Authors: Conn Iggulden
“He will send guards with us,” Jelme answered.
Arslan chuckled. “Let him. I have not met a man I cannot kill. We will be gone from here by the end of summer, and the forge I will leave them will be useless for anything except scrap iron.”
Jelme sighed for a moment. It had been a long time since he had seen the inside of a ger, and part of him did not relish the thought of returning to hard nights and the bitterness of the winters.
“There are some pretty women here,” he said.
His father sat up as he heard the longing in his son’s voice. He did not reply for some time.
“I have not given thought to it, my son. Perhaps I am being foolish. I will not marry again, but if you want to remain and make a place amongst these people, I will stay with you. I cannot drag you behind me for the rest of my life.”
Jelme reached out in the dark to find his father’s arm.
“I go where you go, you know that. Your vow binds me as much as it does you.”
Arslan snorted. “A vow to the dead binds no one. If Yesugei had lived, or if his children survived, I would go to them with a clear heart. As it is, there is no life for us but here or on the plains with the real wolves. Do not answer me tonight. Sleep; we will talk again in the morning.”
Eeluk rose at dawn, his head hammering with pain and slick sweat foul on his skin. He had called for more airag after Arslan and Jelme had gone to the ger, and at most he had slept for a hand’s breadth of the stars moving in the sky. He felt terrible, but as he came out of his ger and surveyed the camp, he was startled to see Arslan and his son already awake. The two newcomers were exercising together, their swords drawn as they stretched and moved in what looked like a dance, to Eeluk’s sleepy eyes.
Already, a few of the bondsmen had gathered around them, some of them laughing and making crude comments. The two men ignored the others as if they did not exist, and for those with an eye to see, the balance and agility they practiced revealed a very high level of skill. Arslan was bare-chested and his skin was a patchwork of scarring. Even Eeluk was impressed at the markings, from the white lattice of old cuts on his arms, to knots of burns and arrowheads on his shoulders and chest. The man had fought and, as he spun in the air, Eeluk saw only a few wounds in the paler skin of his back. The pair were impressive, Eeluk admitted reluctantly. Arslan shone with sweat, though was not breathing heavily. Eeluk watched glowering, trying to recall the conversation of the previous night. He noticed that the bondsmen had fallen silent, and he snorted to himself as father and son finished the routine. He did not trust them. As he stood and scratched himself he saw two of his bondsmen engage Arslan in conversation, clearly asking questions about the exercises they had seen. Eeluk wondered if the newcomers could be spies, or even assassins. The older man, in particular, had the look of a killer, and Eeluk knew he would have to force a little obedience, or have his authority questioned in his own camp.
Despite his misgivings, their arrival was a blessing from the sky father, at a time when he planned a campaign against the Olkhun’ut. The Wolves were growing and he felt the spring tide in his gut and blood, calling him to war. He would need good swords for every young warrior of the families, and perhaps Arslan was the man to produce them. The armorer they had was an old drunk and only his valuable craft prevented him being left out in the snow each winter. Eeluk smiled to himself at the thought that Arslan would make chain mail and blades for the Wolves to grow in strength.
When Eeluk dreamed, it was always of death. The oldest woman had cast the bones in his ger and prophesied a great bloodletting under his banners. Perhaps Arslan was a messenger from the spirits, as the legends told. Eeluk stretched, feeling his strength as his bones cracked and his muscles tightened deliciously. He had woken his ambition after the death of Yesugei. There was no telling where it would take him.
It was four days after the arrival of Arslan and his son that Tolui and Basan returned to the gers of the Wolves, dragging a battered figure behind them. Eeluk rode out with the others and he yelled hoarsely when he saw his men had returned with a live captive. He wanted it to be Bekter, but somehow it was sweeter still to see Temujin staring back at him through swollen eyes.
The journey had been hard on Temujin, but he stood as straight and tall as he could as Eeluk dismounted. He had been dreading the moment ever since they had caught him, and now that it had come, exhaustion and pain made him numb.
“Am I granted guest rights, then?” he said.
Eeluk snorted and backhanded a blow across his face that tumbled him to the ground.
