The Mongoliad: Book Three

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Night came quickly in the mountains, and as the sky bled to black, the warmth of the day vanished. A half dozen bonfires were built, crackling piles of orange and yellow flame, and their light and heat summoned everyone to the center of the camp. A wooden platform was raised for the Khagan so that he could watch the festivities and all of his subjects could watch him eat and drink. Beside the platform, a gladiator ring had been erected, and already there were clusters of moneylenders haggling over bets.

The festival would last a good part of the night.

Master Chucai prowled along the periphery of the long fire pits where the Khagan’s numerous cooks worked furiously. They didn’t have the luxury of the permanent kitchens of the palace at Karakorum, but they were managing to craft an endless variety of baked and stewed and sweetly charred victuals. Occasionally, Chucai would stop a servant, loaded down with a steaming tray of food, and sample something off the top of the plate as he reiterated his desire to speak with the leader of the Darkhat.

The servant would nod, scurry off to deliver his tray of hot food, and upon his return, he would tell Chucai the same thing as all the others before him: the Khagan was in a most jovial mood and was enjoying Ghaltai’s company; the Darkhat commander felt it was unseemly to excuse himself at this time.

Chucai chafed at being denied, and what irritated him even further was the fact that he could not simply interrupt the Khagan’s meal and demand to speak-privately-with the Darkhat commander. Ogedei was annoyed with him, and it was likely the Khagan would simply berate him for interrupting the dinner party with what Ogedei-in his addled state-would think was nothing more than Chucai’s constant meddling in the affairs of the empire.

All of which would make Chucai’s job more difficult.

His conversation with Alchiq buzzed around the corners of his mind too. The idea that the Khagan might be in danger. If the Chinese raiders had been trying to kill the Khagan, that night would have gone very differently. The Chinese-outnumbered several times over by the Khagan’s Torguud escort-had managed to get far enough into the camp to steal the banner. How safe was the Khagan?

And the constant confusing complication of the banner. Where had it come from? Why was it important to the Chinese?

Chucai noticed a pair of men returning from the feast, and realized one of the two was more heavily attired than the other. As they approached the ruddy glow of the cooking pits, he noted the blued shadows of the second man’s cloak. Ghaltai.

“They are bringing out the fighters,” the Darkhat commander said as he came up to Chucai. “I told the Khagan I needed to take a piss.”

Chucai nodded sagely at the other man’s duplicity. “I appreciate you coming to see me,” he said. “I have a matter which I would discuss privately with you.”

Ghaltai grunted. “I do need to piss,” he said gruffly, making as if he was going to walk past Chucai.

“Do,” Chucai said, laying a hand on the Darkhat’s arm. “I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable while on your horse.”

Ghaltai looked at Chucai’s hand. “I am an honored guest of the Khagan,” he said softly.

“He’s been drinking,” Chucai said, “Plus the fights will have started. He won’t notice you are gone.”

“Where am I going?”

“I want you to take me somewhere.”

Ghaltai shook off Chucai’s hand. “You presume much, Master Chucai. I am not one of your servants.”

“No, you serve the Khagan. And the empire.” Chucai nodded toward the noise and light of the feast. What had Alchiq said? I’ve never stopped wanting to serve. “Surely you’ve noticed the empire isn’t what it used to be,” Chucai said to the Darkhat leader.

Ghaltai looked in the opposite direction, his face suffused with shadows. “He may be the only one who doesn’t see it,” he murmured.

“I want to know where Temujin went,” Chucai said. “I want you to take me to that place.”

“There is nothing there,” Ghaltai hissed, whirling on Chucai. “Nothing but spider webs and dust.” His eyes were wide, filled with firelight.

“Then what harm is there in showing me?” Chucai asked. When Ghaltai didn’t answer, he shrugged. “What harm is there in helping the Khagan see what he has lost?”

Ghaltai spat into a nearby cooking pit, his spittle sizzling as it was vaporized by the heat. “No,” he laughed hollowly, “What harm ever came from knowledge?”

