The Mongoliad Book Three

Gansukh merely smiled, holding Munokhoi’s gaze.

 

Munokhoi’s hands tightened, and Gansukh heard the grinding strain of Munokhoi’s jaw as he clenched his teeth. With a mighty effort, Munokhoi composed himself and let go of Gansukh with a tiny shove. “A lucky bet,” he growled.

 

“The Blue Wolf favors me,” Gansukh acknowledged with a small nod.

 

Munokhoi pursed his lips, holding his words in check. He glared at the surrounding crowd, and Gansukh could see him assessing the general mood of those who were paying more attention to this disagreement than the aftermath of the fracas in the fighting ring. Munokhoi’s jaw worked for a few seconds, and then he spat—decisively—on Gansukh’s boot. “You’ll get your cows,” he said, though the tone of his voice suggested otherwise. He stalked away, elbowing his way through the press of bodies that were sluggish to open a path for him.

 

“I’m sure I will,” Gansukh called after him, a mocking lilt in his voice. Just enough to gall Munokhoi one last time. Push him a little farther. He’s already so close to the edge.

 

 

 

 

 

Ghaltai led Chucai along the twisting course of an empty riverbed. The ground was rough, and Chucai gamely stumbled after the sure-footed Darkhat. The moon offered enough illumination to see the other man but not enough to reveal all the loose stones and jagged pieces of rock that filled the old waterway. They had left the horses an hour ago, and Ghaltai had refused to light a torch—partly, Chucai was certain, as petty revenge for Chucai having dragged him away from the feast.

 

But mostly because the Darkhat was afraid. Was he a superstitious old fool who had lived in his self-important exile too long, or was there something to his apprehension about the spirits of the mountain? Chucai had ample time to consider both possibilities, and as much as he wished it were otherwise, the simple reason they were climbing the mountain in the dark was because he couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the latter concern of the Darkhat was actually true.

 

The route steepened, forcing Chucai to pay more attention to where he put his feet. Ghaltai scrambled up the incline, and Chucai resorted to clawing at the loose rock with his hands for the last few steps before he reached a narrow plateau.

 

He paused and looked back, making note of their route, and realized it was pointless to try to discern the track in the dark. The riverbed followed a complicated course through the exposed strata of the mountainside; it wasn’t a route he could trace back down with his eyes. He would simply need to stay in the riverbed, and trust that it would take him to lower ground. The spirits provide a way, he thought, but you have to trust them.

 

They were on rocky ground, a flat expanse that jutted out from the base of a rocky pinnacle that towered high overhead. The ground sloped downward as he walked away from the ledge, and Chucai realized it was an old pool. Striations and runnels in the rock face revealed where the water had once cascaded down from the peak, pooling on this flat spot before leaping over the edge again and gouging a serpentine path down to the valley far below.

 

Ghaltai led him toward a darker spot on the rock face, and when he walked right up to the wall and vanished, Chucai realized the darkness was a rough opening the rock. He followed the Darkhat, reaching out and touching the wall on either side of the narrow passage. The rock was smooth, worn by time and tools, and he let his fingers trace along the cool rock as he blindly followed Ghaltai into the mountain.

 

The tunnel turned to his left and dipped down. He heard a distant sound, a steady dripping noise—water falling into water—and the air remained fresh and pure. As the sound became louder, the darkness became less absolute. At first, he merely thought his eyes had become accustomed to the gloom, but as he started to notice tiny glimmers in the walls around him, he realized he was seeing evidence of some sort of illumination. The tunnel turned again, and now nearly able to see both hands touching either wall, he went around the curve and found himself in a large cavern.

 

The ceiling was more than twice as tall as he was and covered with a layer of luminescent lichen. There were several dark holes in the ceiling, and judging from the purity of the air in the cavern, Chucai surmised they were actually open to the sky. As he wandered into the cavern, he caught sight of the pale moon peeking down through one of the lowermost holes.

 

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