“Welcome home, Temujin,” Eeluk said, showing strong white teeth. “I have waited a long time to see you with your belly on the ground.” As he spoke he raised his leg and pressed Temujin facedown into the dust. Little by little he increased the pressure, and there was a light in his eye that made the other warriors silent.
It was Basan who broke the silence. “My lord, Unegen is dead. The others escaped.”
Eeluk seemed to drag himself back from far away to answer, releasing the silent figure under his boot.
“They all survived?” he said, surprised.
Basan shook his head. “Bekter is dead. I understand the others still live. We found their camp and burned it.”
Eeluk did not care that Unegen had fallen. The man had been one of the old bondsmen. None of them could truly see Eeluk as khan, he knew. As the years passed he was slowly leavening their numbers with younger men, hungry for blood and conquest.
“You have done well,” he said, addressing Tolui and seeing how he swelled his chest with pride. “You may have the pick of my own horses and a dozen skins of airag. Get yourself drunk. You have earned a khan’s praise.”
Tolui was pleased and bowed as low as he could.
“You honor me, my lord,” he said, stealing a sideways look at Temujin. “I would enjoy seeing him humbled.”
“Very well, Tolui. You shall be there. The spirits need blood to feed their hunger. He shall be the stain on the ground that sends us on to victory and greatness. We have a swordsmith come to us. The son of a khan will be our sacrifice. The sky father will bring us sweet women and a thousand tribes under our feet. I can feel it in my blood.”
Temujin struggled to his knees. His body was raw and aching from the journey and his wrists felt as if they were on fire. He spat on the ground and thought of his father as he looked around him.
“I have known sheep
shit
with more honor than you,” he told Eeluk slowly. He tried not to wince as one of the bondsmen approached and used the hilt of his sword to batter him unconscious. It took three blows before he fell, his eyes still open on the dusty ground.
Temujin woke again with warm water spattering his clothes and face. He gasped and struggled to his feet, crying out in pain as he found one of his fingers had been broken and his right eye was too clotted with blood to open. He hoped they had not blinded him, but part of him was past caring. It was so dark, he could not understand where he was. Above his head, he could see bars blocking the distant starlight and he shivered. He was in a frozen hole, the wooden lattice too far above for him to jump. He pressed his good hand to the walls and found the earth was slick with wetness. His feet were submerged in water and above him he heard low chuckles.
To his horror, a soft grunt was followed by another rain of stinking liquid. The bondsmen were urinating into the hole and laughing as they did so.
Temujin covered his head with his hands and fought against a black despair. He knew he could end his life in that filthy hole, perhaps with rocks dropped in to break his legs and arms. There was no justice in the world, but he had known that ever since the death of his father. The spirits took no part in the lives of men once they had been born. A man either endured what the world sent his way, or was crushed.
The men grunted as they lifted a heavy stone onto the crisscross of branches. When they had gone, Temujin tried to pray for a little while. To his surprise, it gave him strength and he crouched against the frozen muddy walls until dawn, unable to do more than drift in and out of sleep. It was a small comfort that his bowels had nothing in them. He felt as if he had always been hungry and sore. There had been a life once where he was happy and could ride to the red hill with his brothers. He held on to the thought like a light in the darkness, but it would not stay with him.
Before dawn, he heard footsteps approach and a dark figure leaned out over the lattice, blocking more of the stars. Temujin winced in anticipation of another emptying bladder, but instead the dark figure spoke.
“Who are you?” came a low voice.
Temujin did not look up, but he felt his pride rekindle and he replied, “I am the eldest surviving son of Yesugei, who was khan to the Wolves.”
For an instant, he saw flashing lights at the edges of his vision, and he thought he might pass out. He remembered old words his father had used, and he spoke them recklessly.
“I am the land, and the bones of the hills,” he said fiercely, “I am the winter. When I am dead, I will come for you all in the coldest nights.”
He stared up defiantly, determined not to show his misery. The shadow did not move, but after a time, it murmured a few words and then vanished, letting the light of the stars shine down into the pit.
Temujin hugged his knees and waited for the dawn.
“Who are you to tell me not to despair?” he murmured.
