Genghis: Birth of an Empire (30 page)

He waited until the last rays of the sun had gone and the land was dark again and cold. His body seemed to be willing to bear him onward for a little longer, and he had long ceased to wonder at how far he could push his broken, damaged limbs. The river had unstuck his swollen eye and he found with relief that he could see out of it a little, though everything was blurred and it watered constantly, like tears.

He dreaded the dogs of the camp, though he hoped the river mud would keep his scent down. The thought of one of those vicious animals running out to savage him was a constant fear, but he had no other choice. If he stopped his hobbling crawl, he would be found in the second sweep of hunters in the morning. He went on, and when he looked back, he was surprised to see how far he had come.

He knew the ger he wanted and thanked the sky father that it was close to the edge of the quiet camp. He lay on his belly for a long time, at the edges, watching for the slightest movement. Eeluk had placed his sentries looking outward, but they would have needed the sight of an owl to see the muddy figure creeping forward on the dark earth.

After an age, Temujin reached out to touch the felt wall of a ger, feeling its dry coarseness with something like ecstasy. Every sense was heightened, and though his pain had returned, he felt alive and light-headed. He thought of trying to gain an entry under the wall, but it would have been pegged down and he did not want someone to shout in fear or think he was a wolf. He grinned to himself at the thought. He made a very ragged wolf, stealing down from the hills for warmth and milk. Clouds hid the stars and, in the darkness, he reached the little door to the ger and pushed it open, closing it behind him and standing panting in the deeper dark within.

“Who is it?” he heard a woman ask. To his left, he heard a rustle of blankets and another deeper voice.

“Who is there?” Basan said.

He would be reaching for a knife, Temujin knew.

“Temujin,” he whispered.

Silence greeted his name and he waited, knowing his life hung in the balance. He heard the strike of flint on steel, the flash lighting their faces for an instant. Basan’s wife and children were all awake and Temujin could only stare dully at them while Basan lit an oil lamp and shuttered the flame down to barely more than a glowing cinder.

“You cannot stay here,” Basan’s wife said.

Temujin saw the fear in her face, but he turned in mute appeal to his father’s bondsman and waited.

Basan shook his head, appalled at the shambling figure that stood hunched in his home.

“They are looking for you,” Basan said.

“Hide me, then, for a day, until the search is over,” Temujin replied. “I claim guest rights.” He did not hear an answer and he slumped suddenly, the last of his strength vanishing. He slid to his knees and his head lolled forward.

“We cannot send him away,” he heard Basan tell his wife. “Not to be killed.”

“He will kill us all,” she said, her voice rising in volume.

Blearily, Temujin watched Basan cross the ger to her, holding her face in both his hands.

“Make him tea and find something to eat,” he told her. “I will do this for his father.”

She did not respond, though she moved to the kettle and began stoking the little iron stove, her face hard. Temujin felt himself lifted in Basan’s strong arms and then darkness overwhelmed him.

* * *

E
eluk did not think to search the gers of the families. His initial good humor faded visibly as the second day passed and then the third with no sign of the fugitive. At the end of the fourth day, Basan returned to Temujin to report that Arslan and his son had also vanished. They had ridden north that morning with one of the bondsmen, but none of them had returned by sunset and Eeluk was beside himself with rage. He had sent men to the ger he had given the swordsmith and found that his most valuable tools had vanished along with him. No one was expecting the bondsman to come back, and the wailing of his family could be heard long into the night. The mood of the Wolves had soured and Eeluk had knocked a man unconscious for questioning his decision to send them out again.

Temujin could barely remember the first two days. A fever had set in, perhaps from the stinking air of the pit. The freezing river had cleaned his skin and may have saved him. Basan’s wife had tended his wounds with stern efficiency, bathing away the worst of the remaining filth and dabbing at the blood and pus with a cloth dipped in boiled airag. He had groaned at her touch and had a memory of her hand over his mouth to stifle the sound.