Shortly after the Khagan had announced the feast celebrating the hunt, Gansukh had started to hear snatches of the news as it passed among the Torguud: Munokhoi was no longer commanding the Imperial Guard. There was no official announcement-he knew there wouldn’t be-but like a shadow flitting across the sun, something changed at the camp.

As the day waned and the feast got underway, Gansukh sensed a presence near him, like a predator slowly stalking its prey. Unlike a nervous deer, he did not stand still and stare about him, wondering from which direction his death would come; he kept moving, wandering and weaving through the maze of tents. He doubled back on his trail-sliding underneath wagons and ducking through the open framework of the half-erected ger. A merchant hollered at him to assist with carrying rugs, and he happily agreed to the task, using the long tube as a shield as he went back and forth along the same route for a half hour.

On the third trip, he caught sight of Munokhoi. The ex-Torguud captain paced him on the other side of the row of ger on his right. When he dropped off his armload of rugs and returned to the merchant’s wagon, Munokhoi was no longer there. But Gansukh had seen enough of his stormy expression to know he wouldn’t be far away.

When the crowd started to gather for the fights at the feast, he worried momentarily about the press of bodies. It would be easy to slip up next to a man in the confusion and slip a knife in his back, and so he made sure he stayed on the western side of the gladiator ring where the light from the bonfires was brightest. As the audience grew more excited about the fights, he sidled toward a cluster of Torguud who were clustered around a pair of busy moneylenders.

“Ho, Gansukh! I hear the blond one is fighting.” The mountain clan archer, Tarbagatai waved him over to the cluster of guards. “Did you bet on him last time?”

“I did,” Gansukh replied, “And when we return to Karakorum, I believe someone owes me twenty-five cows.”

“Twenty-five?” Tarbagatai scoffed. “Who was such an idiot to bet that many?” The Torguud standing next to the young archer elbowed him roughly, and Tarbagatai paled as he realized what he had said.

“Yes, well, that idiot was me,” Gansukh mused, glancing about. “But thankfully someone took my bet. I suppose that makes me clever, doesn’t it? And the other one the idiot-”

“You boast rather mightily for a man who not only didn’t kill any of the Chinese raiders but also managed to be captured by them.”

Gansukh looked for Munokhoi and found him standing much too close on the left. The ex-Torguud captain’s eyes were bright, and his head glistened with sweat.

“Captured?” he laughed at Munokhoi. “I was infiltrating their ranks. My plan was working fine until you rode by, slaughtering anyone who wasn’t on a horse-including fellow Mongol citizens. What was your final tally? More or less Chinese?”

The crowd shrank as people surreptitiously found excuses to be elsewhere, giving the two rivals ample room for anything that might happen. Not here, Gansukh thought. Not now. There hadn’t been enough provocation-or enough drinking-to warrant drawing his knife.

“Twenty-five cows are nothing,” Munokhoi sneered, ignoring Gansukh’s question.

“I am glad you think so because it was more than I had last time,” Gansukh said. “Though, I am happy to have them now. I am going to send them to my father; he’ll be very pleased. That many head will provide nicely for my family all winter,” Gansukh said. “Though if I had double that number, I could marry that girl from the Sakhait clan whom my father always wanted me to.”

“And your Chinese whore?” Munokhoi spat.

Gansukh stroked his chin. “She has expensive tastes, doesn’t she? Maybe I will need more than fifty cows,” he said, a touch of alarm in his voice.

Tarbagatai and several of the Torguud guffawed. One of the moneylenders waved his hands at Gansukh. “Are you placing a wager or not?” he cried.

“Fifty cows,” Munokhoi snapped.

Gansukh spread his hands. “I only have the twenty-five,” he apologized.

Munokhoi’s teeth flashed in the firelight as he grinned. “Pray your man doesn’t lose.”

This was how differences were settled at court-by wagers and proxies. It was not the way of the steppe, and as he watched the pale Northerner square off against the lean Kitayan, Gansukh reflected on what he had learned about being civilized since he had come to the Khagan’s court. Had he become a better man based on what he had learned?

He hadn’t slipped up behind Munokhoi and slit the other man’s throat. Yet. Though he wasn’t entirely sure Munokhoi wasn’t still planning on doing the same to him. Would he be remembered as the better man if he didn’t stoop to such a debased level of violence? He wouldn’t care; he’d be dead. Was there any consolation to be found there?

