CHAPTER 10:
THE SEVEN RIVERS
They went south once they escaped the Heavenly Mountains, putting the tall peak of the sky god behind their right shoulders. When he was lucid, Alchiq was angry about their course and he would harangue Gansukh until his voice gave out about the younger man’s tracking skills, but his lucidity never lasted long. Gansukh lashed Alchiq into his saddle and ran a rope between their horses. Within a week, he had crossed the first of the seven rivers that lay between the mountains and the inland sea.
Further to the south was the trade route, the so-called Silk Road, and he knew their quarry would not risk traveling along that route. They were conspicuous as a small company, and too many would remember their passage. Alchiq thought they would stay north, out in the open steppe, and Gansukh saw no reason to disagree, but they needed supplies. They needed herbs and unguents for Alchiq’s ruined hand.
One night, unable to sleep due to Alchiq’s incessant nightmares, he considered smothering the old man with a blanket. It wouldn’t take much. Their journey and his fever had reduced Alchiq to nothing more than skin and bones. Some days he was barely strong enough to stand. When Gansukh had finally drifted off to sleep, he had dreamed about the blanket in his hands. He had folded it up to a thick square, and once he got it over Alchiq’s mouth, he had pressed down with his elbows to hold it in place. Alchiq had struggled fiercely, beating at Gansukh’s arms with his bandaged hand, tearing open his wound again, but his strength had ebbed quickly. The dreaming had disturbed Gansukh, but not so much that he hadn’t woken feeling more refreshed than he had in weeks.
That morning he had started to alter their course to the south. The dream was only going to get worse, he knew, and if he didn’t do something to ease Alchiq’s fever, he was going to end up acting out his dream one night. Would he even wake up as he smothered Alchiq, or would he kill the other man and lie back down without bothering to wake?
There were seven rivers that flowed in and out of the lake, the largest being the Ili. Gansukh knew there were a number of settlements along the rivers; the area had been subjugated by the armies of the Khagan several times since Genghis had brought the clans together. The Cumans, Kipchaks, Turks, and other nomadic peoples paid tribute readily to the Khagan and were all but ignored by Karakorum. They had learned how to exist under Mongol rule, and as a result, they had flourished as the trade routes opened up. There would be little trouble finding a village with a reasonably well-supplied market. With any luck, he could find a few more horses too.
Along the eastern bank of the Aksu River, he found a flourishing fishing village. There were several taller buildings built back from the water’s edge, and judging from the sun-baked brick half walls that surrounded these houses, they belonged to the local equivalent of the clan leaders. They were peaked roof houses with extended overhangs that curled up at their ends. The fanciful architecture was out of place with the nomadic lifestyle of many of the steppe clans and suggested the village was more diverse than he had expected it to be.
Alchiq was in one of his feverish dazes, where he slumped in the saddle, more dead than alive. Peasants and craftspeople noticed them as Gansukh led Alchiq’s horse into the small village, but only because they were new faces, not because they were Mongols. Gansukh caught sight of several clan insignia before they reached the broad beach where the bustling mercantile center lay and he spotted the familiar sight of Mongol ponies, saddled and outfitted for steppe hunters.
He found space at a trough where he could leave the horses (along with the dazed Alchiq), so that he could venture into the stalls on foot. Alchiq couldn’t untie himself from his saddle without raising some commotion and he wasn’t concerned that someone would steal his horse.
If Alchiq hadn’t sought to steal the horses from the Oirat, he wouldn’t be here now, seeking aid.
The thought made him grit his teeth, and the look on his face must have been rather stark as the first few merchants took one look at him and turned their attention elsewhere. He got his anger under control and even managed to smile at a swarthy man with a turban and a white beard who eagerly wanted to sell him any number of dried gourds.
“No gourds,” he said, waving the merchant off. The merchant jabbered at him in a Turkic dialect, and he shook his head and walked on. Somewhere on the other side of the row of stalls, musicians were playing. When he heard the jingle of small bells, a memory of another market sprang to his mind: outside of Karakorum, shortly before one of the Khagan’s grand festivals. He and Lian, the Chinese tutor assigned to him by the Khagan’s chief advisor, had spent the afternoon wandering around. He had been distracted by a dancer wearing bells, and she had been angry at him.
Lian.
He had tried very hard to suppress thoughts of her since the Khagan’s death. There were too many empty hours riding across the steppe, and a man could drive himself crazy trying to figure out what a woman was thinking.
That day in the market, she had been buying him a robe. A robe he no longer had, along with everything else that hadn’t been on his horse when his tent had been burned. For a while he had thought Munokhoi, the ex-Torguud captain with whom he had had a deadly enmity, had set the fire. But Munokhoi had been in the woods, stalking him; he couldn’t have been in two places at once. Alchiq had been the one to suggest an alternate culprit, but Gansukh had brushed off the old hunter’s accusation initially. Eventually, however, he realized Alchiq was probably right.
