Eye of Flame (29 page)

Yet Khokakhchin could not keep her darker thoughts at bay. Bughu had told Jali-gulug that he would no longer instruct him, that he had shown himself unworthy to be a shaman. When she glimpsed Jali-gulug taking his turn at archery practice with the younger men, or riding in one of the races across the steppe, she saw how poor his aim was and how awkwardly he held himself in the saddle. The young man belonged in the rear guard, casting his spells and protecting his comrades from harm with his magic, not in the midst of battle. If one of his fits came upon him during the fighting, he would not survive.

The kuriltai was over. Khokakhchin circled Hoelun’s tent, seeing that the sheep at the back of the yurt were settled for the night. The other Mongol chiefs had left Yesugei’s camp. They would ride against the Tatars after the twenty-first day of the summer’s first moon; Bughu had chosen the time.

The camp seemed more quiet than usual, after the past nights of hearing men singing and shouting tales of past battles. She remembered how Yesugei had danced the night before, when everyone had gathered outside for a last feast to celebrate the end of the kuriltai. His booted feet had pounded the ground with such force that he had made ruts in the grass. His shaven head had gleamed with sweat, the braids looped behind his ears had come undone and slapped against his back like whips. He had looked like a Khan.

Two men rode past her, on their way to join the night guard just outside this camping circle. Daritai’s wife Esugei left her yurt to throw a few bones to her dogs, then went back inside. To the northwest, above the sparsely wooded foothills bordering the steppe, a high black mountain ridge thrust toward the stars, reaching for Tengri. Khokakhchin was near the entrance to Hoelun’s tent when she saw another man ride out from a circle of tents and wagons to the south.

He was riding in her direction, slouched in his saddle; she recognized Jali-gulug. He had tied a band of cloth around his head and wore his tattered dark wool tunic under his pale tiger skin. People were quickly forgetting the courage he had shown in meeting the ghost-tiger. Even she could think of that night and wonder if only luck had guided his arrow, if an evil spirit rather than her husband had spoken to her through Jali-gulug. She watched him ride toward her, pitying him.

Fifty paces beyond Yesugei’s circle, he reined in his horse, then beckoned to her. Khokakhchin refused to move until he motioned to her more vehemently. Cursing under her breath, she went to meet him.

“What is it?” she muttered.

He dismounted. A bowcase and quiver hung from his belt, next to his sword, but no man could have seemed less of a warrior. He still wore the pouches that contained his small bones, amulets, jada stones, and other tools of magic, even though he would never become a shaman. A faint mustache had begun to sprout on his upper lip, but his face was still that of a sickly, hollow-cheeked boy.

“I came to tell you—” His voice stumbled over the words; his stammer had grown worse. “I’ve been sent to join the men grazing the horses.”

Khokakhchin sighed. “You made me walk all the way out here to tell me that?” She spoke softly; even a feeble voice could carry far on a nearly windless summer night.

“M-my father—my father s-said—” He shook his head and wiped his mouth with one hand. “He ordered me to look after his spare horses when we ride against the enemy,” he said in steadier tones. “He wants me in the rear, you see.”

“Your father’s wise,” she said, relieved. “That’s the best place for someone who hasn’t done much fighting to be.”

“Young men my age, even many of the older boys, know more of fighting than I ever shall.” She heard the despair in his voice. “I’m not going to guard the horses, Old Woman Khokakhchin, or ride with my father to war. I came to say farewell, to tell you that I’m leaving this camp.”

She drew in her breath sharply. “I can’t believe it. There’s nothing lower than a coward, nothing worse than a man who would desert his comrades. Are you the same man who faced a ghost and killed a tiger?”

“The spirits are tearing at me again.” He looked up at the sky. “They’re driving me from this camp. I’m useless here, I can do nothing.”

“You can fight with your chief against his enemies. You can—”

“The same dream still troubles me. The enemy will trample on the threshold of Yesugei’s tent. The great bull will wear a yoke.”

