Dragonwall

18

As Batu stepped into the khahan's yurt, the Illustrious Emperor of All Peoples asked, "Where are the kingdoms you promised?"

Accustomed to the khahan's impatience and no longer concerned by it, Batu did not respond immediately. Instead, he stamped the snow off his boots and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. After the brilliance of the snow-covered wasteland outside, the interior of the yurt was as dark as a bear's den.

It also smelled like one. The air was heavy with the stringent scent of unwashed bodies, the acrid smell of burning dung, and the putrid sour-milk stench of kumiss. For over two months now, Batu had been traveling across the barren horse plains with the Tuigan. He was still astonished by the incredible filth of the horse nomads. They never cleaned themselves, or even changed clothes. The khahan himself still wore the same silk kalat in which he had been dressed when Batu met him. The renegade could not imagine why the grimy thing had not rotted away.

Batu removed his del, a heavy robe-like coat given to him by the khahan, and hung it from a hook on a support post. The khahan had installed the hook so that Batu would have a place to hang his del. The Tuigan required no such amenities, for they wore their coats inside as well as outside. In this and a hundred other things, the renegade Shou remained an outsider to the people of his ancestors.

When his eyes finally adjusted to the light, Batu faced his commander and kneeled, his gaze taking in the near-empty yurt. Besides himself, the ever-present Kashik guards, and a slave, the only other person in the room was one of the khahan's wives. Batu did not know which one, for he no longer had any interest in women, at least in Tuigan women, and paid them no attention.

"I should have listened to Chanar," the khahan said testily, motioning Batu to rise. "Perhaps you are leading us into an empty wasteland to protect your home."

An angry knot formed in Batu's chest and he narrowed his eyes at the khahan. "My home is where I stand," he said sharply, repeating one of the Tuigan's favorite mottos. "If I am no longer trusted here, I will find a different place to stand." He stood and reached for his del.

"Leave your coat on the post," the khahan ordered. "Around Chanar and the others, it is fine to be arrogant. But I am the khahan, and your pride is nothing to me. If we cannot speak freely between ourselves, our friendship is worthless."

Batu returned his coat to the hook, unimpressed by the Yamun's profession of friendship. He and the khahan had developed a certain rapport, but the renegade would hardly have described it as friendship. He still felt like a visitor in the Tuigan camp.

The fault was his, he knew. Batu dutifully spent his evenings drinking sour kumiss with Yamun and the khans, but he made poor company. Though it had been close to three months since he had learned of his family's fate, he still had not accepted the loss. He could not shake the feeling that he was just on campaign, that he would soon return to his home in Chukei to find Wu waiting and his children an inch taller than when he had last seen them.

That could never happen, of course, but the realization did not change what his heart felt. On most nights he was so lonely he could only fall asleep by pretending that his family still lived, or by drinking so much kumiss that the slaves had to carry him back to his own yurt. It was a terrible circle: the more he thought of his family, the more he withdrew from his Tuigan companions. The more he withdrew from them, the more he thought of Wu and Ji and Yo.

The fighting to which Batu had hoped to dedicate himself, and which had been his reason for joining the Tuigan, had not materialized. Anxious to reach the kingdoms of the west, the khahan had led his army through the barren wastes of the horse plains. After passing the smoking peaks that marked the end of the territory known to the Tuigan, Yamun had turned the responsibility for guiding the army over to Batu.

Realizing that he had lost himself in his thoughts and was ignoring his commander, Batu turned his attention to the khahan. "You wished to see me?"

Yamun motioned to a nearby pillow. "Come and sit with me, or must I wait until Chanar's return for lively company?"

The Tuigan ruler was trying to use Chanar's rivalry with Batu to draw the Shou's thoughts away from his family. It was a trick the khahan had tried many times before. The tactic would never work, for Chanar's rivalry was onesided. Batu did not care to play at politics with the lanky general. It was not a game he had enjoyed in Shou Lung, and he had no intention of concerning himself with it now.

Without responding to the khahan's barbed question, Batu took his place. As the renegade sat, the Tuigan ruler observed, "You are not the man I fought in Shou Lung."

"How do you mean?" Batu asked, adjusting his cushion.

"The man I fought in Shou Lung did not fear death," the khahan replied.

Batu absentmindedly accepted a cup of kumiss from a quiverbearer. "My contempt for death has not changed," the Shou responded. "I fear nothing."

"I know," the khahan said. "That is why Chanar is leading the scouts and you are here with me."

