scouts milled at the edges of each force, sometimes coming to blows, or drifting into range of arrows so that they were plucked from their mounts and sent sprawling to a great cheer from the nearest warriors. At sunset on the third day, the two armies were barely ten miles apart and neither could close or widen that gap. Kublai had lost count of the changes of mount as he and Uriang-Khadai did their best to keep their animals fresh, but there was never enough time to graze and they had to leave hundreds of horses when their wind broke or they went lame. All the time, he felt his brother’s breath on his neck and he could only crane into the distance, looking for Karakorum.
Sunset was hardest on the men. Kublai could not call a halt until he was absolutely certain his brother was done for the day. With the armies in such close range, he dared not rest where Arik-Boke could spring a sudden attack. His own scouts relayed the positions back to him in chains, over and over, until finally they brought the welcome news that their pursuers had stopped. Even then, Kublai insisted on going on, forcing each precious mile in sweat and stamina. His men slept like the dead under the stars and had to be kicked awake by the changing guards through the night. Men cried out in troubled sleep, worn down by the constant threat of being pursued. It sat badly with natural hunters to be hunted, while those behind grew in confidence like a wolf pack, knowing they would run them down eventually.
Kublai had welcome news from his scouts long before the tumans under his command, but he did not pass it on, knowing they would enjoy the sight of carts laden with weapons coming from Karakorum. They were guided in to his spartan camp as the sun died over the mountains on the third day, greeted with whoops and shouting from his men. One climbed each cart and began throwing full quivers and lances to outstretched hands, laughing at the thought that the city had given them such a gift in error. The men driving the carts were left untouched and they knew better than to protest as they were shouldered aside and sent back to the city. Karakorum lay barely forty miles away and Kublai knew he would reach it by noon the following day. He wished he had thought to ask for fresh skins of airag to go with the arrows and lances, but it was enough to see the glee on his men’s faces for what they had won with trickery.
Kublai felt a great tension ease in him as he settled down for sleep that night, taking a moment to thump the grass beneath him when a lump dug into his hip. His men would fight with Karakorum in sight. They would battle an enemy just as weary as they were and they would give a good account of themselves, he was certain. Even so, he feared for them all.
Twelve men fighting ten was a rough match. The two extra tumans his brother could still field were a different proposition. Twenty thousand men would be able to pour shafts into his flanks, or hammer his men in charges while they were locked in battle. Against the Sung, he would have laughed at the numbers. Facing his own people, he struggled with despair. He had done everything he could and he thought again of the last bone he had to throw when Karakorum came into view. Somewhere out beyond the hills, Bayar had to be closing on the city. His three tumans would surely be enough to turn the battle.
He was still thinking it through when sleep took him in a black wave. Kublai knew nothing else until his son was shaking him by the shoulder and pressing a package of cold meat and hard bread into his hand. It was not yet dawn, but the scouts were blowing horns to signal that Arik-Boke’s camp was getting ready to move.
Kublai sat up, cutting off a yawn as he realised it was the last day. No matter what happened, he would see an end before the rising sun fell behind the mountains. It was a strange thought, after so long.
His sleepiness vanished and he stumbled to his feet, taking a bite and wincing as it caught on a loose tooth. Karakorum had tooth-pullers, he recalled, wincing. His bladder was full and he put the bread in his mouth as he pulled back his deel robe and urinated on the ground, grunting in satisfaction.
‘Stay safe today,’ he said to Zhenjin, who merely grinned.
The young man had grown thin in the days of fighting or riding, his skin darker than Kublai remembered. He too was chewing on the thick bread, hard as stone and about as appetising. The thick mutton grease was a gritty paste in his mouth and Kublai almost choked as Zhenjin handed him a small skin of water and he gulped from it.
‘I mean it. If the battle goes badly, do not come for me. Ride away. I would rather see you run and live than stay and die. Is that understood?’
Zhenjin gave him his best look of sulky scorn, but he nodded. Scout horns sounded again and his rough camp jerked into faster motion as men mounted and checked their weapons for the last time. Arik-Boke’s tumans were moving.
‘Quickly now. Get back to your jagun,’ Kublai said gruffly.
To his surprise, Zhenjin embraced him, a brief, fierce grip before he was sprinting back to his horse.
They rode hard through the long morning, covering miles at a smooth canter or trot while the scouts kept their eyes on Arik-Boke’s forces and reported back constantly. Forty miles would have been nothing to fresh horses and men, but after days in the saddle, they were all stiff and weary. In his mind’s eye, Kublai imagined them bleeding broken horses by the mile, turning the animals loose as they limped or collapsed. The sturdy little ponies were bred to endure and they went on, just as the men who rode them went on, ignoring the aches in their backs and legs.
