Bones Of the Hills

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

As he trotted through the darkness, Jelaudin stared at the fires ahead of him. The men running at his stirrups were exhausted, but he had pressed his father for one more massed charge, knowing that their best chance lay in catching the Mongols asleep. He seethed at the thought of his father’s precious guard still barely blooded. The shah had refused his demands to have them accompany him, just when they would have justified their existence. Jelaudin cursed his father and Khalifa too, for losing the cavalry, then pressed away his anger to concentrate. Just one sweep through the enemy camp could be enough to break them at last. The moon was hidden by clouds and Jelaudin rode slowly over broken ground, waiting for the uproar that would follow.

It came sooner than he expected, as enemy scouts blew warning notes before they were cut down. Jelaudin drew his sword and risked his neck with a faster pace. The running men fell behind as he aimed his mount at the Mongol fires.

The khan had made only a rough camp after days of fighting. Jelaudin saw the left flank was a mass of lights, revealing the presence of many men. The nights were cold and they would be clustered close to the flames. On the right, the night fires were more widely spaced, dwindling to just a few points of light on the furthest edge. It was there that he led his men, racing to take revenge for the battering they had suffered.

He heard the Mongols rise against the attack, howling in their mindless anger. Jelaudin shouted a challenge into the night, echoed by his men. The fires came closer and suddenly there were men on all sides and the forces met. Jelaudin had time to shout in surprise before his stallion was cut from under him and he went flying.

Tsubodai waited, with Jochi, Jebe and Chagatai. It had been his idea to arrange the fires to draw in a careless enemy. Where the lights were thick, he had just a few men tending them. In the darkness there, veteran tumans clustered with their ponies, far from warmth. They did not heed the night cold. For those who had been born on the frozen plains of home, it was nothing to them. With a great shout, they charged the Arab ranks coming in.

As the two forces came together, the Arabs were sent reeling, smashed from their feet by men who had fought and trained from the earliest years. Their right arms hardly tired as they punched through the enemy and rocked them back. Tsubodai bellowed orders to advance and they trotted forward, shoulder to shoulder, their mounts stepping delicately over dying men.

The moon rose above them, but the attack was broken quickly and the Arab force sent streaming back to their main camp. As they ran, they looked over their shoulders, terrified that the Mongols would ride them down. Not half of their number made it clear, though Jelaudin was one of them, humiliated and on foot. He staggered back to his father, still dazed from the chaos and fear. In the distance, the Mongols finished off the wounded and waited patiently for the dawn.

Shah Ala-ud-Din paced his tent, glaring at his eldest son as he turned. Jelaudin stood nervously, wary of his father’s anger.

‘How did they know you would attack?’ the shah snapped suddenly. ‘There are no spies in the ranks, not here. It is impossible.’

Still smarting from his failure, Jelaudin did not dare to reply. Privately, he thought the Mongols had merely prepared for the possibility of an attack, not known of one, but he could not seem to praise them while his father raged.

‘You see now why I did not give you my personal guard?’ the shah demanded.

Jelaudin swallowed. If he had ridden in with five hundred horsemen, he did not think the rout would have been so easy or so complete. With an effort, he strangled a retort.

‘You are wise, father,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, they will take the fight to the enemy.’ He fell back a step as his father rounded on him and stood close enough for the bristles of his beard to touch his son’s face.

‘Tomorrow, you and I are dead,’ the shah snarled. ‘When the khan sees how many men I have left, he will fall on us and make an end to it.’

Jelaudin was relieved when he heard a throat cleared at the entrance to the tent. His father’s body servant, Abbas, stood in the lamplight, his eyes flickering from father to son and judging the mood within. Jelaudin made an impatient gesture for the man to leave, but Abbas ignored him, coming in and bowing to the shah. Jelaudin saw he carried a sheaf of calfskin vellum and a pot of ink and he hesitated before ordering the man out.

Abbas touched his forehead, lips and heart in respect to the shah before placing the writing materials on a small table to one side. Jelaudin’s father nodded, his fury still evident in his clenched jaw and flushed skin.

‘What is this?’ Jelaudin said at last.

‘This is vengeance for the dead, Jelaudin. When I have put my name to it, this is an order for the Assassins to rid my land of this khan.’

His son felt a weight lift from his shoulders at the thought, though he repressed a shudder. The sect of Shia fanatics had a dark reputation, but his father was wise to bring them in.

‘How much will you send them?’ he said softly.

His father bent over the thick parchment and did not reply at first as he read the words Abbas had prepared.

‘I do not have time to negotiate. I have offered a note for a hundred thousand gold coins, to be redeemed from my own treasury. They will not refuse such a sum, even for a khan’s head.’

Jelaudin felt his hands grow clammy at the thought of so much gold. It was enough to build a great palace or begin a city. Yet he did not speak. His chance to break the Mongols had been wasted in the night.

Once the shah had signed the note for gold, Abbas rolled the thick sheets and bound them with a strip of leather, tying the knot expertly. He bowed very low to the shah before he left the two men alone.