Basan had left them to join the other men each morning, after stern warnings to his two sons not to say a word to anyone. They watched Temujin with owlish curiosity, frightened by the stranger who said nothing and bore such awful wounds. They were old enough to understand that their father’s life depended on their silence.

Eeluk had taken to drinking more and more heavily as his search parties returned empty-handed day after day. By the end of a week, he gave a drunken order for the families to continue farther north, leaving the pit and their bad luck behind them. That night, he retired to his ger with two of the youngest girls in the tribe, and their families had dared not complain. Basan took a late watch from midnight until dawn, seeing a chance to spirit Temujin out of the camp at last. The families were unhappy and nervous and he knew there would be eyes watching and listening whenever he moved. Though it was fraught with danger, Temujin would be discovered when the gers were dismantled, so it was that night or nothing.

It was hard to do anything in the tight-knit society of the tribe without it being noticed. Basan waited as close to midnight as he could, leaving the top felt off the ger and peering up at the stars as they crept across the bowl of sky above. As a result, they were all shivering by the time he judged the tribe was as quiet and still as it was going to get. Those who were still awake would not remark on a trusted bondsman going out to take his watch, though Basan had agonized over giving Temujin one of his ponies. He had eleven and loved them all as his children. In the end, he had chosen a small black mare and brought her to the door of his ger, tying on saddlebags with enough food to keep Temujin alive for the trip.

Temujin stood in the deepest shadow and struggled to find words to express his gratitude. He had nothing to give even the children, and he felt ashamed for the burden and fear he had brought into their home. Basan’s wife had not warmed to him, though Basan’s oldest son seemed to have lost his nervousness and replaced it with awe when he heard who the stranger was in their home. The little boy had visibly summoned his courage when Basan told them it would be that night, and approached Temujin with all the self-consciousness of his twelve years. To Temujin’s surprise, the boy had gone down on one knee and reached out for his hand, pressing it down on the top of his head, where Temujin could feel his scalp lock of hair against the bristly skin.

Temujin found his throat tight with emotion at the boy’s simple gesture. “Your father is a brave man,” he murmured. “Be sure to follow his steps.”

“I will, my khan,” the boy replied.

Temujin stared at him and Basan’s mother hissed in a breath. At the door, Basan heard the exchange and shook his head, troubled. Before Temujin could reply, the bondsman crossed the ger to his son and lifted him to his feet.

“You cannot give an oath to this man, little one. When the time comes, you will pledge your sword and your life to Eeluk, as I have.” He could not meet Temujin’s eyes as he spoke, but the little boy’s resistance fled in his father’s strong grip. He ducked away and scurried to his mother’s embrace, watching them both from under the crook of her arm.

Temujin cleared his throat. “My father’s spirit watches us,” he murmured, seeing his frozen breath like a plume of mist. “You do him honor in saving me.”

“Walk with me now,” Basan said, embarrassed. “Do not speak to anyone and they will think you are another of the guards on the hills.” He held open the door and Temujin ducked through it, wincing at the pain from his scabs. He wore a clean tunic and leggings under a padded winter deel that belonged to Basan. Beneath the thick layers, the worst of his wounds were heavily bandaged. He was far from healed, but he yearned to be placed in a saddle. He would find his tribe among the wanderers of the plains, and the Wolves would not catch him again.

Basan walked deliberately slowly through the encampment, trusting in the dark to hide the identity of his companion if anyone was fool enough to brave the cold. There was a chance someone might notice that he returned without his mare, but he had no choice. It did not take long to leave the gers behind, and no one challenged them. The two men walked together in silence, leading the pony by the reins until the camp of the Wolves was far behind. It was late and Basan would have to work up a sweat to reach his post without causing comment. When they were hidden in the shadow of a hill, he pressed the reins into Temujin’s hands.

“I have wrapped my second bow and placed it here,” he said, patting a bundle tied to the saddle. “There is a little food, but I have left you two arrows with it, for when you need to hunt. Lead her on foot until you are far away, or the watchers will hear your hooves. Stay in the shadow of the hills as long as you can.”

