My first memory is from when I was three years old. I was running in the meadow near our tent among high grasses, falling down, touching the earth with my hands and face, and rolling over and over and turning my face toward the sky. As I lay on my back, I could see the deep blue sky and the brightness of the sun on the horizon. Not even a single cloud was in the sky, the grasses around me waved with the wind, and I could hear the whinnies and mehs of the horses and sheep. When I straightened up and reached for my hat, now fallen from my head, I saw the bright yellow and black eyes of a creature as thick as my fingers.
The thing I remember most is the terror as the creature slithered by and I screamed. Suddenly, I felt a warm breath on my neck, and then I was being dragged. I felt the warm fur as this new creature dragged me all the way to the door of our tent. It set me down and I saw its deep blue eyes as the female wolf appeared right in front of my face. It came closer and smelled my tummy and neck many times. After walking around me twice, it disappeared until it returned with my hat.
As masses of human bodies gathered around me, my cries subsided and I once again felt the warmth of my mother’s bosom—a physical reminder of my first moment of life. My dreams from that time are mostly blank, but I can say that I was never over the unrest I felt as the black and yellow creature continued to visit my nightmares.
My early memories can mostly be described as peaceful and happy. I remember playing with the other children, running after sheep, and watching for opportunities to ride horses. I also remember being scolded by our mothers for fighting those same children and yelling after the wolf, cheering it on when it fought with the dogs. I also remember getting caught playing with my father’s sword while he was asleep, and my happiness when he gave me my own unsharpened sword that he had the ironsmith specially craft for me.
I remember the first time I rode a horse and how I fell from it many times. I will never forget the night I tried to sleep on the horse for the first time and how I gave up when I didn’t sleep until morning.
I also remember shooting arrows--arrows that got bigger and more difficult to handle as I competed with the other children. I tossed and turned all night when I lost and awoke early in the morning to stubbornly practice shooting more. Even though I was a prince, these were the common memories of every Mongolian boy.
The soldiers and their weapons were my biggest fascination. Without letting them know I was there, I would quietly watch the guards standing in front of the door of my father’s tent. The guards would change at certain intervals, and I would always spy on them as I waited most eagerly for Brother Cebe’s shift. He was the tallest and strongest of the guards, and he had the brightest armor and the sharpest sword among my father’s men. He had a penetrating look which distinguished him among the thousands of soldiers. It was a pleasure to watch how he remained on guard without moving and how his muscles stiffened when he was alerted. Like the wolf, Brother Cebe was careful in his silence and always bore a posture that gave confidence to those around him.
If he was in a good mood he would show me how to hold a sword, how to pull the bowstring, and how to jump on and off a horse without falling.
I couldn’t hide my sadness when Brother Cebe told me, “I am going to my hometown, a faraway place with a thick forest.” Then he added, “But I will be back, and I will bring my brother with me. He is a little bigger than you, but he is not a warrior like you. Can you make friends with him and teach him what you know?”
“Of course I can. But you should come back quickly,” I said.
Days and seasons passed as I impatiently waited for Brother Cebe’s return and thought about teaching his brother. When the guards told me Brother Cebe had returned, I rode my horse excitedly out to welcome him. I accompanied him for a while and, as I circled around the group, my eyes moved to Cebe’s brother. He was a thin child who was an unskilled rider, and his face looked sickly and pale. His strange clothes consisted of a thick coat and fur. The only special thing about him was his two honey-colored eyes, which always looked straight and bright. So this is my student?
I greeted the boy in disappointment and continued riding my horse beside Brother Cebe while I asked many questions of the exhausted cavalry. The evening sky was darkening when we arrived at the camp. After receiving the greetings and delivering their gifts, both brothers headed to their tent.
In the morning, after a restful night’s sleep, I ran to the tent of Brother Cebe with fresh excitement. Brother Cebe wasn’t there, but the thin boy was still sleeping under the fur. An old woman was occupied with unpacking in the tent. I talked to her in a voice loud enough to wake up the sleeping boy. When the boy finally awoke, he was visibly surprised by his surroundings. He looked around and smiled when he saw me. The old woman gave us some hot soup and, as the boy and I ate, we waited patiently for the other to break the silence.
“My name is Cuci,” I finally said.
“I’m Sobutay.” It was the first time I’d heard the boy speak. He had a weak, strange voice, like those I had imagined from faraway lands.
“Did you come here to be a great warrior like your brother?” I asked.
“My father sent me. He told me it was time. I missed my brother a lot. But I guess I can’t be as good as him.”
“If you work hard, why not?” I said without believing myself. “Let’s go. Let me show you around.”
When we left the tent, the wolf came to us. Sobutay was scared at first, but, when I let the wolf get closer to him, he relaxed and affectionately caressed its neck. He was amazed that it was a real wolf. He said he had never seen anything that big and blue before.
While wandering around, I spoke freely and showed him how the tents were organized, who lived where, which paths were best to use, and where to find the hole for the toilet. I also showed him where the kids gathered in the plain, a safe area shielded from the wind by the surrounding rocks.
It was the day of the solar eclipse and we watched as dozens of children talked excitedly amongst themselves, watched the phenomenon, and cheered.
