Lords of the Bow (26 page)

The air was frozen in the night, but he could not sleep and took deep breaths, feeling the chill reach into his lungs. Dawn was not far away. He thought through his plans once more, but there was nothing else to do. His men were well fed, better than they had been in months. Those he would lead into the pass were veteran warriors in good armor. He had formed the first ranks of men with lances, in part to aid them in herding the prisoners forward. Tsubodai’s Young Wolves would come behind him, then the warriors of Arslan and Jelme, twenty thousand who would not run, no matter how vicious the fighting.

Genghis drew his father’s sword, seeing the wolf’s-head hilt shine in the starlight. He lunged with it, grunting as he did so. The camp was silent around him, though there were always eyes watching. He put his body through a routine Arslan had taught him that stretched his muscles as well as strengthening them. The monk Yao Shu was teaching a similar discipline to his sons, hardening their bodies like any other tool. Genghis sweated as he whipped his sword through the sequences. He was not as lightning quick as he had once been, but he had grown in strength and sheer power and he was still supple, despite the scarring of so many old wounds.

He did not want to wait for dawn. He considered finding a woman, knowing it would help to burn off a little of his nervous energy. His first wife, Borte, would be sleeping in the ger, surrounded by his sons. His second wife was still nursing their baby daughter. He brightened at that thought, imagining her pale breasts heavy with milk.

He sheathed his sword as he strode through the camp to Chakahai’s ger, already aroused at the prospect. He chuckled to himself as he walked. A warm woman and a battle to come. To be alive on such a night was a wondrous thing.

In his tent, General Zhi Zhong sipped a cup of hot rice wine, unable to sleep. The winter had closed over the mountains and he thought he could well spend the coldest months in the field with his army. It was not such an unpleasant thought. He had eleven children with three wives in Yenking, and when he was at home, there was always something to distract him. He found the routines of camp life restful in comparison, perhaps because he had known them all his life. Even there in the darkness, he could hear the murmured passwords as the guards changed and he knew a sense of peace. Sleep had always come slowly for him and he knew it was part of his legend amongst the men that he sat up night after night, the lamps showing through the heavy cloth of the command tent. Sometimes he slept with the lamps still burning, so that the guards thought he needed no rest as they did. It did not hurt to encourage their awe, he believed. Men needed to be led by one who showed none of their weaknesses.

He thought of the vast army around him and the preparations he had made. His sword regiments and pikemen alone outnumbered the Mongol warriors. Simply feeding so many had stripped the storehouses of Yenking. The merchants could only wail in disbelief as he showed them the documents the emperor had signed. The memory made him smile. Those fat grain sellers thought they were the heart of the city. It had amused Zhi Zhong to remind them where true power lay. Without the army, their fine houses were worth nothing.

To keep two hundred thousand men fed all winter would beggar the farmers for a thousand miles east and south. Zhi Zhong shook his head at the thought, his mind too busy to consider trying for sleep. What choice did he have? No one fought in winter, but he could not leave the pass unguarded. Even the young emperor understood it could be months before battle was joined. When the Mongols came in spring, he would still be there. Zhi Zhong wondered idly if their khan had the same supply problems he had. He doubted it. The tribesmen probably ate each other and considered it a delicacy.

He shivered as the cold night seeped into his tent, pulling his blankets close around his massive shoulders. Nothing had been the same since the old emperor died. Zhi Zhong had given his loyalty utterly to the man, revering him. Truly, the world had been shaken when he died at last, taken in his sleep after a long illness. He shook his head, sadly. The son was not the father. For the general’s generation, there could only ever be one emperor. Seeing a young, untried boy on the throne of the empire ate at the foundations of his entire life. It was the end of an era and perhaps he should have retired with the old man’s death. That would have been a fitting and dignified response. Instead, he had hung on to see the new emperor established and then the Mongols had come. Retirement would not come for another year, at least.

Zhi Zhong grimaced as the cold worked its way into his bones. The Mongols did not feel cold, he recalled. They seemed able to stand it as a wild fox can, with nothing more than a single layer of fur over bare skin. They disgusted him. They built nothing, achieved nothing in their short lives. The old emperor had kept them in their place, but the world had moved on and now they dared to threaten the gates of the great city. He would not show mercy when the battle was over. Nor would he let his men run wild in their camps, lest the blood of the tribes survive in a thousand ill-born children. He would not let them breed like lice to threaten Yenking again. He would not rest until the last of them lay dead and the land was empty. He would burn them out, and in the future, if another race dared to rise against the Chin, perhaps they would remember the Mongols and slink away from their plots and ambitions. That was the only response they deserved. Perhaps that could be the legacy he left as he retired, a vengeance so bloody and final that it would echo through the centuries ahead. He would be the death of an entire nation. It would be immortality of a sort and the idea pleased him. His thoughts whirled as the camp slept. He decided to leave the lamps burning and wondered if he would get any sleep at all.

