they were hidden. The families and camp followers had been kept safe by the dense forest, but he couldn’t shake the fear that they could also hide an enemy creeping up. Even for a man of Karakorum, the forest felt stifling compared to the open plains.
He looked closer at his wife as she stood, seeing dark smudges under her eyes. She looked thin and he cursed himself for not having made better preparations. He should have known the families would be forced to butcher the flocks while they waited for him to return. The vast herds usually replenished themselves each spring, but the one thing the forest did not have was good grazing. The ground was covered in rotting leaves and what little greenery there was had been stripped down to bare earth in the first month. The families had eaten deer and rabbits, even wolves when they found them, but it had not been long before the forest was trapped out for fifty miles. The herds of sheep and goats had shrunk to the point where everyone was on a meal a day and not much meat in that.
When Kublai had ridden in at last, the sight of his people had not been inspiring. They had rallied around as the tumans came in and he made a point of praising them for their survival, even as he seethed at how badly they had done without him. It was possible to count the ribs on the precious oxen and he wondered how many would have the strength to pull carts when the time came to move. His son and pregnant wife had been given barely enough meat to survive and Kublai wanted to lash out in rage at the rest of them. He would have done if they hadn’t been just as thin and pale as Chabi.
‘We have to move the camp,’ Chabi said softly. ‘I don’t want to think what would have happened if you’d stayed out much longer.’
‘I can’t take you out. They just keep coming,’ he said. ‘You’ve never seen anything like it, Chabi. There isn’t any end to them.’
Her mouth firmed as he spoke.
‘Even so, we can’t stay here. There isn’t a rabbit for twenty miles and when the last of the flocks are gone, we’ll starve. Some of the men were saying they’d strike out on their own if you didn’t come back soon.’
‘Who?’ he demanded.
Chabi shook her head. ‘Men with families of their own. Can you blame them? We knew we were in trouble, Kublai.’
‘I’ll drive herds back from the Sung hills and villages. I’ll get new animals to pull the carts.’
He swore under his breath, knowing it wouldn’t work. Even if he could drive a herd towards the forest, the marks of their passing would be there for any Sung scout to read. He had already endangered the position by bringing his tumans back to the camp. To do it again would leave a wide road through the forest. He pushed his fingers into the corners of his eyes, easing away some of the tiredness. The camp supported the warriors with everything from arrow shafts to shelter and hot food, but he had reached an impossible position.
‘I can send out the tumans to gather food and draft beasts to be butchered, or replace the weakest of our stock …’ He swore under his breath. ‘I can’t be thinking of this, Chabi! I have made tracks into the Sung, but I need to keep going, or everything I’ve done will have been wasted.’
‘Is it so terrible to rest up for the winter? You’ll be here when the child is born, Kublai. Send out your men to bring back anything that lives, raid the local towns and you’ll be ready to go out again in the spring.’
Kublai groaned at the thought. Part of him ached at the idea of simply stopping to rest. He had never felt so tired.
‘I’ve cleared a route as far as Shaoyang and beyond, Chabi. If I can keep moving, I’ll be able to reach their capital by spring or summer. If I stop now, I’ll see another dozen armies coming out against me, fresh and strong.’
‘And you will lose the camp if you go on,’ she snapped. ‘You will lose the fletchers, the tanners and saddlers, the hardworking wives and men who keep you in the field. Will the tumans still fight well while their families starve behind them?’
‘You will not starve,’ Kublai said.
‘Saying it does not make it so. It was getting ugly before your scouts found us, husband. Some of the men were talking about taking the last food stocks for themselves and letting the weakest ones die from hunger.’
Kublai grew still, his eyes hard.
‘This time you
‘That is a distraction! It doesn’t matter now. Find a way to solve the problem, husband. I know the pressure on you, or I think I do. I know you will work it out.’
He walked a few paces away from her, staring into the green undergrowth all around.
‘This land is rich, Chabi,’ he said after a time. ‘I can take a month to raid new flocks. We can drive them back here, but then I’m sending half the camp home to Karakorum.’ He held up a hand to forestall her as she opened her mouth. ‘These aren’t the battles Genghis knew, where he could take the entire nation and raid with tumans from the centre. The Sung are like ants in their numbers, army after army. I need to think like a raider, with the bare minimum of supplies. The women and children can go home, with enough warriors to keep them safe. You and Zhenjin will leave with them. There. You asked for a decision and that’s it. I can take a month, I think.’
‘You can, but I am not going. I won’t lose another child on a hard journey home, Kublai. I’m staying with the camp until the birth.’
He saw the resolution in her face and sighed.
‘I’m too tired to argue with you, woman.’
‘Good,’ she said.
Kublai begrudged every day lost as his tumans scoured the land for herds for a hundred miles and more. In the winter, it took longer than he hoped and he saw the full moon twice before he brought the families out of the forest. The dark months were colder than the previous year. Ice crackled in the boughs of the forest, beautiful and dead at the same time. There was always wood for the stoves and the gers were surrounded by firewood piled higher than a man’s head.
The ground was still frozen when they began to pack up and leave the forest depths. Behind them, they left the usual marks, from black circles of ground under dismantled gers, to the graves of those who had died. Most were wounded men the shamans could not save, but there were many smaller graves as well, of children who had not lived through their first year. There were no mountains to lay them out for sky burial, where the carrion birds would feast. Cremation fires were too likely to spread or be seen by an enemy, so the frozen ground was broken just deep enough to cover them.
Kublai gathered the camp on an open plain. Hundreds of oxen had been yoked and they were better fed than when he had come upon them. Grain from Sung towns had been brought back with the herds and the massive animals were glossy with care, their muzzles wet and pink. He had ordered two hundred thousand of his people home, mostly the wives and children. Ten thousand men would go with them, those who had been wounded, or maimed in some old war. They could still fight if they had to.
His men griped out of habit at the order, but they too had seen the Sung armies and there was relief amidst the final embraces. The families would go fast to the Chin border, crossing in the spring to safer lands. From there, Kublai had sent scouts to his own estates. They would be safe on their journey north. He had kept only the most skilful craftsmen and herders, the metalsmiths, rope-makers and leather-workers. Most of the gers would go, so the tumans would sleep uncovered in the rain and frost.
Kublai had to keep some carts for the forges and equipment supplies - his silver would go with him into the east. He knew the camp would be less cheerful from that point. It was no longer a moving nation but a war camp, with every man there dedicated to the tumans they supported.
The two massive groups slowly drew apart, with many shouting last words. The mounted tumans watched grimly as their families grew smaller in the distance. Chabi and Zhenjin remained with her servants, but no one dared object to the decisions of the khan’s own brother. They had scouted to the Chin border and there were no armies in that direction. The danger lay only in the east and every man in the tumans knew the work was not finished. It was hard to be cheerful on such a day.
It was still a host that trundled deeper into Sung lands, but there was already a sense of having cut away the fat. They kept a good pace and if there was no singing in the camps at night, at least the men were quietly determined. Without the individual wives, the warriors were fed from communal pots, filled to the brim with a thick broth each night.
