The valley was long, if somewhat narrow. Now the pillared red hills in the distance, and the terraced bleached white ramparts to the east, quivered in the intolerable light. The nokud had not been idle. Each had his standard, and under this standard, which differed in color only from Temujin’s banner of the nine yaktails, he had gathered the men under his command. Great activity was prevailing. The kibitkas with their yurts were in rapid motion, and hot yellow dust hung over everything. The herds filled the sharp bright air with deafening cries.
Behind the camp was a dense wood of fir and dead poplars. This formed one side of a rough square. On another side of the square one nokud had drawn up his men into a squadron, the first rank wearing heavy plates of iron armor, fastened together with thongs. They wore helmets of armor or of lacquered leather. Their horses also wore breastplates of armor, and their chests, legs and necks were covered with leather. The warriors carried little round shields of leather, and lances, and hard sticks bearing curved hooks on the ends. Their lariats hung from their saddles. Behind this first rank were the other warriors, lighter and quicker, and not armored with iron, but protected by leather, and carrying javelins and bows. Their horses were small and nimble, and between the ranks of the armored men were open spaces, through which the quicker and lighter-clad warriors could break upon signal. These men, also at a signal, were to ride ahead, leaving the heavy-weighted warriors to protect the village. Each rank numbered five hundred men.
Each nokud had drawn up his men on the other two sides in like manner. In the center of this square of living warriors had been driven the herds, the women and children, the herdsmen and the kibitkas. The boys had been given arrows and lariats.
Outside the square, Temujin now gathered up his own picked men, double squadrons of a thousand, ten deep. These squadrons rode ahead to the neck of the narrow valley, and were prepared to meet the first onslaught. There were only thirteen units of them, and the Taijiut, Temujin knew, had sixty bands. But these sixty bands had first to face the bottleneck of the valley, guarded by Temujin’s dense squadrons. Here numbers would not count so much as courage.
All was now ready. Everything had been accomplished with amazing speed and a minimum of confusion. Dust hung over everything like a yellow pall. But there was little noise. Temujin saw only stern dark resolute faces wherever he looked. Behind the living armored walls of the square he saw the thick city of the yurts.
Temujin left his squadrons, and rode swiftly on his white stallion towards the square. He saw how the sun was splintered on the lances and the swords and javelins and sabers. The warriors looked at him in hard alert silence as he rode by them, flashing his fierce green eye upon them, noting everything. In his hand he carried a curved Turkish scimitar. He approached a nokud, Subodai. He smiled at him briefly.
“I rely much on thine excellent cavalry, Subodai.”
Subodai returned his smile with his clear and beautiful look.
“Thy trust will not be betrayed, O lord,” he answered quietly. Temujin hesitated a moment, then leaned towards Subodai and kissed him upon the cheek. Every one was utterly silent. Tears rose to Subodai’s eyes.
Then, in this deep waiting silence, Temujin galloped to another side of the square, the hoofs of his horse loud in the dusty stillness. He came up to Chepe Noyon, whose gay face dimpled and whose eyes smiled. Temujin smiled also, a smile quite gay for him.
“Thou wilt play no pranks, Chepe Noyon,” he said, laying his hand on the neck of the other’s horse.
Chepe Noyon pursed up his lip humorously. “But I like to play with the Taijiut, lord,” he answered, making his voice high and effeminate, like that of a petulant woman’s. The dark faces of his warriors relaxed in a faint smile.
Temujin laughed shortly. He patted the neck of Chepe Noyon’s horse and rode on.
He came to the last side of the square. Here his simple brave brother, the bowman, Kasar, stood mounted before his men. Temujin was silent for a moment, looking deeply and affectionately into his brother’s eyes. But neither spoke. Temujin laid his hand momentarily on Kasar’s hand, glanced swiftly at the warriors. Kasar fixed his gaze upon Temujin’s face as one who gazes, rapt and fearless, at a god.
Then Temujin rode away. In a wide open space stood the Shaman, unmounted, waiting. Temujin nodded to him curtly. “Speak thou now to my warriors.”
Kokchu faced the square. He lifted his hand solemnly. He stood there, tall, broad, magnificent, in his blue-and-white robes, his high pointed hat on his head. His eyes flashed in the sun; hie severe and handsome face was stern.
