Wolf Of The Plains Part 17

KACHIUN SAT ALONE on a gentle slope, breaking his fast with a little hard bread and the last of the spiced mutton. He and Khasar had managed to recapture most of the herd Tolui had scattered, and Hoelun had slaughtered and smoked enough to keep him for many days of his lonely watch for his brother. The supply had dwindled despite his attempts to eat sparingly, and he knew he would have to hunt marmots and birds the following day if he was not to starve.

As he munched the dry meat, he found himself missing his family and wondered if they still lived. He knew as well as anyone that a family of wanderers was vulnerable on the plains, even if they moved by night. As the brothers had once ambushed a pair of herdsmen, so his family could be attacked for the little flock or the ponies they rode. He did not doubt Khasar would give a good account of himself, but against two or three warriors out to raid, there could be only one outcome.

Kachiun sighed to himself, sick of the way the world had turned its face against them all. When Temujin had been there, they had dared to hope for something more than lives spent in fear of every stranger. Somehow his brother's presence made him stand a little taller and remember how it had once been when Yesugei was alive. Kachiun feared for them all and his imagination threw up unwanted b.l.o.o.d.y images as the days pa.s.sed.

It was hard being alone. Kachiun had felt the strangeness of his position as Hoelun led her last three children away to the west. He had stood watch for many nights as a little boy, though always with an older warrior to see he did not fall asleep. Even those long hours had not prepared him for the dreadful loneliness of the empty plains. He knew there was a chance that he would never see his family again, his mother or Temujin. The sea of gra.s.s was vast beyond imagining, and if they were dead, he might not even find their bones.

After the first few days, he had found it comforting to talk aloud to himself as he scanned the distant hills, just to hear a voice. The place he had chosen was high up in the cleft, near where he and Temujin had killed Bekter, so long ago. He still shuddered as he pa.s.sed that spot each dawn on his way up to the watching post. He told himself that Bekter's spirit would not stay there, but his knowledge of the rituals was hazy. Kachiun remembered old Chagatai referring to more than one soul. One would ride the winds far above, but wasn't a part of it bound to the earth? He didn't mind taking the path in the light of the morning sun, but when he left it too late and it was growing dark as he came back, it was easy to imagine Bekter standing there in the shadow of the trees, white and deadly. Kachiun shuddered at the thought. His memories of Bekter seemed to have become frozen in that single moment when he had released a shaft to punch into his back. What had gone before was just mist, a different life. He remembered his terror that Bekter would somehow pluck out the shaft and turn on him in fury. The world had changed when Bekter fell onto the damp leaves, and Kachiun sometimes wondered if he was still paying for that day. Temujin had said the spirits gave you just enough wit and strength to live and then took no further interest, but part of Kachiun feared there was a price to pay for every savage act. He had been a child, but he could have refused to follow Temujin.

He chuckled to himself at the idea. None of the brothers could refuse Temujin. He had more of his father about him than Kachiun had realized in the first days. It had become more and more evident as Kachiun saw Temujin bargain and trade with wanderer families like old Horghuz and his wife. Despite his age, he was never taken lightly, and if he had been killed, Kachiun would honor him by trying to follow the same path. He would find his mother and build a safe place somewhere with clean water and good grazing. Perhaps they would find a small tribe willing to take on a family. Hoelun could marry again, and they would be warm and safe.

It was a dream, and though he knew it, he spent many hours in the fantasy, imagining something that was more than a little like his childhood around the gers of the Wolves, with horses to race in the sun. He had not spent every day thinking of the future then, and he missed the certainty of his old life, the solid path before his feet. On the high hill with the wind blowing his hair, he missed it all and grieved again for Temujin. The wound in Kachiun's thigh was still sore, but Hoelun had st.i.tched the red holes closed and Kachiun scratched idly at them as he sat and listened to the breeze.

Temujin had not escaped his pursuers, Kachiun was certain. He remembered Tolui as a spiteful bully, much given to pinches and sneers when no one else was looking. The thought of Temujin in his power made Kachiun twist his hands together in the sleeves of his deel. The family of Yesugei had been given a hard life, and no one could say they had not struggled. There had been times like the morning of Tolui's arrival when he had really begun to hope for a normal life. Now, it had all been taken from them, and though he waited, he no longer believed he would see Temujin return to the cleft in the hills. If the sky father was just, he would bring suffering to Eeluk and his bondsmen, but that too was just a dream. There was no justice in the world and evil men prospered. Kachiun struggled not to despair as he wrapped his deel around him, but there were times when he hated as ferociously as Temujin did. There should be justice. There should be revenge.