Temujin nodded, reaching out to clasp the bondsman by his arm. The man had been his captor with Tolui and then saved his life and risked his own family to do it. He did not understand him, but he was grateful.

“Watch for me on the horizon, Basan,” he said. “I have scores to settle with the Wolves.”

Basan looked at him, seeing again the determination that reminded him chillingly of Yesugei when he was young.

“That is your father talking,” he said, shivering suddenly.

Temujin returned his gaze for a long moment, then clapped him on the shoulder.

“When you see me again, I promise your family will be safe,” he said, then clicked in his throat to start the mare walking once more. Basan watched him go before he realized he was late and began to run. By the time Temujin passed out of the hill shadow, only Basan would be there to see him go, and his horn would remain silent.

K
ACHIUN SAT ALONE on a gentle slope, breaking his fast with a little hard bread and the last of the spiced mutton. He and Khasar had managed to recapture most of the herd Tolui had scattered, and Hoelun had slaughtered and smoked enough to keep him for many days of his lonely watch for his brother. The supply had dwindled despite his attempts to eat sparingly, and he knew he would have to hunt marmots and birds the following day if he was not to starve.

As he munched the dry meat, he found himself missing his family and wondered if they still lived. He knew as well as anyone that a family of wanderers was vulnerable on the plains, even if they moved by night. As the brothers had once ambushed a pair of herdsmen, so his family could be attacked for the little flock or the ponies they rode. He did not doubt Khasar would give a good account of himself, but against two or three warriors out to raid, there could be only one outcome.

Kachiun sighed to himself, sick of the way the world had turned its face against them all. When Temujin had been there, they had dared to hope for something more than lives spent in fear of every stranger. Somehow his brother’s presence made him stand a little taller and remember how it had once been when Yesugei was alive. Kachiun feared for them all and his imagination threw up unwanted bloody images as the days passed.

It was hard being alone. Kachiun had felt the strangeness of his position as Hoelun led her last three children away to the west. He had stood watch for many nights as a little boy, though always with an older warrior to see he did not fall asleep. Even those long hours had not prepared him for the dreadful loneliness of the empty plains. He knew there was a chance that he would never see his family again, his mother or Temujin. The sea of grass was vast beyond imagining, and if they were dead, he might not even find their bones.

After the first few days, he had found it comforting to talk aloud to himself as he scanned the distant hills, just to hear a voice. The place he had chosen was high up in the cleft, near where he and Temujin had killed Bekter, so long ago. He still shuddered as he passed that spot each dawn on his way up to the watching post. He told himself that Bekter’s spirit would not stay there, but his knowledge of the rituals was hazy. Kachiun remembered old Chagatai referring to more than one soul. One would ride the winds far above, but wasn’t a part of it bound to the earth? He didn’t mind taking the path in the light of the morning sun, but when he left it too late and it was growing dark as he came back, it was easy to imagine Bekter standing there in the shadow of the trees, white and deadly. Kachiun shuddered at the thought. His memories of Bekter seemed to have become frozen in that single moment when he had released a shaft to punch into his back. What had gone before was just mist, a different life. He remembered his terror that Bekter would somehow pluck out the shaft and turn on him in fury. The world had changed when Bekter fell onto the damp leaves, and Kachiun sometimes wondered if he was still paying for that day. Temujin had said the spirits gave you just enough wit and strength to live and then took no further interest, but part of Kachiun feared there was a price to pay for every savage act. He had been a child, but he could have refused to follow Temujin.

He chuckled to himself at the idea. None of the brothers could refuse Temujin. He had more of his father about him than Kachiun had realized in the first days. It had become more and more evident as Kachiun saw Temujin bargain and trade with wanderer families like old Horghuz and his wife. Despite his age, he was never taken lightly, and if he had been killed, Kachiun would honor him by trying to follow the same path. He would find his mother and build a safe place somewhere with clean water and good grazing. Perhaps they would find a small tribe willing to take on a family. Hoelun could marry again, and they would be warm and safe.