He was mad, she told herself. Bughu’s shaming of him and his own fear of battle had driven him mad. “I ought to do my duty,” she whispered, “by going to the Bahadur now and telling him that you’re deserting us. Bughu would be happy to see you punished for your cowardice and your head lying on the ground.”

“I must go, old woman. The spirits tear at me. Perhaps they’ll show me what to do, how to—” His chest heaved. He turned away and mounted his horse. “Farewell.”

“The Bahadur will send men after you, you cursed boy.” She shook her fist. “Or you’ll die out there all alone, without shelter, without—” But he was already riding away.

The men grazing the horses would not miss him for a while. Two or three days might pass before Dobon found out that his son had not ridden there. His trail could be followed, but by then everyone would be preparing for war, and Yesugei would not change his plans to search for Jali-gulug.

She had once sensed power in him. Maybe his madness had touched her, making her see what was not there. She tucked her hands into her sleeves and walked back to Hoelun’s tent.

The men sharpened and oiled their curved lances and knives, polished their lacquered leather breastplates, fletched arrows, and selected the horses they would use in the campaign. On the day before they were to ride out, another sheep was sacrificed, and Bughu predicted victory. Yesugei took off his belt, hung it around his shoulders, and poured out some kumiss as an offering to his sulde, the protective spirit that lived in his nine-tailed standard.

No one spoke of Jali-gulug’s desertion. Yesugei had gone into a rage when Daritai suggested going after the coward. Even Dobon seemed content to regard his son as dead. They would have their war, and then Jali-gulug, if he still lived, would be punished.

The men rode out on a day when the blue sky was so clear that it hurt Khokakhchin’s eyes to look toward Heaven. The nine horse tails of Yesugei’s tugh, carried by Nekun-taisi, danced in the wind. Women and boys on horseback galloped after the men, shouting their farewells. Hoelun was astride one white horse, calling out to her husband.

Khokakhchin gazed after the men, her fingers around Khachigun’s small hand, thinking of the times she had sent her husband Bujur off to war. If Yesugei had his victory, they would have the better grazing land they needed for their herds. There would be loot in Ghunan’s camp, riches given to his people by the rulers of Khitai so that the Tatars would not attack the villages outside Khitai’s Great Wall. Yesugei would win the respect of other chiefs and clan leaders and a measure of vengeance for all the Mongols who had died fighting the Tatars; he might even be raised on the felt and proclaimed Khan.

But eventually the Tatars would find a way to strike back at him. The fighting would go on, Khokakhchin thought; there would never be an end to it. She tried to shake off the darker spirits that had entered her thoughts. She had suffered among the Tatars; Yesugei would be avenging her.

Temujin was riding back to her, his brother Khasar on the saddle in front of him. Temujin sat his horse well for one so young. “Khokakhchin,” he shouted, “I want to go to war. When will I ride with Father?”

“When you’re older,” she said.

“Father told me he’d bring me a Tatar sword.” His horse danced under him. “I wish I could ride into battle now.”

“Don’t be so impatient.” She let go of Khachigun; he sat down and stretched his arms toward his brothers. “You’ll have your chance. There will always be wars, Temujin.”

Khokakhchin sat with Hoelun near a cart, making rope from horsehair and wool. She had been beating wool with Hoelun for most of the morning, while Sochigil and the children looked after their sheep. Hoelun was making a shirt from a hide for Khasar. Esugei was working near them, separating the softer wool from the coarser fleece in the cart. Most of the sheep had been sheared, and they had less of the coarser wool they needed for making felt this summer than last.

The oldest men and the boys under fourteen were still in the camp; all of the others, except the few left to guard the grazing horses, had gone to fight the Tatars. By now, Khokakhchin thought, the Mongols would have met the enemy in battle. Maybe Yesugei was already celebrating a victory.

“Hoelun.” Esugei was looking east; she let the wool drop from her hands and stood up slowly. “Someone’s riding here.” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s my husband.”

Khokakhchin set down her rope and looked up, shading her eyes. The tiny black form was so small against the horizon that it was a few more moments before she recognized Daritai. His mount was raising dust, pounding the dirt into clouds that hid his horse’s legs. He would not have been riding like that, without a spare horse and risking death to his mount, to tell them of victory.