As the first light of dawn appeared behind the mountains, Genghis looked up at the clouds that wreathed the high peaks. The plains below were still in darkness and he felt his heart lift at the sight. The army of prisoners he would drive through the pass had fallen silent. His people had formed up behind his bondsmen, hands tapping on lances and bows as they waited for his order. Only a thousand would remain behind to protect the women and children in the camp. There was no danger. Any threat on the plains had already been met and crushed.

Genghis clenched his hands tight on the reins of a dark brown mare. At the first sign of dawn, the drummer boys had begun to beat out a rhythm that was the sound of war to his ears. A thousand of them waited in the ranks with the drums strapped to their chest. The noise they made echoed back from the mountains and made his pulse thump faster. His brothers were somewhere ahead, half frozen after their trek across the high trails. Beyond them lay the city that had spilled Chin seed among his people for a thousand years, bribing them and slaughtering them like a pack of dogs when they saw the need. He smiled to himself at the image, wondering what his son Jochi would make of it.

The sun was hidden as it rose above him, then, in an instant, the plains were lit in gold and Genghis felt warmth touch his face. His gaze came up from the ground. It was time.

CHAPTER 22

K
ACHIUN WAITED AS THE DAWN
drew fingers of shadow from the trees. Genghis would move through the pass as fast as possible, but it would still take time for him to reach the main Chin army. All around him, Kachiun’s men readied their bows and loosened the tightly packed arrows in their quivers. Twelve men had died in the high passes, their hearts bursting in their chests as they gasped in the thin air. Another thousand had gone with Khasar. Even without those, almost nine hundred thousand shafts could still be loosed upon their enemy when the time came.

Kachiun had searched in vain for a place to form ranks that would not be seen by the Chin, but there was none. His men would be exposed in the valley, with only volleys of arrows to hold off a charge. Kachiun grinned at the thought.

The Chin camp was barely stirring in the dawn cold. Snow had erased the marks of their time there, so that the pale tents looked beautiful and frozen, a place of calm that hardly hinted at the number of fighting men within. Kachiun prided himself on his sharp vision, but there was no sign that they knew Genghis was on the move at last. The guards changed at dawn, hundreds of them heading back for a meal and sleep while others took their places. There was no panic in them yet.

Kachiun had formed a grudging respect for the general who organized the camp in the distance. Just before dawn, horsemen had been sent to scout the valley, riding its length to the south before returning. It was clear they were not expecting an enemy to be so close, and Kachiun had heard them calling lightly to one another as they rode, hardly looking up at the peaks and foothills. No doubt they thought it was an easy duty to spend a winter warm and safe, surrounded by so many other swords.

Kachiun started when one of the officers tapped his shoulder and pressed a package of meat and bread into his hand. It was warm and damp from where it had been pressed against someone’s skin, but Kachiun was ravenous and only nodded in thanks as he sank his teeth into it. He would need all his strength. Even for men who had been born to the bow, drawing a hundred shafts at full speed would leave their shoulders and arms in agony. He whispered an order for the men to form pairs as they waited, using each other’s weight to loosen muscles and keep the cold at bay. The warriors all knew the benefit of such work. None of them wanted to fail when the moment came.

Still the Chin camp was quiet. Kachiun swallowed the last of the bread nervously, packing his mouth with snow until he had enough moisture to let it slide down his throat. He had to time his attack perfectly. If he went before Genghis was in sight, the Chin general would be able to divert some part of his vast army to run Kachiun’s archers down. If he left it late, Genghis would lose the advantage of a second attack and perhaps be killed.

Kachiun’s eyes began to ache with the strain of staring into the distance. He dared not look away.

The prisoners began to moan as they moved into the pass, sensing what lay ahead. The front ranks of the Mongol riders blocked the retreat so that they had no choice but to keep trotting further in. Genghis saw a few of the younger men make a dart between two of his warriors. Thousands of eyes watched the attempt to escape with feverish interest, then turned away in despair as the men were beheaded in quick blows.

The noise of drums, horses, and men echoed back from the high walls of the pass as they entered its embrace. Far ahead, Chin scouts were racing back with the news for their general. The enemy would know he was coming, but he was not depending on surprise.

