The Blue Wolf

by Joshua Fogel

  By the same token, though, there was something about Temüjin’s nature that did not resemble Yisügei. In his strength as a warrior fearless of death itself, Yisügei had still possessed a certain gentleness, a human virtuousness, a weakness whereby he would abruptly withdraw his own point of view in favor of another’s. This weakness had earned him the admiration of many of his relations and enabled him to retain his high position without any significant trouble among the more powerful households. One could not point to a quality of this sort in Temüjin’s makeup. He had a coolness—perhaps better dubbed a heartlessness—absent in Yisügei, and he possessed a strength of will such that, as soon as he articulated his opinion on something, under no circumstances would he ever relinquish ground to anyone.

  Temüjin, though, no more resembled the Merkids. Merkid men were small in stature with a nimbleness in appearance as well as in body, but Temüjin was much larger on the whole. What his face and torso lacked in similarity to the Merkids, so too did his nature.

  Only once, though, did a telling incident transpire. When Temüjin was involved in the murder of his younger half-brother Begter, he suffered relentless rebukes from his mother. On this occasion, he stood silently, offering not a word in his own defense, but at the time Ö’elün had unconsciously placed before herself none other than the young Merkid named Chiledü. He had come one night like a sudden squall, snatched her from the Olqunu’ud people, raped her without a word emanating from her mouth, and then over the next few days assaulted and continued to violate her. And now, there he was. His actions were all linked by a craving to make whatever he wanted his own with no preconceived method in particular.

  Although Ö’elün had become enraged when she learned that Temüjin had killed Begter, the harsh words that continued to pour from her mouth, as if she were in a trance, were due to the fact that in her mind, this savage Merkid youth was standing there. Directly before her was not Temüjin but Chiledü.

  When her excitement abated and she regained her composure, Ö’elün pondered one scary thought. Perhaps it was fine if Merkid blood ran in Temüjin’s veins, but she had shunted to the side her own position as Temüjin’s mother. That event had without a doubt left a scar in Ö’elün’s own heart.

  In the summer of the year Temüjin turned sixteen, an incident occurred that shook the lives of these descendants of the Borjigin khans at the roots. Targhutai, leader of the Tayichi’uds, commanding a force of 300 men, launched a surprise attack on Temüjin’s yurt.

  At some point, Temüjin foresaw this coming. About a month before it happened, a Borjigin man living an utterly wretched existence at the Tayichi’ud camp appeared unexpectedly at Temüjin’s tent. Although he had been hunting nearby, it seemed clear that his visit was purposely occasioned both by curiosity about how Ö’elün and her children were faring and by feelings of homesickness for old faces. While properly speaking, he was an accomplice of the hated enemy who had abandoned them, because he claimed that he was visiting specifically out of worry on their behalf, any animosity Ö’elün and her family might have harbored toward the man dissipated. He placed a third of his game before them and quickly departed, but during this short visit he did inform them that the Tayichi’ud leader Targhutai bore evil intentions toward Temüjin. When a group of his fellow family members gathered in the first month of the year, Targhutai reportedly had said, while drinking wine:

  “The chicken’s feathers are spreading. The lamb too is growing up. Before it’s too late, we shall put an end to the life of Yisügei’s little brat. If his wings are allowed to spread as if flying in the sky and his step allowed to grow sturdy as if running across the desert, then he may come to pose a serious problem.”

  Because of this, Temüjin knew that an attack was impending. He set to making preparations for it, constructing a fortified hut out of tree branches in a nearby forest and in the evening assembling their sheep and horses around the yurt.

  It was late one night in early summer when the moon was shining brightly. Hearing an unusual cry from the animals, Ö’elün and her children woke all at once. When they left the tent, they saw arrows that had fallen among the livestock. Temüjin led his family across the field and then ran toward the forest that was home to the fortified hut. The Tayichi’uds unleashed a volley of arrows from horseback, and from far down a broad slope he could see horsemen advancing toward him.