He’d rather be the one who survived. No amount of courtly learning was going to smooth out that rough edge. He would do what it took to survive. Kozelsk had taught him that. It seemed like a much better lesson to live by than anything he had learned from Lian.

The crowd surrounding the fighting ring gave a collective gasp, and Gansukh blinked away his idle thoughts, focusing on the pair of fighters. What had he missed?

The Kitayan had a knife.

“Hai!” Namkhai shouted from his position next to the Khagan’s platform, and there was a rippling surge through the crowd as newly anointed captain of the Torguud pressed forward, presenting their spears.

The two fighters paused, though neither lowered their guard nor looked away from each other.

“My Khan,” Namkhai called out, seeking direction. “The Kitayan man has a knife.”

The crowd held their breath, and the only sound was the crackling rumble of the bonfires and the low creaking noise of the platform as the Khagan levered himself up from his low seat. “That’s a tiny blade,” he slurred, peering at the fighters. “Is it good for much more than gutting carp?”

Someone laughed in the audience, and Gansukh knew without looking that it was Munokhoi. Had he given the Kitayan man the knife? The idea was troubling.

“Gansukh,” Ogedei was standing near the edge of the platform, searching the faces arrayed below him. “Didn’t you win a bet on the pale-haired one last time?”

Gansukh raised his arm so the Khagan could find him in the crowd. “I did, my Khan.”

“What did you say about him? Something about tactics making up for a lack of strength?”

“I may have, my Khan.”

Ogedei grunted, and swung his head around to peer at the fighters again. “Namkhai,” he called out.

“Yes, my Khan,” the new Torguud captain exclaimed.

“I seem to recall you giving me a very poor answer when I asked you about this fighter,” Ogedei said.

“I said…” Namkhai hesitated. Gansukh caught the big wrestler glancing in his direction. “I said I would be wary of the scrawny ones.”

The Khagan waggled his finger at Namkhai. “That is what you said when I gave you a second chance,” he corrected. He glared down at Namkhai for a moment, swaying slightly, and then his gaze traveled slowly across the multitude of faces. “A second chance,” he roared suddenly. His face was scarlet, the veins in his neck standing out against his skin. He swiveled his head ponderously on his quivering neck, staring ferociously at the audience as if he dared anyone to challenge his statement.

“Namkhai, does this man pose a threat to me?” His voice was ragged and strained, his throat still constricted.

“My Khan?”

“Does this dog of a Kitayan have the slightest chance of getting within an arm’s length of me with that knife?” The Khagan found his voice again, unleashing his question in a thunderous shout.

“No, my Khan!” Namkhai replied, trying to match the Khagan in volume.

“Are you certain? Do I have to ask you a second time?”

“No, my Khan!”

Ogedei staggered back to his seat and collapsed on it, gesturing for a servant to bring his wine cup. “Then let him keep his fish gutter,” he said. “Let us see a little blood tonight.”

First the spears had been lowered at them, and then the Great Khan had started shouting. Haakon and the Kitayan had remained still throughout the tirade, unsure of what was going to happen. Haakon tried to follow what was being said, but most of his mind was filled with trying to settle on the best defense and offense against the Kitayan’s knife.

When they weren’t immediately threatened with the spears, Haakon suspected the Kitayan was going to be allowed to keep his knife. He had to be ready. He had already been cut once, and was certainly going to be cut again. He had to figure out how to beat the Kitayan before he lost too much blood.

Haakon’s wooden sword was longer, but that advantage didn’t match up to the deadly edge of the knife. He could hit the man a dozen times with the sword, and he wouldn’t stop fighting. But one slice of the Kitayan’s knife to his neck or thigh and he’d bleed out.

The Great Khan’s platform was over his left shoulder, and Haakon couldn’t watch what was going on there and keep a ready defense against the Kitayan at the same time. Holding his sword tightly, he stopped trying to watch for some sign from the Great Khan. The Kitayan was the real threat. He should be giving his opponent his full attention.

