Genghis: Birth of an Empire (26 page)

“Not him. He is an idiot,” Temujin said.

Basan smiled. Tolui was a rising young man in the gers of the Wolves, and his temper was becoming legendary. It had been a long time since Basan had heard anyone dare to insult him aloud, even when he wasn’t in hearing. Seeing Temujin stand strong before him was a reminder that there was a world outside the Wolves. When Basan spoke again, it was with bitterness.

“They say the Wolves are strong, Temujin…and we are, in men like Tolui. Eeluk has raised new faces as his bondsmen, men of no honor. He makes us kneel to him and if someone makes him laugh or has brought back a deer, say, or raided a family, Eeluk throws a skin of black airag at him like a dog who has done well.” As he spoke he stared up at the hills, remembering a different time.

“Your father never made us kneel,” he said softly. “When he was alive, I would have given my life for him without thinking, but he never made me feel less than a man.”

It was a long speech from the taciturn tribesman, and Temujin listened, knowing the importance of having Basan as an ally. He had no other in the Wolves, not any longer. He could have asked for help again, but Basan had not spoken lightly. His sense of honor meant he could not let Temujin run now that they had caught him. Temujin accepted it, though the open plains called to him and he ached to get away from whatever ugly death Eeluk intended. He knew better than to expect mercy a second time, now that Eeluk was secure in his position. When he spoke, he chose his words carefully, needing Basan to remember, to hear more than the pleading of a prisoner.

“My father was born to rule, Basan. He walked lightly with men he trusted. Eeluk is not so…certain of himself. He cannot be. I do not excuse what he has done, but I understand him and why he has brought men like Tolui to stand at his shoulder. Their weakness makes them vicious and sometimes men like that can be deadly warriors.” He saw Basan was relaxing as he spoke, considering difficult ideas almost as if one of them were not the captive of the other.

“Perhaps that is what Eeluk saw in Tolui,” Temujin mused. “I have not seen Tolui on a raid, but it may be he smothers his fear in wild acts of courage.”

Temujin would not have said it if he believed it. The Tolui he had known as a boy had been a blusterer more likely to run wailing if he hurt himself. Temujin hid his pleasure behind the cold face when Basan looked troubled, considering some memory in the light of Temujin’s words.

“Your father would not have had him as a bondsman,” Basan said, shaking his head. “It was the greatest honor of my life to be chosen by Yesugei. It meant more then than having the strength and the armor to attack weak families and raid their herds. It meant…” He shook himself, retreating from his memories.

Temujin wanted him to go further down that path, but he dared not press him for more. They stood in silence for a long time, then Basan sighed.

“With your father, I could be proud,” he muttered, almost to himself. “We were vengeance and death to those who attacked us, but never to the families, never to Wolves. Eeluk has us strut around the gers in our armor, and we do not work the wool into felt or break new ponies. He lets us grow fat and soft with gifts. The young ones know nothing different, but I have been lean and strong and certain, Temujin. I remember what it was to ride with Yesugei against the Tartars.”

“You do him honor, still,” Temujin whispered, touched by the man’s memories of his father. In response, he saw Basan’s face become calm and knew there would be no more from him that day.

* * *

T
olui returned triumphant with two marmots tied to his belt. He and Basan cooked them with hot stones sealed inside the skin, and Temujin’s mouth was wet with saliva as he smelled the meat on the breeze. Tolui allowed Basan to throw one of the carcasses where Temujin could reach it, and he tore at the scraps with deliberate care, needing to remain strong. Tolui seemed to take pleasure in jerking the rope whenever he reached to put food into his mouth.

As they started off again, Temujin struggled against weariness and the pain and soreness in his wrists. He did not complain, knowing it would give Tolui satisfaction to see any weakness. He knew the bondsman would kill him rather than let him escape, and Temujin could see no opportunity to get away from the men who held him prisoner. The thought of seeing Eeluk again was a gnawing fear in his empty belly, and then as evening came, Tolui came to a sudden halt, his eyes fixed on something in the distance. Temujin squinted through the setting sun and despaired.

Old Horghuz had not gone far, after all. Temujin recognized his piebald pony and the cart it pulled, piled high with the family’s meager possessions. Their small herd of goats and sheep went before them, the bleating carrying far on the breeze. Perhaps Horghuz had not understood the danger. It hurt Temujin to imagine the old man had stayed in the area to see what had become of the family he had befriended.