It was a surreal moment for Kublai when he began to recognise the hills around Karakorum. The grey-green slopes shouted to his memories. He had grown up in the city and he knew the lands around it as well as anywhere in the world. His breath caught in surprise at the power of it, when he knew they had come home. In all his planning and manoeuvres, he hadn’t taken into account the strength of that small thing. He was home. The city his uncle had built lay but a few miles further on and it was time to turn and face his brother, to test the men he had taught and learned from over thousands of miles of Sung lands. He felt tears prickle his eyes and laughed at himself.
Karakorum had originally been built with a boundary about the height of a man. That had changed when the small city was threatened and the walls had been strengthened and raised to include watchtowers and solid gates. Kublai no longer knew how many people it held, or how many more clustered round it in the tent slums. He had walked among them more than once when he was young and the memories were both vivid and sad. His people did not do well in one place. Though they came to Karakorum for work and wealth, they had no sewers and the gers there clustered so thickly in the sun that the stench of urine and excrement could make a strong man gag. As nomads, every camp was fresh and green, but when they were trapped in poverty, they made a slum where no woman and few men dared to go out after dark.
He could see the white walls in the distance when he gave the order to halt at last. He had avoided any thoughts of the future while his brother Arik-Boke was in the field against him. It seemed too m
uch like dangerous pride to make plans for the years to come when he could so easily be killed. Yet as he stared into the haze behind him, he thought of the wide lands in the Chin territory around Xanadu. He could find them a place there. He could allow them to stretch out and live like men instead of animals, crushed into too small a space, too small a city. His people grew sick when they could not move, and not just with the diseases that swept through the city every summer. As the sun beat down, he shuddered at the thought of some pestilence raging through Karakorum as it baked in its own filth. If he lived, he could do better, he was certain.
Uriang-Khadai was like a wasp that afternoon, riding everywhere and snapping out commands so that the tumans formed in good order. Kublai’s banners were raised far away from where he sat his horse, surrounded by bondsmen. With a wry smile, he looked across the field at the fluttering walls of yellow silk, decorated with a dragon twining on the cloth as if it were alive. The arrows would fall thickest on those men, volunteers all. They were the only ones still carrying heavy shields he had kept back, with their horses’ chests armoured in fish-scale panels. Kublai himself would ride far from them in the fourth rank, invisible as he gave his orders.
Even with the losses, nine tumans and some six minghaans stood to face Arik-Boke’s army. Most of them had fought together for years, against far greater numbers. Each officer had met and drunk himself senseless with his colleagues a thousand times. They knew the men around them and they were as ready as they would ever be. The khan’s city lay at their backs and they had to win it for him. The khan himself fought in the ranks. There would be an ending on that day.
Arik-Boke still had ten miles to make up when Kublai had called the halt. It was time enough to empty bladders and take gulps of water from skins being passed down the ranks, then thrown down when they were empty. A hundred thousand bows were checked for cracks, with strings tested and discarded if they stretched or were too worn. The men rubbed grease on their sword blades to let them slip out of the scabbards easily and many of them dismounted to check their saddle cinches and reins for weak points that could snap under load. There was little laughter among them and only a few called to their friends. They had been hardened in the long ride to the city and they were ready.
Kublai kept his back sword-straight as he saw the first outriders of Arik-Boke’s tumans. They appeared far away like black flies, shifting back and forth in the heat haze. Behind the scouts came the tumans in great, dark blocks of horsemen, riding beneath a cloud of orange dust that reached above them in spiralling fingers.
He tested his sword grip again, dropping the weapon in and out of the scabbard so that it clinked. The sick feeling that made a knot in his stomach was a familiar sensation and he raised anger to sear through it. The body was afraid, but he would not let weak flesh rule him.
The sight of his brother’s army made his heart beat faster and fury surge in his blood, summoned by his will and stronger than the fear. Sweat broke out on his forehead while he sat like a statue watching them come. He could smell the horses around him, combined with the gamey stench of men who had not washed in months. His men, bound to him by oath and experience. Many of them would die that day and the debt would be Arik-Boke’s. Kublai reminded himself that he knew his brother, no matter how he had changed in the years apart. The false position with the banners had come from that knowledge.
Arik-Boke would not just want to win the battle. The losses of his orlok had humiliated him. If Kublai still knew him at all, he would be half blind in wounded pride and rage, aiming his archers at that point. The bannermen would soak up the shafts. It was not a pleasant thought as memories of their youth flashed into his mind, but Kublai would use anything, any weakness. In silence, he sent a prayer of apology to his mother and father, hoping they could not see the battle he would fight that day.
Kublai looked right and left along the ranks of silent men. He wore no sign of his authority and his bondsmen were watching him with expressions of quiet pride. They were ready. He sent another prayer to the spirits of his ancestors that Bayar would come.
