CHAPTER 67
Genghis Khan impatiently paced outside the smoldering ruins of Krakow like a cat waiting for a mouse to come out of its hole. A dozen generals nervously stood nearby, each with an expert opinion he didn't dare share. The Khan reduced the entire city to rubble to show his displeasure. Yet even massacring a million innocent people barely improved his mood. Destroying all of Europe -- now that would lighten his fury.
This entire expedition had been a disaster. Flying west was like marching in mud because he needed a long logistical train to supply a million mouths. The cities he normally relied on lay in ruins. He had to set perimeters three thousand kilometers out, with layers of security and redundant sentries to counter the damn enemy. The problem with marathoners is that they can come and go with virtual impunity, and are almost impossible to find.
Genghis was tempted just to take his specialty quads to travel fast, but fighting like the Baron’s force meant hardship: frequent hunger, no protection from the weather, going weeks between bathing, and always wearing the same stinking clothes. Every little infection became life threatening. Just the thought of using leaves to clean his backside after crapping made Genghis shudder. It brought back memories of that decade he suffered from hemorrhoids.
Sometimes the enormity of his losses would stun him into a horrifying trance. It felt like a bad dream that wouldn’t end. Or a metal box he couldn’t escape.
If only he had quads like the Baron’s! He knew he used to -- that’s how he conquered half the world.
Every night for several weeks the Baron attacked him, then ganged up on the special units he sent after him. Genghis lost a few hundred thousand quads and a few hundred thousand two-wanders without ever engaging in a proper battle. They attacked and he defended. Never once had he been able to strike them, much less with surprise.
Not until he crossed the Stans did he realize how big an area the Baron depopulated. His force found nobody who spoke Mongolian in the weeks it took his armada to cross the territory.
What worried Genghis the most is that the Baron’s force fell from fifty thousand marathoners to just five thousand exceptional ones. The Khan assumed his arch nemesis was preparing something diabolical, but he couldn’t figure out what. So they traveled as carefully as possible.
If someone had told Genghis that the guy impersonating the Red Baron sent home those forty-five battalions, Genghis would not have believed it. Nor would he find convincing the idea that they only fought as long as they did precisely because they were promised they could return home -- with all the wealth that they could carry -- as soon as Genghis Khan entered the Stans.
Genghis would have found the idea unfathomable. But there it was. The Baron, in his flaming red suit, harassed his armada with just five thousand quads. Really good ones, certainly, but where was he hiding the others?
Five thousand quads punishing five hundred thousand humiliated the Khan. His hatred of the Baron kept him from sleeping at night, which made dealing with him dangerous. His staff walked like the ground was full of eggs they didn’t dare break.
His head jerked up when wands sang out. Another scout came in to give the latest.
"Nothing to the north, sir, although an enemy company was seen a few days ago escorting a large number of civilian air mules to Finland."
The khan cursed softly. He felt like pulling his damn beard out.
"Then where the hell is he? Marathoners don't just beat everything around them for months, then disappear when they run out of resistance. He murdered my wife, sacked my cities, and slaughtered half of my armada because he wanted a fight. Why won’t he fight?"
Russia, Scandinavia, Prussia, Persian, and Turkish air forces tracked him from a safe distance. To the west, American Jack organized what the news reports called a European Air Force numbering several hundred thousand, so he assumed the Baron was setting up a massive attack from all sides. At times he felt like he didn’t need enemies to do him in; the damn stress may just do it for them.
But the Big Day never happened. Team Red, as they called themselves, attacked constantly, but everyone else stayed away. So Genghis sacked the first city in Europe that he came across. Just to bring about the climatic battle he assumed was coming. Looking back, he regretted not targeting Moscow. But he had so many regrets.
A warning from the sky shrieked and Genghis rushed outside. A single exhausted quad descended, dozens of wands tracking him. He landed well away from the Khan, tapped his vocal cords, then gave the bad news as soon as he could catch a breath.
"The Baron somehow raised a huge force of foreign quads," he cried out. "The Americans and Koreans wiped out Mongolia, while a million foreign quads swept China with several million Chinese."
The Immortal walked closer. "Jirko?"
Everyone knew the Khan’s son-in-law because of the Millennial Wands the emperor gave him.
