Authors: Conn Iggulden
LEE UNG HAD SERVED KUBLAI FOR BARELY A YEAR. HE HAD
signed on with the khan’s brother when the tumans came through northern Chin lands, marking out thousands of farms over a vast area. He had known there were risks in any enterprise, but the pay was good and came regularly and he had always had a gift for languages. He had not expected to be grabbed and tortured by the old fool in charge of Ta-li city.
The pain was unbearable, simply that. He reached the point again and again where he could not stand it any longer, but still it went on. He was bound to the post and there was nowhere to go, no way to make it stop. He wept and pleaded with each stroke, ignoring the Mongols who turned their heads from him in embarrassment. Some of them called for him to stand up, but his legs had no strength and he sagged against the pole, held only by the cords on his wrists. He longed to faint or go insane, anything that would take him away, but his body refused and he stayed alert. If anything, his senses became more acute and the pain worsened until he could not believe anything could hurt more.
He heard the prefect snap an order and across the square the flogging ceased. Lee Ung struggled up again, forcing his knees to lock. He
looked around and spat blood from where he had bitten his tongue. The square was part of an ancient marketplace near the city walls. He could see the huge gate that hid Kublai’s army from sight. Lee Ung groaned at the thought that his rescuers were so close, yet blind. He could not die. He was too young and he had not even taken a wife.
He saw the bloody whips being cleansed in buckets, then passed on to other men to oil and wrap in protective cloth. In growing fear, he saw different rolls brought out and laid on the ground. Lee Ung strained, standing on his toes to see what they contained as the soldiers pulled back heavy canvas. The crowd murmured in anticipation and Lee Ung roared at them again, his voice hoarse.
“Hundreds of cannon lie outside these walls, ready to bring them down in rubble!” he shouted. “A huge army faces you and yet a noble prince has promised to spare every life in Ta-li! He offers you mercy and dignity, but you take his men and break them with whips. How will he react now, when he does not see us return? What will he do then? As our blood is spilled, so yours will follow, every man, every woman, every child in the city. Remember then that you chose it. That you could have opened your gates and lived!”
He saw his tormentor unfold a long whip and broke off in despair as he saw the glint of metal in the strips. Lee Ung had seen a man scourged to death once before, a rapist caught by the authorities in his home city. His mouth went dry at the memories. His bladder would release, his body would become a twitching, spastic thing under that lash. There was no dignity in the death that awaited. In sick horror, he watched the man swirl the whip in circles, freeing the straps. Somewhere distant, Lee Ung heard a low whistling sound. It grew louder and half the crowd jerked out of their reverie as something heavy struck the great gate to the square, the sound echoing across their heads.
“He comes!” Lee Ung screeched at them. “The destroyer is here. Throw down your masters and live, or the streets will be red by sunset.”
Another thump sounded and then two more as Kublai’s gunners found their range. One ball flew overhead, missing the wall entirely and vanishing to smash a roof across the square. The crowd flinched after the blur had passed.
“He comes!” Lee Ung shouted again, delirious with relief. He
heard someone snap an order, but he was still craning his neck to look at the shivering gate when the guard reached him and cut his throat in one swift motion. The Mongols at the posts shouted in rage as his blood spattered the dry ground. They began to heave at the posts, working them back and forth, throwing their full weight against whatever held them. Meng Guang spoke again and more of his soldiers drew blades as the city gate came down with a crash.
In the roll of dust that spread out from the walls, the crowd could see a line of Mongol horsemen, black against the sunlight. They began to stream away, fear filling them as the riders entered the city in perfect ranks.
Meng Guang stood slowly as the square emptied, his face unnaturally pale. He swayed as he came to his feet, his world falling down around him. He had told himself the army outside Ta-li did not exist, that nothing the enemy could do would influence him. Yet they had entered, forcing him to see them. Meng Guang stood rooted in a shock so profound that his mind was completely blank. He was vaguely aware of his guards leaving the bloody whipping posts to protect him, their swords held high. He shook his head in slow denial, as if he could refuse entry to Ta-li even then.
