Temujin listened while the old man recited his father’s victories. Chagatai’s memory was still sharp enough to remember what had been said and how many had fallen to his father’s sword or bow. Perhaps the numbers were exaggerated, he did not know. The older warriors nodded and smiled at the memories, and as they emptied the skins of airag, they began to call out in appreciation as Chagatai painted the battles for them once more.
“That was when old Yeke lost three fingers from his right hand,” Chagatai continued. “It was Yesugei who found them in the snow and brought them back to him. Yeke saw what he was carrying and said they should be given to the dogs. Yesugei told him it would be better to tie them to a stick. He said he could still use them to scratch himself.”
Khasar chuckled at that, hanging on every word with his brothers. This was the history of their tribe, the stories of the men and women who made them who they were.
Chagatai’s manner changed subtly as he lowered the skin once more.
“He left strong sons to follow him, and he would have wanted Bekter or Temujin to lead the Wolves. I have heard the whispers in the families. I have heard the arguments and the promises, but the blood of khans runs in them and if there is honor in the Wolves, they should not shame their khan in death. He watches us now.”
The camp fell silent, though Temujin heard some of the warriors murmuring agreement. He felt a hundred eyes on him in the flame-lit darkness. He began to rise, but in the distance, they all heard the lookout horns sound mournfully over the hills, and the warriors snapped out of their drunken trance, rising quickly to their feet and shaking themselves to alertness. Eeluk appeared on the fringes of the light, gazing malevolently at Chagatai. Temujin saw that the storyteller looked frail and tired now that the spell was broken. A breeze blew his white hair back and forth as he faced Eeluk without a sign of fear. As Temujin watched, Eeluk nodded sharply as if something had been decided. The bondsman’s horse was brought to him and he mounted in one swift movement, riding out into the dark without looking back.
The horns ceased after only a short time when they realized it was the scouting party returning. Bekter came in at the head of a dozen warriors, riding up to the fire to dismount. Temujin saw they carried armor and weapons that were different from the ones he knew. In the light of the great fire, he saw rotting heads tied to Bekter’s saddle by their hair. Temujin shivered suddenly at the sight of the open mouths flopping as if they still cried out. Though the flesh was black and flyblown, he knew he was looking at the faces of those who had killed his father.
Only his mother had also heard Yesugei whisper the name of his enemy in the tent, and neither she nor Temujin had shared the information with any other. It was somehow chilling to hear the Tartars named again by the returning warriors. They held up bows and deels splashed with dried blood, and the families gathered around them in horrified fascination, reaching out to touch the rotting faces of the dead.
Bekter strode into the firelight as if the leadership of the tribe were already settled. It would once have been a bitter scene in Temujin’s imagination, but after his fears, he felt a savage pleasure. Let his brother take the tribe!
At first, the conversations were noisy and there were cries of shock at the description of what they had found. Five bodies lay rotting where they had ambushed the khan of Wolves. The gazes that fell on Yesugei’s sons were bright with awe. Yet they fell silent when Eeluk drew up, leaping lightly down from his saddle to face the brothers. With deliberate resolve, Temujin came to stand at Bekter’s shoulder and Khasar and Kachiun came with him. They faced Eeluk and waited for him to speak. Perhaps that was their mistake, for Eeluk was a powerful warrior and, next to him, they looked like the boys they were.
“Your father has gone at last, Bekter,” Eeluk said. “It was not an easy passing, but it is at an end.”
Bekter’s hooded eyes regarded his father’s bondsman, understanding the challenge and the danger. He raised his head and spoke, sensing he would never be stronger in his position than at that moment.
“I will be proud to lead the Wolves to war,” he said clearly.
Some of the warriors cheered him, but Eeluk shook his head slowly, his confidence cowing the few who had shown support. Silence came again and Temujin found himself holding his breath.
“I will be khan,” Eeluk said. “It is decided.”
Bekter reached for his sword and Eeluk’s eyes gleamed in pleasure. It was Temujin who gripped his brother’s arm first, though Kachiun was there almost as quickly.
“He will kill you,” Temujin said, as Bekter tried to free himself.