CHAPTER 18
T
EMUJIN WATCHED THE SUN
pass overhead, its fire damped by heavy cloud, so that he was able to gaze on the orange disk with only a little discomfort. The thin warmth was welcome each morning after the frozen night. When he drifted back to consciousness, his first act was to pull his feet free of the slurry of ice and mud, then stamp and pump his limbs until his blood began moving again. He had used one corner of the little pit for his wastes, but it was still practically underfoot, and by the third day, the air was thick and nauseating. Flies buzzed down through the lattice overhead and he spent time batting gently at them, keeping them alive as long as possible for sport.
They had thrown bread and mutton down to him, laughing at his attempts to catch the pouches before they fell into the slop. His stomach had squeezed painfully the first time he had eaten one from the ground, but it was that or starve, and he forced it down with nothing more than a shrug. Every day, he marked the moving shadows cast by the sun with small stones in the mud; anything to dull the passage of time and his own misery.
He did not understand why Eeluk had left him in the pit rather than give him a quick death. In the hours alone, Temujin fantasized about Eeluk being overcome with shame, or finding himself unable to hurt a son of Yesugei. Perhaps he had even been struck down by a curse or a disfiguring disease. It amused Temujin to imagine it, but in reality, Eeluk was probably just away hunting, or planning something vicious. He had long ago found the real world much less satisfying than his own imagination.
When the rock was removed and the lattice thrown aside, it was almost with a sense of relief that he realized death was coming at last. Temujin raised his arms and allowed himself to be dragged out. He had heard the voices of the families as they gathered, and guessed something of the sort was coming. It did not help that one of the men pulling him out took a grip on his broken finger, leaving him gasping as the bone grated.
Temujin fell to his knees as they let go. He could see more than a hundred faces around him, and as his eyes cleared, he began to recognize people he had once known. Some of them jeered and the smallest children threw sharp-edged stones at him. Others looked troubled, the strain forcing them into the cold face.
He prepared himself for death, an ending. The years since the abandonment had been a gift, despite their hardship. He had known joy and sorrow, and he vowed to give up his spirit with dignity intact. His father and his blood demanded it, no matter what the cost.
Eeluk sat in his great chair, brought into the sun for the occasion. Temujin glanced at him before looking away, preferring to watch the faces of the families. In spite of everything he had suffered, it was strangely comforting to see them all again. Ignoring Eeluk, Temujin nodded and smiled at some of the ones he had known well. They did not dare return his gestures, but he saw their eyes soften slightly.
“I would have brought him here in honor,” Eeluk bellowed suddenly to the crowd. He lowered his great head and wagged it seriously back and forth. “But I found him living like an animal without the graces of men. Yet even a rat can bite, and when he killed my bondsman, I had this
tribeless
wanderer dragged back for justice. Shall we give it to him? Shall we show him the Wolves have not grown soft?”
Temujin watched the families as Eeluk’s bondsmen cheered mindlessly. Some of them yelled agreement, but many more stood in silence and watched the dirty young man who stared back with his yellow eyes. Slowly, Temujin rose to his feet. He stank of his own filth and he was covered in fly bites and sores, but he stood unbending and waited for the blade to come.
Eeluk drew the sword with a wolf’s head carved into the bone hilt.
“The spirits have abandoned his family, my Wolves. Look at his state now and believe it. Where is the luck of Yesugei?”
It was a mistake to mention the old khan’s name. Many heads bowed automatically at its sound and Eeluk flushed in anger. It was suddenly not enough to take Temujin’s head, and he sheathed the blade.
“Tie him to a pony,” he said. “Drag him bloody and then leave him in the pit. Perhaps I will kill him tomorrow.”
As he watched, Tolui backed up a brown gelding and tied a long rope to the saddle. The crowd parted excitedly, craning to see this strange sport. As his wrists were fastened to the rope, Temujin turned his pale gaze on Eeluk for a few moments, then spat on the ground. Eeluk grinned hugely.
Tolui turned round in the saddle, his expression a mixture of smugness and malice.
“How fast can you run?” he said.
“Let’s find out,” Temujin said, licking cracked lips. He could feel sweat break out in his armpits. He had been able to summon courage to stand before a blade. The thought of being torn behind a galloping horse was more than he could bear.