The horde of prisoners trudged forward on the rocky ground, looking fearfully for the first sign of Chin archers. Progress was slow with more than thirty thousand men walking ahead of the Mongol riders, and there were some that fell, lying exhausted on the ground as the horsemen reached them. They too were impaled on lances, whether they were feigning or not. The others were urged on with sharp cries from the tribesmen, just as they would have hooted and yipped to goats at home. The familiar sound was strange in such a place. Genghis took a last look at his ranks, noting the positions of his trusted generals before he stared hungrily ahead. The pass was two miles long and he would not turn back.

Kachiun saw frantic movement in the Chin camp at last. Genghis was moving and word had reached the man in command. Cavalry cantered through the tents, a better quality of animal than Kachiun had seen them use before. Perhaps the emperor kept the best bloodlines for his Imperial army. The animals were larger than the ponies he knew, and they shone in the dawn sun as their riders formed up, facing the Badger’s Mouth.

Kachiun could see regiments of crossbow and pikemen hurrying to the front ranks and he winced at the sheer number of them. His brother could be engulfed in a charge against so many. His favorite tactic of encircling a foe was impossible in the narrow space.

Kachiun turned to the men behind him and found them staring in his direction, waiting for the word.

“When I give the order, come out at the run. We’ll form three ranks across the valley, as close to them as we can get. You will not be able to hear me over the sound of bows, so pass the word to loose twenty shafts and then wait. I will raise and drop my arm for twenty more.”

“Their cavalry are armored. They will run us down,” a man said at his shoulder, staring past Kachiun. All of them were horsemen. The idea of standing alone against a charge went against everything they knew.

“No,” Kachiun said. “Nothing in the world can stand against my people armed with bows. The first twenty shafts will cause panic. Then we will advance. If they charge, and they will, we will put a long shaft through the throat of every man.”

He gazed back down the valley at the Chin camp. It looked now as if someone had kicked a nest of ants. Genghis was coming.

“Pass the word to be ready,” Kachiun muttered. Sweat broke out on his forehead. His judgment had to be perfect. “Just a little longer. When we go, we go fast.”

Almost halfway along the pass, the prisoners came abreast of the first nests of crossbowmen. Chin soldiers had taken positions on shelves of rock fifty feet above the ground. The prisoners saw them first and swung away from the sides, slowing them all as they compressed the center. The Chin soldiers could hardly miss and they sent bolts whirring into the press. As the screams echoed, the front three ranks with Genghis raised their bows. Every one of them could hit a bird on the wing, or three men in a line at full gallop. As they came into range their shafts tore through the air. The soldiers fell onto the heads of those passing below. The bloody crevices were left behind as the warriors went on, forcing the wailing prisoners into a stumbling trot.

The first pinch between two great shelves of rock came just a little further down the pass. The prisoners funneled toward it, staggering into a run as the Mongols yelled and prodded them with their lances. All of them could see the two great forts that hung over the only path through. That was as far as any scout had managed to see before they had ridden back. After that, they were on new ground and no one knew what lay ahead.

Khasar was sweating. It had taken a long time to get a thousand men down only three ropes, and as more and more made it safely to flat ground, he had been tempted to leave the others. The snow was deep enough for men to sink to the waist as they moved around, and he no longer believed the trail had been a hunting track for men at the fort, unless he had missed steps cut into the rock further along. His men had found their way to the rear of the fort, but in the darkness, he could not see a way in. Like its partner on the other side of the pass, the fort had been designed to be impregnable for anyone passing through the Badger’s Mouth. For all he knew, those who manned it were hauled up on ropes.

Three of his men had fallen on the descent, and against all expectations, one of them had survived, landing in a drift so deep that the stunned warrior had to be dug out by his companions. The other two were not so lucky and struck exposed rocks. Neither had called out and the only sound was the hooting of night owls returning to their nests.

When dawn came, Khasar had moved the men on through the heavy snow, the first ones making slow progress as they tramped it down. The fort loomed blackly above their heads and Khasar could only swear in frustration, convinced that he had taken a tenth of Kachiun’s force for no good reason.

When he reached a path across their route, he felt a rush of excitement. Nearby, they found a vast pile of firewood, hidden from the pass below. It made sense that the Chin warriors took their wood from the cliffs at their back, piling it up for a long winter. One of Khasar’s men found a long-handled axe buried in a log. The blade was oiled and showed only specks of rust. He grinned at the sight of it, knowing there had to be a way in.