Horghuz was not a fool. He did not approach the walking bondsmen, though they could all see the paleness of his face as he turned to watch them. Temujin urged him silently to ride away as far and fast as he could go.

Temujin could do nothing but watch in sick anticipation as Tolui handed the rope to Basan and eased his bow from his shoulders, hiding it from view as he readied the string in his hands. He walked quickly toward the old man and his family, and Temujin could not bear it any longer. With a jerk that spun Basan around, he raised his hands and waved furiously at the old man, desperate for him to get away.

Horghuz hesitated visibly, turning in the saddle and staring back at the lone figure advancing toward him. He saw Temujin’s frantic gesture, but it was too late. Tolui had reached his range and strung his bow with a foot on the shaft, raising the weapon whole in just a few heartbeats. Before Horghuz could do more than shout a warning to his wife and children, Tolui had drawn and loosed.

It was not a hard shot for a man who could fire at full gallop. Temujin moaned as he saw Horghuz dig in his heels and knew the tired pony would not be fast enough. The bondsmen and their prisoner followed the path of the arrow. Tolui had sent another rising after it, which seemed to hang darkly in the air as the human figures moved too slowly, too late.

Temujin cried out as the shaft took old Horghuz in the back, making his pony rear in panic. Even at such a distance, Temujin could see the figure of his friend jerk, his arms waving weakly. The second arrow fell almost on the same track as the first, landing point first in the wooden saddle as Horghuz slid to the ground, a heap of dark clothing on the green plain. Temujin winced as he heard the thump of the second strike an instant after he had seen it land. Tolui roared his triumph and broke into a hunter’s trot, his bow held ready as he closed on the panicking family as a wolf will pad toward a herd of goats.

Horghuz’s wife cut the pony loose from the cart and put her two sons on the saddle after wrenching out the upright shaft. She might have smacked the little animal into a run, but Tolui was already shouting a warning. As he raised his bow once again, the fight went out of her and she slumped, defeated.

Temujin watched in despair as Tolui walked closer still, casually fitting another arrow to his string.

“No!” Temujin shouted, but Tolui was enjoying himself. His first arrow took the woman in the chest, and then he picked off the screaming children. The force of the impacts plucked them from the pony, leaving them sprawled on the dusty ground.

“What harm had they done to him, Basan? Tell me that!” Temujin demanded.

Basan looked at him in mild surprise, his eyes dark and questioning.

“They are not our people. Would you leave them to starve?”

Temujin dragged his eyes from the sight of Tolui kicking one of the children’s bodies out of the way to mount the pony. A part of him felt the crime in what he had witnessed, but he did not have the words to explain. There was no tie of blood or marriage with old Horghuz and his family. They had not been Wolves.

“He kills like a coward,” he said, still searching for the idea. “Does he face armed men with so much pleasure?”

He saw Basan frown and knew his point had struck home. It was true that the family of old Horghuz would not have survived the season. Temujin knew Yesugei might even have given the same order, but with regret and an understanding that it would be a sort of mercy in a hard land. Temujin sneered as the bondsman rode back to them. Tolui was a little man despite his frame and his great strength. He had taken their lives to satisfy his own frustration, and he was beaming as he returned to those who had watched him. Temujin hated him then, but he made his vows in the privacy of his own thoughts and he did not speak to Basan again.

Tolui and Basan took turns to ride the piebald mare, while Temujin staggered and fell behind them. The bodies were left for scavengers once Tolui had recovered his arrows from their flesh. The little cart caught the bondsman’s interest long enough to look through it, but there was little more than dried meat and ragged clothes. Wanderers like Horghuz did not have hidden treasures. Tolui cut the throat of a kid goat and drank the blood with obvious enjoyment before tying the body behind the saddle and driving the others along with them. They would have more than enough fresh meat to reach the gers of the Wolves.

Temujin had looked at the still, pale faces of Horghuz and his family as he passed them. They had made him welcome and shared salt tea and meat when he was hungry. He felt stunned and weak from the emotions of the day, but as he left them behind, he knew in a moment of revelation that they had been his tribe, his family. Not by blood, but by friendship and a wider bond of survival in a hard time. He accepted their revenge as his own.