Batu scowled, for the khahan had touched upon a sore point. After two months of crossing the frozen deserts between Shou Lung and their present location, the Tuigan armies had reached a range of high mountains that seemed to block further progress. It had taken Batu's scouts several days to locate a narrow pass.

Yamun had sent five thousand men through the gap to reconnoiter the lands beyond. Batu had wanted to lead the expedition, but the khahan had sent Chanar instead.

That had been seven days ago, and the renegade had been quietly fuming about the decision ever since. Now that the khahan seemed willing to discuss the matter, Batu was determined to find out why he had been overlooked.

The renegade asked, "Why should my fearlessness disqualify me for command?"

"As you say, you no longer fear anything-including defeat."

"What?" Batu demanded. "How can you say such a thing?"

"It is true," the Tuigan ruler retorted, pointing a dirt-covered finger at the Shou. "Do not make the mistake of believing I am blind to the strife between Chanar and you. I have seen how you allow him to turn others against you, provided he is careful not to offend your honor."

The khahan picked a curd out of his cup and paused to chew it. Finally, he continued, "If that is how you want things to be, it is not my place to interfere. All I can say is that the general I fought in Shou Lung would not hide behind his memories, especially not from a petty rival like Chanar." The khahan spoke with a deliberately contemptuous tone.

"Do not think I will accept an insult lightly, even from you," Batu hissed. The Shou had no sooner uttered his threat than the Kashik guards drew their sabers and started forward.

Without taking his steely eyes off Batu, the khahan waved his guards away. "Of course, you should be killed for that," he said, "but that is what you want, is it not? I will not make dying so easy for you."

Yamun fell silent, then furrowed his brow as if recalling a distant memory. "When you came to me," he said, "you said it was because you had an appetite for war."

"That has not changed," Batu replied.

The khahan regarded the renegade Shou with a judgmental air. "Know this, then: if you wish to sate your appetite in my service, you must stop using your past to shield yourself from Chanar's rivalry."

Batu's first instinct was to be angry with Yamun. The khahan was clearly telling him to forget about his family, and that was something the Shou would never do. After Ting's execution, Batu had vowed to honor his dead family as long as he lived, and he had taken great care to make sure others knew that he would avenge even the slightest insult to their memories.

Still, the khahan's blunt order was not entirely misplaced and Batu knew it. As Yamun said, the renegade had been using his vow as a shield-not to protect himself from Chanar, but to protect himself from the truth.

Batu had often told his men that soldiers were dead men. As such, they had no business with families. Eventually, every soldier would perish on the battlefield, leaving behind lonely wives and children. It was a truth Batu had known all along, but he had always told himself that this axiom did not apply to him. If he fell, his family would not have suffered financially, so the general had always believed his death would be no more than an inconvenience. Now, he saw that he had been wrong. Wu's anguish and Ji's and Yo's grief would have been no easier for them to bear than his own sorrow was for him. It had been wrong to expect them to suffer such hardship on his behalf. Batu understood now that the day he had fallen in love was the day that he should have laid aside his weapons.

Yet, that had never been an option he would have chosen. The first time he had picked up a sword, Batu had decided to become a soldier. He had never known anything else, and had never wanted to. Instead of laying his weapons aside, Batu realized, it would have been better to harden his heart against love-as he hardened it against the death and agony of those who served under him.

As he reflected on his past blindness, Batu slowly realized that the time had come for him to command again. It was true that he had been wrong to take a family. Having taken one, it was equally true that he had been wrong to continue life as a soldier. But those were errors that he had made in the past. By refusing to face them now, he was shaming himself and minimizing the sacrifice that his family had made on his behalf. If Batu was to venerate his wife and children properly, he had to stop using their memories to shield him from his own guilty feelings. He had to start living again.

The renegade waved the quiverbearer to his side, then gave the servant his kumiss cup. "Take this away and get me some water."

The khahan raised an eyebrow. "Are you feeling ill?" he asked.

Batu shook his head. "No. It's time I started keeping a clear head."

The khahan smirked. "Don't get carried away. Chanar Ong Kho isn't that much of a rival."

Batu snorted. "I'm not worried about Chanar," he said. "I want to be ready for command when it's time to fight."

"Don't get ahead of yourself," the khahan warned. "You will have to deal with Chanar."

Yamun remained silent for several moments. Finally, he changed the subject and said, "Since you have decided to keep a clear head, let me make use of it and ask your advice."