The Kitayan was distracted; the hand with the knife in it was down at his side, held close to his stomach. It wasn’t the best position, but it was ready enough, and Haakon watched the Kitayan’s legs and hands. Waiting for some sign. Should he wait that long?

He heard a man shout a response, and he distantly realized that was probably the captain of the Khagan’s guard, responding like a good warrior. Haakon exhaled slowly as the Khagan asked his question again. Here it comes, he thought; don’t wait for him to make the first move. The captain replied again, still shouting his acknowledgment of the Khagan’s command, and as soon as the Khagan spoke once more he could feel the audience’s attention shift. Don’t wait, the spirit of his old oplo whispered in his head.

Haakon struck. He lunged forward, taking an enormous step as he stretched his arms out. The Kitayan was caught off guard by how quickly and dramatically Haakon closed the measure, and he yelped in pain as the wooden sword smacked him on the head with a mighty crack.

The Kitayan slashed upward with the knife, and Haakon twisted his sword to his left, trying to smack the Kitayan’s wrists with the wooden blade. Get him to drop the knife. The Kitayan staggered, dropping his center of gravity, and the sword skipped off his upper arm. Haakon felt his arms going too far to the left, and the Kitayan’s hands were on the outside, the knife blade coming up and around Haakon’s hands. Haakon skipped back, swinging the sword around in a clumsy backhand at the Kitayan’s closest knee. He made contact, but the Kitayan didn’t flinch or stumble. A weak blow. Not enough to distract him.

The Kitayan snapped his arm out, flicking the knife at Haakon’s face. He jerked his head back, and he felt the tip of the knife slice his cheek.

He was in the wrong position. His hands were low, and his opponent’s weapon was inside his guard. This wasn’t a sword fight anymore; it was close quarters combat. If he had a steel sword, he wouldn’t be able to use it effectively.

But the weapon in his hands was nothing more than a piece of wood, and wood didn’t have an edge to worry about.

Haakon snapped his wrists up, and his sword smacked the Kitayan on the underside of his knife arm, near the elbow. He maintained the contact between flesh and wood and stepped into the other man, putting his weight behind the shove. The Kitayan lurched back, and Haakon caught the knife hand just behind the wrist with his left hand. Pulling down with that hand, he used the wooden sword as a lever and forced the Kitayan off balance.

The Kitayan tried to cut him with the knife, but Haakon’s grip restricted the range of available motion. Haakon smashed the sword against the Kitayan’s elbow-once, twice-and the man grunted in pain. Haakon twisted and pushed, and the Kitayan bent over in an effort to keep his arm from being dislocated. Haakon continued to drive his opponent before him, and when he dropped to his knees, the Kitayan went first, his face smashing painfully into the rocky soil.

Haakon twisted the arm until the Kitayan screamed, and then he pushed off the fallen man, stripping the knife free of the Kitayan’s now slack fingers as he stood.

The audience howled with delight and the ground rumbled from many feet, stomping in unison. Haakon shivered, knowing what they wanted to see, and slowly, the knife held loosely in his left hand, he turned toward the raised platform. In his mind, he saw Onghwe Khan’s pavilion in the Circus arena. He had just won his match and was still holding Zug’s knife.

The Khagan’s platform was much closer.

His fingers toyed with the knife, moving it around in his hand. Moving it into a better position to throw.

A giant figure burst through the crowd next to the platform, shoving his way into the circle. He wasn’t as tall as Krasniy, the red-haired giant who was also a prisoner, but his shoulders were as wide. He jabbed a finger at Haakon, exhorting him to drop the knife.

Could he do it? Would the knife fly true?

Haakon pretended to not understand the muscular Mongol’s words. He recognized the man’s voice as the one he had heard earlier, responding to the Khagan’s questions. He shrugged, holding up his wooden sword as if the stick was the item being discussed. In his left hand, his fingers stopped fussing with the knife, settling on a good grip.

The Mongol kept coming-not hurriedly and not cautiously, but in long confident strides across the fighting ring. His path put him between Haakon and the platform.

Haakon backed up, maintaining a visible pantomime of confusion, though he let go of neither weapon. Each step took him farther from the Khagan, increasing the distance the knife was going to have to travel if he threw it.