When the event was over, the kids returned to their activities. Some of them practiced archery and some of them just gathered together and talked. When we got closer to them, all the activities stopped, and several children encircled us, laid eyes on the stranger, and began to ask questions. The magic of a new stranger was soon broken when Sobutay couldn’t quickly answer questions about himself, and soon the children began to make fun of him. In order to protect my guest, I tried to answer the questions on his behalf, but it didn’t help.
I realized that Batu, the leader of the child gang, had noticed Sobutay’s weakness and was trying to humiliate him in order to solidify his status in the group. He stood next to Sobutay and began to pull at the boy’s fur. Batu was two or three times bigger and, as Sobutay tried to brush off his interrogator, Batu responded by getting more animated and began shaking him.
I didn’t know what to do, but I weakly tried to prevent matters from getting out of hand. I regretted that I had brought Sobutay to the plain so soon. Without preparing him, I had put him in a situation where I couldn’t protect him. I thought of dragging him away by his arm. He was my responsibility, after all.
Sobutay looked at the area surrounding him with a measured expression, then, to Batu’s and all of our surprise, he pushed away Batu’s hand and took a step back. Sobutay used this brief moment of confusion to his advantage and threw a sudden, shocking punch that crashed right between Batu’s chin and ear. Everyone—including me—stopped and stared in shocked silence.
Sobutay didn’t linger, but quickly turned and ran away as fast as he could. I didn’t expect the punch, and I didn’t expect his sudden escape. If you wanted to fight, I thought, then why did you run away, and if you planned to run away, then why did you start the fight?”
Batu’s shock had worn off and was now replaced with rage. He screamed as he chased after Sobutay, and I stood still with the rest as I watched him run Sobutay down like a tiger chasing a
n antelope. In those chases, the tiger always won.
Sobutay ran extremely fast, but Batu quickly closed the gap as he kicked up dust clouds from the grass. I could only think that Batu would give the far weaker Sobutay a deadly beating as soon as he caught him.
Suddenly, in mid-stride, Sobutay stopped, turned and planted himself with his right shoulder lowered. Batu could not stop as fast as Sobutay and his face crunched into Sobutay’s shoulder, instantly breaking his nose and a handful of teeth. Air exploded out of his lungs and sent blood and teeth flying from his mouth.
Slightly rocked back on his heels, Sobutay took one step and kicked Batu in his stomach. Those of us who had been watching raced to the scene and saw Sobutay standing over Batu with a rock in his hand and his foot on his opponent’s bleeding mouth. Probably for the first time in his short life, Batu feared death. We just stood still and quietly watched, waiting to see what happened next.
His face now crooked and covered in blood, Batu tried to say something, but the blood in his mouth and Sobutay’s foot on his throat prevented him from managing anything beyond a weak growl. A few of Batu’s close friends stepped forward to intervene, but the wolf, who had been watching, stepped into view and growled until Batu’s supporters backed down.
Sobutay stopped staring at us and looked down at his opponent. Suddenly, he hurled the stone down with such force that it smashed Batu’s skull. Blood and bone scattered on the ground, and one of the boy’s eyeballs was blown from its socket. Sobutay showed no excitement or panic. With blood spatter on his face, he scanned us with his eyes, turned and calmly walked toward the tents. The wolf followed him, and so did I. I wanted to turn back and scream, “Here is your new leader!” But everyone already knew.
Later, as we sat quietly in the tent, I couldn’t endure the silence. “You shocked everyone…Was that necessary?”
“With the absence of leadership, that bulky boy unnecessarily took a risk and forced someone he didn’t know to fight. If you take an unnecessary risk and you do so often, you will come across an unexpected situation and get unnecessarily hurt. I, on the other hand, took a necessary risk. I showed a strong stance that will endure for the rest of my life. The decision was easy: I have chosen my path.”
As he continued his calm and thoughtful speech with his strange accent, I realized how this weak boy had already become a young warrior in front of my eyes.
“But did you have to kill him? You had already defeated him and won.”
“The broken nose and teeth would have healed, but the boy’s pain would only have increased. Whenever he saw me, he would remember what he had lost and try to regain his lost power. He would keep trying this until one of us was dead. In order to survive and continue, I couldn’t leave him alive. Just like in the forest: sometimes you kill a bear in order to wander around its territory comfortably rather than wandering around the territory in discomfort. But all the words are empty now. It’s done.”
Batu’s family had to submit to the death—which happened after a fair fight. It didn’t suit them to oppose Cebe anyway. My father had already said that he didn’t want any feuds. Although no action was taken, the pain was still there, and it always would be.
Days and weeks passed. We spent the days in heavy labor, shooting arrows, stretching spreads, wrestling, and riding horses. We did the work we were given as if it were a competition. Sobutay, who was not very good at riding horses, overcame his inability and started catching me—sometimes even passing me. In exchange, he taught me the techniques he had learned from his ironsmith father, and we tried to melt iron in a fire and shape it. With his help, I made a dagger, albeit a crooked one.
