The Mongoliad: Book Three

ger. The one he had sent to check on Gansukh.

“Master Gansukh is in his tent,” the attendant reported.

Chucai grunted, and then as the attendant remained, he pulled himself out of his thoughts and cocked his head. “Yes?”

“Master Gansukh is not alone.”

“Mistress Lian.” It was a statement, not a question, and the attendant nodded in affirmation.

“Thank you,” Chucai dismissed the attendant with a nod and leaned back in his seat, cradling the tea cup in his hands, an idea starting to form in his mind.

Gansukh and Lian, together. Confirmation of what he had suspected for some time. Their affection for each other was obvious even if they both denied it. In Karakorum, it had been difficult to distinguish between teacher and student and lovers, and Lian had always been very good at guarding her thoughts and feelings. Evidently, now, they were no longer concerned about hiding.

What should he do about it? According to Munokhoi’s somewhat fragmented story, they had been discovered together on the steppes during the attack. Gansukh had been a prisoner of the Chinese and Lian had claimed to have killed one of their commanders in order to rescue Gansukh.

If true, this would help deny the charge that Gansukh had abandoned his duties during the attack to help Lian, but it would not dispel Munokhoi’s accusations entirely.

Munokhoi saw both Lian and Gansukh as threats, and he had tried to convince Chucai the pair was a threat to the Khagan and not to his own personal advancement. The Torguud captain clearly hated the Chinese teacher and it did not take much imagination to see why he hated Gansukh. A hatred that would only increase as it became obvious to others that Gansukh’s knowledge of steppe fighting might be more useful than Munokhoi’s own experience. Regardless of what Chucai commanded of him, Munokhoi would continue to look for opportunities to do both of them harm.

Knowing that, it was foolish for Lian to sleep alone. In fact, Chucai concluded, it might be safer for both of them to stick together.

And that was not entirely a bad situation. In fact, if Gansukh knew something about the Spirit Banner-if he had whatever had been cut from the wood-then Lian might be the only one who could get it from him.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Rough Beasts

Lakshaman lived because other men bled. His world, the gilded prison of Onghwe Khan’s menagerie, had been reduced to this axiomatic definition. He could no longer recall a life before the Khan’s arena-not that such a life mattered to him any more, anyway. He had seen the light go out of a man’s eyes more than a hundred times, and each time, the cessation of the other’s breath and heartbeat simply validated the primal truth of Lakshaman’s existence.

Did he secretly yearn for something else? Some life that was not filled with the torpid stickiness of blood or the putrefying stench of fear? Did he look at his hands and wonder if they were meant to hold something other than his cruel knives? When he was led into the dark tunnel that led to the arena, did he gaze into the darkness and wonder if, perhaps, there was no end to this tunnel? Maybe it went on forever, and eventually, he would stop and look back and not be able to see where he came from. There would be no point in continuing, and so he would sit down in the darkness. Maybe he would even lie down and rest. If the fundamental truth of his existence was no longer valid, would he close his eyes and simply stop breathing?

The islander had asked him questions like those, recently. The one who called himself Mountain of Skulls. After Zug’s defeat in the Circus, he had become oddly reflective and was prone to fits of introspection like this. As much as Zug’s questions seemed to be the addled nonsense spewed by an idiot, Lakshaman had found himself unable to simply ignore them, and so he said they were silly questions. There was always an end to the tunnel, he told Zug, and at the end, there would be a man waiting to die.

The Khan’s stickmen surrounded him as he strode through the tunnel. They stank of fear, even though they were many and Lakshaman’s hands were bound. They walked stiffly, the tension in their arms and legs announcing their discomfort more loudly than a hungry baby’s wail. Lakshaman gave them as little thought as he had Zug’s philosophical questions. They were like the flies that swarmed horse shit.

He may even have said as much to the Flower Knight, Kim Alcheon, when the Korean had come to talk of rebellion. They are flies on shit, he may have said.

Does that make us the shit? Kim had enquired. He had been amused by Lakshaman’s words, and for a moment, Lakshaman had felt a twinge of something deep within his brain, an unfamiliar emotional response.

If you wish to think of yourself that way-certainly, he may have said to Kim, ignoring the man’s humorous query. The Korean had been spending too much time with Zug, and had picked up some of the Nipponese man’s annoying habits. They’re just flies. I can swat flies.

The gate at the end of the tunnel opened as it always did, and the channeled sound of the audience swept over him. Several of his Mongol guards hesitated, and Lakshaman found himself idly thinking about pulling the wings and legs off some flies as he stepped out of the dim tunnel. He blinked in the sunlight, and took a deep breath, inhaling the fecund aroma of the arena’s sand, the sweat of his guards, and the stink of the massed audience. The familiar smells.

Soon there would be the scent of blood too.

One of the guards stepped forward to undo the bindings on his hands, and Lakshaman stared unblinkingly at the top of the man’s head. The guard fumbled with the knots when he saw another of the guards placing Lakshaman’s knives in the dirt-just out of reach, but still too close for the man’s comfort. The Mongol nervously licked his lips and tugged hard on the last knot, trying not to be distracted by the presence of the knives.

Lakshaman didn’t move; he didn’t even blink. As soon as the final knot was loosened, he flexed the fingers of his right hand, and the Mongol guard fled.

The gate banged shut behind him, leaving Lakshaman alone in the arena, surrounded by the thunderous noise of the eager crowd. Slowly-Zug would have accused him of playing to the crowd slightly-Lakshaman stripped the loose bindings from his wrists and hands, tossing the rope aside. He flexed his hands, bending each of the joints of his fingers.

His knives waited for him. Unadorned, hilts wrapped with stained leather, blades marred with age and use, they were not fancy weapons. Lakshaman scooped them up, the hilts slapping comfortably against his palms, and finally turned his attention to his opponent.

The man was by now waiting for him in the center of the sandy arena, swathed in a coating of maille from neck to knees. A white coat covered his midsection, stained with dirt and stitched with a red sword beneath a Christian cross of the same color. The man’s helmet was an unadorned metal can that offered only a thin slit in the front. While it made the man’s face a difficult target, it also reduced his field of vision. He held a short hatchet in one hand, a horseman’s hammer in the other.

A frown crossed Lakshaman’s face. He was wearing mismatched leathers, a sleeved jerkin, and pants he had acquired from a dead man a long time ago. Though his blades were long, each roughly the same length as the span from his elbow to his fingertip, they were made for cutting. Against this man, they would not be very effective. Lakshaman glanced up at the colorful silk hangings of the Khan’s pavilion. He would not be able to see the Khan very well if at all-the sun was high overhead and most of the pavilion was clothed in shadow-but the Khan could see him.

He would kill this man-he could imagine no other outcome. But the Khan’s dismissal of his value was like an itch in a spot he could not easily reach. He was under-armed and underprotected to fight this man. Either the Khan was supremely confident of his ability, or Onghwe simply wanted a spectacle, a passing bloody fancy to occupy an