Lian had set the fire.
First, she buys me a robe, and then she seduces me, and finally she runs away, but not before burning everything I own. He had learned a lot about the manners of court and he knew the traditional methods of courtship among the steppe clans; he was fairly certain setting fire to your prospective mate’s belongings was not part of the typical rituals. Even in China.
He found a bald and bewhiskered Chinese man selling dried herbs, and via a combination of hand gestures and sniffing at the apothecary’s pots, he found remedies that would ease Alchiq’s fever and bring the swelling down in the old man’s hand. The old Chinese man stared suspiciously at the battered coins that Gansukh offered, but he took the money regardless. Gansukh didn’t bother being offended; coin was coin, he knew.
When he rifled through his tiny pouch after buying the herbs, though, he grew a little concerned about the scarcity of coin. Alchiq had some money too, but neither of them had much wealth. He had had little use for it previously, but now…
He passed a set of benches arranged around a dirt ring. Bare-chested men were wrestling, while onlookers wagered and shouted. Women with jugs of arkhi were wandering through the crowds, filling cups for a coin or two. Gansukh paused to watch the wrestlers. Neither man was very broad in the chest or tall, but they were both wiry and well-matched. The bout lasted several minutes, during which time each man seemed to be on the verge of subduing the other. After the third such reversal, Gansukh began to suspect the wrestlers were in collusion, allowing the other to escape in order to increase the wagers being laid against them. His interest waning, Gansukh made to wander on, but he paused as he overheard a piece of a conversation between two rotund merchants who were loitering behind the benches.
Kuraltai, one of them had said. The election of a new Khagan.
Gansukh kept his eyes on the wrestlers, but the rest of his attention was directed at the merchants.
“They’re all heading for Karakorum,” the one wearing red said. “It could take months—years, even—to pick a new Khagan. Every horse I could borrow or buy is hauling wagons east.”
“All of them?” asked the other merchant. His plump fingers were constantly wiggling, the sun flashing off his rings. “Even Batu?”
“Especially Batu,” the red merchant replied. “His armies are taking what they need as they come east, and no one is buying anything along the Silk Road. They’re all looking toward Karakorum.”
The empire, collapsing in on itself, Gansukh thought as he continued on. The death of ?gedei had left a void at the center of the Mongol empire, and all of his sons and uncles and cousins were rushing to fill that void. Behind them was every other ordu chieftain, hoping to curry favor with the new Khan of Khans. If, and when, another was elected.
As he walked back toward the trough and their horses, he wondered what it was that he and Alchiq hoped to achieve. What empire were they trying to save? Or were they just seeking vengeance?
He mashed up the herbs and made a foul-smelling tea that Alchiq refused to drink. He took one sip and spat it out onto the fire. Gansukh, having expected such behavior from the old man, smacked him on the shoulder with an arrow—the end with the fletching. Alchiq growled at him, his red-rimmed eyes glaring like the eyes of an angry boar. “Drink it,” Gansukh said, indicating the cup with the arrow.
“No,” Alchiq snarled.
Gansukh raised the arrow again, and when Alchiq put up his right hand to intercept the switch, Gansukh whipped him across the wounded finger stump. Alchiq howled, and started to struggle to his feet. He was looking for his sword, but Gansukh had taken it days ago.
“Drink it,” Gansukh repeated. “And then I’m going to change that dressing.”
Alchiq clutched his wounded hand in his good one. He had gotten to his feet and he glowered at Gansukh, his eyes still bright with fever. Gansukh kept the arrow between them, making Alchiq focus on the fletching. Slowly, the lines smoothed on Alchiq’s face and the angry light in his eyes subsided. Gansukh flicked the arrow down at the cup that Alchiq had knocked over. “You’re no good to me like this,” he said. “You’re slowing me down. If you don’t drink this tea, I am going to leave you here.”
Alchiq grimaced at Gansukh’s threat, but he sat down and reached for the cup. He dusted off the wet dirt clinging to the rim and held it out. Gansukh slipped the arrow under his left arm as he picked up the pot and poured another measure for Alchiq.
“It’s horse piss,” Alchiq muttered after he took a sip.
“I don’t even know why I am bothering to help you,” Gansukh said. “You’re not much better company when you are well.”
Alchiq glared at him, and then showed his teeth in what Gansukh assumed was an attempt to smile. “You’re a fool who is still thinking with his heart,” he said.
