year or two.
Arik-Boke had come to Karakorum to take over the administration while he was away. Mongke had made sure he too understood the risk, but his youngest brother had laughed, pointing to the guards and servants that scurried everywhere in the palace and the city. No one could get in unseen. It had eased Mongke’s mind to know his brother would be safe - and to leave the city behind him.
In just fourteen days, his tumans were in range of Xanadu, less than two hundred miles north of Yenking and the northern Chin lands. Half his army were barely twenty years old and they rode the distances easily, while Mongke suffered from lack of fitness. Only his pride kept him going when his muscles were ropes of pain, but the worst days came early and his body began to remember its old strength after nine or ten in the saddle.
Mongke shook his head in silent awe at the sight of a new city growing on the horizon. His brother had created something on the grand scale, turning fantasies into reality. Mongke found he was proud of Kublai and he wondered what changes he would see when they met again. He could not deny his own sense of satisfaction in bringing it about. He had sent Kublai into the world, forcing his younger brother to look beyond his dusty books. He knew Kublai was unlikely to be grateful, but that was the way of things.
They stopped in Xanadu long enough for Mongke to tour the city and work his way through the dozens of yam messages that had gone ahead or reached him while he travelled. He grumbled as he dealt with them, but there were few places he could ride where the yam riders couldn’t find him eventually. The khanates did not remain still simply because Mongke was in the field. On some days, he found himself working as hard as he had in Karakorum and enjoying it about as much.
He stripped Xanadu of food, salt and tea in the short time he was there. The inhabitants would go hungry for a while, but his was the greater need. So many tumans could not scavenge as they went. For the first time in his memory, Mongke had to keep a supply line open behind him, so that there were always hundreds of carts coming slowly south in the wake of his warriors. The supplies backed up while he rested in Xanadu, but when he left, they spread out again, paid for thousands of miles away in Karakorum and the northern Chin cities. Mongke grinned at the thought of his shadow stretching so far. Their food would catch them up whenever they stopped and he thought bandits were unlikely to risk raiding his carts, with the khan’s scouts never too far away.
He pushed the tumans south, revelling in the distances they could travel, faster than anyone but a yam rider able to change horses at every station. For the great khan, the tumans would ride to the end of the world without complaint. On minimum rations, he had already lost some of the flesh that clung to his waist and his stamina was increasing, adding to his sense of well-being.
Mongke crossed the northern Sung border on a cold autumn day, with the wind blustering along the lines of horsemen. Hangzhou lay five hundred miles to the south, but there were at least thirty cities between the tumans and the emperor’s capital, each well garrisoned. Mongke smiled as he rode, kicking in his heels and enjoying the rush of air past his face. He had given Kublai a simple task, but his brother could never have succeeded on his own. The twenty-eight tumans Mongke had brought would be the hammer that crushed the Sung emperor. It was an army greater than any Genghis had ever put in the field and as he galloped along a dusty road, Mongke felt his years in Karakorum slowly tear into dusty rags, leaving him fresh and unencumbered. For once, the yam riders were behind. Without the staging posts, they could make no better time than his own men and he felt truly free for the first time in years. He understood at last the truth of Genghis’ words. There was no better way to spend a life than this.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Kublai and Bayar sat with their backs against the same massive boulder of whitish grey stone. Uriang-Khadai watched them, his face unreadable. The twin of the huge stone loomed nearby, so that between them was a sheltered area that local sheep must have used every time it rained. The ground there was so thick with droppings that no grass showed at all and everyone who walked through it found their boots getting heavier and heavier as they went.
The sheep had gone, of course. Kublai’s tumans had rounded up eighty or so, and for some lucky warriors there would be hot meat that night. The rest would have to make do with blood from their spare mounts, along with a little mare’s milk or cheese, whatever they had.
Ponies grazed all around them, whickering and snorting as they cropped grass that grew in clumps so thick that it made progress slow over the hills. They could not even trot on such an uneven surface. The horses had to be walked slowly, their heads drooping with weariness.
‘We could circle back to the last site,’ Bayar said. ‘They won’t expect that and we need those arrows.’
Uriang-Khadai nodded wearily. Though he had gone with Tsubodai into the west, he had never known such a constant run of battles before. There had been a time when he had scorned reports of swarming Sung cities, but the reality was every bit as bad as he had been told. Kublai’s tumans had run out of gunpowder, shot and arrows, the sheer numbers of the enemy overwhelming them. Uriang-Khadai could still hardly believe they had been forced to retreat, but he had lost track of the armies they had beaten, and the one struggling to reach them was fresh and well armed. The tumans were down to swords for the most part, with even their lances broken and thrown away. Faced with new regiments racing towards them, Kublai had withdrawn at speed, seeking out the high ground.
‘Are they still there?’ Kublai asked.
Bayar stood up with a groan on aching legs, peering past the boulder. Below, he could see Sung regiments in ragged squares, seeming to inch their way up the slopes of the mountain.
‘Still coming,’ Bayar said, slumping back. Kublai swore, though it was no more than he had expected. ‘We can’t fight on this ground, you know that?’
‘I know, but we can stay ahead of them,’ Kublai said. ‘We’ll find a way out of the hills and when it’s dark, we’ll ride clear of them. They won’t catch up, not today anyway.’
‘I don’t like leaving the main camp unprotected for this long,’ Uriang-Khadai said. ‘If one of those armies comes across them, they’ll be slaughtered.’
Kublai tensed his jaw, irritated at Uriang-Khadai for reminding him. Chabi and Zhenjin were safe, he told himself again. His scouts had found a forest that stretched for hundreds of miles. The families and camp followers would have headed for the deepest part of it, as far from a road as they could get. Yet it only took one enemy tracker to spot smoke from a fire or hear the bleating of the herds. They would fight, of course. Chabi’s calm courage made his chest grow tight in memory, but he agreed with Uriang-Khadai about the outcome. A small voice within him worried as much about the stocks of arrows held in the camp. Without them, his tumans were a wolf whose teeth had been drawn.
‘You find me a way to make this Sung bastard vanish and I’ll ride back and see how they are getting on,’ Kublai said irritably. ‘Until then, we’ll just stay ahead of them and hope we aren’t riding into the arms of another noble out hunting for us.’
‘I would like to send a small, fast group for arrows,’ Uriang-Khadai said. ‘Even a few thousand shafts would make a difference at this point. Twenty scouts riding fast should be able to get past the Sung forces.’
Kublai multiplied numbers in his head and blew air out slowly. He didn’t doubt his scouts could survive the ride out, but coming back, with a quiver under each arm, one on their back, two tied to the saddle? They would be defenceless, easy prey for the first Sung cavalry to spot them. He needed more than two thousand arrows. He needed half a million at a minimum. The best stocks of fletched birch shafts lay on battle-fields for fifty miles behind them, already warping from damp and exposure. It was infuriating. He had prided himself on his organisation, but the Sung armies had just kept coming, giving his men no time to rest.
‘We need to find another city, one with an imperial barracks,’ he said. ‘They have what we need. Where are the maps?’
Bayar reached inside his tunic and pulled out a sweat-stained sheet of goatskin, dark yellow and folded many times, so that whitish lines showed as he opened it out. There were dozens of cities shown on the map, marked in characters painted by some long-dead scribe. Bayar pointed to one that lay beyond the range of mountains where the tumans sprawled in exhaustion.
‘Shaoyang,’ he said, jabbing a finger at it. Sweat dripped as he leaned over, so that dark spots appeared on the material. With a curse, he wiped his face with both hands.
‘That’s clear then,’ Kublai said. ‘We need to reach this city, overcome their garrison and somehow get to their