With long silk banners fluttering on his left and right, the enemy rode up in shining armor that glittered in the sun. Meng Guang gaped at Kublai as he halted close to the group of armed men, disdaining their threat. Kublai knew those around him could lace the air with shafts at the first sign of aggression, but Meng Guang’s guards did not. The slow approach unnerved them all, as if he was invulnerable, so far above them in status that they could not possibly threaten him. Under his glare, many of the solders looked down, as if the sun itself burned their eyes.
Kublai saw a withered old man in clean robes standing uncertainly before him with empty eyes. The crowds had fled and the square was utterly silent.
In the stillness, one of the bound Mongols managed to wrench his iron post from the stones beneath it. He roared in triumph, taking hold of it like a weapon and advancing on Meng Guang with clear intent. Kublai raised his hand and the man stopped instantly, his chest rising and falling with strong emotion.
“I said I would spare Ta-li,” Kublai said in perfect Mandarin. “Why did you not listen to me?”
Meng Guang stared into the distance, his mind settling into a cold lump that could not respond. He had lived long and been prefect of the city for decades. It had been a good life. He heard the voice of the enemy as reeds whispering in the darkness, but he did not respond. They could not make him acknowledge them. He prepared himself for death, taking a deep breath and releasing it slowly, so that his racing heart slowed to a steady beat.
Kublai frowned at the lack of reaction. He saw fear in the prefect’s soldiers and rage in the faces of his own men, but the prefect stood and looked out over the city as if he were the only man there. A breeze blew and Kublai shook his head to break the spell. He had seen the body of Lee Ung hanging from its wrists and he made his decision.
“I am a noble house,” Kublai said. “My lands in the north were once bound to the Sung territories under one emperor. It will be so again. I claim this city as my own, as my
right
. My protection, my shadow, stands over you all from this moment. Surrender to me and I will show mercy, as a father to his children.”
Meng Guang said nothing, though he raised his eyes at last and met those of Kublai. Almost like a shiver, he shook his head.
“Very well,” Kublai said. “I see I will have to disappoint a friend. Take this one and hang his body from the walls. The rest will live.”
He watched closely as the Mongol with the iron pole shouldered through the guards and pushed Meng Guang through to the front. The old man went without a protest and his guards did nothing. They did not dare look at each other, understanding at last that their lives hung on a single word from this strange prince who spoke in the language of authority.
“My word is iron,” Kublai said to the guards, as Meng Guang was led away. “Your people will come to know this, in time.”
HULEGU WAS PANTING SLIGHTLY AS HE DREW TO A HALT
and passed his hunting eagle to its handler. The bird screeched and
flapped, but the man knew her well and calmed the bird with a hand on her neck.
General Kitbuqa carried a white-flecked kestrel on his right arm, but he had only two pigeons on his belt and his expression was sour. Hulegu grinned at him as he dismounted and handed over a small deer, its head lolling brokenly. His cook was Persian, a local man who claimed to have once served the caliph himself. When he had been captured on the way back to the city from some distant market, Hulegu had taken him into his staff. It pleased him to eat meals the caliph should have been enjoying, though he made sure to have them tasted first. The dark-skinned man bobbed his head as he took the flopping animal, his gaze bright on the eagle as she fussed. His people loved to hunt the air. Hawks and kestrels were treasures, but the massive eagles were almost unknown in that region. The dark gold bird that settled on the handler’s wrist was worth a fortune.
Hulegu looked to Baghdad, just two miles to the north. His armies surrounded the ancient walled city, even to the point of blocking the Tigris with pontoons they had constructed in his absence. In all directions, he could see the dark smears of his tumans, waiting patiently. The caliph had refused to destroy the walls as an expression of his good faith. Hulegu still had the letter somewhere in his packs. The words were clear enough, but it was still a mystery to him. The man had written of the followers of Mohammed, certain that they would rise up to defend the center of their faith. Hulegu wondered where they all were as his army settled in around the city. In a previous generation, the caliph might have been right, but Genghis had slaughtered his way across the region, not once but twice. It amused Hulegu to think of the survivors crawling out of rubble, only to encounter Genghis on his way back to the Xi Xia territory on his last campaign. Baghdad did not have the support it had enjoyed in previous centuries, but the caliph seemed almost unaware of his isolation.