“Aye,” Gansukh agreed, recalling the thoughts that had kept him company while he had been in the market. “That I am.” He tapped the pot which he had left close to Alchiq. “Drink the whole pot.”
“I’m going to piss this out all over your boots,” Alchiq said.
“It won’t be the first time someone has stained my gear,” Gansukh said with a shrug. “You remember what happened to the last man who had difficulties controlling where he pissed?”
“I do,” Alchiq said. He put his head back and poured the rest of the cup into his mouth. “That was a fine killing,” he said as he reached for the pot.
Gansukh figured that was as close as a compliment he was ever going to get from Alchiq on the matter of his duel with Munokhoi. “In the village, when I was buying supplies, I heard talk of the kuraltai,” he said, changing the subject. “News of the Khagan’s death has spread. The horde is coming back.”
Alchiq nodded, his lips still curling with each sip of tea. “Where are we?”
“Not far from the Aksu, in the Seven Rivers region.”
“South of the lake,” Alchiq grumbled. “They wouldn’t have come this way.” He waved his damaged hand at the pot. “All this way for tea. We’ve lost their trail.”
“We lost their trail weeks ago,” Gansukh said. “We knew the Skjaldbr?eur had to get through the gap, and so did we. But we knew we would have to find them on the steppe afterward. You assured me you knew where they would go, but after the wolves, you were taken by fever. If I hadn’t gotten supplies, the fever would have boiled your brain. What would I have done then?”
“What would you have done?” Alchiq asked. “Would you have given up and gone home?”
“Home?” Gansukh said. “Where would that be, Alchiq? I failed in my mission for Chagatai Khan. His brother is dead. Am I supposed to crawl back to ?gedei’s brother—who is, for all I know, riding for Karakorum to participate in the kuraltai himself? Am I supposed to beg forgiveness? ‘O Great Chagatai, I didn’t fail you; ?gedei was going to stop drinking as soon as he returned from his pilgrimage. It wasn’t my fault these Western demons slew him.’”
“No,” Alchiq said softly. “The fault is mine. I knew they were coming.” He stared into the fire, his face sagging. “I first encountered them in the woodlands of the west, beyond the borders of the Ruthenian land that Batu Khan had recently conquered. I followed them to the ruin of Kiev, and when they left Kiev with a company of the Skjalddis, I found a jaghun of riders and pursued them further. We slew the Skjalddis, but the Skjaldbr?eur—who numbered barely more than an arban—destroyed my jaghun. They slew almost a hundred men, and had I not lucked upon one of them as he gathered water, they would have sustained no casualties.” He beat his fist against his leg. “One!” he exclaimed.
Gansukh found this hard to believe, and if this were any other man, he might have chided the story-teller for embellishing the tale, but he held his tongue. Alchiq was brusque, even by his standards, and he was not prone to fanciful stories.
“They were coming east, and I knew where they were going,” Alchiq continued after he poured himself another cup of tea. “I knew what they sought to do, and so I rode ahead of them. I rode as fast as I could to reach Karakorum before they did. Master Chucai listened to my warnings, but he paid little heed to what I had to say. The Khagan never should have gone hunting with as few men as he did. Chucai knew that; he knew the threat.”
Gansukh cleared his throat. “What are you saying?” he asked. “Chucai knew the Skjaldbr?eur were waiting in the forest?”
Alchiq shook his head. “He was as surprised as the rest,” he said. “And he’ll limp for the rest of his life because he didn’t listen.”
Master Chucai had been with them when the Skjaldbr?eur had attacked the Khagan outside the cave of the great bear. One of the Skjaldbr?eur, a very tall man with a bow nearly as tall, had pinned Chucai to his horse with an arrow, and the Khagan’s advisor had spent hours attached to the dead animal before he had been found and cut free. He was, in Gansukh’s estimation, lucky to have not lost the leg entirely.
“Why are you doing this?” Gansukh asked after a few moments of silence. He had asked the question before but previously Alchiq’s only response had been to brush the question aside as if it were nothing more than the sort of pestering question asked over and over again by a small child.
“They killed the Khagan and took something that belongs to the empire,” Alchiq said. “That’s reason enough for any man.”
And yet, we’re the only ones who are chasing them, Gansukh thought. “And then what?” he asked.
Alchiq shrugged.
By the Blue Wolf, Gansukh realized, he means to die on this journey. He’ll keep chasing them until they turn and fight him. And he knows they will kill him, but he doesn’t care. It’s the only end he can see.
There was another reason to chase the Skjaldbr?eur, but it wasn’t one that he was willing to share with Alchiq. He wasn’t entirely certain that he was willing to accept it himself.
They took something from the empire, he mentally echoed, and the thought felt foreign, as if he were trying to convince himself.