  Temüjin had not foreseen an attack by such a large detachment. He had thought that this was a matter for a small group and that at most fifty or sixty men might come surging in with swords drawn. He had completely miscalculated and was unsure what to do. He found refuge for his mother and three siblings too young to fight—Qachi’un, Temüge, and Temülün—in the fissures of the precipices in the woods. Then, with Qasar and Belgütei, he holed up in the fortified hut and exchange arrow fire with the attackers.

  Victory in this fight, though, was determined from the start. With only a few arrows remaining, Temüjin ordered his two younger brothers to take their mother and younger siblings and escape deep into the forest to save their lives.

  “They’ve launched such a large assault because they want all this grassland for themselves,” he said. “If you manage to escape, head straight north of Mount Burqan and don’t come near here again.”

  To save his brothers, sister, and mother, Temüjin alone was left to shoot his final arrow from the hut in the woods. He then mounted his horse and rode off to the foothills of Tergüne Heights, hidden deep in the woods.

  Temüjin spent three days in the forest. Were the Tayichi’uds still looking for this fugitive? On a number of occasions he heard the whinnying of horses. On the fourth day, Temüjin attempted to lead his horse out of the forest, but for some reason his saddle attached to the horse’s girth separated from it and fell to the ground. Highly inauspicious, he thought, and returned to spend another three days in the forest. He then tried once again to leave, but this time a white stone roughly the size of a yurt blocked his way out, and he abandoned the idea and lay concealed there for yet another three days. With no food, on the verge of starvation, Temüjin decided for the third time to make his way out of the forest. The immense white boulder still obstructed his path. He attempted to circumvent it, but there was no solid footing to be found.

  Again, Temüjin felt this an unpromising omen, but he realized that if he remained there, he would likely starve to death, so he boldly crossed over the rocky precipice and left the forest. No sooner had he emerged from the trees than Temüjin was apprehended by Tayichi’ud men who spotted him. They tied him up and brought him to a new Tayichi’ud colony not far away on the banks of the Onon River.

  Laden with a large piece of timber across his shoulders and with both hands shackled to it, Temüjin was walked into a village of several hundred scattered tents. Many were the faces of Borjigin men and women there whom Temüjin recognized. With expressions of mixed feelings on their faces, they cast their eyes on his half-naked figure with rippling musculature like a stone, the now splendidly grown son of their former khan, Yisügei. No one addressed him. As Temüjin had learned from the two men he chanced to have met earlier, his fellow Borjigins had fallen on bad times, and he now saw that this was not simply a rumor. All of them, men and women alike, stood silently before their squalid tents.

  Temüjin sensed that the leader of the Tayichi’uds lacked the will to kill him. Had he so intended, Temüjin thought, then he would surely not have led him before a group of his own people. Whatever he might have been planning, that would have done more harm than good. Temüjin reasoned that he would probably have to endure torture for a number of days, then be released from his shackles, enticed into the Tayichi’ud camp, and compelled to swear allegiance to it.

  That night Temüjin was forced to stand in an open area at the edge of the settlement. Only one person stood guard over him, while the rest of the population assembled in an area in front of the chieftain’s tent and held a banquet. With one section of the piece of wood strapped to h
is shoulders, Temüjin struck this guard, and as soon as he saw that the man had collapsed on the ground unconscious, he quickly escaped. The moon was bright that night. Temüjin could see the strange shadow he cast on the ground with the large piece of timber still attached to his shoulders, and instinctively he began running along the bank of the Onon River. When he reached the point of exhaustion, he was able to conceal his body and the burden he carried in the verdant overgrowth by the river.

  It wasn’t long before Temüjin knew that the Tayichi’uds had learned of his escape and were shouting among themselves to find him. Voices could be heard from the riverbank and from the extensive grassland that abutted it. On a number of occasions, human voices and footsteps passed close to where he was hiding. Fearing that he would eventually be found, Temüjin slipped deeper into the slimy overgrowth.

