Genghis: Birth of an Empire (21 page)

On the evening of the fifth day, Temujin strode back into the camp. His family froze at his step, the younger ones watching Hoelun for her reaction. She watched him come and saw that he held a young kid goat in his arms, still alive. Her son looked stronger, she realized, his skin darkened by days spent on the hills in the wind and sun. It was confusing to feel such a wave of relief that he was all right and, at the same time, undimmed hatred for what he had done. She could not find forgiveness in her.

Temujin took his find by the ear and prodded it into the circle of his family.

“There are two herders a few miles to the west of here,” he said. “They are alone.”

“Did they see you?” Hoelun said suddenly, surprising them all.

Temujin looked at her and his steady gaze became uncertain.

“No. I took this one when they rode behind a hill. It might be missed, I do not know. It was too good a chance to ignore.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he waited for his mother to say something else. He did not know what he would do if she sent him away again.

“They will look for it and find your tracks,” Hoelun said. “You may have brought them here after you.”

Temujin sighed. He did not have the strength for another argument. Before his mother could protest, he sat down cross-legged by the fire and drew his knife.

“We have to eat to live. If they find us, we will kill them.”

He saw his mother’s face become cold again and he waited for the storm that would surely follow. He had run for miles that day and every muscle in this thin body was aching. He could not bear another night on his own, and perhaps that fear showed in his face.

Kachiun spoke to break the awful tension.

“One of us should scout around the camp tonight in case they come,” he said.

Temujin nodded without looking at him, his gaze fixed on his mother.

“We need each other,” he said. “If I was wrong to kill my brother, it does not change that.”

The kid goat bleated and tried to make a dash for a gap between Hoelun and Temuge. Hoelun reached out and gripped it around the neck, and Temujin saw she was crying in the firelight.

“What should I say to you, Temujin?” she murmured. The kid was warm and she buried her face in its coat as it cried out and struggled. “You have torn my heart out and perhaps I do not care about whatever is left.”

“You care about the others, though. We need you to live through the winter, or we’re all finished,” Temujin said. He straightened his back as he spoke and his yellow eyes seemed to shine in the light of the flames.

Hoelun nodded to herself, humming a song from her childhood as she fondled the ears of the little goat. She had seen two of her brothers die from a plague that left them swollen and black, abandoned on the plains by her father’s tribe. She had heard warriors scream from wounds that could not be healed, their agonies going on and on for days until the life was dragged out of them at last. Some had even asked for the mercy of a blade opening their throat and been granted it. She had walked with death all her life and perhaps she could even lose a son and survive it, as a mother of Wolves.

She did not know if she could love the man who killed him, though she ached to gather him in and press away his sorrow. She did not, instead reaching for her knife.

She had made birch-bark bowls for the camp while her sons were hunting, and she tossed one to Khasar and Kachiun. Temuge scrambled forward to take another and then there were only two of the crude containers left and Hoelun turned sad eyes on her last son.

“Take a bowl, Temujin,” she said, after a time. “The blood will give you strength.”

He lowered his head on hearing the words, knowing that he would be allowed to stay. He found his hands were shaking as he took his bowl and held it out with the others. Hoelun sighed and took a firmer grip on the goat before jamming in the blade and cutting the veins in its neck. Blood poured over her hands and the boys jostled each other to catch it before it was wasted. The goat continued to struggle as they filled the bowls and drank the hot liquid, smacking their lips and feeling it reach into their bones, easing the aches.

When the flow was just a trickle, Hoelun held the limp animal in one hand and patiently filled her own bowl to brimming before she drank. The goat still pawed at the air, but it was dying or already dead, and its eyes were huge and dark.

“We will cook the meat tomorrow night, when I am sure the fire will not bring the herdsmen looking for their lost goat,” she told them. “If they come here, they must not leave to tell where we are. Do you understand?”

The boys licked their bloody mouths as they nodded solemnly. Hoelun took a deep breath, crushing her grief somewhere deep, where she still mourned Yesugei and everything they had lost. It had to be locked away where it could not destroy her, but somewhere, she was crying, on and on.