“Or I will kill him for the oath-breaking filth he is,” Bekter snapped in response.
Locked in their own struggle, neither of them had time to react as Eeluk drew his sword and used the hilt as a hammer, smashing Bekter off his feet. He and Temujin went down in a tangle of limbs, and Kachiun threw himself at their father’s bondsman unarmed, trying to stop him using the blade to kill his brothers. Hoelun cried out in fear behind them and the sound seemed to break through to Eeluk as he advanced, shaking Kachiun off with a flick of his arm. He glared at them all and then sheathed his sword.
“In honor to your father, I will not shed blood tonight,” he said, though his face was heavy with anger. He raised his head to have his voice carry. “The Wolves will ride! I will not stay where the blood of my khan stains the earth. Gather your herds and horses. As the sun reaches noon, we will travel south.”
He took a step closer to Hoelun and her sons.
“But not with you,” he said. “I will not watch my back for your knives. You will stay here and take your father’s body to the hills.”
Hoelun swayed slightly in the breeze, her face white and pinched. “You will leave us to die?”
Eeluk shrugged. “Die or live, you will not be of the Wolves. It is done.”
Chagatai loomed behind Eeluk then and Temujin saw the old man grip him by the arm. Eeluk raised his sword in reflex, but Chagatai ignored the bare blade so close to his face.
“This is an evil thing!” Chagatai said, angrily. “You dishonor the memory of a great man, left with no one to bring death to his killers. How will his spirit rest? You cannot leave his children alone on the plains. It is as bad as killing them yourself.”
“Get away, old man. A khan must make hard decisions. I will not shed the blood of children or women, but if they starve, my hands are clean.”
Chagatai’s face grew dark with wordless fury and he scrabbled at Eeluk’s armor, battering at him. His nails scored the flesh of Eeluk’s neck, and the reaction was instantaneous. Eeluk drove his blade into the old man’s chest and shoved him off it onto his back. Blood came from Chagatai’s open mouth and Hoelun sank to her knees, weeping and rocking while her sons stood stunned. There were other screams at the murder and some of the warriors came to stand between Eeluk and the family of Yesugei, their hands ready on their swords. Eeluk shook himself and spat at Chagatai as his blood poured into the parched soil.
“You should not have interfered, you old fool,” he said, sheathing his sword and walking stiffly away.
The warriors helped Hoelun to her feet and women came to help her back to the ger. They turned their faces from the crying children, and to Temujin that was as bad as anything else that had happened that night. The families had deserted them and they were lost.
The gers of the Wolves left black circles on the hard ground when they were dismantled, littered with scraps of old bone and pieces of broken leather and pottery. The sons of Yesugei watched the process as outsiders, standing miserably with their mother and sister. Eeluk had been ruthless and Hoelun had needed all the others to hold Bekter back when the bondsman ordered their ger and everything in it to be packed with the rest. Some of the women had cried out at the cruelty, but many more had kept silent and Eeluk had ignored them all. The khan’s word was law.
Temujin shook his head in disbelief as the carts were loaded and the herds urged into place with s
ticks and blows. He had seen that Eeluk wore Yesugei’s sword as he strode about the encampment. Bekter had set his jaw tight as he noticed the blade, his fury evident. Eeluk had smiled to himself as he walked past them, enjoying their impotent glares. Temujin wondered at how Eeluk had kept such ambition hidden inside for so many years. He had sensed it when Yesugei gave him the red bird, but even then he would not have believed it possible to have Eeluk betray them so completely. He shook his head as he heard the eagle chicks crying when their wings were wrapped tight for the journey. He could not take it in. The sight of Chagatai’s sprawled body tugged at his eyes over and over, reminding him of the night before. The old storyteller was going to be left where he had fallen, and that seemed as great a crime as any of the rest to the boys.