He finished the last of the meat, digging his fingers into the seams of the cloth bag in search of some final morsel. He was tired and stiff from sitting for so long, but the coldness was more than just the wind. Somewhere to the west, Hoelun might be riding into danger, and he was not there to kill for her and die with her. Only stubbornness kept him at his post as the days fled.

Temujin saw two men in the far distance, high on a hill. His heart soared that it might be Arslan and his son, though he made sure his bow was strung and ready. If they were raiders, he vowed he would have their hearts on a slow fire. His injuries would not prevent him from firing Basan's bow, and he was in no mood to be playing games after everything he had suffered.

Though it rubbed his b.l.o.o.d.y scabs away, he had ridden for five days, sunrise to sunset, as he had instructed Arslan to do. The cleft in the hills was many miles away from that desolate place, but by then he knew he could trust men who had deserted Eeluk. The new khan of the Wolves was not cunning enough to plan so far ahead, though Yesugei might once have been. Temujin shaded his eyes against the setting sun to watch the two men guide their ponies down a steep hill, leaning back in the saddles to balance. He grunted to himself as he saw one of them dismount and walk alone toward him, raising his hands. The meaning was clear and Temujin raised his bow in response. It could only be Arslan.

Temujin trotted forward, still keeping his bow ready. The man may have saved him from the pit, but it would be a long time before Temujin trusted anyone again. He stopped and let Arslan cross the final paces between them, seeing the man's sure step on the springy gra.s.s. He walked as Yesugei had walked, and the memory brought a sudden pain that never reached Temujin's face.

"I knew you would escape them," Arslan said, smiling gently as he came close. "I did not expect you for many more days, though I see you have found yourself a fine mare."

"She was a present from a man who remembered my father," Temujin said stiffly. "But tell me, what do you think will happen here?"

Arslan blinked and chuckled. "I think you will wave to my son to join us and we will sit and share our food. As the camp is ours, I grant you guest rights."

Temujin cleared his throat. He owed the man a huge debt and was uncomfortable with the burden of it.

"Why did you help me?" he asked.

Arslan looked up, seeing the barely faded bruising and the hunched way the young man sat in the saddle. Yesugei would have been proud of such a son, he thought.

"I swore my oath to your father, Temujin. You are his eldest surviving son."

Temujin's eyes glinted as he thought of Bekter. Would this man have come to aid his older brother? Temujin could only marvel at the turns of fate.

"You do not know me," he said.

Arslan became very still. "I do not. I thought about standing by while you rotted in that pit, but I am not a man who stands by. Even if I had not met your father, I would have pulled you out."

Temujin flushed. "I...am grateful that you did," he said, looking away at the hills.

"We will not talk of it," Arslan said. "It is behind. For now, I will say you do not know me, but you will learn my word is iron."

Temujin snapped a glance at the man, looking for mockery. Instead, he found only stern control.

"Your father used to say that, yes," Arslan went on. "It drew me to him and I believed it. If you are half the man he was, my son and I will take oath to you and bind ourselves in honor to your line."

Temujin stared back at the man, sensing the quiet strength in him. He carried no weapons, but the mare had taken three steps away from Arslan while they talked, aware like her rider of a predator under rigid control. He wondered if Arslan thought there was a host of warriors waiting for Temujin's return. The thought occurred to him that a man who weighed himself by his word might remain bound even when he discovered there was nothing but a few scrawny brothers hiding in the hills. The temptation was there, but Temujin ignored it, unable to play false with one who had saved his life.

"I have no tribe, nor wealth, nor anything but my own family in hiding," Temujin said. "I have nothing to offer you, or your son. If you choose to ride on, I will make my own way back to them and still bless you for your help."

"You said you were the land and the bones of the hills," Arslan said softly. "I believe you were speaking with the words of your father. I will follow you."

"Call your son to me, then," Temujin said, suddenly exasperated. He did not want to begin to hope, but he had been changed in his captivity. He could no longer be satisfied with mere survival. He looked down at Arslan and he imagined a trail of fire and blood across the tribes that would end in the gers of the Wolves. He had seen it in the darkest days in the pit. While the flies had buzzed around him, his imagination had been in flames.