“Will they come to kill us?” Temuge asked in his high voice, looking nervously at the stolen goat.

Hoelun shook her head, pulling him toward her to give and take a little comfort.

“We are Wolves, little one. We do not die easily.” As she spoke, her eyes were on Temujin, and he shivered at her cold ferocity.

* * *

W
ith his face pressed against the frozen white grass, Temujin stared down at the two herdsmen. They slept on their backs, wrapped in padded deels with their arms drawn into the sleeves. His brothers lay on their bellies at his side, the frost seeping into their bones. The night was perfectly still. The huddled gathering of sleeping animals and men were oblivious to those who watched and hungered. Temujin strained his eyes in the gloom. All three boys carried bows and knives and there was no lightness in their expressions as they watched and judged their chances. Any movement would have the goats bleating in panic, and the two men would jerk to wakefulness in an instant.

“We can’t get any closer,” Khasar whispered.

Temujin frowned as he considered the problem, trying to ignore the ache in his flesh from lying on frozen ground. The herdsmen would be hard men, well able to survive on their own. They would have bows close by and they would be used to leaping up and killing a wolf as it tried to steal a lamb. It would make no difference if the prey was three boys, especially at night.

Temujin swallowed past a hard knot in his throat, glaring down at the peaceful scene. He might have agreed with his brother and crept back to the cleft in the hills if it had not been for the scrawny pony the men had hobbled nearby. It slept standing up, with its head almost touching the ground. Temujin yearned to have it, to ride again. It would mean he could hunt much farther away than before, dragging even large prey behind him. If it was a mare, it might have milk, and his tongue tasted the sourness in memory. The men would have any number of useful things on their person, and he could not bear to simply let them go, no matter what the risk. Winter was coming. He could feel it in the air and the stabbing needles of frost forming on his exposed skin. Without mutton fat to protect them, how long would they last?

“Can you see the dogs?” Temujin murmured. No one replied. The animals would be lying with their tails tucked in against the cold, impossible to spot. He hated the thought of them leaping at him in the dark, but there was no choice. The herdsmen had to die for his family to survive.

He took a deep breath and checked that his bowstring was dry and strong.

“I have the best bow. I will walk to them and kill the first man to rise. You come behind and shoot at the dogs when they go for me. Understood?” In the moonlight, he could see how nervous his brothers were. “The dogs first, then whoever I leave standing,” Temujin said, wanting to be certain. As they nodded, he rose silently to his feet and padded toward the sleeping men, coming from downwind so his scent would not alarm the flock.

The cold seemed to have numbed the inhabitants of the tiny camp. Temujin came closer and closer to them, hearing his own breath harshly in his ears. He kept his bow ready as he ran. For one who had been trained to loose shafts from a galloping horse, it would not be hard, he hoped.

At thirty paces, something moved on the edge of the sleeping men, a dark shape that leapt up and howled. On the other side, another dog lunged toward him, growling and barking as it closed. Temujin cried out in fear, desperately trying to keep his focus on the herdsmen.

They came out of sleep with a jerk, scrambling to their feet just as Temujin drew and loosed his first shaft. In the dark, he had not dared to try for a throat shot, and his arrow punched through the deel into the man’s chest, dropping him back to one knee. Temujin heard him calling out in pain to his companion and saw the second roll away, coming up with a strung bow. The sheep and goats bleated in panic, running madly into the darkness, so that some of them came past Temujin and the brothers, veering wildly as they saw the predators amongst them.

Temujin raced to beat the herdsman to the shot. His second shaft was in his waistband and he tugged at it, cursing as the head snagged. The herdsman fitted his own shaft with the smooth confidence of a warrior and Temujin knew a moment of despair. He could not free his own and the sound of snarling on his left made him panic. He turned as one of the dogs leapt at his throat, falling backwards as the herdsman’s arrow hummed over his head. Temujin cried out in fear as the dog’s teeth closed on his arm, and then Khasar’s shaft hammered through its neck and the snarling savagery was cut off.