"Certainly."

"I am thinking that if Chanar had found anything beyond the mountains, we would have heard about it by now." The khahan absentmindedly swirled the contents of his cup.

Batu did not hazard his own opinion. It was clear that the Mighty One's mood had shifted, but he did not know to where. Undoubtedly, Yamun was leading up to something.

"While we sit here, the snows only grow deeper and the men feel more restless," the khahan added, looking into his cup.

"This is true," Batu agreed. In the last week alone, more than ten thousand men had left camp, claiming the need to return to their clans, their ordus, to see that their families were fed through the winter. Although both Yamun and Batu knew that the real reason for the exodus was sheer boredom, the khahan had allowed them to go. He was a perceptive commander who knew that resentful men made poor warriors. Besides, once he sent word back to the plains that the battle had been joined, recruits would come streaming across the snowy waste by the thousands.

"I am thinking we should take the army and follow Chanar through the gap," Yamun said, still studying the contents of his cup.

"It is certainly possible that nothing lies beyond the mountains," Batu ventured. "But I would not want to gamble all my armies on it. After passing the gap, we could easily be cut off and destroyed."

"By what?" the khahan snapped, looking up from the study of his kumiss. "Since you advised me to leave Shou Lung, we have not seen a hundred men in one place, much less a kingdom that could field an army. The men are saying that I am lost or afraid."

"There is a great difference between fear and caution," Batu countered.

Yamun pointed at the renegade, then thumped his own chest. "You and I know this," he said. "But our soldiers do not. To them, inaction is cowardice."

Batu knew that the khahan spoke the truth. The men in most armies would have been elated to rest for a week, but not so with the Tuigan. They seemed born to ride and to fight, and were at their most miserable when not doing one or the other.

"Great Khahan," Batu said. "The courage of the Tuigan warrior is legend, but he is no less vulnerable to an ambush than any other soldier."

"Then you advise against following Chanar through the gap?"

Though he knew his answer would not please the khahan, Batu did not hesitate. "I do, though I appreciate your uneasiness at letting Chanar out of sight for so long."

The khahan allowed himself a wry smile at the remark, then returned to the business at hand. "You have always been cautious, Batu. While you scheme and reconnoiter, I attack. That is why I drove all the way to Shou Kuan when I invaded your country."

Batu saw no purpose in telling the khahan that letting the Tuigan reach Shou Kuan had been part of his plan. He also saw no purpose in arguing, for Yamun had decided to move through the gap long before summoning his Shou general. By debating further, Batu stood to gain nothing. A better approach was to help the khahan develop a plan that allowed for the possibility of escape if trouble arose.

"Khahan," Batu said, "your wisdom is infinite, and if you think the time to move has come, I cannot argue-"

Batu was interrupted when a Kashik stepped through the yurt's entrance. "General Chanar returns," the guard reported.

The man who followed the Kashik hardly resembled the arrogant khan who had left camp seven days ago. Chanar's hat was missing, and the shaven circle atop his head was red and peeling from sunburn. His face was haggard and drawn, with a grayish complexion and deep circles beneath his eyes. The tattered remnants of a del were draped over his shoulders, and Batu saw a piece of yellow metal glittering through the ripped left pocket. The khan lacked several pieces of armor. What remained had been so severely beaten that it was full of gaping holes where metal plates had fallen off.

Chanar stepped forward and kneeled, filling the yurt with the unmistakable stench of sulfur and smoke. "I have returned, Khahan."

When he saw Yamun frown at the sorry sight, Batu dared to interject, "Barely, from all appearances."

Chanar's face reddened, but the khahan paid no attention to the affront. "Rise and report," the Tuigan ruler said, neglecting to offer his weary subordinate a seat or a cup of kumiss.

Casting a sinister glance in Batu's direction, Chanar returned to his feet. "There is a rich kingdom beyond the mountains," he began.

The khahan looked annoyed. "It took seven days to report this?"

Chanar grimaced and looked away for an instant. When he turned his gaze back to the khahan's, he said, "No, Great Khahan. I was exploring the kingdom in order to make a more complete report."

"Your orders were to scout and report," Yamun Khahan snapped, "not to explore. By your appearance, I would say your disobedience got you in trouble. What happened?"

Chanar immediately pointed at Batu. "It was his fault," the Tuigan said. "He sent us into a trap!"

The khahan raised an eyebrow. "What kind of trap?"

