Conn Iggulden - Bones Of the Hills

Jochi sensed the scrutiny and his dark eyes flickered up, always guarded. He had spent more time with the young general than he ever had with his father, but old habits were hard to break. It was difficult for him to trust, though his respect for Tsubodai knew no limit. The general of the Young Wolves had a feel for war, though he denied it. Tsubodai believed in scouts, training, tactics and archery above all else, but the men who followed him saw only that he won, no matter what the odds. As others could fashion a sword or a saddle, Tsubodai fashioned armies, and Jochi knew he was privileged to learn at his side. He wondered if his brother Chagatai had fared as well in the east. It was easy to daydream as he rode the hills, imagining his brothers and father struck dumb at the sight of how Jochi had grown and become strong.

‘What is the most important item in your packs?’ Tsubodai said suddenly. Jochi raised his eyes to the brooding sky for an instant. Tsubodai delighted in testing him.

‘Meat, general. Without meat, I cannot fight.’

‘Not your bow?’ Tsubodai said. ‘Without a bow, what are you?’

‘Nothing, general, but without meat, I am too weak to use the bow.’

Tsubodai grunted at hearing his own words repeated.

‘When the meat is all gone, how long can you live off blood and milk?’

‘Sixteen days at most, with three mounts to share the wounds.’ Jochi did not have to think. He had been drilled in the answers ever since he and Tsubodai had ridden with ten thousand men from the shadow of the Chin emperor’s city.

‘How far could you travel in such a time?’ Tsubodai said.

Jochi shrugged.

‘Sixteen hundred miles with fresh remounts. Half as far again if I slept and ate in the saddle.’

Tsubodai saw that the young man was hardly concentrating and his eyes glinted as he changed tack.

‘What is wrong with the ridge ahead?’ he snapped.

Jochi raised his head, startled. ‘I…’

‘Quickly! Men are looking to you for a decision. Lives wait on your word.’

Jochi swallowed, but in Tsubodai he had learned from a master.

‘The sun is behind us, so we will be visible for miles as we reach the crest.’ Tsubodai began to nod, but Jochi went on. ‘The ground is dusty. If we cross the high point of the ridge at any speed, we will raise a cloud into the air.’

‘That is good, Jochi,’ Tsubodai said. As he spoke, he dug in his heels and rode hard at the crest ahead. As Jochi had predicted, the hundred riders released a mist of reddish grit that billowed above their heads. Someone would surely see and report their position.

Tsubodai did not pause as he reached the ridge. He sent his mare over the edge, the rear legs skittering on loose stones. Jochi matched him and then took a sharp breath of dust that made him cough into his hand. Tsubodai had come to a halt fifty paces beyond the ridge, where the broken ground began to dip to the valley. Without orders, his men formed a wide double rank around him, like a bow drawn on the ground. They were long familiar with the firebrand of a general who had been placed over them.

Tsubodai stared into the distance, frowning. The hills surrounded a flat plain through which a river ran, swollen with spring rain. Along its banks, a slow-moving column trotted, bright with flags and banners. In other circumstances, it would have been a sight to take the breath, and even as his stomach clenched, Jochi felt a touch of admiration. Ten, perhaps eleven thousand Russian knights rode together, house colours in gold and red streaming back over their heads. Almost as many followed them in a baggage train of carts and remounts, women, boys and servants. The sun chose that moment to break through the dark clouds in a great beam that lit the valley. The knights shone.

Their horses were massive, shaggy animals, almost twice the weight of the Mongol ponies. Even the men who rode them were a strange breed to Jochi’s eyes. They sat as if they were made of stone, solid and heavy in metal cloth from their cheeks to their knees. Only their blue eyes and hands were unprotected. The armoured knights had come prepared for battle, carrying long spears like lances, but tipped in steel. They rode with the weapons upright, the butts held in leather cups close behind the stirrups. Jochi could see axes and swords hanging down from waist belts and every man rode with a leaf-shaped shield hooked to his saddle. The pennants streamed back over their heads and they looked very fine in the bands of gold and shadow.

‘They must see us,’ Jochi murmured, glancing at the plume of dust above his head.

The general heard him speak and turned in the saddle.

‘They are not men of the plains, Jochi. They are half-blind over such a distance. Are you afraid? They are so large, these knights. I would be afraid.’

For an instant, Jochi glowered. From his father, it would have been mockery. Yet Tsubodai spoke with a light in his eyes. The general was still in his twenties, young to command so many. Tsubodai was not afraid, though. Jochi knew the general cared nothing for the massive warhorses or the men who rode them. Instead, he placed his faith in the speed and arrows of his Young Wolves.

The jagun was made up of ten arbans, each commanded by an officer. By Tsubodai’s order, only those ten men wore heavy armour. The rest had leather tunics under padded deels. Jochi knew Genghis preferred the heavy charge to the light, but Tsubodai’s men seemed to survive. They could hit and gallop faster than the ponderous Russian warriors and there was no fear in their ranks. Like Tsubodai, they looked hungrily down the slope at the column and waited to be seen.

‘You know your father sent a rider to bring me home?’ Tsubodai said.

Jochi nodded. ‘All the men know.’

‘I had hoped to go further north than this, but I am your father’s man. He speaks and I obey; do you understand?’

Jochi stared at the young general, forgetting for a moment the knights who rode in the valley below.

‘Of course,’ he said, his face showing nothing.

Tsubodai glanced back at him, amused.

‘I hope you do, Jochi. He is a man to follow, your father. I wonder how he will respond when he sees how well you have grown.’

For a moment, anger twisted Jochi’s face before he smoothed his features and took a deep breath. Tsubodai had been more like a father than his own in many ways, but he did not forget the man’s true loyalty. At an order from Genghis, Tsubodai would kill him. As he looked at the young general, he thought there would be some regret, but not enough to hold the blow.

‘He will need loyal men, Tsubodai,’ Jochi said. ‘My father would not call us back to build or rest. He will have found some new land to tear to pieces. Like the wolf, he is always hungry, even to the point of bursting his own stomach.’

Tsubodai frowned to hear the khan described in such a way. In three years, he had seen no affection when Jochi spoke of his father, though sometimes there was a wistfulness, which showed less and less as the seasons passed. Genghis had sent away a boy, but a man would return to him, Tsubodai had made certain of that. For all his bitterness, Jochi was a cool head in battle and the men looked on him with pride. He would do.

‘I have another question for you, Jochi,’ Tsubodai said.

Jochi smiled for an instant.

‘You always have, general,’ he replied.

‘We have drawn these iron knights after us for hundreds of miles, exhausting their horses. We have captured their scouts and put them to the question, though I do not know of this “Jerusalem” they seek, or who this “white Christ” is.’ Tsubodai shrugged. ‘Perhaps I will meet him one day over the length of my sword, but the world is large and I am but one man.’