Conn Iggulden - Lords of the Bow

"I have bound the colors," he called to them. "When they are bleached white, there will be no difference between them. They will be the standard of a nation." At his feet, his officers raised their swords and the host responded, caught up in the moment. Thousands of weapons jabbed the sky and Genghis nodded to them, overwhelmed. It took a long time for the noise to end, though he held up his free hand and patted the air with it.

"The oath you will take is binding, my brothers. Yet it is no stronger than the blood that binds us already. Kneel to me."

The front ranks dipped immediately and the rest followed in ripples outward as they saw what was happening. Genghis watched closely for hesitation, but there was none. He had them all.

Kokchu climbed the steps back up to the cart, his expression carefully blank. In his wildest ambition, he had not dreamed of such a moment. Temuge had put in the word for him, and Kokchu congratulated himself on bringing the young man to the point where he would make the suggestion.

As the tribes knelt Kokchu reveled in his status. He wondered if Genghis had considered he would be the only one amongst them who did not take the oath. Khasar, Kachiun, and Temuge knelt on the grass with all the others, khans and warriors alike.

"Under one khan, we are a nation," Kokchu called over their heads, his heart pounding in excitement. The words echoed back to him, filling the valley in waves as those behind repeated them. "I offer gers, horses, salt, and blood, in all honor."

Kokchu gripped the railing of the cart as they chanted. After that night, they would all know the shaman to the great khan. He glanced upwards as the words came in surges from further and further back. Under those clear skies, the spirits would be writhing in wild and simple joy, unseen and unfelt by anyone but the most potent of his calling. In the chant of thousands, Kokchu sensed them swirling in the air and he exulted. At last the tribes fell silent and he let out a long breath.

"Now you, shaman," Genghis murmured at his back. Kokchu started in surprise, before falling to his knees and repeating the same oath.

When Kokchu had rejoined the others around the cart, Genghis drew his father's sword. For those who could see, his eyes glittered with satisfaction.

"It is done. We are a nation and we will ride. Tonight, let no man think of his tribe and mourn. We are a greater family and all lands are ours to take."

He dropped his arm as they bellowed, this time as one. The smell of roasting mutton was strong on the breeze, and his step was light as the warriors prepared for a night of drink and enough food to make their bellies swell. There would be a thousand children begun by drunken warriors before dawn. Genghis considered returning to Borte in his tent and masked the discomfort at the thought of her accusing eyes. She had done her duty to him, no man could deny it, but the paternity of Jochi remained a doubt, like a thorn in his skin.

He shook his head to clear it of idle thoughts and accepted a skin of black airag from Kachiun. Tonight he would drink himself to insensibility, as khan to all the tribes. In the morning, they would prepare to cross the dry lands of the Gobi Desert and walk the path he had chosen for them.

GenghisLordsoftheBow

T HE WIND SCREAMED AROUND THE CARTS, carrying a fine mist of sand that made the men and women spit constantly and wince at the grit in their food. Flies tormented them all, tasting the salt from their sweat and leaving red marks where they had bitten. During the day, the Uighurs had shown them how to protect their faces with cloth, leaving only their eyes to peer out at the bleak landscape, shimmering with heat. Those who wore armor found their helmets and neckpieces too hot to touch, but they did not complain.

After a week, the army of Genghis climbed a range of rust-colored hills to enter a vast plain of rippled dunes. Though they had hunted in the foothills, game had become rare as the heat increased. On the blistering sand, the only sign of life was tiny black scorpions scuttling away from their ponies and vanishing into holes. Time and again the carts became bogged down and had to be dug out in the full heat of the day. It was backbreaking work, but every hour lost was one that brought them closer to running out of water.

They had filled thousands of bloated goatskins, tied with sinew and baked hard in the sun. With no other source, the supply dwindled visibly, and in the heat, many of the skins were found to have burst under the weight of the rest. They had carried only enough for twenty days, and already twelve had passed. The warriors drank the blood of their mounts every second day as well as a few cupfuls of warm, brackish water, but they were close to the edge of endurance and became dazed and listless, their lips dry enough to bleed.

Genghis rode with his brothers at the head of the army, squinting into the glare for some sign of the mountains he had been told to expect. The Uighurs had traded deep into the desert, and he depended on Barchuk to guide them. He frowned to himself as he considered the endless flat basin of rippled black and yellow, stretching all the way to the horizon. The heat of the day was the worst he had known; his skin had darkened and his face was seamed in new lines of dirt and sand. He had almost been glad of the cold on the first night, until it grew so biting that the furs in the gers gave little protection. The Uighurs had shown the other tribesmen how to heat rocks in the fire and then sleep on a layer of them as they cooled. More than a few warriors had brown patches on their backs where the rocks had burned their deels, but the cold had been beaten and if they survived the constant thirst, the desert held nothing else that could stop them coming. Genghis wiped his mouth at intervals as he rode, shifting a pebble in his cheek to keep the spittle flowing.

He glanced behind him as Barchuk rode up to his side. The Uighurs had covered the eyes of their ponies with cloth, and the animals rode blind. Genghis had tried that with his own mounts, but those who had not experienced it before bucked and snorted at the cloth until it was removed, then suffered through the hot days. Many of the animals had developed crusts of whitish-yellow muck on their eyelids and would need healing salves if they ever found their way out of the desert. Hardy as they were, they had to be given their share of precious water. On foot, the new nation would die in the desert.

Barchuk pointed to the ground, jabbing his hand and raising his voice over the unremitting wind. "Do you see the blue flecks in the sand, lord?"

Genghis nodded, his mouth too dry to speak.

"They mark the beginning of the last stage before the Yinshan Mountains. There is copper here. We have traded it with the Xi Xia."

"How much further then before we see these mountains?" Genghis asked hoarsely, refusing to let his hopes rise.

Barchuk shrugged with Mongol impassivity. "We have no certain knowledge, but merchants from Xi Xia are still fresh when they cross our trails in this place, their horses barely marked with dust. It cannot be far now."

Genghis looked back over his shoulder at the silent mass of riders and carts. He had brought sixty thousand warriors into the desert, as many again of their wives and children. He could not see the end of the tail that stretched back for miles, the forms blurring into one another until they were no more than a dark smear wavering in the heat.

The water was almost gone and soon they would have to slaughter the herds, taking only what meat they could carry and leaving the rest on the sands. Barchuk followed his gaze and chuckled.

"They have suffered, lord, but it will not be long now before we are knocking at the doors of the Xi Xia kingdom."