Was he strong enough to make the sacrifice?

The Mongols would kill him. He might be able to keep the captain at bay for a little while with the wooden sword, but the crowd would turn into a frenzied mob. They would overwhelm him. Would they tear him to pieces immediately or would they torture him first? What if he missed the Khagan or didn’t deliver a mortal wound with the thrown knife. Would his punishment be any less severe?

The Kitayan sat up, blood dotting his nose and lips. His right arm hung awkwardly at his side, and his eyes widened as he caught sight of Haakon.

As the Kitayan was struggled to get to his feet, the tall Mongol reached down and easily picked up the Kitayan. The Kitayan shrieked as the Mongol hurled the smaller man.

Haakon was completely unprepared. No one had thrown a human body at him before, and he froze. He caught a quick glimpse of the whites of the Kitayan’s eyes and the man’s open mouth, and then one of the Kitayan’s elbows glanced off his cheek as they collapsed in a heap. The air was forced from his lungs as he was caught between the Kitayan and the ground. He struggled to push the stunned man off him.

A shape threw a shadow across him, and he looked up to see the ridged line of the captain’s knuckles zooming in at him, and then more shadows came, blotting out all the light.

“Can you believe that?” Tarbagatai shouted in Gansukh’s ear.

“I can,” Gansukh laughed, slapping the young archer on the shoulder. “I have had personal experience with Namkhai’s strength.”

The crowd was frenzied with excitement, and the tumult of their jubilation was so pronounced that speaking loudly enough for someone other than your immediate neighbor to hear was impossible. Gansukh couldn’t hear the conversation Munokhoi was having with the moneylender, but the ex-Torguud captain’s body language was easy to read.

Munokhoi shook his head sharply, his hands clenched into fists. The moneylender shrugged, unperturbed by Munokhoi’s ire, and when the ex-Torguud captain stepped even closer, threatening the smaller man with his angry presence, the moneylender waved at the nearby cluster of Torguud. Munokhoi backed off with a sneer as the Torguud drifted toward the cornered moneylender.

Gansukh wandered over, wearing as innocent an expression as he could muster. “Fifty cows,” he said loudly. “My family will really appreciate those cows, Munokhoi.”

“I owe you nothing, country boy,” Munokhoi snarled.

“Well, someone owes me some cows,” Gansukh said, ignoring Munokhoi and directing his attention toward the moneylender. “If Munokhoi isn’t going to pay what he owes, maybe I should be asking you for them instead.”

“Me?” The moneylender was incredulous.

“I clearly heard him make the wager, didn’t you?”

The moneylender waved his hands, clearly not wanting to be a part of the conversation.

“I wonder how the Kitayan came by that knife?” Gansukh made a show of puzzling over this question. “Isn’t it odd that Munokhoi was so eager to match my wager? Almost as if he-”

Growling like a cornered wolf, Munokhoi stormed up to Gansukh, grabbing Gansukh’s jacket with both hands. He put his face close to Gansukh’s. “You are not as clever as you think,” he raged.

“I do not doubt that,” Gansukh replied. He stood very still, his hands loosely at his sides. As long as Munokhoi had both hands on his jacket, Gansukh wasn’t too worried about what the other man might try. “Still,” he continued, “the issue isn’t who is more clever, but which of us has a better grasp on sums.”

Munokhoi bared his teeth, his eyes focusing on the tip of Gansukh’s nose. “I will kill you, country boy,” he whispered.

Gansukh merely smiled, holding Munokhoi’s gaze.

Munokhoi’s hands tightened, and Gansukh heard the grinding strain of Munokhoi’s jaw as he clenched his teeth. With a mighty effort, Munokhoi composed himself and let go of Gansukh with a tiny shove. “A lucky bet,” he growled.

“The Blue Wolf favors me,” Gansukh acknowledged with a small nod.

Munokhoi pursed his lips, holding his words in check. He glared at the surrounding crowd, and Gansukh could see him assessing the general mood of those who were paying more attention to this disagreement than the aftermath of the fracas in the fighting ring. Munokhoi’s jaw worked for a few seconds, and then he spat-decisively-on Gansukh’s boot. “You’ll get your cows,” he said, though the tone of his voice suggested otherwise. He stalked away, elbowing his way through the press of bodies that were sluggish to open a path for him.