Though her sons were pale with despair, Hoelun herself radiated a cold rage that punished anyone foolish enough to meet her eyes. When Eeluk had come to order the khan’s ger dismantled, even he had not looked at her, staring instead into a middle distance while the work went on. The great layers of heavy felt had been untied and rolled and the wooden lattice collapsed into its sections, the knots of dried sinew cut with quick slashes. Everything inside had been taken, from Yesugei’s bows to the winter deels with their lining of fur. Bekter had cursed and shouted when he saw they would be left with nothing, but Hoelun had simply shaken her head at Eeluk’s casual cruelty. The deels were beautifully made and too valuable to be wasted on those who would not survive. Winter would snatch them from life as surely as an arrow when the first snows came. Still, she faced the families with dignity, her face proud and dry of tears.
It did not take long. Everything was designed to be moved, and by the time the sun stood above them, the black circles were empty and the carts loaded, with men heaving at the ropes to tie everything down.
Hoelun shivered as the wind blew stronger. There was no shelter now that the gers had gone, and she felt exposed and numb. She knew Yesugei would have drawn his father’s sword and taken a dozen heads if he were there to see it. His body lay on the turf, wrapped in cloth. In the night, someone in the families had wound an old piece of linen around Chagatai’s withered frame, hiding his wound. They lay side by side in death and Hoelun could not bear to look at either of them.
The herdsmen shouted as Eeluk blew his horn, using sticks longer than a man to snap the animals into movement. The noise grew as sheep and goats bleated and ran to escape the stinging touch and the tribe began to move. Hoelun stood with her sons like a stand of pale birch and watched them go. Temuge was sobbing quietly to himself and Kachiun took his hand in case the little boy tried to run after the tribe.
The open ground quickly swallowed the cries of the herdsmen and their charges. Hoelun watched them until they were far away, at last breathing out some small part of her relief. She knew Eeluk was capable of sending a man circling back to make a bloody end to the abandoned family. As soon as the distance was too far for them to be seen, she turned to her sons, gathering them around her.
“We need shelter and food, but most of all, we need to get away from this place. There will be scavengers coming soon to sift through the ashes of the fires. Not all of them will walk on four legs. Bekter!” Her sharp tone snapped her son out of his trance as he stared after the distant figures. “I need you now to look after your brothers.”
“What is the point?” he replied, turning back to watch the plain. “We’re all dead.”
Hoelun slapped him hard across the face and he staggered, his eyes blazing. Fresh blood started from where Eeluk had hit him the night before.
“Shelter, and food, Bekter. Yesugei’s sons will not go quietly to their deaths, as Eeluk wants. Nor will his wife. I need your strength, Bekter, do you understand?”
“What will we do with…him?” Temujin said, looking at his father’s body.
Hoelun faltered for an instant as she followed his gaze. She clenched her fist and shook with anger.
“Was it too much to leave us a single pony?” she said under her breath. She had a vision of tribeless men pulling the sheet from Yesugei’s naked body and laughing, but there was no choice. “It’s just flesh, Temujin. Your father’s spirit is gone from here. Let him see us survive and he will be satisfied.”
“We leave him for wild dogs, then?” Temujin asked, horrified.
It was Bekter who nodded. “We must. Dogs or birds, it doesn’t matter. How far could you and I carry him, Temujin? It’s already noon and we need to get up to a tree line.”
“The red hill,” Kachiun said suddenly. “There is shelter there.”
Hoelun shook her head. “It’s too far to reach before night falls. To the east, there is a cleft that will do until tomorrow. There are woods there. We’d die on the plains, but in woods, I’ll spit on Eeluk ten years from now.”
“I’m hungry,” Temuge said, sniveling.
Hoelun looked at her youngest son and her eyes filled with shining tears. She reached into the folds of her deel and brought out a cloth bag of his favorite sweet curds. Each of them took one or two, as solemnly as if they were swearing an oath.
“We will survive this, my sons. We will survive until you are men, and when Eeluk is old, he will wonder if it is you coming for him every time he hears hooves in the darkness.”
They looked into her face in awe, seeing only fierce determination. It was strong enough to banish some of their own despair, and they all took strength from her.
“Now walk!” she snapped at them. “Shelter, then food.”
