Conn Iggulden - Conqueror (2011)

On his way back to the ger, he saw his son running along, head down and puffing. Kublai reined in and reached down. Zhenjin took the arm and his father swept him up into the saddle behind him. They rode on together and after a time Kublai felt his son shift uncomfortably. Zhenjin had seen horrors that day. Kublai reached behind him and patted the boy’s leg.

‘Did you stop them killing the men?’ Zhenjin asked in a small voice.

‘Yes. Yes, I stopped them,’ Kublai replied. He felt the weight increase against his back as his son relaxed.

Alamut was a place of quiet and calm. In his life, Hulegu had found little to love in cities, but there was something about the spartan fortress that appealed to him. He was surprised to feel a pang of regret at the idea that he must destroy it. He stood on the highest wall in the sunlight and looked down across a landscape of mountains, stretching many miles into the distance. He even wondered briefly if he could leave a hundred families to keep the place for the khan, but it was just a fantasy. He had seen the tiny meadow behind the main buildings. The animals there could not support more than a few. The fortress was so completely isolated that he could not imagine trade ever taking place, or anything in the way of contact with the world. Alamut guarded no pass, held no strategic worth. It had been the perfect spot for the Assassins, but it was not suited to anything else.

As he walked on, Hulegu stepped over the body of a young woman, careful not to tread in the pool of sticky blood around her head. He looked down and frowned. She had been beautiful and he assumed the archer who had put a shaft into her throat had done so from a distance. It was a waste.

It had taken a day to get two hundred men into the fortress, each warrior trudging up the narrow path in single file, then holding the door for the next. Rukn-al-Din could do nothing and he had not had the courage to throw himself off the cliff. Not that they would have let him, but it would have been a fine thing to attempt. They had spread into Alamut’s rooms and corridors with calm deliberation and the Ismaili Assassins had only stood and watched, still looking to Rukn-al-Din for authority. When the killing began, they scattered, trying to protect their families. Hulegu smiled at the memory. His warriors had scoured the castle, room by room, floor by floor, stabbing and shooting anything that moved. For a time, a group of the Assassins had blockaded themselves into a room, but the door fell to axes and they were overwhelmed. Others had fought. Hulegu looked over the battlements into a courtyard far below, seeing the bodies of his men laid out. Thirty-six of them had been killed, a higher toll than he might have expected. Most of those had died from poisoned blades, when they would otherwise have survived with a gash. By dawn, only Rukn-al-Din was still alive, sitting in the courtyard in dull despair.

It was time to finish it, Hulegu realised. He would have to leave men behind, but to destroy rather than to live. It would take months for them to break down the fortress, and he could not wait while Baghdad resisted his army. It had been a risk, even a luxury, to seek out the Assassins, but he could not regret it. For a short time, he had walked in the steps of Genghis.

It took an age to descend the stone stairs running inside the walls. Hulegu finally came out into the bright sunshine, blinking after the gloom. Rukn-al-Din was sitting with his knees drawn up into his arms, his eyes red. As Hulegu came out he looked up and swallowed nervously, certain he was about to die.

‘Stand up,’ Hulegu said to him.

One of his warriors kicked the man hard and Rukn clambered to his feet, swaying slightly from exhaustion. He had lost everything.

‘I will be leaving men here to destroy the fortress, stone by stone,’ Hulegu said. ‘I cannot stay longer. In fact, I should not have taken so much time to come here. When I return this way, I hope there will be a chance to visit the other fortresses your father controlled.’ He smiled, enjoying the utter defeat of an enemy in his power. ‘Who knows? Only rats live on in Alamut and we will burn them out when it falls.’

‘You have what you wanted,’ Rukn said hoarsely. ‘You could let me go.’

‘We do not shed the blood of royalty,’ Hulegu replied. ‘It was a rule of my grandfather and I honour it.’ He saw a gleam of hope come into Rukn’s eyes. The death of his father had broken the young man. He had said nothing while the Mongols tore through Alamut, hoping that they would spare him. He raised his head.

‘I am to live?’ he said.

Hulegu laughed. ‘Did I not say I honour the great khan? No blade will cut you, no arrow will enter your flesh.’ Hulegu turned to the warriors around Rukn-al-Din. ‘Hold him down.’

The young man cried out as they laid hands on him, but there were too many and he could not resist. They took his arms and legs and stretched them out, so that he lay helpless. He looked up and saw only bright malice in the Mongol general.

Hulegu kicked Rukn in the ribs as hard as he could. He heard them crack over Rukn’s scream. Twice more he kicked out, feeling the ribs give way.

‘You should have cut your own throat,’ Hulegu told him as Rukn-al-Din panted in agony. ‘How can I respect a man who wouldn’t even do that for his people?’ He nodded to a warrior and the man began to stamp on the broken chest. Hulegu watched for a time, then walked away, satisfied.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Yao Shu was filled with strange emotions as he rocked back and forth on the cart taking him into Sung lands. As a young monk, he had known Genghis even before he had become the first khan of the Mongol nation. Yao Shu had put aside the natural course of his life to observe that extraordinary man as he united the tribes and attacked the Chin empire. Even in those days of youth, Yao Shu had hoped to influence the khan, to bring a sense of civilisation to his court.

Somehow, as the years passed, Yao Shu had lost sight of his first ambitions. It was strange how a man could forget himself in the thousand tasks of a day. There was always some new problem to solve, some work that had to be done. Yao Shu had seen his life slip through his fingers, so that he looked up from the details less and less often with each passing year. There had been a time when he could have written his ambitions and desires on a single parchment. He was still not sure whether he had lost the ability to think so clearly, or whether he had just been naive.

Still, he had kept hope alive. When Genghis had died, Yao Shu had worked with Ogedai Khan, then Torogene as regent. He had remained in Karakorum as chancellor during Guyuk’s short and bitter reign. Ogedai had shown promise, he thought, looking back. The third son of Genghis had been a man of great vision, until his heart failed and allowed a weak son to rule the nation. Yao Shu sighed to himself as he stared out at the massed ranks riding all around him. He had grown old in the service of khans.

Mongke’s rise had been a terrible blow. If ever there had been a man in the mould of Genghis, Mongke was the one. Genghis had been ruthless, but then he had been surrounded by enemies bent on his destruction. He had been formed in conflict and spent his entire life at war. Yao Shu smiled ruefully at the memories of the old bastard. The philosophies of Genghis Khan would have shocked his Buddhist teachers, almost to the point of unconsciousness. They had never met anyone like that cheerful destroyer of cities. In Genghis, all things had come together. He had kept his fledgling nation safe by slaughtering their enemies, but enjoyed himself enormously while doing so. Yao Shu remembered how Genghis had addressed a council of Chin lords on the subject of ransom. He had told them solemnly that a captured Mohammedan could buy his freedom for forty gold coins, but the price of a Chin lord was a single donkey.