  Suddenly a voice overhead called out:

  “There is fire in your eye and light in your face. With that weight on your shoulders, the Tayichi’ud leader envies and fears you. Stay quiet where you are, and we won’t tell anyone.”

  Temüjin had been holding his breath with his half-naked body in the water. He had a faint memory of this hoarse voice. It was surely that of Sorqan Shira. When his father, Yisügei, was alive, this man had frequently come to visit their family, but he was solemn and never laughed, and for that reason none of the children ever took a liking to him.

  After he had hidden there for a long time, Temüjin’s fear of being discovered by the search party dissipated, and with the wooden burden on his shoulders, he crawled up from the water’s edge. His arms, tied up and extended horizontally for such a long period of time, had utterly lost all feeling. Temüjin realized that in his present shape he was unable to escape anywhere. He was unable to swim in the Onon River, and he could not cover much ground by walking through the night. Dawn was now fast approaching.

  Temüjin reasoned that the best plan might be to slip into the tent of Sorqan Shira, who had earlier passed him by. Although this course of action entailed dangers, once he decided on it, Temüjin again concentrated on being inconspicuous and headed back toward the Tayichi’ud settlement.

  Sorqan Shira’s household, when he was one of Yisügei’s subordinates, made a living by producing kumis, fermented mare’s milk. Temüjin remembered how Sorqan Shira would work late into the night pouring fresh horse’s milk into a large vat and then churning it. Imagining that he still pursued the same livelihood, Temüjin walked around the village late that night listening for the sound of milk being churned. He was finally able to find the right tent.

  Stripped to the waist, Sorqan Shira was aided in his work by his two sons, Chimbai, who was Temüjin’s age, and Chila’un, who was two years his junior. He was stirring the liquid in the large vat with a stick. When Temüjin came inside their yurt, Sorqan Shira was gravely surprised.

  “Why in the world did you come back here?” he asked. “I told you to hurry back to where your mother and younger brothers were.” His expression was one of genuine consternation. Then, his elder son Chimbai, who was short and had protruding eyes and a large head, said in a surprisingly mature tone of voice:

  “What’s done is done—he’s here. There’s no looking back now. We have to help him.” He said it as if admonishing his father. Then his younger brother, Chila’un, with a squint in his eyes, opened them wide, though without a clear focus, and approached Temüjin, speaking neither specifically to his father nor to his elder brother: “We once received from Temüjin the nail of a small deer’s hoof.” Although but two years younger than Temüjin, he barely came up to his shoulder and was unmistakably the shorter of the two brothers.

  Initially Temüjin had no idea why Chila’un had walked over in his direction, but he soon realized that one of his shackled arms was free. Until Chila’un had completely unbound Temüjin, Sorqan Shira had a dour expression on his face and stood up straight beside the large vat.

  Chimbai removed the fetters from Temüjin’s body and threw them in the fire. A girl of about ten years in age named Qada’an appeared out of nowhere. She looked like her older brothers and was very short.

  “My clever daughter,” said Sorqan Shira, ordering the girl with the face of a young child, “never tell any of this to another living person. I am putting the care of the eldest son of Yisügei in your hands.” His countenance effectively said that there was no other choice, things having reached this pass. Qada’an quickly brought some food and gave it to Temüjin, and without saying a word she urged him to leave. When he followed her out of the tent, Qada’an led him around behind it to a cart piled high with wool and pointed to it. Her father had called her clever, and indeed she seemed to be very resourceful.

  Temüjin quickly crawled into the wool. When he finished eating the food she had given him with only his face and hands exposed to the night air, he buried himself entirely, unable to see anything outside. With his entire body now wrapped in wool, Temüjin was sweltering, but an overwhelming exhaustion soon plunged him into a deep sleep.

  The following day Temüjin hid in this place all day. Only at nightfall, at Chimbai’s signal, did he crawl out. A mare with black mane and light brown coat was waiting for him. It bore no saddle, but large leather bags hanging on either side of the horse’s torso were filled with roasted lamb.