Hulegu accepted a drink of orange juice, chilled in the river overnight. He knocked it back and tossed the cup to a servant without looking to see if the man caught it. The people of Baghdad did not share their master’s confidence in God. Every night, they let themselves down by ropes, risking broken bones by scrambling down the
rough walls. Hulegu had no idea how many people there were inside, but each dawn found another hundred or so being herded up by his men. It had become almost a game to them. He let his men practice their archery on the groups, giving the men and boys to be slaughtered while the women and girls were handed out to those who had pleased their officers. The caliph had not surrendered. Until he did, their lives were forfeit.
Hulegu heard the sizzle as his cook put fresh-cut venison steaks into a pan of hot fat. The smell was laced with garlic and his mouth watered in anticipation. The man was a marvel. Kitbuqa’s pitiful pigeons would not add much meat to the general’s noon meal, he thought, but then that was the difference between eagles and hawks. His eagle could send even a wolf tumbling. She and Hulegu were the same, he thought complacently. Predators did not need mercy. He could envy the bird its perfect single-minded ruthlessness. It had no doubts or fears, nothing to trouble a mind dedicated only to the kill.
Once more, he looked to Baghdad and his mouth tightened to a thin line. His cannons barely chipped the stones. The city’s defensive walls had been designed with sloping surfaces that sent the balls skipping away with little damage. When the black powder was gone, he would be left with torsion catapults and heavy trebuchets. In time, they would still break the walls, but not with the same roaring terror, not with the same feeling of godlike power. Baghdad was known to have no boulders for miles around it, but his men had planned for that, collecting them in carts as they came south. Eventually, they would run out and he would have to send his tumans to collect more.
Hulegu grimaced to himself, weary of the same thoughts spinning in his head as each slow day passed. He could assault the walls at any time, but they were still strong. Stubborn defenders could take as many as four or five of his men for each one they lost. That was the purpose of castles and walled cities, after all. They would pour naphtha oil and drop rocks on those trying to climb. It would be a bloody business and he did not want to see thousands of his men killed over one city, no matter how much wealth was reputed to lie inside its walls. It would always be better to smash the walls down, or for starvation to bring the caliph to his senses.
“If you make me wait much longer,” Hulegu muttered, staring at the distant city, “it will go hard with you.”
General Kitbuqa looked up as he spoke and Hulegu realized the man was still hoping for an invitation to share the noon meal. He smiled, recalling the eagle’s stoop. There was too much meat for one man, but he did not offer to share it. Hawks and eagles did not fly together, he reminded himself. They were very different breeds.
CALIPH AL-MUSTASIM WAS A WORRIED MAN. HIS ANCESTORS
had secured a small empire around Baghdad that had lasted five centuries, with the city as the jewel. It had even survived the ravages of Genghis as he swept through the area decades before. Al-Mustasim liked to believe Allah had made the Mongol khan blind to the city, so that he rode past it without stopping. Perhaps it was even true. Al-Mustasim was not only of the royal Abbasid line, but also the leader of the Moslem faith in the world, his city a light for them all. Surely there were armies on their way to relieve Baghdad? He clasped his hands and felt the sweat on them as his fingers slid together and apart, over and over. The caliph was large of body, his flesh made soft by years of luxury. He felt the clammy perspiration in his armpits and clicked his fingers to have slave girls approach and wipe him with cloths. He did not break off his fearful thoughts as they tended to him, raising his arms and wiping at the smooth brown expanse that was revealed beneath his silks and layers. They had been chosen for their beauty, but he had no eyes for them that day. He barely noticed as one of them fed him sticky sweets from a bowl, pressing them into his mouth as if they fattened a prize bull.
As he lay there, a cluster of laughing children ran into the room and he looked fondly at them. They brought noise and life, enough to pierce the despair that weighed him down.
“The qamara!” his son demanded, looking up at him beseechingly. The other children waited in hope to see the marvel and al-Mustasim’s face softened.