* * *

H
oelun took Temuge by the shoulders and shook him. He had grown like spring grass in the years since they had left the Wolves, and there was no sign of his puppyish fat any longer. Yet he was not strong where it mattered. He helped his brothers work, but did only what he was told to do, and more often than not he would wander away and spend a day swimming in a stream, or climbing a hill for the view. Hoelun could have dealt with simple laziness as long as she had a switch to beat him. Temuge was an unhappy little boy, though, and he still dreamed of going home to the Wolves and everything they had lost. He needed time away from his family, and if it was denied him, he would grow nervous and sullen until Hoelun lost patience and sent him out to let clean air blow his thoughts like cobwebs.

Temuge was crying as the evening came, sobbing to himself in the tiny ger until Hoelun lost patience with him.

“What are we going to do?” he sobbed, wiping at a shining trail of mucus almost as wide as his nose.

Hoelun suppressed her irritation and smoothed down his hair with her hard hands. If he was too soft, it was no more than Yesugei had warned her would happen. Perhaps she had indulged him.

“He will be all right, Temuge. Your brother would never be easily caught.” She tried to keep her voice cheerful, though she had already begun to consider their future. Temuge could weep, but Hoelun had to plan, and be clever, or she might lose them all. Her other sons were stunned and miserable at this blow to their lives. With Temujin, they had begun to know a little hope. To lose him was a return to the absolute despair of the first days alone, and the dark cleft in the hills brought it all back, like a stone hanging on their spirits.

Outside the ger, Hoelun heard one of the ponies whicker softly to itself. She considered the sound as she made decisions that seemed to tear the heart from her chest. At last, when Temuge was sniffing in a corner and staring at nothing, she spoke to them all.

“If Temujin has not come back to us by tomorrow night, we will have to leave this place.” She had all their attention then, even little Temulun, who ceased playing with her colored bones and stared wide-eyed at her mother. “We have no choice now that the Wolves are coming back to the red hill. Eeluk will scout the area for a hundred miles and he will find our little hideaway here. That will be the end of us.”

It was Kachiun who replied, choosing his words carefully.

“If we leave, Temujin will not be able to find us again, but you know that,” he said. “I could stay and wait for him, if you take the ponies. Just tell me a direction and I will follow when he comes.”

“And if he does not come?” Khasar said.

Kachiun frowned at him. “I will wait as long as I can. If the Wolves come looking in the cleft, I will hide myself or travel by night after you. If we just leave, he might as well be dead. We will not find each other again.”

Smiling, Hoelun clasped Kachiun by his shoulder, forcing herself to ignore her despair. Though she smiled, her eyes glittered uncomfortably.

“You are a good brother, and a fine son,” she said. “Your father would be proud of you.” She leaned forward, her intensity disturbing. “But do not risk your life if you see him caught, you understand? Temujin was born with blood in his hand— perhaps this is his fate.” Her face crumpled without warning. “I cannot lose all my sons, one by one.” The memory of Bekter brought a spasm of sudden weeping, shocking them all. Kachiun reached out and wrapped his arms around his mother’s shoulders, and in the corner, Temuge began to sob on his own once more.

E
ELUK SAT IN A GER twice the size of any other in the camp, on a throne of wood and polished leather. Yesugei had disdained such symbols of power, but Eeluk took comfort from being raised above his bondsmen. Let them remember who was khan! He listened to the crackle of torches and the far-off voices of the tribe. He was drunk again, or close to it, so that his hand blurred as he passed it in front of his eyes. He considered calling for enough airag to smash him into sleep, but instead, he sat in sullen silence, staring at the floor. His bondsmen knew better than to try to raise the spirits of their khan when he was brooding on better days.

His eagle perched on a wooden tree at his right hand. The hooded bird was a brooding presence that could be as still as bronze for the longest time, then suddenly jerk at a sound, tilting her head as if she could see through the thick leather. The red tinge to her feathers had remained, shimmering when her wings caught the light of torches. Eeluk was proud of her size and power. He had watched her strike a kid goat and struggle into the air with the limp flesh dangling. He had not allowed her more than a single scrap of flesh for the kill, of course, but it had been a glorious moment. He had given Yesugei’s eagle to another family, binding them in gratitude for a khan’s gift. He longed to show the pair to Temujin or Bekter, and almost wished them alive just to experience their anger one more time.