Temujin had dropped his bow and he saw the herdsman was calmly fitting a new shaft to his string. Worse, the one who had been downed was staggering back to his feet. He too had found a bow and Temujin considered running. He knew it had to be finished there or the men would follow and take them one by one under the moonlight. He yanked at his arrow and it came free. He pressed it to the string with shaking hands. Where was the other dog?

Kachiun’s arrow took the standing herdsman high under his chin. For a moment, he stood there with his bow drawn and Temujin thought he would still fire before death took him. He had heard of warriors so trained that they could sheathe their sword even after they had been killed, but as he watched, the herdsman collapsed.

The one Temujin had wounded was scrabbling with his own bow, crying out in pain as he tried to draw it. Temujin’s shaft had torn his chest muscles and he could not bend the weapon far enough to take a shot.

Temujin felt his heart settle, knowing the battle was won. Khasar and Kachiun came to his shoulder and all three of them watched the man as his fingers slipped off the bow again and again.

“The second dog?” Temujin murmured.

Kachiun could not draw his eyes away from the struggling man, now praying to himself as he faced his attackers.

“I killed it.”

Temujin clapped his brother on the back in thanks.

“Then let us finish this.”

The herdsman saw the tallest of the attackers take an arrow from one of the others and draw. He gave up his struggle then and let his bow fall, drawing a knife from his deel and looking up at the stars and moon. His voice fell still and Temujin’s shot took him in the paleness of his throat. Even then, he stood for a moment, swaying, before he crashed to the earth.

The three brothers moved carefully toward the bodies, watching for any sign of life. Temujin sent Khasar after the pony, which had managed to jerk away from the smell of blood despite the reins around its legs. He turned to Kachiun and took him by the back of the neck, pulling him forward so that their foreheads touched.

“We will survive the winter,” Temujin said, smiling.

Kachiun caught his mood and together they whooped a victory cry over the empty plains. Perhaps it was foolish, but though they had killed, they were boys still.

E
ELUK SAT AND STARED into the flames, thinking of the past. In the four years since he had left the shadow of Deli’un-Boldakh and the lands around the red hill, the Wolves had prospered, growing in numbers and wealth. There were still those in the tribe who hated him for abandoning the sons of Yesugei, but there had been no sign of an evil fate. The very first spring of the following year had seen more lambs born than anyone could remember, and a dozen squalling infants had come into the gers. Not a single one had been lost in birth, and those who looked for signs were satisfied.

Eeluk grunted to himself, enjoying how his vision dimmed and blurred after the second skin of black airag. The years had been good and he had three new sons of his own to run around the camp and learn the bow and the sword. He had put on weight, though it was more a thickening than an excess of fat. His teeth and eyes were still strong and his name was feared among the tribes. He knew he should have been content.

The Wolves had ranged far to the south in those years, until they reached a land so infested with flies and wet air that they sweated all day and their skins grew foul with creeping rashes and sores. Eeluk had longed for the cool, dry winds of the northern hills, but even as he had turned the Wolves back on their old paths, he’d wondered what had become of the family of Yesugei. Part of him still wished he had sent a bondsman back to make a cleaner end to it, though not from guilt, but from a nagging sense of unfinished work.

He snorted, tilting back the skin and finding it empty. With an idle gesture, he signaled for another and a young woman brought it to his hand. Eeluk looked appreciatively at her as she knelt before him with her head bowed. He could not remember her name through the blurriness of the airag, but she was slim and long-legged, like one of the spring colts. He felt desire stir and he reached out to touch her face, raising it so that she had to look at him. With deliberate slowness, he took her hand and pressed it into his lap, letting her feel his interest. She looked nervous, but he had never minded that and a khan could not be refused. He would pay her father with one of the new ponies if she pleased him.

“Go to my ger and wait for me,” he said, slurring, watching as she crept away from him. Fine legs, he noticed, and considered going after her. The urge faded quickly and he went back to staring at the flames.