Save the Last Bullet for God (25 page)

“Okay,” I said. “I‘m confused but I’m
listening.”

“Good, sir. If you like, I will first tell
you about the program and the process.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

“I will present you with the simple version
and some of the limited introductory parts. As you experience them
again, your memory will gradually regain function and grow
stronger. In between the presentations and the memory experiences,
you can ask me whatever you want, describe what you remember, and
discuss what abilities you have regained. Then, we will continue to
the next level to fill in any gaps in your knowledge.”

“How long does this program take? How many
parts does it have?”

“Sir, you are asking the same questions that
you have asked each time, and I have been giving you the same
answers. When you don’t perceive something, it means it does not
exist; therefore, it is not a loss. Trust yourself—you wrote this
program, you organized it, and you defined the parameters between
waking and coming back. You even gave it a funny name:
Autoconstruction.”

Trust myself?
The program’s advice filled me with apprehension.

“Sir, if you are ready, I want to start the
first stage. I think it is enough to give you a short briefing.
This reduced version is a perceptual program that employs selective
memory. It will be interrupted in several parts. In other words, it
is a montage. The only aim of it is to re-create a connection with
your old memories. It doesn’t change what happened because it has
already been experienced. You will live, feel, and think as if you
do everything of your own free will, but although you will want to,
you will not affect the events. Now, if you are ready, sir, I’d
like to start.”

“Wait, wait…what am I going to watch? Who am
I going to be?”

“During the experience, you will not
remember what I am about to tell you, but I will tell you anyway,
sir. You will partially re-experience what you went through at the
start of the thirteenth century as Cuci, the eldest son of Temüjin
, also known as Genghis Khan. You will be known as ‘the Guest’
behind ‘The One of Iron.’”

The voice faded away, as did the stars in
front of my eyes.

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The ones who follow us are always rewarded
with human flesh. That’s why the raptors fly above us and the
jackals lurk behind us.

We, who live in tents, sleep on horseback,
and wrap ourselves in animal fur, live to fight. We, the wolf herd,
will destroy the armor and the walls with our teeth and claws. We
do not need to write our history. Others will write it to remember
their fear.

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Who is against us? Anyone who gets in our
way. We live to fight and capture our enemies, and, unless they are
of use as slaves, kill them. My father, Genghis Khan, is the ruler
of the lands between all the known seas, and he earned that title
by fighting. Those against him always have two choices: die or
submit.

Tengri is our path. If we go, it is because
we want to go, and if we want to go, everywhere we go is our path.
We have no written language, and we have no word for “mercy.” But
we do know favors. If an old man travels the steppe with his family
in winter, we do him a favor by killing him. This way, he does not
have to struggle to survive the cold. We capture his possessions,
and, if his women are young, we capture them, too.

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We never tire of fighting. We are always on
the border, always pushing everything, everybody…even fate. When we
set off on horseback, we keep moving even while asleep.

Nothing is moderate for us. When we suffer
from hunger, we suffer for days and weeks.

And when we eat, we eat until we vomit
and drink
koumiss
until we
black out.

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I am Cuci, the eldest son of Genghis Khan,
first child of his wife, Börte, elder brother of Ogheday, the
commander and crown prince of Genghis Khan. I’ve always known that
I won’t be Khan after my father dies. But, because I was born, like
everyone else, I drag my fate along after me.

“Cuci” means “guest.” In the Mongolian
tradition, whoever has the right of a guest cannot be harmed. My
father—who wasn’t yet a khan at the time—once took me into his
arms, hugged me tight, lifted me up in front of the eyes of the
public, and cried out, “Cuci!”

This announcement was not only a
confirmation but an acceptance; it was also a threat. Whoever
didn’t respect my birthright as both Cuci and a
Cuci
paid with his life. When I was pulled back
into the arms of my father Temüjin, the one of iron, I was a guest
of the iron: safe but shunned.

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It has been hours since the biggest army on
the plains of Mongolia made a move.

My soldiers’ know how to move in formation
and signal each other like a pack of wolves. A wolf makes its
opponents accept its superiority by looking at them with a piercing
stare until they cower and run away. Each of my soldiers is a wolf,
and I only fight with wolves. The rest are either my slaves or my
enemies.

Now, we are moving towards the southeast,
the destiny of the Mongolians. We are following my father, who has
united all the Mongol tribes and has, after many battles, become
not Temujin, but “Genghis Khan.” We are moving toward China, the
largest empire in the world, based on a civilization that has
existed for thousands of years. As a wolf pack leaving its home in
the steppes, we are advancing on the enemy’s biggest city—a place
with the highest walls, the best weapons, and supposedly the best
army in the world. Despite the warnings, we press on.

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When we reach the base of a huge mountain,
we began to move slowly, waiting to gather our forces. The narrow
passage that the scouts directed us to is the only breach in this
impenetrable wall—a gap made even narrower by sharp rocks. Only two
men, side by side, can pass through the breach in order to reach
the plain beyond —the plain where an army awaits.

The pioneers reach the other side of the
passage before dawn and secure the exit with the help of the
supporting forces. My father already knows of the military camp on
the other side, a camp of countless colorful tents housing
thousands of soldiers.

The Khan sends a division of ten thousand
around the north side of the mountain along narrow and precarious
roads. The men are led by his greatest commanders, Cebe and
Sobutay. Their duty is to reach the valley from an unexpected
direction by taking goat paths over snowy mountain peaks. Only a
determined Mongol could pass through such snowstorms and incredibly
cold passes in the rock. Even so, by the time they make it through,
the Mongol dead outnumber the living. This passageway between deep
cliffs and frozen rocks is a road of death.

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Thin snowflakes hurled by the bitter wind
melt on my face as we gather in front of the entrance to the
passage. A battalion of my raiders attacks with sharp screams,
rapidly moving forward until we make an opening.