“Warriors of the lord, Temujin!” he began, and his voice echoed in the intense silence. “Today we face an ordeal of fire and sword and death. But ye must not falter, ye must not doubt, nor feel terror. For ye cannot be conquered. The spirits of the eternal Blue Sky have ordained that no man shall be victor over Temujin, their servant, their soldier. He who doubts, who turns and runs, shall be destroyed by the lightning of the spirits. For I tell ye again, that ye cannot be overcome, nay, not even if the Taijiut number a hundred thousand, and not thirty.”
He lifted both his arms now, and blessed them somberly. They bowed their heads, and then, lifting their eyes, they looked devoutly at the shining blue glass of the heavens.
Temujin smiled wryly to himself, then galloped away to join his squadrons. He had, as his immediate officers, the nokud Belgutei and Jamuga. Belgutei smiled at him lightly as he came up. “We are ready, lord,” he said to his half-brother.
Temujin nodded. “I see that. Thou hast done well, Belgutei.” He put his hand on the other’s shoulder, and shook him affectionately.
He turned to Jamuga, and the two young men looked at each other in sudden silence. Jamuga’s wan face remained impassive; his pale blue eyes were quiet and deep with reserved courage. He sat his horse straightly. In his hand was a naked sword.
Temujin thought: The man of peace is prepared to fight and die for me, with faithfulness and bravery as always, but his heart is not in it.
He was both irritated and touched, recognizing that Jamuga did not hesitate to violate himself, however he loathed doing so. He inclined his head before necessity, with bitterness and resolution. Fidelity was more to him, at least just now, than his own integrity and belief. He would fight for love of Temujin only.
Yet, for an instant, Temujin, influenced in spite of himself by the innuendoes of his mother and his wife, and the Shaman, doubted that love. And he thought to himself that men may die grimly for duty and necessity, but not as passionately as they would die for love. He asked himself: Why doth not mine anda love me as he loved me before?
He looked into Jamuga’s pale eyes questioningly, and Jamuga looked back at him straightly. But Temujin could read nothing in those brave and quiet eyes. What would he have me do? he asked himself with contemptuous anger. And then he remembered Jamuga’s words: “A man who doth make himself powerful doth become infested with enemies, as a camel becometh infested with lice.”
He leaned a little towards Jamuga, and said lamely, merely for the sake of saying something to that grave, unspeaking face:
“We have a hard battle before us, Jamuga.”
Jamuga’s colorless lips moved, and he replied quietly: “There will always be battles, Temujin.” Only he these, days called his anda by his name, and not saying, “lord.” Even Belgutei, his half-brother, did not address him by his own name.
Temujin nodded with gravity at Jamuga’s words. And then, feeling somewhat nonplussed, he rode on. Jamuga followed him with his eyes, and in them was a great and mournful sadness.
Temujin rode to the head of his squadrons.
And now they waited in utter silence. The square walls of the warriors behind the squadrons of Temujin did not move. They might have been armored and colored mounted statues. Even the women and children and boys within the square were quiet. Nothing moved but the banners, fluttering in the wind, and the clouds, casting their rounded shadows fleetingly over the valley. Shadows ran over
the red-and-white ramparts, and at times they looked like the huge facades of terraced, windowed and pillared temples and walls.
Everything seemed to wait. Even the horses, panting a little, and lifting and dropping their heads, appeared to know what portended. The sun glittered on the lifted lances and the swords and armor. Now the sun wheeled to its zenith, and the whole earth was inundated with light, unbearable and unshaking.
Suddenly there was a distant cry, the thunder of hoofs. All at once, between the passes of the cliffs, appeared the dark and galloping hordes of the Taijiut, the only things of motion in that vast raw radiance. They came on their swift stallions, brandishing their swords and lances and javelins, swinging their lariats, fixing arrows to their bows. Temujin watched them pour down into the narrow bottleneck of the valley. He marvelled at the endless stream of them, riding under the banner of the two chiefs, Targoutai and his brother. They came like waves of black ants, crowding up together, surging downwards. And then, all at once, they stopped. Their cries of triumph were halted. And again, the awful silence of the wilderness fell over everything.
