Genghis: Birth of an Empire (17 page)

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.

* * *

T
he 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 sticks 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.”

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 wondered 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.

* * *

T
hey 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.”

In the dawn, it was easier to find a place where the thick mat of needles was damp rather than soaking. Hoelun removed her deel, shivering as she did so. They could all see the dark slick down her side where their sister’s bowels had emptied during the night. The smell wafted over them all, making Khasar put a hand to his face. Hoelun ignored him, her mouth a thin line of irritation. Temujin could see she was barely holding her temper as she spread the deel on the ground. Gently, she placed her daughter on the cloth, the movement startling the tiny little girl into staring around at her brothers with tear-filled eyes. It hurt to see her shivering.

Bekter grimaced and took a knife from his belt, laying it down. Hoelun tested the blade with her thumb and nodded. She reached around her own waist to untie a heavy cord of braided horsehair. She had hidden it under her deel on the last night, looking for anything that would help them in their ordeal. Its coils were narrow but strong and it joined the blades of the brothers as they put them down in a pile.

Apart from his own small knife, all Temujin could add was the winding cloth that held his deel to him, though that was long and well woven. He did not doubt Hoelun would find some use for it.

They all watched in fascination as Hoelun brought a tiny bone box from one of the deep pockets in the deel. It contained a small piece of ridged steel and a good flint, and she laid those aside almost with reverence. The dark yellow box was beautifully carved and she rubbed her thumbs over it in memory while they watched.

“Your father gave this to me when we were married,” she said, and then she picked up a stone and smashed the box into pieces. Each shard of bone was razor sharp and she sorted them with care, picking the best and holding them up.

“This one for a fishhook, two more for arrowheads. Khasar? You’ll take the twine and find a good stone to grind the hook. Use a knife to dig for worms and find a sheltered spot. We need your luck today.”

Khasar gathered his share without a trace of his usual light manner.