Conn Iggulden - Conqueror (2011)

‘Someone coming,’ said Parikh, the youngest of them.

The other three shuffled over to the edge of their small camp, looking down at the trail below while being careful not to show their heads. Their bows were well wrapped against damp, lying unsprung so the strings didn’t stretch. Nonetheless, each man had the weapons in easy reach. They could have an arrow ready to fly in moments. They peered down, cursing the morning haze that blurred the air, seeming to come from the rocks themselves before it burned off.

Despite the mist, they could see a single man walking slowly, leading a lame horse. His head was bowed and he looked like any poor warrior, stumbling home after many nights hunting, or searching for a lost animal. Even so, the watchers had been placed on that road as the first line of defence and they were wary of anyone. The oldest, Tarrial, had seen more than his share of ambushes and battles. He alone had scars on his forearms and they looked to him for decisions. Sound carried far in the mountains, and with a silent gesture Tarrial sent Parikh off on his own along the ridge. The lad would scout for anyone else creeping up on them, as well as providing a second shot from hiding if something went wrong. The others waited until Parikh reached a place where he could see half a mile along the back trail. The young man raised a flat palm to them, visible at a distance. Clear.

Tarrial relaxed.

‘Just one man. Stay here and don’t steal my food. I’ll go down to him.’

He made no attempt to hide his progress as he scrambled down the rocky scree. In fact, he made as much noise as possible, rather than make the stranger nervous. Years before, Tarrial had seen his jagun officer killed on patrol in Samarkand. The officer had kept to the shadows while thieves robbed a store. As one of them passed him, he had stepped out and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, hoping to scare the thief half to death. His ploy had worked, but the man jammed a dagger into his ribs in panicked reflex. Tarrial smiled fondly at the memory of the officer’s face.

By the time he reached the trail, the stranger was close enough for Tarrial to make out his features. He was tall, unusually so. The stranger looked exhausted, his feet barely lifting with each stride. The pony was as dust-covered as he was and favoured its right foreleg.

Kublai sensed Tarrial’s gaze and jerked his head up. His hand dropped to his hip, but there was no sword there and, with a grimace, he raised his free hand to show he was unarmed.

‘Yam rider?’ Tarrial called.

‘Yes,’ Kublai replied. He was furious with himself for walking so blindly into the hills. He had lost track of the days, even of the horses he’d exchanged at yam stations along the way. Now, everything he had achieved could be undone by a few thieves. Not for the first time, he regretted leaving his weapons behind.

‘Who is the message for?’ Tarrial asked. There was something about the man that had his instincts twitching, though he couldn’t say what it was. Through all the grime that layered him, pale yellow eyes glared at Tarrial and more than once the rider’s hand dropped to his hip, as if he was used to carrying a sword. Odd, for a simple yam rider who always went unarmed.

‘No one stops the yam,’ Kublai said sternly. ‘The message isn’t for you, whoever you are.’

Tarrial grinned. The man couldn’t be much older than Parikh, but he spoke like one used to authority. Again, that was a strange thing for a yam rider. He couldn’t resist prodding a little further, just to get a reaction.

‘Seems to me a spy would say the same thing, though,’ Tarrial said.

Kublai raised his eyes to the sky for a moment. ‘A spy on a yam horse, with a leather bag? With nothing at all of value on him, I might add.’

‘Oh, we’re not thieves, lad. We’re soldiers. There’s a difference. Not always, I admit, but usually.’

To his surprise, Kublai straightened subtly, his gaze sharpening.

‘Who is your minghaan officer?’ he said curtly.

‘He’s about a hundred miles away, lad, so I don’t think I’ll be bothering him with you, not today.’

‘His name ,’ Kublai snapped. There were only ten minghaans to every tuman. He knew the name of almost every man who held that rank in the nation.

Tarrial bristled at the tone, even as he wondered at it. Alone, unarmed, hundreds of miles from anywhere and the man still had an air about him that made Tarrial reconsider his first words.

‘You’re not like the yam riders I’ve seen before,’ he said warily.

‘I don’t have time for this,’ Kublai replied, losing patience. ‘Tell me his name, or get out of my way.’ Before Tarrial could reply, he tugged on his reins and began walking again, taking a path straight at the warrior.

Tarrial hesitated. He was tempted to knock the rider on his backside. No one would blame him, but some instinct for survival stayed his fists. Everything had been wrong about the meeting from the first words.

‘His name is Khuyildar,’ he said. If the rider tried to barge past him, Tarrial was confident he could put him down. Instead, the man stopped and closed his eyes for a moment, nodding.

‘Then the message is for his master, Batu of the Borjigin. For his ears alone and urgent. You had better take me to him.’

‘You only had to say, lad,’ Tarrial replied, still frowning.

‘Now.’

CHAPTER EIGHT

There wasn’t much conversation as Tarrial and Parikh led Kublai through the mountains. They had left only one man behind to watch the road, while the last of the four rode back to inform their officer. Kublai’s lame horse rested with the other mounts, while he had been given the smallest of the scouts’ ponies, an irritable animal that tried to bite whenever it saw a finger.

Parikh shared his waterskin with the strange yam rider, but neither Kublai nor Tarrial seemed to be in a mood to talk and his first efforts were ignored. With Tarrial in the lead, they followed a wide path that wound its way upwards into the hills. Kublai could see mountains in the distance, but he had only the vaguest idea where he was, even with the maps he had in his head. The air was clean and cold and he could see for miles as they walked or trotted their mounts.

‘I’ve already lost a day with that lame horse,’ Kublai said after a time. ‘We need to go faster.’

‘Why’s that, then?’ Tarrial asked immediately. He glowered at the mysterious rider who ordered men about as if they were his personal servants. Tarrial could hardly believe the way Parikh almost came to attention every time the stranger looked at him. No yam rider was that used to authority. Tarrial knew he had to be some sort of officer, perhaps on his own business and using the yam lines without permission. He thought Kublai wasn’t going to reply - until he did, grudgingly.

‘There is an army behind me. A week, maybe ten days, and they’ll be here. Your lord will want every moment of warning I can give him.’

Parikh gaped and Tarrial lost his frown, suddenly worried.

‘How big an army?’ he said.

In answer, Kublai dug his heels into the flanks of his horse, kicking it on.

‘Find out when I give my message to your lord,’ he called over his shoulder.

Tarrial and Parikh looked at each other for a moment, then both men broke into a canter to reach and overtake him.

As Kublai rode, he tried to assess the defensive qualities of the land around him. It looked as if Batu had made himself a camp in the valleys of the range of hills, unless the scouts were lying to him about distances. He thought back to the accounts he had read in the library of Karakorum. Under Genghis, the tumans had once destroyed an Assassin fortress, taking it down, stone by stone. No stronghold Batu could have built would stand for longer than that one. Kublai brought the worst possible news, that Batu had to move his people away. With the khan’s army coming, Batu had to run and keep running, with only a small chance he would not be caught and slaughtered.