  “This horse has borne no offspring, so there’s no need to return it,” said Chimbai, as he passed Temüjin a bow and two arrows. When Temüjin was about to depart, Sorqan Shira came out and said to him:

  “You’ve exposed us all to grave danger. Listen, my little immortal friend, you must never say anything about us—ever! Now, go quickly.”

  Highly attentive until he had left the settlement, Temüjin made his horse walk slowly, and as soon as he was beyond the village he rode off at a dash. In retrospect, he realized he had narrowly escaped by the skin of his teeth. Rather than thinking about his own close brush with death, Temüjin was absorbed in the thought, as he rode off, that gathering all the Borjigin people under his leadership as in the era of his father would not be that difficult a task.

  For the next few days, Temüjin walked around the northern foothills of Mount Burqan in search of his mother and siblings. He had learned in the Tayichi’ud settlement that they had not been apprehended, so they were surely hiding out somewhere in this area.

  One day as Temüjin was walking upstream along the bank of the Onon River, he passed its point of confluence with the Kimurgha Stream and climbed Qorchuqui Hill on Beder Promontory. At the foot of the southern slope of this hill, he spied a small tent. When he approached and looked inside, he found Ö’elün, Temüge, and Temülün. Qasar, Belgütei, and Qachi’un had gone into the mountains that morning to gather food. Only eight horses—all the possessions this family had—were hitched close to the tent.

  The next day Temüjin folded up the tent and moved them three days’ journey away to the banks of a lake full of azure water located at the foot of Mount Qara Jirüken. Here was a suitable spot in a corner of the plateau where the impoverished family of Mother Ö’elün could live near the flow of the Sengkür Stream. There were many rabbits and field mice, and the lake and river were filled with fish.

  Temüjin had to rebuild their lives at this new dwelling. With Qasar and Belgütei, he searched for the furrows of marmots to trap them almost every day. They ate the flesh and used the pelts to make garments. If they accumulated a good number of them, they could also exchange them for sheep.

  One day about three months later, Temüjin and his brothers set off to trap marmots as always, but that evening when they returned home with their heavily laden, short-tailed chestnut horse, they learned that every one of their horses had been stolen. Ö’elün and the younger children had been out looking for food in the hills and were completely unaware of the theft.

  “I’m going after them,” said Belgütei. With only the chestnut horse left, only one person could go in pursuit.

  “You can’t do it,” said Qasar. “I’ll go.” In physi
cal strength Qasar was no match for Belgütei, but he was far more accomplished a horseman than his brother.

  “You can’t do it. I’ll go.” This time it was Temüjin who spoke, using precisely the same words as Qasar had. He loaded provisions on the horse, armed himself with bow and arrows, mounted, and was quickly gone.

  Temüjin drove his horse straight through the night, and the following day he rode around in search of anything that resembled a settlement. Come what might, he had to retrieve those eight horses. They were irreplaceable, the sum total of his family’s property. After three full days roaming about the plateau, on the morning of the fourth day Temüjin chanced to meet a young boy milking horses on pastureland. He asked the lad if he had seen eight dappled-gray horses.

  “Before the sun rose this morning,” he replied, “I saw eight grays galloping along this pathway. If they’re stolen, let’s give chase and get them back.”

  He led his black horse out and encouraged Temüjin to change horses, while he himself mounted a fast, light-yellow horse. The boy handled everything with an attitude of confidence befitting an adult, and saying nothing to his family, joined Temüjin in the search.

  Until that point in time, Temüjin had never met such an agile youngster. Despite the fact that he made his preparations in no time at all, he had bow and arrows, tinder, and two leather bags with food loaded on his horse. Because there were no covers over the bags, he picked wild grasses en route and cleverly fashioned substitute lids. The dexterity with which he did all this left Temüjin with a good feeling. He was the son of Naqu Bayan, chieftain of a small village, and his name was Bo’orchu.