He saw Uriang-Khadai raise a hand and Kublai matched the gesture. It was time. He looked ahead to the vast army coming at them as his orlok gave the order. Horns began to sound across the ranks, a single, droning note that made Kublai’s hands tremble before he gripped the reins hard. A hundred thousand warriors dug in their heels and began to trot forward to meet the enemy, his younger brother.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Arik-Boke craned forward in his saddle, peering through the dust to where his brother waited for him. The scouts had reported Kublai’s position long before, but he still waited for his own eyes to confirm it. Though the walls of Karakorum were painted white, he could see only a hint of paleness behind the darker lines of Kublai’s tumans, like a reflection off metal. He nodded to himself, clenching his fist on his sword hilt.
His twelve generals were riding on either side of him, already looking back to their tumans and wanting his permission to ride with their men. Arik-Boke kept silent. His orlok had failed him and he had not appointed another, just to see him fail in turn. He was khan and he would command the battle. He could sense the unease of the senior men, as if the fools thought he would keep them in line with him right up to the first shafts in the air.
His tumans had ridden fifty miles that day without stopping. They were weary, but the sight of the enemy standing to face them would cast that weariness away. Arik-Boke did not feel it himself. Anger and excitement coursed through him as the range closed to two miles, less. He could see the formations of Kublai by then, still standing as if they had grown roots waiting for him. He struggled with colossal rage at the thought of them barring the way to his own city, standing in the khan’s rightful path. His brother would answer for his arrogance, he promised himself.
His tumans matched his speed, though they were not idle. Spare horses were brought up from the rear in their thousands, pulled alongside, so that his warriors could jump across without slowing down. The ones they had ridden all morning fell back quickly without heels and whips to keep them going. Arik-Boke was close enough to see the bright yellow flags of his brother’s position, standing tall on spears like bristling spines. At such a distance, he could not make out the symbol on them, but he had his first sight of the false khan’s position. He could imagine Kublai looking out and a shudder went through him as if their gazes had locked over the empty plain.
‘There is your target,’ he called to his generals. ‘I will give a province to the man who brings me his head. Which one of you will be a khan after today?’
He saw the stunned expressions as they understood and he was satisfied. They would drive their men ruthlessly for such a reward, falling on Kublai like a mountain dropping from the blue sky. It was a good thought.
He sent them back to their tumans and felt the change in just a short time as they began to roar orders. The speed grew and all the tumans matched the racing lines, each one subtly trying to manoeuvre to be in the best position to hit that small group of banner flags.
Arik-Boke grinned into the breeze. The armies were less than a mile apart and he had set bloody meat before the wolves. He had more men and they fought for the great khan of the nation. To ride to such a battle was the closest thing to joy he had ever known.
The scout was exhausted, drooping in the saddle as his horse reached the final yam station in the heart of Karakorum. It had not been an easy run to get around Kublai’s tumans. He’d had to swing wide, beyond the scout lines, and then ride on through the darkness whenever he found a path or a road. He hadn’t slept for three days, hadn’t been able to with enemy scouts checking every trail and path. He’d spent some of the previous night with a dagger cutting into his bicep, using the pain to keep him awake as he peered out from a thicket and waited for a group of warriors to move on. He scratched at the bandage as he guided his exhausted mount down the city road to the yam station. His mind was playing tricks on him, making him hear wh
ispers and see strange colours he could not name whenever he forced his eyes open. He had no idea what had happened to his companion. Perhaps he hadn’t had luck with him and had taken an arrow as he rode.
The scout was eighteen years old and he had once thought of his strength as limitless, until the ride showed him the truth. Everything hurt and his mind felt like a solid lump in his skull, stupid and slow to react. Perhaps that was why he felt so little triumph as he almost fell from the saddle into the waiting arms of the yam riders. They did not laugh at the state and stench of him, the saddle still damp under his legs from the times he had urinated without stopping. With an army taking position outside the city, they were visibly worried. One of them took a wet cloth from a bucket and rubbed it over the scout’s face roughly, waking him up a little as well as clearing the caked dust and filth.
‘No message bag,’ one of them said, with a twist to his mouth. None of them expected good news from the sort of message that could not be written down. He slapped the scout lightly on the face.
‘Wake up, lad. You’re here, you’ve arrived. Who were you sent to speak to?’
The scout brought his hands up irritably at the rough treatment, pushing them away as he stood on his own.
‘From the khan. Captain of the Guards,’ he croaked at them. One of the men handed over a skin of clean water and he gulped gratefully, spitting onto the floor to clear his gummed mouth. His words did a reasonable job of waking them all up to their usual efficiency.
‘You walk him in, Lev,’ the yam master said. ‘I’ll deal with the horse.’
The animal was blown, ruined, and in much the same state as its rider. The master took the reins with a grim expression to lead it out into the yard. He didn’t want blood on the floor inside.
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