For the Taijiut were struck dumb with confused amazement. They had expected to find a peaceful city of tents, unprepared and unsuspecting, the herds scattered, the campfires burning, the warriors unarmed. And now down below them they saw the huge thick square of waiting warriors and, ahead of this square, the massed squadrons of Temujin. Targoutai and his brother leaned forward on their horses, blinking their eyes unbelievingly, their mouths falling open, their foreheads wrinkling with rage. Behind them, in the narrow passes, halted by those before, stood the rest of the thirty thousand Taijiut. Seeing nothing but the backs of their silent comrades, they muttered bewildered questions to each other, and reared their horses.
At last Targoutai turned to his brother. “But after all, there are only fourteen thousand, or less, of them. Let us go on!”
He lifted his arm and shouted hoarsely. His officers answered in a wave of ferocious shouts, and lifted their swords. The shouts rang back from rampart and cliff. The horses struck down their hoofs in muffled thunder.
And then, like a flood of death, the hordes of the Taijiut roared down towards Temujin’s squadrons, spurring their mounts, screaming like eagles. The sun flashed on thousands of dilated eyes, on thousands of naked swords, which were like mirrors reflecting the blinding light.
Temujin glanced at his two nokud, Belgutei and Jamuga. “Ready!” he said in a low voice.
Instantly, the lighter-armored men on their nimble horses sprang forward as though winged. A moment later they had mingled with the first onslaught of the Taijiut. Cataracts of arrows blazed through the air, which was filled with the scream of roaring horses and men, the thud of falling bodies, the clash of swords, the dull crash of weapon upon lacquered shield. The scent of blood rose like a stench. The confusion was indescribable. The dust rose over everything, so that one could hardly tell if the wild face and glittering eyes in the midst of it was foeman or friend.
Behind the squadrons, the nokud had given their orders to the warriors in the square. Now the lighter-armored men rode irresistibly through the gaps of their comrades, and advanced to the aid of the squadrons. Behind them, heavier, moved the iron-armored warriors, advancing at an implacable trot. The men ahead leaned back on their horses, swinging their lariats, bending bows strengthened with powerful horn, or launching swift light lances. No bow was bent or weapon wielded or lance sent on flight except at a particular object, and inevitably that object was reached and the foeman sent flying, shrieking, from his horse, to be trampled upon, or to be finished by one lightning swing of a scimitar.
The Taijiut, dismayed and confused, were at a disadvantage. For the thousands behind them were choked in the passes by those ahead, and the increasing mounds of those who had fallen. But because of their immense numbers, thousands managed to enter the valley and spread out. The Taijiut light cavalry, under the command of Targoutai’s brother, wheeled orderly into position, and roared onwards in a mass, at a gallop.
They were met by the heavily armored Mongols, who were mystically without fear, and who knew they dared not retreat. They were armed with faith in the aid of the spirits. The Taijiut were armed only with lust and hatred, and courage.
Now the hills threw back waves of cries and thunder. The Taijiut, who had ridden far, had not been able to bring heavily armored men with them. Protected only by thick layers of leather, they were no match for Temujin’s warriors. The Mongols, fleetly separating into small bands, whirled and wheeled, loosing arrows and lariats, dragging down foemen with their bare hands when at too close quarters for sword or rope or bow. Nothing could resist them. Up and down the narrow valley the struggle raged, the earth boiling with men and horses and banners. Alone in their yurts, the women huddled and prayed, and pressed their crying infants’ faces to their breasts. The herds, resolutely guarded by the boys and shepherds, screamed and tried to stampede, but were held in check.
Temujin had given his orders long before. His men spread out, to encompass the Taijiut hordes in a thin battling circle. Implacably, they narrowed the circle, driving the enemy in on himself, so that he was choked by the crushing bodies and presence of his own men, and rendered impotent
Temujin was in the very center of the battle. His arm, cutting down the Taijiut, did not seem to tire. He was a superhuman warrior, swinging his sword, standing up in his stirrups to strike down the oncoming hordes. He had a flesh wound in the shoulder, and his white coat ran with trickles of red blood. His cap had fallen from his head, and his red hair was like a flame in the sunlight. But whenever he glanced at his right, Jamuga was beside him, his sword flashing blindingly to protect him, his horse trampling those who had fallen, but who were rising on elbows to hamstring Temujin’s horse with a sword.