People assumed that the Khan killed everyone who could blast with their boot wands, but only his descendents had ever displayed this ability, so he only killed potential troublemakers. The rest lived far away to avoid having a fatal accident.
About once every decade Genghis fathered a child who stole his heart. His most recent beloved daughter, Khutulun, was as beautiful as she was powerful, and blasted with her boot wands stronger than Genghis Khan himself. Yet she would only agree to marry someone more powerful, so Genghis let her roam the world to find her mate.
And that’s how she found Jirko, the heir to the Siamese Empire, who could also use his boot wands for more than propulsion. The clever couple even planted a seed that was too entertaining to dismiss: that one of their children could one day inherit both kingdoms, uniting the Mongol and Siamese empires. Without bloodshed. Genghis had dreamed of that for two hundred years.
Then what happens? The Baron destroys the Siamese Empire and slaughters Jirko’s entire family. On the one hand, Genghis just lost a powerful ally when Siam went under. But, on the other hand, his champion now hated his arch enemy as much as he did. So it wasn’t all bad.
Jirko set a new world record for one thousand kilometers at the Olympics several years ago, only to be beaten by the Boy Wonder. Who the hell sets a new record, only to get the silver? Genghis remembered inviting Jirko to a public feast where he showered the depressed champion with praise to cushion the bad jokes.
Genghis handed Jirko a water sack. While drinking, Jirko played the video of the Baron doing his scream and fire dance. Genghis had learned to distinguish between the true Baron and the imposters, and knew this was the real one.
Ironic that it was Jirko, of all people, to bring him the terrible news since it was Genghis who informed Jirko that the Red Baron killed all seven generations of his family in Siam.
Genghis Khan lived a hard life. Tatars poisoned his father to death, then his clan left him to starve on the freezing steppe when he was just ten. He had to kill his older brother because he stole food while the family starved. His former clan enslaved him for the murder. He fought for twenty-five years to unite the clans, only to have his childhood friend and blood brother Jamuka become his greatest rival. So he hardened his heart long ago. But failing to protect millions who counted on him threatened his sanity.
Without saying another word, he walked to his personal tent where no one could witness his uncontrollable rage. To be out-witted at the peak of his power infuriated him. The Baron humiliated him repeatedly so the rest of the world would stop fearing him. He had never felt impotent before -- even when the Baron crushed his genitals -- and it ate him up like a cancer.
But rage did not stop his mind from working. For months he felt like he was being played. And now he realized he was. The Baron lured him literally out of Asia to destroy the heart of his empire.
Genghis could now see that the Baron killed his Empress to make him personally lead the chase away from the real target. The Baron suckered him. He never planned on battling him. He just wanted time to depop
ulate Mongolia. While his heart ached and his emotions raged, his mind recognized brilliance when he saw it. Despite all his efforts, Genghis fell into the Baron's trap after all.
He felt like such a tool. Now he understood why he had not received messages from home for so long. He stuck his head out of his tent and barked his smartest order in months: “Let’s go home.”
Not that he saw any other option. His destruction of Krakow scared the Europeans into uniting against him. The Russians, Scandinavians, Prussians, Turks, Persians, and even the Arabs looked like they were just waiting for him to lock horns with the Europeans so they could sodomize him.
As soon as his men started breaking camp, those five thousand super-quads bombed them again, with one of them doing the Baron’s scream and dance. Tired of feeling helpless, Genghis chased them himself, but they disappeared before he could get close. It unnerved him how fast they flew. He used to be the fastest, yet he couldn’t even close the distance. It never occurred to him that those five thousand enjoyed the best wands ever produced.
Now he understood what returning home would be like: exactly like the damn trip here. Those bastards would slow him down as much as they could, because that’s what the Baron told them to do months ago. That’s why they always seemed to have food, bombs, and shelter. Because the Baron planned this long ago.
He had to get home to salvage what he could, so he separated his one hundred thousand best quads, even though this meant re-forming every battalion, company, and squad.
A week later, in the Stans, millions of Mongol refugees shared their stories and he finally appreciated the scale of the disaster. Then he learned that the Red Baron himself killed his heir and prevented the destruction of the main Chinese force. Several thousand kilometers from where the Khan was hunting him.
He resolved to kill the Baron and everyone he cared about.