"Magic!" Chanar hissed. "It was everywhere-stinking clouds that choked man and beast, fire falling from the sky, wolves that walked and used swords like men. It was only through my great skill that I escaped with a jagun."

"A jagun!" the khahan roared, hurling his cup over the general's head. "I send you into the mountains with five thousand men and you return with a hundred!"

Chanar weathered the storm gracefully, and Batu realized the Tuigan had been expecting it. After the khahan stopped yelling, Chanar said, "As I said, the Shou sent us into a trap. We were ambushed as soon as we left the valley."

"On whom did you blame your failures before I joined the khahan's armies?" Batu countered.

"I didn't mean to offend you," Chanar responded smugly, barely sparing a glance for the Shou. "I only meant that you made a mistake and did not appreciate the position you were placing us in."

The renegade understood the khan's insidious plan. It had been Yamun, not Batu, who had sent the scouts into the pass. Nevertheless, Chanar was blaming the Shou, hoping to provide the khahan with a convenient scapegoat for what appeared to be a disastrous decision. In addition, he had constructed his arguments in such a way that Batu either looked like a traitor for sending the patrol into an ambush, or an idiot for not realizing that there might be one. At the same time, the Tuigan general had neatly sidestepped the central issue, which was that he and his men were the ones who were supposed to be searching out the ambushes.

Batu suspected that Yamun was as aware of Chanar's tactic as he himself. Nevertheless, bearing in mind the khahan's earlier comments about Chanar's rivalry, the renegade decided to turn the tables on the haggard khan. "General Chanar, you are a liar."

"How dare you!" Chanar responded. He turned to the khahan. "Must I continually endure this dog's abuse in your yurt?"

The khahan silenced the angry general with a gesture, then turned to Batu. "It is a terrible insult to call a man a liar to his face," he said. "Perhaps you wish to rethink your words?"

"No," Batu responded, staring straight at Chanar. "I can prove what I say, if you will ask Chanar to empty his pockets."

Chanar frowned. His hand drifted toward the left pocket of his del and he seemed worried. Batu knew he had caught his rival off-guard. The Tuigan had clearly not expected to be searched.

"Will you do this, Chanar?" the Mighty One asked.

Although the khahan phrased the request as a question, Chanar had no choice except to comply. Biting his lip, he reached into his pocket. He withdraw a handful of gold coins and a four-spoked golden wheel beset with rare gems-the crest of some religious or military order. Even from several yards away, Batu could see that the thing was worth a fortune.

"I brought these for you, Great Khahan," Chanar said, thinking on his feet. "They are but small samples of the wealth beyond the mountains."

"How did you come by them?" Yamun demanded, motioning Chanar forward.

"I took them off an enemy," the haggard man responded, giving his commander the golden wheel.

"Only a fool would take something so heavy and of such value into battle," Batu declared.

Hefting the wheel, the khahan said, "So it would seem."

"You took it while looting," Batu continued, his eyes fixed on Chanar's snarling form. "No doubt, that is when you were really ambushed."

Chanar turned back to the khahan. "Nobody calls me a liar. I demand the right to avenge this insult!"

"Gladly," Batu responded, rising.

The khahan flung the golden wheel aside. "No!" he stormed. "I will not be dishonored by such behavior!" The Tuigan ruler stood. "We have been sitting too long. Our tempers have grown short with boredom, and we all long to feel the wind in our hair. It is clear that a strong enemy lies in our path, for five thousand Tuigan do not die easily, whether they are ambushed or not."

Yamun looked from Chanar to Batu, scowling at each man in turn. "Chanar is a Tuigan khan and a cunning leader. Batu has earned my respect on the battlefield, something no enemy has ever done. You are both my honored generals, yet you are more concerned with fighting each other than our enemies."

The khahan shook his head and walked away from the pair. "How should I choose between you?"

"I know," Batu said.

"How?" demanded Chanar.

Smiling confidently, Batu said, "I will take five minghans, the same number of troops as Chanar had, and blaze a trail through the mountains. If I and my five thousand troops fail, I will be Chanar's quiverbearer, honor-bound to follow his orders even though it means death."

"And if you succeed?" the khahan asked, turning around to face his quarreling subordinates.

"I will be Batu's quiverbearer," Chanar said, grinning confidently, "honor-bound to serve him even though it means death."

"Good," the khahan said. "I bear witness to your challenge and the wagers placed on it. Let all who question you know that this is done by the word of the khahan."