Even then, in the midst of all that welter of death and blood and steel, and stumbling horses and shrieking men, Temujin could think: I was mistaken. He loveth me still. And the thought was like an exultation to him, and he laughed a little to himself, wondering at his own emotion. Once his eye met Jamuga’s and Jamuga smiled faintly. There was color on his wan cheekbones, a light in his pale blue eye. And again, Temujin was touched by a small curiosity as to what this strange man of peace and thought was thinking.
Then all at once Targoutai appeared before him, wild-eyed and savage, a middle-aged man full of the kinsman’s hatred for a younger man who was stronger and bolder than he. Targoutai knew that he would have no victory as long as Temujin lived, and that there could be no peace between them. The lordship of the barrens and the steppes was the prize, and one must die.
Temujin saw the mad gleam in the eyes in the narrow, bearded face, the mad glitter of teeth. Targoutai had courage and fierceness beyond other men, and he was also armed with furious hatred. Temujin saw the lifted arm with its bloody sword. He was so surprised at his kinsman’s sudden appearance, and the madness in his face, that his own arm became momentarily paralyzed. He heard nothing, saw nothing, but Targoutai. He saw Targoutai’s sword advancing towards his breast, and he knew that now nothing could save him, for he had wasted a precious moment.
Then, he sat, stupefied, in the welter of men and horses. For there sat Targoutai one moment, grinning insanely and swinging his sword, and the next instant a headless horsemen sat on his horse, his severed neck spouting little fountains of blood, the sword still in his hand. And then, slowly and with immense dignity, the spouting torso leaned sideways, and ponderously fell from the horse.
Temujin glanced to his right, his mouth dropping open with amazement. Jamuga was beside him, his sword dripping. And again Jamuga smiled faintly, wiped the blood away on the side of his gray mare.
“Again, thou hast saved my life!” exclaimed Temujin.
Jamuga did not reply. He merely swung his sword dexterously at those who continued to come on. But Temujin could see that he still smiled, as at some sad and ironic thought.
All at once the air was filled with crescendos of wild
and exultant shouts. Temujin blinked, shook his head. The Taijiut, mysteriously knowing of the death of Targoutai, were in wild flight. As one man, thousands of them raced towards the passes between the ramparts, leaning forward upon their terrified horses, spurring their sides cruelly. The victorious Mongols shrieked with joy, pursued the fleeing foemen, cutting them down, dragging them from their horses with lariats, thrusting them through with swords, loosing arrows at them. Now terror had the enemy completely. Each man sought only to save his own life. Hundreds threw down their swords, and held up their arms in token of surrender. Only a few got completely away. As one, they believed that they had been conquered by demons, and not by men.
Five thousand Taijiut had been killed. Ten thousand and more were wounded, and still more thousands were taken prisoner. Among the prisoners was the brother of Targoutai, Todoyan-Girte. Three thousand of Temujin’s best warriors had been killed. Kasar, himself, was terribly wounded. Several of the lesser nokud had died. And other thousands of Temujin’s men had been injured.
Twilight had come, the west slashed with pallid and dazzling silver and scarlet fire. Tides of amethyst were running over the battlefield, which was heaped with the dead and dying.
Temujin had won his first major victory. The overlordship of the northern Gobi steppes and barrens was his. He had won because of the mystical superstition of his warriors, and because of their selfless courage and desperation. But more than anything, he had won because they loved him.
Chapter 10
Temujin was wise, in that he never continued on from one important act to another without sleeping between them. That night he and his warriors and his people, and all the captives, slept the deathlike sleep of utter exhaustion. And during the night the vultures were busy with those who lay dead on the battlefields, and the wolves, and all the other denizens of the barrens.
Imitating Toghrul Khan, Temujin had a yurt fully twenty feet across, which he used for consultations with his officers, and the transaction of momentous business. Tonight, he slept there, and about his couch slept his five chief nokud, Kasar, Belgutei, Chepe Noyon and Jamuga and Subodai. Jamuga, his anda, slept beside him on the broad couch, under the same blankets. And this was for the first time in many moons.