Of the tumen who guarded the Khagan while he was in Karakorum, a minghan (one thousand men) was designated Khevtuul (the Night Guard). They patrolled the palace and the grounds after nightfall, and Gansukh knew there was a distinct difference between nocturnal patrols and hunting during the day. As the Khevtuul began to respond to Master Chucai’s alarm, Gansukh turned his attention to the buildings surrounding the palace. The Night Guard would surround the central building, and men with bows would be ready to fill the dark sky with arrows. Some of them might even start to search the surrounding area when they failed to find the assassin on the roof, but by then it would be too late.
The tile had given away the assassin’s location. Whatever his mission had been, it was no longer foremost in his mind. He was thinking about escape. Much like a deer once it is spooked—it forgets everything in its headlong rush to flee.
The square around the palace was filling with leather-clad figures brandishing bows and torches. Courtiers and concubines panicked, lifting up the hems of their robes and scattering like geese, the tassels on their hats and hairpins swinging wildly. Gansukh silently cursed the men with torches—the flicking light was spoiling everyone’s night vision. Already it was almost impossible to see where the roof of the palace stopped and the sky began. Too many shadows now. Too many places for a man to hide.
The first moments of the chase were critical. Prey, once spooked, would bolt—either for a hiding place or to put the most distance between itself and its hunter. A hunter had only a few seconds to judge his quarry; he had to either anticipate its flight and get in front of it somehow, or if the prey was faster, he had to have more stamina. And know how to track.
The Imperial Guard wasn’t comprised of hunters. Those who did go hunting with the Khagan simply spread out in a great circle, driving all the game before them. They weren’t hunting one animal; their tactic was to round up every living thing possible—useful for the Khagan’s sport, but a tactic that couldn’t catch a solitary quarry.
Some of the Night Guard was pointing now, and Gansukh looked up. A pair of guards had found the assassin’s route onto the roof and was giving chase. One slipped on the slanted tiles and fell, screaming. He clattered off the roof in a cascade of broken tiles and landed heavily on the courtyard stones. They were stupid to follow the assassin that way, Gansukh noted, but they were easy to spot, and they gave him a valuable hint as to the direction the assassin had gone.
The second guard trotted with more care, and when he raised his bow, he stopped. Before he could shoot, something hit him in the face and his arrow went wild. He slipped, but managed to catch the cap tiles and hang on. His bow slid part-way down the roof.
The assassin had to go to ground somewhere, and Gansukh tried to recall the location of all the buildings surrounding the palace. To his recollection, they were all too far away. But jumping was the only way—the only quick way—off the roof. The assassin had made a mistake, obviously, and had been spotted. Fleeing to the roof had been a desperate gamble, one that might have been successful had he not been betrayed by a loose tile.
Gansukh reached the southeastern corner of the palace and came to a halt. The southern courtyard was even more open, and the only structure that could possibly be a spot for a man to jump to was the enormous statue—the silver tree crowned by the four serpentine spouts that each spewed a different liquid. But the tree was barren other than its spouts and offered no place to hide, and the open ground surrounding it was rapidly filling up with a mob of agitated Khevtuul.
Men shouted to the west, and a clump of Night Guards raced toward the far side of the palace, drawn by a cacophonous crash of more tiles. Gansukh started to follow and then stopped. Behind him lay the garden. Its walls weren’t very tall; he could, if he stood on his toes, reach the top of the wall, but the trees were much taller.
Something flickered across the sky, and a tall ash tree inside the wall of the garden swayed violently as if buffeted by the wind. The trees on either side barely moved.