He tried to brace himself, but Tolui dug his heels into the pony’s flanks and yelled wildly. The rope snapped tight and Temujin was jerked into a run, his weak legs already stumbling. Tolui rode recklessly, enjoying himself. It did not take long for Temujin to fall.
When Tolui finally returned to the encampment, Temujin was a dead weight on the rope. It was difficult to see a patch of skin that was not scraped raw and bloody. His clothes had been reduced to dusty rags that fluttered in the breeze as Tolui cut the rope at last. Temujin did not feel it as he slumped to the ground. His hands were almost black and his mouth hung open, red spittle drooling from where he had bitten his tongue. He saw Basan standing at the door of his family ger, his face pale and strained as Temujin stared at him.
Eeluk strode out to greet Tolui, casting an amused glance at the torn figure he had once considered important. He was glad he had not ended it too quickly. He felt lighter in step for the decision, as if a weight had been lifted. In fact, he was in the best of spirits and mock-wrestled with Tolui for a moment before the bondsman returned Temujin to the hole in the ground and dropped the lattice back into place.
Temujin sat in the icy filth, barely conscious of his surroundings. He had found a tooth in the muck at the bottom, large enough to have come from the jaw of a man. He did not know how long he had been sitting staring at it. Perhaps he had slept; he couldn’t be certain. Pain and despair had exhausted his senses to the point where he could not be sure if he dreamed or was awake. He ached in every bone, and his face was so fat with bruising that he could see only through a slit around one eye. The other was still crusted with thick blood, and he dared not pick at it. He did not want to move at all, in fact, with the threat of pain from endless scrapes and cuts. He had never felt so battered in his life, and it was all he could do not to cry out or weep. He kept his silence, finding a strength of will he had not known he possessed until that moment. It was made hard in a furnace of hatred, and he relished the core of him that would not bend, nurturing it as he found he could endure and live.
“Where is my father? Where is my tribe?” he murmured, screwing his face up against the grief. He had ached to be returned to the Wolves, but they cared nothing for him. It was no small thing to cast off the last threads of his childhood, the shared history that bound him to them. He remembered the simple kindness of old Horghuz and his family, when he and his brothers were alone. For a time he could not measure, he stood slumped against the walls of earth, thoughts moving slowly like ice on a river.
Something grated above his head and he jerked in fear, coming awake as if he had been dreaming. Some part of him had been aware of a moving shadow on the floor of the pit. He looked blearily upwards and saw to his dull astonishment that the lattice had vanished. The stars shone down without restriction and he could only stare, unable to understand what was happening. If he had not been wounded, he might have tried to climb, but he could barely move. It was excruciating to see a chance to escape and not be able to take it. He had done his best to spread the damage as much as possible, but his right leg felt as if it had been shredded. It still seeped blood sluggishly into the muck around him, and he could no more jump than fly out of the hole like a bird.
He found himself chuckling almost hysterically at the thought that his unknown savior had left, expecting him to make his own way out. In the morning, the fool would find him still in the pit, and Eeluk would not leave him unguarded again.
Something came slithering down the wall and Temujin jerked away, thinking it was a snake. His mind was playing tricks as he felt the rough fibers of a braided rope and the beginnings of hope. Above him, he saw the shadow block the stars, and he strained to keep his voice low.
“I can’t climb out,” he said.
“Tie yourself on,” came the voice from the night before, “but help me as I pull.”
With clumsy fingers, Temujin tied it round his waist, wondering again who would risk Eeluk’s wrath. He did not doubt that if they were discovered, his rescuer would join him in the pit and suffer the same fate.
As the rope bit into his back, Temujin’s legs scrabbled uselessly at the earth walls. He found he could dig his hands in as he climbed, though the effort was like setting his skin on fire. He felt a scream bubbling along inside him until involuntary tears squeezed out of the corners of his eyes. Still he made no sound until, at last, he lay on the frozen ground in a silent encampment.
“Get away as far as you can,” his rescuer said. “Use the mud of the riverbanks to hide your scent. If you survive, I will come to you and take you farther away.” In the starlight, Temujin could see he was gray-haired and had powerful shoulders, but to his surprise, he did not know the man. Before he could respond, the stranger pressed a bag into his hand and Temujin’s mouth watered at the odor of onions and mutton. The bag was warm and he gripped it as if it were his last hope.