‘Can he be trusted?’ Jelaudin said as soon as he was gone.

‘More than my own sons, it seems,’ the shah replied irritably. ‘Abbas knows the family of one of the Assassins. He will see it safe to them and then nothing will save this dog of a khan who has shed so much of my people’s blood.’

‘If the khan dies tomorrow, will the gold be returned?’ Jelaudin asked, still thinking of the vast wealth his father had given away in just a moment. He sensed the shah walk to him and turned his head from looking at the tent’s entrance.

‘Unless Allah strikes him down for his impudence, he will not die tomorrow, Jelaudin. Do you not understand even now? Did you not see as you came back to my tent?’ He spoke with a flat intensity that Jelaudin could not understand and the younger man stammered as he tried to reply.

‘See… what? I…’

‘My army is finished,’ the shah snapped. ‘With the men you lost tonight, we have hardly enough left to hold one of his damned generals in the morning. They have reduced us to less than thirty thousand men and even if the Otrar garrison appears at this moment, we have lost. Do you understand now?’

Jelaudin’s stomach tightened in fear at his father’s words. They had fought for days and the slaughter had been terrible, but the field of battle was vast and he had not known how bad the losses had been.

‘So many dead?’ he said at last. ‘How is it possible?’

His father raised a hand and, for a moment, Jelaudin thought he would strike him. Instead, the shah whirled to pick up another sheaf of reports.

‘Do you want to count them again?’ he demanded. ‘We have left a trail of corpses for a hundred miles and the Mongols are still strong.’

Jelaudin firmed his mouth, making a decision.

‘Then give command to me, for tomorrow. Take your noble guard and travel back to Bukhara and Samarkand. Return in the spring with a fresh army and avenge me.’

For an instant, the shah’s furious expression faded. His eyes softened as he stared at his eldest son.

‘I have never doubted your courage, Jelaudin.’

He reached out and gripped his son’s neck, pulling him into a brief embrace. As they parted, Ala-ud-Din sighed.

‘But I will not throw away your life. You will come with me and next year we will bring four times as many warriors to root out these godless invaders. I will arm every man who can hold a sword and we will bring fire and bloody vengeance on their heads. The Assassins will have killed their khan by then. For so much gold, they will move quickly.’

Jelaudin bowed his head. In the darkness outside the tent, he could hear the noises of the camp and the moaning of wounded men.

‘We leave tonight, then?’

If the shah felt the sting of dishonour, it did not show.

‘Gather your brothers. Hand command to the most senior man left alive. Tell him…’ He trailed off, his eyes growing distant. ‘Tell him that the lives of our men must be sold dearly if they are to enter paradise. They will be frightened when they find I have gone, but they must hold.’

‘The Mongols will track us, father,’ Jelaudin replied, already thinking of the supplies he must take. He would have to gather his father’s mounted guard as quietly as possible, so as not to alarm those they left behind.

The shah waved a hand irritably.

‘We will go west, away from them, then cut north and east when we are clear of Otrar. The land is vast, my son. They will not even know we are gone until tomorrow. Gather what we need and come back here when you are ready.’

‘And Otrar?’ Jelaudin said.

‘Otrar is lost!’ the shah spat. ‘My cousin Inalchuk has brought this disaster on us, and if I could kill the fool myself, I would.’

Jelaudin touched his forehead, lips and heart with his head bowed. His dream of riding at the head of a victorious army had been crushed, but he was his father’s son and there would be other armies and other days. Despite the humiliation and horror of the battles against the Mongols, he thought nothing of the lives given for his father. They were the shah’s men and any one of them would die to protect him. As they should, Jelaudin thought.

He worked quickly as the moon passed overhead. Dawn was not far away and he needed to be well clear of the battle and the Mongol scouts by the time it came.

Genghis waited in the moonlight, dark ranks of men at his back. Khasar was with him, but neither brother spoke as they stood ready. The scouts had warned them of the Otrar garrison coming in. Even then, it had been barely in time to beat back the night attack on their camp. Behind him, Genghis had given command to Tsubodai, the most able of his generals. He did not expect to get any sleep before the morning, but that was common enough to the warriors around him and, with meat, cheese and fiery black airag, they were still strong.

Genghis cocked his head at a sound from the gloom. He clicked with his tongue to alert the closest men, but they too had heard. He felt a pang of regret at the deaths of Samuka and Ho Sa, but it passed quickly. Without their sacrifice, he would have lost it all the day before. He turned his head left and right, searching for more sounds.

There. Genghis drew his sword and all along the line the front rank readied lances. They had no arrows with them. Tsubodai had spent much of the night collecting the final shafts into full quivers, but they would need them when dawn came. Genghis could hear walking horses ahead and he rubbed tiredness from his eyes with a free hand. At times, it seemed as if he had been fighting all his life against these dark-skinned madmen.

