18
As Batu stepped into the khahan's yurt, the Illustrious Emperor of All Peoples asked, 'Where are the kingdoms you promised?'
Accustomed to the khahan's impatience and no longer concerned by it, Batu did not respond immediately. Instead, he stamped the snow off his boots and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dim light. After the brilliance of the snow-covered wasteland outside, the interior of the yurt was as dark as a bear's den.
It also smelled like one. The air was heavy with the stringent scent of unwashed bodies, the acrid smell of burning dung, and the putrid sour-milk stench of kumiss. For over two months now, Batu had been traveling across the barren horse plains with the Tuigan. He was still astonished by the incredible filth of the horse nomads. They never cleaned themselves, or even changed clothes. The khahan himself still wore the same silk kalat in which he had been dressed when Batu met him. The renegade could not imagine why the grimy thing had not rotted away.
Batu removed his del, a heavy robe-like coat given to him by the khahan, and hung it from a hook on a support post. The khahan had installed the hook so that Batu would have a place to hang his del. The Tuigan required no such amenities, for they wore their coats inside as well as outside. In this and a hundred other things, the renegade Shou remained an outsider to the people of his ancestors.
When his eyes finally adjusted to the light, Batu faced his commander and kneeled, his gaze taking in the near-empty yurt. Besides himself, the ever-present Kashik guards, and a slave, the only other person in the room was one of the khahan's wives. Batu did not know which one, for he no longer had any interest in women, at least in Tuigan women, and paid them no attention.
'I should have listened to Chanar,' the khahan said testily, motioning Batu to rise. 'Perhaps you are leading us into an empty wasteland to protect your home.'
An angry knot formed in Batu's chest and he narrowed his eyes at the khahan. 'My home is where I stand,' he said sharply, repeating one of the Tuigan's favorite mottos. 'If I am no longer trusted here, I will find a different place to stand.' He stood and reached for his del.
'Leave your coat on the post,' the khahan ordered. 'Around Chanar and the others, it is fine to be arrogant. But I am the khahan, and your pride is nothing to me. If we cannot speak freely between ourselves, our friendship is worthless.'
Batu returned his coat to the hook, unimpressed by the Yamun's profession of friendship. He and the khahan had developed a certain rapport, but the renegade would hardly have described it as friendship. He still felt like a visitor in the Tuigan camp.
The fault was his, he knew. Batu dutifully spent his evenings drinking sour kumiss with Yamun and the khans, but he made poor company. Though it had been close to three months since he had learned of his family's fate, he still had not accepted the loss. He could not shake the feeling that he was just on campaign, that he would soon return to his home in Chukei to find Wu waiting and his children an inch taller than when he had last seen them.
That could never happen, of course, but the realization did not change what his heart felt. On most nights he was so lonely he could only fall asleep by pretending that his family still lived, or by drinking so much kumiss that the slaves had to carry him back to his own yurt. It was a terrible circle: the more he thought of his family, the more he withdrew from his Tuigan companions. The more he withdrew from them, the more he thought of Wu and Ji and Yo.
The fighting to which Batu had hoped to dedicate himself, and which had been his reason for joining the Tuigan, had not materialized. Anxious to reach the kingdoms of the west, the khahan had led his army through the barren wastes of the horse plains. After passing the smoking peaks that marked the end of the territory known to the Tuigan, Yamun had turned the responsibility for guiding the army over to Batu.
Realizing that he had lost himself in his thoughts and was ignoring his commander, Batu turned his attention to the khahan. 'You wished to see me?'
Yamun motioned to a nearby pillow. 'Come and sit with me, or must I wait until Chanar's return for lively company?'
The Tuigan ruler was trying to use Chanar's rivalry with Batu to draw the Shou's thoughts away from his family. It was a trick the khahan had tried many times before. The tactic would never work, for Chanar's rivalry was onesided. Batu did not care to play at politics with the lanky general. It was not a game he had enjoyed in Shou Lung, and he had no intention of concerning himself with it now.
Without responding to the khahan's barbed question, Batu took his place. As the renegade sat, the Tuigan ruler observed, 'You are not the man I fought in Shou Lung.'
'How do you mean?' Batu asked, adjusting his cushion.
'The man I fought in Shou Lung did not fear death,' the khahan replied.
Batu absentmindedly accepted a cup of kumiss from a quiverbearer. 'My contempt for death has not changed,' the Shou responded. 'I fear nothing.'
'I know,' the khahan said. 'That is why Chanar is leading the scouts and you are here with me.'
Batu scowled, for the khahan had touched upon a sore point. After two months of crossing the frozen deserts between Shou Lung and their present location, the Tuigan armies had reached a range of high mountains that seemed to block further progress. It had taken Batu's scouts several days to locate a narrow pass.
Yamun had sent five thousand men through the gap to reconnoiter the lands beyond. Batu had wanted to lead the expedition, but the khahan had sent Chanar instead.
That had been seven days ago, and the renegade had been quietly fuming about the decision ever since. Now that the khahan seemed willing to discuss the matter, Batu was determined to find out why he had been overlooked.
The renegade asked, 'Why should my fearlessness disqualify me for command?'
'As you say, you no longer fear anything-including defeat.'
'What?' Batu demanded. 'How can you say such a thing?'
'It is true,' the Tuigan ruler retorted, pointing a dirt-covered finger at the Shou. 'Do not make the mistake of believing I am blind to the strife between Chanar and you. I have seen how you allow him to turn others against you, provided he is careful not to offend your honor.'
The khahan picked a curd out of his cup and paused to chew it. Finally, he continued, 'If that is how you want things to be, it is not my place to interfere. All I can say is that the general I fought in Shou Lung would not hide behind his memories, especially not from a petty rival like Chanar.' The khahan spoke with a deliberately contemptuous tone.
'Do not think I will accept an insult lightly, even from you,' Batu hissed. The Shou had no sooner uttered his threat than the Kashik guards drew their sabers and started forward.
Without taking his steely eyes off Batu, the khahan waved his guards away. 'Of course, you should be killed for that,' he said, 'but that is what you want, is it not? I will not make dying so easy for you.'
Yamun fell silent, then furrowed his brow as if recalling a distant memory. 'When you came to me,' he said, 'you said it was because you had an appetite for war.'
'That has not changed,' Batu replied.
The khahan regarded the renegade Shou with a judgmental air. 'Know this, then: if you wish to sate your appetite in my service, you must stop using your past to shield yourself from Chanar's rivalry.'
Batu's first instinct was to be angry with Yamun. The khahan was clearly telling him to forget about his family, and that was something the Shou would never do. After Ting's execution, Batu had vowed to honor his dead family as long as he lived, and he had taken great care to make sure others knew that he would avenge even the slightest insult to their memories.
Still, the khahan's blunt order was not entirely misplaced and Batu knew it. As Yamun said, the renegade had been using his vow as a shield-not to protect himself from Chanar, but to protect himself from the truth.
Batu had often told his men that soldiers were dead men. As such, they had no business with families.