As Jelme approached, Temujin dismounted and hobbled to the two men.

"If you will call me khan, your will is no longer yours," he said, remembering his father speaking the same words. "Kneel to me."

Both Jelme and his father went down on one knee, and Temujin pressed his damaged hands on their heads.

"I ask you for salt, milk, horses, gers, and blood."

"They are yours, my khan," both men said together.

"Then you are kin and we are of one tribe," Temujin said, surprising them. "I call you brothers and we are one people."

Both Arslan and Jelme raised their heads, struck by his tone and everything it meant. The wind picked up, rushing down from the mountains. Temujin turned his head in the direction of where his family would be hiding. He knew he could find his tribe among men scorned by all the others, among the wanderers and the herdsmen. Men like old Horghuz and his family, killed by Tolui. They were few, but they were hardened in fire. They had been cast out and many would hunger as he did: for a tribe, and for a chance to strike back at a world that had abandoned them.

"It is begun here," Temujin whispered. "I have had enough of hiding. Let them hide from me."

When Kachiun saw the three men riding south, he did not know who they were. He took careful note of their path and slipped back into the cleft in the hills with his bow and quiver ready. He knew the lie of the land better than anyone, and he raced down the inner slopes, leaping over fallen trees and old wood until he was panting.

He took his position close to where they would pa.s.s, well hidden in the undergrowth. There was murder in his heart as he prepared himself. If Tolui and Basan had returned with their captive, Kachiun would risk two long shots and trust his skill. He had trained for it and neither Khasar nor Temujin were his master with the bow. He waited in silence for the clop of hooves, ready to kill.

When they came into sight, Kachiun's heart pounded with excitement as he recognized his brother. Just seeing Temujin alive lifted his spirits from where they had sunk in the days alone. He pressed his lips tight and only then realized he had been murmuring his brother's name aloud. He had been too long on his own, he admitted to himself as he sighted down the arrow at the older of the pair riding with Temujin.

Kachiun hesitated, his sharp eyes taking in every detail of the three men. Temujin sat tall in the saddle and there was no sign of ropes or a rein tied to the other men. Would they trust a captive not to gallop away at the slightest chance for freedom? Something was wrong, and he adjusted his grip on the drawn bow, the powerful muscles of his shoulders beginning to quiver. He would not let them past- he could not- but if he fired a shot in warning, he would have lost his chance to kill them swiftly. Both men were armed with bows, though he saw they were unstrung. They did not ride like men in hostile territory. Kachiun saw they carried long swords like the one Yesugei had worn on his hip. Nothing about them made sense, and while he hesitated, they had drawn level with his position in the trees.

He risked it all.

"Temujin!" Kachiun roared, rising from his crouch and pulling the bowstring back to his ear.

Temujin saw the figure out of the corner of his eye.

"Hold! Hold, Kachiun!" he shouted, raising his arms and waving.

Kachiun saw the two strangers vanish from sight in the instant of his warning, as fast as cats. Both dropped on the far side of their ponies, using the animals to shield them from attack. Kachiun breathed in relief as Temujin nodded to him, leaning over to dismount with a terrible awkwardness.

Kachiun's heart thumped at the sight. The Wolves had hurt his brother, but he was here and he was safe. Temujin limped visibly as they ran together and Kachiun embraced him, overcome. It would be all right.

"I did not know if they were friends or enemies," Kachiun said breathlessly.

Temujin nodded, steadying him with a clasp around the back of his neck.

"Bondsmen, brother," Temujin said. "Arslan and Jelme, who brought me out of my captivity. They have come to us from our father's spirit."

Kachiun turned to the two men as they approached.

"Then you are always welcome in my camp," he said. "I have a couple of ducks to feed you if you are hungry. I want to hear the tale."

Temujin nodded and Kachiun realized he had not smiled since he had first caught sight of him. His brother had changed in his time away, grown darker somehow under the weight of his experiences.

"We'll stay the night here," Temujin confirmed. "But where is my mother and the others?"

"They have ridden west. I stayed alone in case you could make it back. I...was almost ready to leave. I had lost hope of seeing you again."

Temujin snorted. "Never lose faith in me, little brother. My word is iron and I will always come home."

To his astonishment, Kachiun found there were tears in his eyes. He blinked them away, embarra.s.sed in front of the strangers. He had been too long alone and had lost his cold face completely. He struggled to bring his soaring emotions back under control.

"Come. I will make a fire and cook the meat," he said.