Hoelun got to her feet, still holding her hide. As Daritai came closer, Khokakhchin saw more riders appear behind him.

By the time Daritai was clearly visible, Hoelun had sounded the warning. The women and boys with the sheep quickly herded them back to the camp; others were saddling the horses in the pen near Yesugei’s circle. Daritai’s chest heaved as he galloped toward them; his face was caked with dirt and dust. His horse gleamed with sweat; specks of foam flew from the animal’s mouth. Khokakhchin wondered that he had not ridden the horse to death already.

“Yesugei sent me,” Daritai shouted. “Take what you can carry! Leave everything else behind! Head for the foothills and make a stand there—the enemy’s after us!”

More of the men retreating with Daritai soon reached the camp. By the time the sun was setting, people were fleeing in carts, wagons, and on horseback toward the foothills and the wooded mountain ridge in the northwest. They took food, weapons, skins for water and jugs of kumiss, and little else. The sheep and cattle were driven off, to fend for themselves until they could be rounded up once more. Most of the yurts were left behind, along with much of the new wool, the newly dressed skins, and most of the household goods.

Khokakhchin rode in an ox-drawn cart with Belgutei, Khasar, and Khachigun sitting behind her. Hoelun and Sochigil had ridden ahead on two horses, carrying Temujin and Bekter in the saddles with them; there had not been enough horses for them all. Khokakhchin lashed at the ox, willing it to move at a quicker pace.

Night was upon them, and the Golden Stake, the star at the center of Heaven, was high in the sky when they reached the foothills. They rode on until they came to the lower slopes of the mountain ridge, then unhitched the horses and oxen. The wagons and carts would become barricades; they might have a chance against the Tatars on higher ground.

Hoelun was rallying the women, riding from one group to another on her horse. She would be telling them to be brave, to hold together, to fight with their husbands and sons. Khokakhchin sat with Sochigil and the children by their cart, listening as one of the men who had retreated with Daritai told Nekun-taisi’s wife what had happened.

As Yesugei’s forces had converged, the Tatars had flanked them. Near Ghunan’s camp, another force, led by the Tatar chief Gogun, had struck from the south. Yesugei had not known that Gogun and Ghunan had joined forces, but the Tatar chiefs were prepared for the Mongol attack. They had begun to close around them in a pincer movement. Yesugei had ordered a retreat, telling the chiefs with him to scatter and draw off the enemy. Instead, the main force of the Tatars was pursuing Yesugei while letting the other Mongol commanders escape.

“They mean to put an end to Yesugei,” Khokakhchin heard the man say. “He’s the one they want. All we can do is hold out here and hope the other chiefs come to our defense.”

“They won’t,” another man said. “They’ll get ready to defend their own. Yesugei would tell them to lie low for now and fight the enemy another day. And some of them may already be blaming the Bahadur for this rout. They’ll wait before they fight again.”

“It’s almost as if the enemy knew our plans,” the first man said. “Someone might have told them. That son of Dobon’s, the false shaman—maybe that’s why he disappeared. He wouldn’t have lasted long in battle, and Bughu wanted nothing more to do with him. What did he have to lose? Maybe he rode to the Tatars thinking he’d get a reward.”

Khokakhchin did not believe it, but others would. The story would spread; people would be ready to believe that an outcast and coward who had often seemed mad was also a traitor. It was an easy way to explain defeat.

The children slept soundly, curled up under the cart, their heads on packs. Sochigil tossed restlessly at Khokakhchin’s side. Khokakhchin could not sleep. The sky was growing gray in the east when Hoelun rode back to them. Munglik, Charakha’s son, was with her.

“Our people are united,” the Ujin said in a weary voice as she dismounted. One of her braids had come loose, trailing down from under her scarf; Hoelun fingered the thick plait absently. “Even Orbey Khatun is offering me support instead of complaints.” She took a breath, then knelt by Khokakhchin. “I must ask something of you, old woman. I want you to take the children to higher ground and find a place for them to hide.”