CHAPTER 11
A THIN DRIZZLE FELL as Bekter and Temujin sat huddled together, wet to the bone. Before dark, they had reached a wooded cleft in the hills where a stream dribbled through sodden, marshy ground. The narrow crease in the land was host to black-trunked pines and silver birches as pale as bones. The echoing spatter of water was strange and frightening as the boys shivered on a great nest of dark roots.
Before the light faded, Hoelun had set them to lifting fallen saplings, dragging the great broken lengths of rotten wood through the leaves and mud to heave them into the crook of a low tree. Their arms and chests were scratched raw, but she had not let them rest. Even Temuge had carried armfuls of dead needles and piled them over smaller branches, tottering back again and again for more until the crude shelter was finished. It was not large enough for Bekter and Temujin, but Hoelun had kissed them both in gratitude and they had stood proudly as she crawled into the space with the baby. Khasar curled up like a shivering dog between her legs, and Temuge crept in after them, sobbing gently to himself. Kachiun had stood with his older brothers for a while, swaying gently from exhaustion. Temujin had taken him by the arm and pushed him after the others. There was hardly room even for him.
Their mother’s head had sunk slowly onto her chest as the little girl nursed. Temujin and Bekter had moved away as quietly as they could, looking for anything that would keep the rain off their faces long enough to get to sleep.
They did not find it. The mass of roots had seemed a little better than simply lying down in the wet, but unseen lumps and twists made them ache however they lay. When sleep did come, a splash of icy water would strike their faces and bring them back for bleary moments, wondering where they were. The night seemed to last forever.
As Temujin woke yet again and moved his cramped legs, he thought about the day. It had been strange to walk away from his father’s body. They had all looked back to see the pale speck growing smaller. Hoelun had seen the wistful glances and been annoyed with them.
“You have always had the families around you,” she had said. “You have not had to hide from thieves and wanderers before. Now we must hide. Even a single herder can kill us all, and there will be no justice.”
The hard new reality had chilled them as much as the rain that began to fall, dampening their spirits still further. Temujin blinked against a drip of water from somewhere above. He was not sure he had slept at all, though he sensed time had passed. His stomach was painfully empty and he wondere
d what they would do for food. If Eeluk had even left them a bow, Temujin could have fed them all on fat marmots. Without one, they could starve to death in just a few days. He looked up and saw that the rain clouds had passed, letting the stars shine through to the land beneath. The trees still dripped all around, but he hoped the morning would be warmer. The dampness had soaked every part of him, and his clothes were caked in mud and leaves. He felt the slippery muck on his fingers as he clenched a fist and thought of Eeluk. A pine needle or a thorn dug into his palm, but he ignored it, silently cursing the man who had betrayed his family. Deliberately, he clenched until his whole body shook and he could see green flashes under his eyelids.
“Keep him alive,” he whispered to the sky father. “Keep him strong and healthy. Keep him alive, for me to kill.”
Bekter grumbled in his sleep next to him, and Temujin closed his eyes again, aching for the hours to slip away until dawn. He wanted the same as the younger ones: to let his mother wrap him in her arms and solve all their problems. Instead, he knew he had to be strong, both for her and for his brothers. One thing was certain: they would survive and one day he would find and kill Eeluk and take Yesugei’s sword from his dead hand. The thought stayed with him as he fell asleep.
They were all up as soon as it was light enough to see each other’s dirty faces. Hoelun’s eyes were puffy and bruised-looking with exhaustion, but she gathered her children around her, watching as the single water bottle was passed from hand to hand. Her tiny daughter was fussing and already slippery with fresh excrement. There were no spare cloths and the infant began a red-faced fit of screaming that showed no sign of lapsing. Hoelun could only ignore the cries as the baby refused the teat again and again in its distress. In the end, even their mother’s patience was exhausted, and she left her bare breast hanging while the little girl clenched her fists and roared to the sky.
“If we are to live, we need to make somewhere dry and organize fishing and hunting,” she told them. “Show me what you have with you, so that we all can see.” She noticed Bekter hesitate and turned on him. “Hold nothing back, Bekter. We could all be dead in a single turn of the moon if we can’t hunt and get warm.”