Temujin nodded. "As you say. We have ground to cover at first light. I want to catch up with our mother."

The three men followed Kachiun back to his camp, a damp place barely worthy of the name, with a litter of old bones around a small firepit. Kachiun set about starting a flame, his hands clumsy as he knelt over old ashes.

"There is a wanderer family half a day's ride to the west," he said as he worked the flint and steel. "Three men and two women. They came past here yesterday evening." He saw Temujin look up with interest and misunderstood the light in his eye.

"We can avoid them if we take a line directly south before cutting through the black hills," he said, grunting in satisfaction as the flame licked up around his tinder.

Temujin stared at the little fire. "I do not want to avoid them, brother. They may not know it, but they are my blood as much as you are yourself."

Kachiun paused and sat back on his haunches. "I do not understand," he said, seeing Arslan and Jelme exchange glances. "What do we want with wanderers?"

"They are the great tribe," Temujin replied, almost to himself. His voice was so quiet that Kachiun had to strain to hear. "I will give them a family again. I will bring them in and I will make them hard and I will send them against those who killed our father. I will write the name of Yesugei in Tartar blood and, when we are strong, I will come back from the north and scatter the Wolves in the snow."

Kachiun shivered suddenly. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he heard the click of old bones on the wind.

Part 2.

Chapter 20.

KHASAR WAITED in the deep snow, his face numb despite the covering of mutton fat. He could not help feeling a little sorry for himself. His brothers seemed to have forgotten, but this was his sixteenth birthday. On impulse, he stretched out his tongue and tried to catch a few of the cold flakes. He had been there a long time and he was weary and bored. He wondered idly if he would find himself a woman in the Tartar camp, as he stared at it over a hundred paces of white ground. The wind was bitter and the clouds scudded by at great speed overhead, driven like pale goats before a storm. Khasar liked the image of the words and repeated them to himself. He would have to remember to tell Hoelun when they came back from the raid. Khasar considered sipping his airag to keep himself warm, but he remembered Arslan's words and resisted. The swordsmith had given him only a cupful of the precious fluid in a second leather bottle.

"I do not want you drunk," Arslan had said sternly. "If the Tartars reach you, we'll need a steady hand and a clear eye."

Khasar liked the father and son Temujin had brought back, particularly the older man. At times, Arslan reminded him of his father.

A distant movement distracted Khasar from his wandering thoughts. It was difficult to stay focused on the task at hand when he thought he was slowly freezing. He decided to drink the airag rather than be too cold to act. He moved slowly so as not to disturb the layer of snow that had built up on his deel and blanket.

It stung his gums, but he gulped it quickly, feeling the warmth spread in his lower chest and up into his lungs. It helped against the cold, and now there was definitely activity in the Tartar camp. Khasar lay just to the west of them, invisible under his covering of snow. He could see running figures and, when the wind dropped, he could hear shouting. He nodded to himself. Temujin had attacked. Now they would know if it really was only a small group of Tartars or the ambush Arslan had warned about. The Tartars had offered a blood price for the small group of raiders who had come north into their lands. If anything, it helped Temujin to recruit warriors from the wanderer families, taking their wives and children into his protection and treating them with honor. The Tartars were helping Temujin to build himself a tribe out in the icy wastes.

Khasar heard the flat smack of arrows being released. From such a distance, he could not tell if they were from Tartar bows, but it did not matter. Temujin had told him to lie at that point with a white blanket over him, and that is what he would do. He could hear dogs barking and he hoped someone shot them before they could threaten Temujin. His brother still feared the animals and it would not be right for him to show weakness in front of new men, some of them still wary and untrusting.

Khasar smiled to himself. Temujin preferred to take warriors with wives and children. They could not betray him with their loved ones back at the camp under Hoelun's care. The threat had never been spoken and perhaps it was only Khasar who thought of it. His brother was clever enough, though, he knew, cleverer than all of them.

Khasar narrowed his eyes, his pulse doubling in a jerk as two figures came racing out of the camp. He recognized Temujin and Jelme and saw that they were sprinting with bows and shafts ready. Behind them came six Tartars in their furs and decorated cloth, baying and showing yellow teeth in the pursuit.