My father enters the passage on his horse,
slowing down, but never stopping. As the army enters the passage,
it leaves the light of the former world behind. The sound of
hundreds upon thousands of horsemen hangs in the air with the dust
and ice crystals.

Before the first division passes through the
exit, a mass of trees tumbles down from the hills. They smash on
the ground like thunder splitting the sky. The horsemen in the
rear, who are now trying to enter the passage, crash against those
stopped in the front.

“Trap!” I cry. The ones who hear my cry
turned aside, allowing me to move forward. I realize I won’t be
able to pass on horseback through the passage now blocked by
hundreds of soldiers. With a roar, I stand up on my horse and
advance by jumping and stepping on soldiers and horses. The ones
who hear my voice stand strong and shift their swords and spears to
make way, but they still manage to nick my armor, causing tiny
sparks to fly as I press forward. For a moment, I glimpse the wolf,
its ears perked up at my shouts.

I arrive at the massive tree. It is the
height of three full-grown men. Many bewildered eyes are on me,
Cuci, the eldest son of Genghis Khan. It is impossible for them not
to recognize me, and it is also impossible for the experienced
soldiers not to hear my commands. As I step on the tops of heads,
shoulders, and hands, I scream, “Everyone get back! Empty the
passage! Make space for those with axes!”

I then reach down, snag the knives and
swords of a few nearby soldiers, and stab the weapons into the
massive tree trunk, one after another, building makeshift steps to
scale the tree. I quickly arrive at the top of the tree, grab hold
with my nails and cry out, “Rope!”

From above, I stare over the trees and down
into the battlefield. Our soldiers, no more than 50 in total, are
surrounded by an endless sea of enemies. Still, they ride their
horses over the corpses and wave their swords against anything and
anyone that surrounds them. I faintly glimpse my father standing
beside his dead horse, surrounded by a heap of soldiers. There is
no time to delay. I spot a knife with a rope bound to its handle
stuck into the trunk next to me. Without slowing down, I grab the
knife and the rope and jump down. I find a horse collapsed on a
soldier, wrap the rope twice around its neck, and get it upright.
Then, I race toward my father without looking back. The wolf, which
has just passed through a space under the tree trunk, is already
ahead of me, weaving around obstacles and running toward its own
target.

…[START]

1. Winter 1214, Zhongdu ( Ancient Beijing
   )
   

Mongol

As I ran with my bow drawn, I shot arrows at
the enemies surrounding my father, but hundreds more soldiers
remained.

I shot my last arrow and, drawing my sword,
began to prune away the enemies that came my way. Fighting wasn’t
my aim. Neither was killing. My aim was just to keep moving. I made
space by cutting off the arms and legs that came at me, cutting the
necks of those who tried to save themselves, and knocking down the
bodies I couldn’t pass over. I sometimes used the flat of my sword
like a shovel and avoided directly stabbing with my knife: it took
time to remove the weapon from the bodies.

In one mistaken move, I stabbed the sword so
deep between the neck and armor of a Chinese soldier that it got
stuck. I put supported all my weight on my sword and used all my
strength to lift myself, step onto the soldier, and then jump on
the closest cavalryman. While gliding in the air, I grasped the
back of the saddle with my free hand and swung my sword at the
horseman’s neck. His head fell to the ground, and I yanked the
cavalryman off of the horse and let the headless body fall.

As I rode closer to my father, a few arrows
glanced off my armor, and I escaped the weak sword blows of the
infantrymen. A few horsemen came at me, but I raced past them as I
watched my father cut down the riders nearest him. He stood upon
stacks of corpses, but the crowd of enemy soldiers was only
growing. The cavalrymen who had been protecting him were now all
dead, and my father was standing alone on the battlefield.

Time stopped.

The distance was getting shorter but it also
seemed to stretch on forever. I watched in horror as an arrow, shot
from close distance, punctured my father’s armor. I screamed as if
to tear my lungs out and then another blow pierced his foot. It
seemed that I was too late. Had I given all this effort just so I
could witness the end?

Then I saw the wolf.

It was making a path through the crowd,
thrashing through those in front of him like they were stalks of
wheat. For a moment, the wolf disappeared, and then it leapt in the
air and landed on the shoulders of my father. He stumbled for a
second but remained standing.

With this living armor on his back, Genghis
Khan plodded forward, slicing those in front of him as blood
sprayed from the blows of swords and arrows, and his pale skin
turned red. I headed toward my father, trampling the soldiers in
front of me with my horse. I took my sword in my left hand and
grabbed my father’s arm with my right, pulling him onto my horse.
With my father in the saddle, I jumped down and smacked the horse
on the rear to send it away. My father was carried safely away from
the heart of the battle, but I didn’t watch him go. My eyes were
fixed on the ground and on the bloody pelt curled up next to my
feet.

Time stopped once more and the world lost
all meaning. Our rabid and bewildered enemy moved closer, but the
only movement from me was from the growing knot in my throat as I
gazed upon the remains of the wolf.

The first sword blow skipped off my helmet
and fell on my shoulder armor. I felt the blow, but it didn’t hurt.
The next sword blows were supposed to kill me, but they couldn’t. I
stood still, half on my knees, a bloody pelt underneath me, a knot
in my throat, and steam in my eyes. The only thing protecting me
were the movements of the soldiers around me as they stood in each
other’s way.

The sword in my hand should have fell, but
it didn’t. Instead, the sword swung from side to side, its grip
smashing the heads of the enemy. It didn’t feel like me. It was
something I only witnessed. I stabbed everything in reach and wound
the intestines out of someone’s abdomen and around their neck. I
killed men with my bare hands and tore their faces with my bloody
nails. I felt the warmth of the blood of the necks I ripped with my
teeth.