“I’m sure I will,” Gansukh called after him, a mocking lilt in his voice. Just enough to gall Munokhoi one last time. Push him a little farther. He’s already so close to the edge.

Ghaltai led Chucai along the twisting course of an empty riverbed. The ground was rough, and Chucai gamely stumbled after the sure-footed Darkhat. The moon offered enough illumination to see the other man but not enough to reveal all the loose stones and jagged pieces of rock that filled the old waterway. They had left the horses an hour ago, and Ghaltai had refused to light a torch-partly, Chucai was certain, as petty revenge for Chucai having dragged him away from the feast.

But mostly because the Darkhat was afraid. Was he a superstitious old fool who had lived in his self-important exile too long, or was there something to his apprehension about the spirits of the mountain? Chucai had ample time to consider both possibilities, and as much as he wished it were otherwise, the simple reason they were climbing the mountain in the dark was because he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the latter concern of the Darkhat was actually true.

The route steepened, forcing Chucai to pay more attention to where he put his feet. Ghaltai scrambled up the incline, and Chucai resorted to clawing at the loose rock with his hands for the last few steps before he reached a narrow plateau.

He paused and looked back, making note of their route, and realized it was pointless to try to discern the track in the dark. The riverbed followed a complicated course through the exposed strata of the mountainside; it wasn’t a route he could trace back down with his eyes. He would simply need to stay in the riverbed, and trust that it would take him to lower ground. The spirits provide a way, he thought, but you have to trust them.

They were on rocky ground, a flat expanse that jutted out from the base of a rocky pinnacle that towered high overhead. The ground sloped downward as he walked away from the ledge, and Chucai realized it was an old pool. Striations and runnels in the rock face revealed where the water had once cascaded down from the peak, pooling on this flat spot before leaping over the edge again and gouging a serpentine path down to the valley far below.

Ghaltai led him toward a darker spot on the rock face, and when he walked right up to the wall and vanished, Chucai realized the darkness was a rough opening the rock. He followed the Darkhat, reaching out and touching the wall on either side of the narrow passage. The rock was smooth, worn by time and tools, and he let his fingers trace along the cool rock as he blindly followed Ghaltai into the mountain.

The tunnel turned to his left and dipped down. He heard a distant sound, a steady dripping noise-water falling into water-and the air remained fresh and pure. As the sound became louder, the darkness became less absolute. At first, he merely thought his eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, but as he started to notice tiny glimmers in the walls around him, he realized he was seeing evidence of some sort of illumination. The tunnel turned again, and now nearly able to see both hands touching either wall, he went around the curve and found himself in a large cavern.

The ceiling was more than twice as tall as he was and covered with a layer of luminescent lichen. There were several dark holes in the ceiling, and judging from the purity of the air in the cavern, Chucai surmised they were actually open to the sky. As he wandered into the cavern, he caught sight of the pale moon peeking down through one of the lowermost holes.

The cavern was longer than it was wide, narrowing in the back to a series of three passages, and the chamber was empty but for a series of five platforms, large discs of stone raised a few aid off the dark and dusty floor. The discs were clearly manmade, with narrow lips and sunken centers. Two of them held water, and the sound he had heard was the steady drip-drip coming from somewhere in the ceiling into the larger of the two pools.

The stone in the water-filled pools was lighter than the surrounding stone, and Chucai bent to inspect the floor. Part of the thick layer of sediment strewn throughout the cavern had the gritty texture and color of ash.

There had been a fire.

The ash marked the walls, where the stone wasn’t covered by the creeping lichens. On the right-hand wall, there was a texturing that didn’t seem random. Chucai used his sleeve to wipe away some of the grime, and when he reached the lichen, he used a stone to scour the wall clean. Eventually, he uncovered a large drawing, carved into the rock.

It was a picture of a tree, gnarled like an old man with thick roots that reached all the way to the floor and a tangled mass of leaves of branches that went up farther than he could readily reach.