Neal Stephenson: The Mongoliad: Book Three

But then Ogedei recovered from the chin punch and bulled into him, knocking him off balance. Haakon stumbled, caught his foot on a protruding knob of rock, and fell on his ass. He tried to hang on to both swords, but lost one, and his head bounced off another rock before he came to a rest. He scrambled to his feet, trying to get his sword pointed at his enemy.

Who was standing still, looking at something behind Haakon. A horse nickered and he heard the chingle of maille.

Trying to keep an eye on the Khagan , he glanced over his shoulder and shouted with surprise at the sight of a pair of Shield-Brethren knights. He recognized both immediately. “Feronantus! Raphael!” Both were haggard; Feronantus’s beard was patchy and ragged, and Raphael leaned awkwardly forward in his saddle.

“Ho, Haakon,” Raphael said, waving a hand, “You should keep an eye on your friend there.”

Haakon whirled back, raising his sword to keep the Khagan at bay. Ogedei had come a few steps closer, but he paused at the sight of Haakon’s ready weapon, raising his hands so that Haakon could see that he was unarmed.

Feronantus was looking farther down the valley, and Haakon spared a quick glance over his shoulder. Cnan’s horse was galloping toward them, and beyond, Feronantus could see Krasniy and Ogedei’s man locked in a furious wrestling match.

“Well, young Haakon,” Feronantus said absently. “We have ridden far, only to find that you have reached our goal before us.”

Raphael let loose a bleak laugh. “All this way and we get to watch the youngster.”

“Do you know who this man is?” Feronantus asked.

“Aye,” Haakon said. “He is Ogedei Khan, the Khagan of the Mongol Empire.”

“Then kill him quickly,” Feronantus said. “We have very little time.” He spurred his horse, passing Cnan who was slowing her own mount as she reached them. For a moment, there were too many moving bodies and Haakon realized he was watching the wrong one. He heard Raphael’s shout almost too late.

He pulled his sword arm in, dropping his weapon across his body, as he danced back across the rocky ground. He heard Ogedei grunt and he felt the cold touch of a knife slide across his back. He twisted away from the blade, wrenching his arm around. His blade hit Ogedei, but the edge was turned the wrong way, and he only battered Ogedei on the side of the head.

Ogedei grabbed his shoulder and tried to keep him from getting away. The knife disappeared and Haakon knew it was coming back. As long as the Khagan had a hand on him, it was going to be very hard to use his sword effectively. He grabbed the blade with his left hand, pinching it tightly between his fingers, and using only a tiny span at the base of the weapon, he tried to draw the weapon across the side of Ogedei’s head.

He felt the blade cut through fur and leather, heard Ogedei roar in pain, and then cried out himself as the Khagan ’s knife went deep into his hip. He slashed with his sword again, snapping his right hand out to finish the cut with a pommel strike, and this time he felt something break beneath the metal of his hilt.

They separated, both stumbling and falling to their knees. The Khagan was bleeding profusely from two places on his head, and Haakon’s vision went white as he accidentally bumped his elbow against the hilt of the Khagan ’s dagger protruding from his hip. The Khagan shook his head, and when he looked at Haakon, his face was ugly with blood, his left eye already swelling closed.

Sparing a thought to the Virgin, Haakon let go of his sword and grabbed at the dagger stuck in his hip. He howled as he pulled it free, the pain roaring up through his gut and chest. The Khagan raised his hands at Haakon lunged, beating ineffectively at Haakon with a half-closed fist.

Haakon reached over the outstretched arm, and plunged the Khagan ’s own dagger into Ogedei’s neck.

Ogedei went away for a moment. He had been fighting the Northerner with his father’s knife, trying to take advantage of the boy’s lack of focus, but something had gone wrong. While his eyes were closed, he tried to remember what had happened, but all that he remembered was a wave of darkness, like a flock of ravens, blotting out everything.

The left side of his face alternated between hot and cold, and whenever it switched, his skin felt slick and damp. He thought he heard a stream running nearby, but when he swallowed, the sound vanished, as if the water were suddenly drawn into a sucking hole in the ground.

Had he been dreaming of flying? That made little sense, for he wasn’t a bird. He was a horse, a four-legged beast of the steppe. All he wanted to do was run and run and run. Run all the way to the sea, with his brothers and sisters at his side. All of their manes streaming behind them in the wind. All he wanted was to run…

He coughed, and the pain was so fierce, he let the ravens take him away for a little while. When he came back, there was someone else there with him. A pale-haired spirit. He tried to tell the spirit what was wrong with him, but the words he spoke were all wrong. Tolui… Tolui… Who was this Tolui ? Was that the spirit’s name?

The spirit raised a hand, and when he saw the blood, he screamed. He howled and screeched, and when there was nothing left but a hoarse whimper, Ogedei remembered where he was. He hadn’t been flying at all.

He turned his head-slowly, for the pain stabbing down along his left side-and blinked his right eye heavily at the blurry figure squatting over him. His hands twitched, fumbling for his knife, but he couldn’t find it. Where had it gone? He had just had it…

The boy was talking to him. “Lie still,” he said.

Why should he lie still? He was Khan of Khans. He was… cold.

He tried to tell the boy this, but when he opened his mouth, he felt like nothing came out but water. Thick, foul-tasting water. It ran down his chin, and he coughed as it threatened to fill his mouth.

The ravens came again, and he spent some time wandering in their wake, looking for something. What was it?

His father’s knife.

He shouldn’t lose it. It was important. Genghis had given it to him during his first hunt, when he had shot the deer. He had used it to dress the animal.

There had been so much blood.

One of his father’s men had helped him carry the meat back to camp. What had that man’s name been? Tolui?

No, Tolui was someone else. Someone he needed to remember. Someone important to him. Tolui? he called out, but Tolui didn’t answer.

Tolui hadn’t answered for many years.

He was gone. So was his father.

He could never be like his father. He had always known he would fail to be as great a man as Genghis Khan. No one could. Genghis stopped being a man the instant his spirit left his body. He was a ghost that grew more powerful every year as those who thought they knew him told stories that were little more than their own wishful thinking. They made him a ghost, yet they expected his son to be stronger and braver. They expected more because they could not face the darkness; they were afraid to admit they did understand Genghis’s vision.

They did not know what to do with his legacy. They dreamed-or thought they dreamed-of the endless sea of horses, and they did not know the meaning of such a vision. They thrust the Spirit Banner into the hands of the sons of Genghis Khan and begged them to be more than their father. They begged him to keep the promise they imagined Genghis had made.

But they couldn’t face the idea that Genghis had made no promise to them. The only love Genghis had ever had was for his family-his wives and his sons. They were all that mattered. They were his true legacy.