The Mongoliad: Book Three

was still holding Zug’s knife.

The Khagan’s platform was much closer.

His fingers toyed with the knife, moving it around in his hand. Moving it into a better position to throw.

A giant figure burst through the crowd next to the platform, shoving his way into the circle. He wasn’t as tall as Krasniy, the red-haired giant who was also a prisoner, but his shoulders were as wide. He jabbed a finger at Haakon, exhorting him to drop the knife.

Could he do it? Would the knife fly true?

Haakon pretended to not understand the muscular Mongol’s words. He recognized the man’s voice as the one he had heard earlier, responding to the Khagan’s questions. He shrugged, holding up his wooden sword as if the stick was the item being discussed. In his left hand, his fingers stopped fussing with the knife, settling on a good grip.

The Mongol kept coming-not hurriedly and not cautiously, but in long confident strides across the fighting ring. His path put him between Haakon and the platform.

Haakon backed up, maintaining a visible pantomime of confusion, though he let go of neither weapon. Each step took him farther from the Khagan, increasing the distance the knife was going to have to travel if he threw it.

Was he strong enough to make the sacrifice?

The Mongols would kill him. He might be able to keep the captain at bay for a little while with the wooden sword, but the crowd would turn into a frenzied mob. They would overwhelm him. Would they tear him to pieces immediately or would they torture him first? What if he missed the Khagan or didn’t deliver a mortal wound with the thrown knife. Would his punishment be any less severe?

The Kitayan sat up, blood dotting his nose and lips. His right arm hung awkwardly at his side, and his eyes widened as he caught sight of Haakon.

As the Kitayan was struggled to get to his feet, the tall Mongol reached down and easily picked up the Kitayan. The Kitayan shrieked as the Mongol hurled the smaller man.

Haakon was completely unprepared. No one had thrown a human body at him before, and he froze. He caught a quick glimpse of the whites of the Kitayan’s eyes and the man’s open mouth, and then one of the Kitayan’s elbows glanced off his cheek as they collapsed in a heap. The air was forced from his lungs as he was caught between the Kitayan and the ground. He struggled to push the stunned man off him.

A shape threw a shadow across him, and he looked up to see the ridged line of the captain’s knuckles zooming in at him, and then more shadows came, blotting out all the light.

“Can you believe that?” Tarbagatai shouted in Gansukh’s ear.

“I can,” Gansukh laughed, slapping the young archer on the shoulder. “I have had personal experience with Namkhai’s strength.”

The crowd was frenzied with excitement, and the tumult of their jubilation was so pronounced that speaking loudly enough for someone other than your immediate neighbor to hear was impossible. Gansukh couldn’t hear the conversation Munokhoi was having with the moneylender, but the ex-Torguud captain’s body language was easy to read.

Munokhoi shook his head sharply, his hands clenched into fists. The moneylender shrugged, unperturbed by Munokhoi’s ire, and when the ex-Torguud captain stepped even closer, threatening the smaller man with his angry presence, the moneylender waved at the nearby cluster of Torguud. Munokhoi backed off with a sneer as the Torguud drifted toward the cornered moneylender.

Gansukh wandered over, wearing as innocent an expression as he could muster. “Fifty cows,” he said loudly. “My family will really appreciate those cows, Munokhoi.”

“I owe you nothing, country boy,” Munokhoi snarled.

“Well, someone owes me some cows,” Gansukh said, ignoring Munokhoi and directing his attention toward the moneylender. “If Munokhoi isn’t going to pay what he owes, maybe I should be asking you for them instead.”

“Me?” The moneylender was incredulous.

“I clearly heard him make the wager, didn’t you?”

The moneylender waved his hands, clearly not wanting to be a part of the conversation.

“I wonder how the Kitayan came by that knife?” Gansukh made a show of puzzling over this question. “Isn’t it odd that Munokhoi was so eager to match my wager? Almost as if he-”

Growling like a cornered wolf, Munokhoi stormed up to Gansukh, grabbing Gansukh’s jacket with both hands. He put his face close to Gansukh’s. “You are not as clever as you think,” he raged.

“I do not doubt that,” Gansukh replied. He stood very still, his hands loosely at his sides. As long as Munokhoi had both hands on his jacket, Gansukh wasn’t too worried about what the other man might try. “Still,” he continued, “the issue isn’t who is more clever, but which of us has a better grasp on sums.”

Munokhoi bared his teeth, his eyes focusing on the tip of Gansukh’s nose. “I will kill you, country boy,” he whispered.

Gansukh merely smiled, holding Munokhoi’s gaze.

Munokhoi’s hands tightened, and Gansukh heard the grinding strain of Munokhoi’s jaw as he clenched his teeth. With a mighty effort, Munokhoi composed himself and let go of Gansukh with a tiny shove. “A lucky bet,” he growled.

“The Blue Wolf favors me,” Gansukh acknowledged with a small nod.

Munokhoi pursed his lips, holding his words in check. He glared at the surrounding crowd, and Gansukh could see him assessing the general mood of those who were paying more attention to this disagreement than the aftermath of the fracas in the fighting ring. Munokhoi’s jaw worked for a few seconds, and then he spat-decisively- on Gansukh’s boot. “You’ll get your cows,” he said, though the tone of his voice suggested otherwise. He stalked away, elbowing his way through the press of bodies that were sluggish to open a path for him.

“I’m sure I will,” Gansukh called after him, a mocking lilt in his voice. Just enough to gall Munokhoi one last time. Push him a little farther. He’s already so close to the edge.

Ghaltai led Chucai along the twisting course of an empty riverbed. The ground was rough, and Chucai gamely stumbled after the sure-footed Darkhat. The moon offered enough illumination to see the other man but not enough to reveal all the loose stones and jagged pieces of rock that filled the old waterway. They had left the horses an hour ago, and Ghaltai had refused to light a torch-partly, Chucai was certain, as petty revenge for Chucai having dragged him away from the feast.

But mostly because the Darkhat was afraid. Was he a superstitious old fool who had lived in his self-important exile too long, or was there something to his apprehension about the spirits of the mountain? Chucai had ample time to consider both possibilities, and as much as he wished it were otherwise, the simple reason they were climbing the mountain in the dark was because he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the latter concern of the Darkhat was actually true.

The route steepened, forcing Chucai to pay more attention to where he put his feet. Ghaltai scrambled up the incline, and Chucai resorted to clawing at the loose rock with his hands for the last few steps before he reached a narrow plateau.

He paused and looked back, making note of their route, and realized it was pointless to try to discern the track in the dark. The riverbed followed a complicated course through the exposed strata of the mountainside; it wasn’t a route he could trace back down with his eyes. He would simply need to stay in the riverbed, and trust that it would take him to lower ground. The spirits provide a way, he thought, but you have to trust them.

They were on rocky ground, a flat expanse that jutted out from the base of a rocky pinnacle that towered high overhead. The ground sloped downward as he walked away from the ledge, and Chucai realized it was an old pool. Striations and runnels in the rock face revealed where the water had once cascaded down from the peak, pooling on this flat spot before leaping over the edge again and gouging a serpentine path down to the valley far below.

Ghaltai led him toward a darker spot on the rock face, and when he walked right up to the wall and vanished,