“Who are you to save me?” he whispered. Part of him was yelling that it didn’t matter, that he had to run, but he couldn’t bear not knowing.
“I was pledged to your father, Yesugei,” Arslan replied. “Now go, and I will follow you in the confusion of the search.”
Temujin hesitated. Could Eeluk have staged it all to find the location of his brothers? He could not risk telling a stranger of the cleft in the hills.
“When you leave,” Temujin said, “ride five days north, sunrise to sunset. Find a high hill to watch for me. I will come if I can and lead you to my family. You have my thanks forever, nameless one.”
Arslan smiled at the courage of the younger man. In many ways, he reminded the swordsmith of his son, Jelme, though there was a fire in this one that would be hard to extinguish. He had not intended to give his name, in case the young warrior was captured and forced to reveal it. Under Temujin’s gaze he nodded, making a decision.
“My name is Arslan. I travel with my son, Jelme. If you live, we will meet again,” he said, taking Temujin’s arm in a brief clasp that almost made him cry out in sudden pain. Arslan replaced the lattice and stone, then walked away, moving like a cat in the frozen starlight. Temujin could do no more than shuffle as he took a different direction, concentrating on staying alive and going as far as he could before the hunt began.
In the blue-gray light of dawn, two young boys dared each other to go to the edge of the pit and stare down at the captive. When they finally found the courage to peer over the edge, there was no one there looking back and they ran for their parents, calling an alarm.
When Eeluk came from his ger, his face was tight with excitement. The powerful red bird gripped a leather sleeve around his right forearm, her dark beak open far enough to show a sliver of dark tongue. Two hunting dogs leapt around him, sensing his mood and barking madly.
“Go out in threes,” Eeluk shouted to his warriors as they gathered. “I will take the western point—and whoever brings him back will have a new deel and two knives with horn handles from my hand. Tolui, you are with me. Mount up, my brothers. Today we hunt.”
He watched as the bondsmen and the lesser warriors formed their groups, checking equipment and supplies before leaping into the saddles of their ponies. Eeluk was pleased to see their mood was light, and he congratulated himself on the decision to bring Temujin back to the camp. Perhaps seeing him beaten and dragged bloody was a final proof that the sky father loved the new khan of the Wolves. There had been no lightning strike to punish Eeluk, after all. Even the oldest of the crones should be satisfied with what he had achieved.
It crossed his mind to wonder how Temujin had escaped the pit, but that was a problem for his return. The young man could not have gone far with his injuries. When they brought him in, Eeluk would ask him how he had climbed the slick walls, or who had helped him. He frowned at that thought. Perhaps there were traitors among the families. If there were, he would root them out.
He wound his reins around his fist and mounted, enjoying the feeling of strength in his legs. The red bird spread her wings to balance as he settled himself. Eeluk grinned tightly, feeling his heart begin to beat faster. It usually took a little time for him to come fully awake, but the prospect of hunting a wounded man had fired his blood and he was ready to gallop. The red bird sensed it in him and ducked her head, tugging at the hood with a long claw. Eeluk pulled away the leather restraint and the eagle flew from his forearm, lunging upwards with a screech. He watched her beat the air for height, his arm rising without her weight until it was almost a greeting or a farewell. On such a morning, he could feel the land. Eeluk glanced around the camp and nodded to Tolui.
“Come. Let’s see how far he has managed to run.”
Tolui grinned at his lord and master, digging in his heels and sending his mount surging forward. The hunting dogs broke off their howling to run alongside, hungry for a kill. The air was cold, but the warriors wore padded deels and the sun was on the rise.
Temujin lay very still and watched a fly crawl across the mud in front of his face. He had slathered himself in river clay to mask his scent, but he did not know whether it would work or not. He had gone as far as he could in the dark, though by the end he was limping and sobbing with every step. It was strange how much weakness he could show when he was on his own. He did not mind the sting of his tears on his raw skin when there was no one else to witness it. Every step was an agony and yet he had pushed himself on, remembering Hoelun’s words on the first nights in the cleft in the hills. There would be no rescue; no end to their suffering unless they made it themselves. He kept going, relying on the dark to hide his movement from the watchers on the hills.