Khasar froze as he heard the tramp of feet and the wailing voices of the prisoners in the distance. Genghis was coming and he was still in no position to help his brothers.

“No more caution,” he said to the men around him. “We need to be in that fort. Get forward and find whatever door they use to bring in the wood.”

He broke into a run then and they followed him, readying swords and bows as they went.

♦                  ♦                  ♦

General Zhi Zhong was at the center of a swirl of running messengers, giving orders as quickly as he received news. He had not slept, but his mind sparked with energy and indignation. Though the storm had passed, the air was still frozen and ice lay on the ground of the pass and layered the cliffs all around them. Frozen hands would slip on swords. Horses would fall and every man there would feel his strength stolen away by the cold. The general looked wistfully to where a cooking fire had been set but not lit. He could have ordered hot food brought, but the alarm had come before his army had eaten and now he did not have time. No one went to war in winter, he told himself, mocking the certainty he had felt in the night.

He had held the end of the pass for months while the Mongol army ravaged the lands beyond. His men were ready. When the Mongols came in range, they would be met with a thousand crossbow bolts every ten heartbeats, and that was just the beginning. Zhi Zhong shivered as the wind built, roaring through the camp. He had brought them to the only place where they could not use the tactics of plains warfare. The Badger’s Mouth would guard his flanks better than any force of men. Let them come, he thought.

Genghis squinted ahead as the prisoners streamed under the forts. The pass was crammed with men so far ahead of his own people that he could barely see what was happening. In the distance, he heard screams come back on the frozen air and saw a sudden bloom of flame. The prisoners at the rear had seen it too and they faltered in the mad rush before his riders, terrified. Without an order from him, lances came down and forced them onward into the maw between the forts. No matter what weapons the Chin had, thirty thousand prisoners were hard to stop. Already some of them were past the pinch and streaming out beyond it. Genghis rode on and could only hope that by the time he came under the forts, they would have exhausted their oil and shafts. Bodies lay still on the ground, more and more of them as he closed on the narrow place.

Above his head, Genghis saw archers on the forts, but to his astonishment, they seemed to be aiming across the pass itself, loosing shaft after shaft at their own men. He could not understand it and a spike of worry came into his thoughts at the development. Though it seemed a gift, he did not like to be surprised when he was hemmed into such a place. He felt the walls of rock pressing on him, forcing him on.

Closer to the forts he could hear the thump of catapults, now a sound he knew well and understood. He saw a smoke trail crease the air above the pass and a wash of fire spread over the walls of the fort on his left hand. Archers fell burning from their platforms and a cheer went up from the other side. Genghis felt his heart leap. There could only be one explanation and he roared orders to thin the column so that it passed on the right side of the Badger’s Mouth, as far from the left as they could manage.

Kachiun or Khasar had taken the fort. Whoever it was up there, Genghis would honor him when the battle was over, if they both still lived.

More and more corpses lay sprawled on the floor of the pass, so that his horse had to step on them, whinnying in distress. Genghis felt his heart hammer in fear as a bar of shadow crossed his face. He was almost under the forts, in the heart of a killing ground designed by long-dead Chin nobles. Thousands of his prisoners had died and there were places he could hardly see the ground for bodies. Yet his ragged vanguard had pushed through, running now in wild terror. The Mongol tribes themselves had hardly lost a man, and Genghis exulted. He passed under the right-hand fort, shouting loudly to those of his people above who had smashed their way in. They could not hear him. He could hardly hear himself.

He leaned forward in the saddle, needing to gallop. It was difficult to hold his mount to a trot with arrows in the air, yet he controlled himself, holding up a flat palm to keep the men steady. One of the forts was burning inside, the flames licking out of the killing holes. Even as Genghis glanced up, a wooden platform collapsed in fire, tumbling to the ground below. Horses screamed in distress and some of them bolted, racing after the prisoners.

Genghis stood in the saddle to look down the pass. He swallowed nervously as he saw a dark line across its end. There the pass was as narrow as the pinch between the forts, a perfect natural defense. There was no way through but over the army of the Chin emperor. Already the prisoners were reaching it and now Genghis heard the snap of crossbow volleys like thunder, so loud in the confined space that it hurt his ears with every strike.

The prisoners went berserk in their panic, bolts hammering them from their feet as each man was struck over and over, spinning and torn as he fell. They ran into a hailstorm of iron and Genghis bared his teeth, knowing his turn would come.

The general’s messenger was pale with fear, still shaking at what he had seen. Nothing in his career to that point had prepared him for the carnage of the pass.