The evenings belonged to us. We talked for hours and told each other stories. We dreamed under the stars when it was warm and next to a fire when it was cold. During this time, I made him tell me about the woodland from which he had come. He told me how people there lived in huts and survived by setting traps and hunting. While he was telling me about the giant trees, the massive forests that covered all the sky, and the animals that lived among them, I listened to him intently, asking only a few questions. He told me how he could tell a rabbit from a fox based on its snow prints. He described the traps he set to catch the intelligent animals, and if he was unsuccessful in his explanation, he drew them on the ground to show me.
In his home territory, there were not many horses. This sounded strange to me, but our tame sheep were strange to him. He was surprised that we cut and ate them instead of feeding and keeping them. I explained that we did this because the animals were always out there, and you could hunt them whenever you wanted. Meanwhile, when it wasn’t necessary, we didn’t have to care for them.
We talked tirelessly about war strategy. We discussed embrangling, deception, and using the power of the enemy against himself. We used small stones to represent our soldiers and horsemen on the battlefield. We positioned them against the enemy, moved them, and talked and talked about the traps that could be set.
We found out how important knowledge was in battle; we also learned about the importance of providing the wrong information to the enemy. To us, knowledge was even more important than the number of weapons and soldiers.
Sometimes, we would talk to one of our people’s skilled warriors (usually Cebe) and bore him with our questions. We asked his opinion about the tactics we had developed, and we absorbed anything he shared with us.
We made an interesting pair, and although it wasn’t our idea, everyone treated us with distance and no one interfered. However, all of the boys our age would answer whenever we asked, and they did whatever we asked them to without question, likely out of fear.
After a time, we noticed someone was spying on us. Unlike the others, she approached us without any fear. Her name was Selen, and she was the youngest daughter of a shaman. She was a little taller than me, but younger. She had penetrating onyx eyes, and she always carried a red handkerchief made of silk. Sometimes, she wore the handkerchief on her elbow; other times, she used it to braid her hair.
At first, we told her of our discomfort and asked her to hang out with the other girls and stay out of our way, but because of her father’s position, her strange looks, manners, and speech, her curiosity in magic, and her peevish behavior, she had already alienated many others. So, out of desperation, she persisted.
We began to let this insistent stranger follow us, but quietly at first and at a distance. To assist us, she sometimes brought food, figures, and pieces of bone in various colors that we could use in our war tactics. She often played with the wolf, and, as she listened to us, we grew used to her presence.
She rarely joined our conversations, but, when she did speak, her thoughts and words would generally surprise us, and, in time, we learned to respect her. We even asked for her opinion when we had a difficulty and couldn’t find a solution. She showed us a few magic tricks she had learned from her father and revealed their secrets. We thought about them and discussed how we could use them as war tactics.
These discussions helped Sobutay and I understand the principle that one’s enemy sees things the way they are present, and thus, can be distracted and surprised as you carry out what you want in another direction. We understood that a man makes decisions (and mistakes) based on the situation he feels he is in at the moment.
We often gathered in the tent of the Khan and listened to the stories he and his generals told of great battles. One night, when my father was particularly drunk on koumiss, he told us a memorable tale:
“In ancient times, there was a little shepherd boy living in a remote corner of a small Mongolian kingdom. Before he left home, his mother always gave him a little food and a sheep pelt full of grass to practice wrestling. Time passed, and the boy grew up and got stronger. His mother began to fill the sheep pelt with water and, then, with stones. When her child became a young man and the sheep pelt became light to him, she changed it for a bull pelt and filled it with stones.”
“The boy’s fame soon went
beyond the village, and his mother sent him to compete in the biggest wrestling tournament in the kingdom. It didn’t take long for the young man to dominate the competition and knock out whoever was in his way. The king was astonished and promised to lavish gifts on the young man on the condition that he won wrestling competitions in neighboring countries. So, with the permission of his mother, the young shepherd went to the neighboring kingdom and came into the presence of the king.”
“When he arrived, the king said, ‘What do you want? Why have you come here?’”
“The young man answered, ‘I am here to defeat your wrestlers.’”
“The king called all the wrestlers from every part of his kingdom. Normally, wrestlers would fight each other one at a time and whoever defeated his opponent in the final won the competition, but, this time, the king ordered everyone, in succession, to fight with the young visitor. When the king saw that the young man was knocking out each wrestler, he sent wrestlers on him two or three at a time, but the young man knocked out sixty wrestlers without even sweating.”
“The king exclaimed, ‘Well done! You win! Your reward is the treasure in the barn behind that hill. You can go and have it.’”
“Victorious and proud, the young man went to the barn to claim his reward, but when he entered he came face to face with a giant, red-eyed bull. The angry beast looked like it had been waiting for him in the darkness for days. Without hesitating, the young man grabbed the horns of the bull, knocked it down, and tamed it. Then the two set off together. Upon hearing this, the king, in his greed, sent a human-flesh-eating camel upon the pair. The young man tamed the camel, too, and made it follow him back to his country. Refusing to concede defeat, the king sent hundred of soldiers after the young man, and just as the shepherd was about to enter his lands, he was surrounded and trapped and died among the soldiers before he reached his country.”
Save the Last Bullet for God Page 20