With Jelme, he had chosen a spot to wait just under a low rise. Even in the moonlight, he would not be seen, but his scouts kept moving, leaving their horses and running in the dark to keep him informed. One of them appeared at his stirrup and Genghis dipped his head to hear the soft words, grunting in surprise and pleasure.

When the scout had gone, Genghis nudged his horse close to Khasar.

‘We outnumber them, brother! Samuka and Ho Sa must have fought like tigers.’

Khasar nodded grimly.

‘It’s about time. I am tired of riding against their vast armies. Are you ready?’

Genghis snorted.

‘I have been waiting for ever for this garrison, brother. Of course I am ready.’

The two men parted in the darkness, then the Mongol line surged forward over the rise. Against them, the remnants of the garrison of Otrar were making their way south to join the shah. They came to a shocked halt as the Mongol lines appeared, but there was no one to save them as the lances came down.

Shah Ala-ud-Din reined in as he heard the sounds of battle echo back from the hills. In the moonlight, he could see distant smudges of fighting men, but he could not guess what was happening. Perhaps the cursed Mongols had attacked again.

With only four hundred surviving riders, he and his sons had abandoned the army and ridden hard. The shah glanced at the east and saw dawn was coming. He tried to fill his mind with plans for the future, numbing it to regrets. It was difficult. He had come to smash an invader and instead seen his best men bleeding out their strength. The Mongols were tireless killers and he had underestimated them. Only the thought of Abbas riding to the Assassins’ stronghold in the mountains gave him satisfaction. The men of shadows never failed and he only wished he could see the face of the khan as he felt their soot-blackened knives plunging into his chest.

Kokchu could smell fear in the camp, thick in the warm night air. It showed in the lamps that hung from posts at every intersection in the maze of gers. The women and children were afraid of the dark, with imagined enemies all around them. For Kokchu, the simmering terror was intoxicating. With the maimed warriors, Genghis’ brother Temuge and Yao Shu, he was one of very few men left among thousands of frightened women. It was hard to hide his arousal at their flushed faces. He saw them prepare as best they could for an attack, stuffing clothes and armour with dried grasses before tying them to spare mounts. Many of them came to him each day, offering whatever they had so that he would pray for their husbands to come back safe. He guarded himself rigidly at those times, forcing himself to remember that the warriors would return and ask their wives about the time alone. As young women knelt and chanted before him in his ger, their pathetic offerings lying in the dust, he sometimes placed his hand on their hair and grew flushed as he led them in their entreaties.

The worst of them was Genghis’ sister, Temulun. She was lithe and long-legged, an echo of her brother’s strength in her frame. She had come three times to ask for his protection over Palchuk, her husband. On the third, the smell of sweat was strong on her. While small voices screamed warnings in his head, he had insisted on placing a charm on her skin, one that would extend to all those she loved. He felt himself grow hard at the memory, despite his misgivings. How she had looked to him with hope in her eyes. How she had believed! Having her in his control had made him reckless. He had told her of a most potent charm, one that would be like iron against enemy swords. He had been subtle in his doubts and in the end she had begged him for its protection. It had been hard to hide his excitement then as he bowed to her need.

She had removed her clothes at his order, standing naked before him as he began the chant. He recalled the way his fingers had shaken as she closed her eyes and let him daub her body in a web of sheep blood.

Kokchu stopped his meandering path and swore to himself. He was a fool. At first, she had stood proud and still, her eyes closed as he drew lines with a finger pressing into her flesh. He had marked her in wavering red until her stomach and legs were criss-crossed with patterns. His lust had been overwhelming and perhaps he had begun to breathe too hard, or she had seen his flushed face. He winced at the thought of her feeling him press against her thigh as he leaned close. Her eyes had snapped open from the trance, looking through incense smoke and suddenly doubting him. He shuddered as he recalled her expression. His hand was lingering over her breasts, marking them in shining blood, the scent of which filled his nostrils.

She had left in a rush then, gathering her clothes even as he protested the charm was unfinished. He had watched her go almost at a run and his stomach had clenched at what he had dared to do. He did not fear her husband, Palchuk. There were few men who would even dare to speak to the shaman and Kokchu did not doubt he could send the man away. Was he not the khan’s own spirit-talker, the one who had brought Genghis victory after victory?

Kokchu bit his lip at the thought. If Temulun told Genghis her suspicions, of a hand too intimately on her thighs and breasts, no protection in the world would save him. He tried to tell himself she would not. In the cold light of day, she would admit she knew nothing of the spirits, or the manner of calling them. Perhaps he should consider daubing one of the maimed men in the same way, so that the news of the ritual would get back to her. He considered it seriously for a moment, then cursed his lust again, knowing that it had put everything in danger.

Kokchu stood at a crossroads, watching two young women lead ponies by the reins. They bowed their heads as they passed and he acknowledged them graciously. His authority was absolute, he told himself, his secrets safe. Many of the women in the camp would not have men coming home to them. He would have his pick of them then, as he consoled them in their grief.