Khasar did not hesitate. His brother and Jelme belted past without looking down at him. He waited another heartbeat for the Tartar warriors to close, then rose up from the snow like a vengeful demon, drawing back to his right ear as he moved. Two arrows killed two men, sending them onto their faces in the snow. The rest skidded to a stop in panic and confusion. They could have fallen on Khasar then, tearing him apart, but Temujin and Jelme had not deserted him. As soon as they heard his bow, each man had turned and gone down onto one knee, punching arrows into the snow ready for their s.n.a.t.c.hing hands. They hammered the remaining Tartars, and Khasar had time for one last shot, sending it perfectly though the pale throat of the man closest to his position. The Tartar warrior pulled at the shaft and almost had it out before he fell still. Khasar shuddered as the man died. The Tartars wore deels much like his own people, but the men of the north were white-skinned and strange and they seemed to feel no pain. Still, they died as easily as goats and sheep.

Temujin and Jelme recovered the arrows from the bodies, cutting them out with quick chops of their knives. It was b.l.o.o.d.y work and Temujin's face was spattered as he handed Khasar half a dozen shafts, wet and red down their full length. Without a word, he clapped Khasar on the shoulder and he and Jelme dog-trotted back into the Tartar camp, running almost crouched with their bows low to the ground. Khasar's racing heart began to slow and he arranged the b.l.o.o.d.y arrows neatly in case he had to kill again. With great care, he wrapped a piece of oiled cloth over his bowstring to keep it strong and dry, then settled himself back in position. He wished he had brought a little more of the airag as the cold seeped into his bones and the falling snow began to drift over him once more.

"No ambush, Arslan!" Temujin called across the Tartar camp.

The swordsmith shrugged and nodded. It did not mean it could not come. It meant this time it had not. He had argued against them raiding so often into Tartar lands. It made a trap too easy to set if Temujin pecked at every single opportunity they gave him.

Arslan watched the young khan stride among the gers of dead men. The wailing of women had started and Temujin was grinning at the sound. It signified victory for all of them, and Arslan had never known a man as remorseless as the son of Yesugei.

Arslan looked up into the softly falling flakes, feeling them alight in his hair and on his eyelashes. He had lived for forty winters and fathered two sons dead and one alive. If he had been alone, he knew he would have lived the last years of his life away from the tribes, perhaps high in the mountains where only the hardiest could survive. With Jelme, he could think only as a father. He knew a young man needed others of his own age and a chance to find himself a wife and children of his own.

Arslan felt the cold bite through the padded deel he had taken from the body of a dead Tartar. He had not expected to find himself holding a tiger by the tail. It worried him to see the way Jelme hero-worshipped Temujin, despite him being barely eighteen years old. Arslan thought sourly that in his youth a khan was a man tempered by many seasons and battles. Yet he could not fault the sons of Yesugei for their courage, and Temujin had not lost a man in his raids. Arslan sighed to himself, wondering if the luck could last.

"You'll freeze to death standing still, swordsmith," came a voice behind him.

Arslan turned to see the still figure of Kachiun. Temujin's brother maintained a quiet intensity that gave nothing away. He could certainly move silently, Arslan admitted to himself. He had seen him shoot and Arslan no longer doubted the boy could have taken them from cover when they rode back to the cleft in the hills. The whole family had something and Arslan thought they were heading for fame or an early death. Either way, Jelme would be with them, he realized.

"I don't feel the cold," Arslan lied, forcing a smile.

Kachiun had not warmed to him the way Khasar had, but the natural reserve was slowly thawing. Arslan had seen the same coldness in many of the newcomers to Temujin's camp. They came because Temujin accepted them, but old habits were hard to break for men who had lived so long away from a tribe. The winters were too cruel to trust easily and live.

Arslan knew enough to see that Temujin chose his companions on the raids very carefully indeed. Some needed constant rea.s.surance and Temujin let Khasar handle those, with his rough ways and humor. Others would not give up their simmering doubts until they had seen Temujin risk his life at their shoulder. For raid after raid, they saw that he was so completely without fear that he would walk up to drawn swords and know he would not be alone. So far, they had gone with him. Arslan hoped it would last, for all their sakes.

"Will he raid again?" Arslan asked suddenly. "The Tartars will not stand for this much longer."

Kachiun shrugged. "We'll scout the camps first, but they are dull and slow in winter. Temujin says we can go on like this for months more."

"But you know better than that, surely?" Arslan said. "They will draw us in with a fat target and men hidden in every ger. Wouldn't you? Sooner or later we are going to walk into a trap."

To his astonishment, Kachiun grinned at him.