The Mongoliad: Book Three

The windswept plain between the Kherlen and Bruchi Rivers was filled with wild grasses. Closer to the rivers, ash and cedar trees grew, leaning toward the flowing water. A rounded boulder, taller than a man seated on a horse, lay in the center of the plain. It was such an anomaly in the landscape that Chucai’s gaze was drawn to the distant crag of Burqan-qaldun, and he wondered how far the massive rock had traveled to end up in this field.

The stone was the only marker of Genghis Khan’s interment. There were no pavilions of gold and silver, no field of banners, no sculptures or monuments. Just the rock, in an untouched plain of wild grass, at the confluence of the Kherlen and Bruchi Rivers. As Genghis had wished.

Chucai, Ghaltai, and the rest of the honor guard remained at a respectful distance as Ogedei dismounted and approached the boulder. The Khagan sank to his knees, head bowed in prayer.

Before he had become Genghis Khan, Ogedei’s father was a simple man named Temujin. When he was nine, he was promised to Borte-daughter of Dei-sechen, of the Onggirat tribe-and he eventually married her six years later. Their marriage was interrupted by Merkit raiders who had never forgiven a theft by Temujin’s father. He had stolen Hoelun, a woman intended for their clan leader, and the Merkits saw the theft of Borte as due compensation for their loss. They also intended to kill Temujin, but after three days of searching for him among the woods and bogs surrounding Burqan-qaldun, they gave up. Temujin, as the stories went, stood in this valley and swore in the presence of Burqan-qaldun, the great mountain that had kept him safe, that he would rescue Borte.

Not only did he rescue his wife, but with the assistance of friendly clans he defeated the Merkits, beginning what was to become the unification of all the Mongol peoples under his rule.

The empire started here, Chucai reflected. One man. One promise. He shivered slightly, dismissing the chill as nothing more than an icy gust of wind finding its way inside the collar of his jacket. He recalled the vision thrust upon him in the wake of the Chinese attack on the caravan: the endless herd of wild horses, their manes flowing like clouds-the never-ending empire. Born out of Temujin’s love for Borte.

“Your tribe has dwelled in these lands for some time, have they not?” Chucai asked Ghaltai, pushing aside these idle, and yet troubling, thoughts.

“For many generations,” the Darkhat rider replied.

“After Temujin became Genghis Khan, he came back to Burqan-qaldun,” Chucai said. “What did he find here?”

Ghaltai made a show of looking around the wide plain, and then shrugged. “Open sky.”

Chucai gave him the look that normally withered visiting dignitaries who presumed to be important enough to warrant disturbing the Khan. Ghaltai, nonplussed, met his gaze.

“Tell me about the banner,” Chucai said. And when Ghaltai pretended to not understand, Chucai leaned toward the Darkhat and lowered his voice. “It was old when Genghis raised it as the standard for the empire, and it is older now. It should be a dead piece of wood, but why does it thrust forth new growth?”

Ghaltai’s weather-beaten face paled. “I–I do not know of what you speak,” he said.

“You know something,” Chucai hissed, unwilling to let the Darkhat’s reticence get in the way of learning something about the history of the banner. “Tell me.”

“There is a legend,” Ghaltai began after a moment of reflection. “Before Borte Chino mated with Qo’ai Maral, when Tengri walked this land-”

Chucai snorted derisively before he could stop himself, and seeing Ghaltai’s expression, he offered an apologetic nod.

“The people who lived here taught the birds to fly in formation and the bees to gather in swarms. When the Wolf and the Doe mated, these wise men gave this knowledge as a wedding gift. Teach your children, they said, so that they may grow to become the strongest clans under the Eternal Blue Heaven.”

“But the clans did not unite until Genghis brought them together,” Chucai pointed out. Ghaltai’s story sounded like yet another fable that had become truth, another fanciful explanation for Genghis’s rise to power. He had heard so many of these stories over the years; in fact, he and Genghis had laughed together about a number of them. They were the idle stories that belonged to the uneducated-the superstitious who would flock to a passionate visionary and follow him anyway.

“The clans were waiting,” Ghaltai said with an unsettling fervor. “They were waiting for someone to claim the legacy of Borte Chino and Qo’ai Maral. My father’s father led the Darkhat when Genghis returned to Burqan-qaldun. He told his father, who, in turn, told me when I was old enough to take his place, that Genghis was visited by Tengri in a vision. Tengri told him where to find the sacred grove, the place where Wolf and Doe first laid together. Beyond the mountain. Genghis went there alone, and-”

“And when he returned, he had the banner,” Chucai said, filling in the last detail of Ghaltai’s story. “But you don’t know where or how he found it.”

Ghaltai nodded. “We guard the way to the grove, but we do not venture onto the path.”

Squinting, Chucai raised his face toward the mountain. “Ogedei Khan has had a vision as well,” he said. “He has come to hunt a bear in the sacred grove.” When Ghaltai did not respond, he lowered his gaze and looked over at the Darkhat rider.

Ghaltai sat rigidly in his saddle, and he would not meet Chucai’s gaze. “It is a place of powerful spirits,” was all that he would say.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

In the Aftermath

After the death of the Rose Knight, Hans remembered very little. He had managed to avoid the tumultuous press of bodies throwing themselves out of the arena, mainly by virtue of his size, but the streets had been so chaotic, filled with so many Mongol warriors with bared weapons, that he had gone to ground. Like a frightened rabbit. He knew a half dozen routes back to his uncle’s brewery and the safe haven of the tree, and most of those paths could only be traversed by a boy his size or smaller, but he hadn’t felt safe.

Nowhere was safe.

And so he hid. Beneath the southern stands of the arena, he found a corner of the foundation where the Mongol engineers, in their haste to assemble the edifice, hadn’t quite closed off the foundation. The hole was narrow and dark, and he managed to rip his shirt and scrape his shoulder, but he got in. Crawling around in the dark until he felt stone and wood behind him on two sides, he curled up in a ball. Only then did he let himself cry, and he bawled until he had no tears left.

He must have fallen into an exhausted stupor-not quite sleep, but not quite consciousness either. When he came to his senses, wiping the crust of dirt and dried tears from his stiff eyelashes, he heard nothing. No pounding feet. No screams. No shouting, nor clashes of steel. Stiffly, he pried himself out of his corner sanctuary and gingerly crawled back toward the dim light of his entry hole. Distantly, he heard the raucous screams of angry crows, the sort of cries the black birds made when they were trying to intimidate each other. When they were trying to drive other birds away from a prize of putrescent carrion.

Hans cringed at the thought of what lay outside, scooting back on his hands and rear until he was pressed into his safe corner again. It wasn’t Hunern outside any more, it was Legnica-the day after the Mongolian engineers had breached the city gates and the mounted warriors had streamed into the city.

He wasn’t old enough to fight with the rest of the men in the defense of the city, but he was old enough to