The shah thought that the Mongol khan might continue right to dawn and he prayed constantly as he gave his orders, hoping that he would survive the dark hours. Once again, his guards had to fight off a stray column of raiding warriors, killing eighty or so men and sending the rest galloping away to be cut down by others. The sons of the ancient houses were enjoying themselves, Ala-ud-Din could see. Their teeth flashed as they mimed good cuts to their friends. The army around them was being battered to pieces, but such noble sons would not count those losses. Allah gave and took away as he pleased, after all.
Ala-ud-Din thought dawn would reveal a bloody tatter of the host he had commanded. Only the thought of his enemy suffering as much kept him resolute.
He did not notice the sound dwindle at first. It felt as if he had lived with the thump of hooves in all directions for ever. When it began to fade, he was still calling for his sons, for fresh reports. The army marched on and Otrar would surely be somewhere close before dawn.
At last, one of the shah’s senior men shouted that the khan had withdrawn. Ala-ud-Din gave thanks for his deliverance. He had known horsemen could not attack at night. With hardly any light from the moon, they could not coordinate their blows without crashing into one another. He listened to news as his scouts came in, estimating their distance from Otrar and passing on every detail they had seen of the khan’s position.
Ala-ud-Din prepared to make camp. Dawn would bring an end to it and the cursed Mongols would have left their arrows behind in the bodies of his men. With Otrar in sight, he would widen his lines and bring more swords to bear on their stinging attacks. In the last hour, they had lost as many men as he had, he was certain. Before that, they had gutted his host. He looked around at the marching lines, wondering how many had survived the fight through the mountains. He had once seen a hunting party follow a wounded lion as it dragged itself away from their spears. The animal had left a trail of blood as wide as itself as it crawled on its torn belly. He could not escape the vision of his own army in just such a state, the red smear bright behind them. He gave the order to halt at last and he could hear the massed sigh of thousands of men allowed to rest. The shah began to dismount, but as he did so, he saw lights spring up to the east. He knew the pinpoints of an army’s fires well and he stayed on the back of the elephant as more and more sprang into existence until they looked like distant stars. There was his enemy, resting and waiting for the dawn.
Around Ala-ud-Din, his own men began to make fires with wood and dried dung from the camel backs. The morning would see an end to it. The shah heard voices calling the faithful to prayer and nodded fiercely to himself. Allah was with them still and the Mongol khan was bleeding too.
As the moon crossed the black sky, Genghis gathered his generals around a fire. The mood was not jubilant as they waited for him to speak. Their tumans had slaughtered many of the shah’s men, but their own losses were appalling. In the last hour before darkness, four thousand veteran warriors had been killed. They had cut their way almost to the shah himself, but then the Arab swords had gathered against them and dug them out.
Jebe and Jochi had come into the camp together, greeted by Kachiun and Khasar while Genghis merely stared. Tsubodai and Jelme rose to congratulate the two young men, having heard the story of the long ride as it spread through the camp.
Chagatai too had heard the news and his expression was surly as he watched Jelme clap his older brother on the back. He could not understand why they seemed so pleased. He too had fought, following his father’s orders rather than disappearing for days at a time. He at least had been where Genghis needed him. Chagatai had hoped to see Jebe and Jochi humiliated for their absence, but even their late arrival at the shah’s rear ranks was being treated as a stroke of genius. He sucked his front teeth, looking to his father.
Genghis sat cross-legged, with a skin of airag on his hip and a bowl of sour cheese curds on his lap. The back of his left hand was caked in blood and his right shin was bound tightly, but still seeped. As Chagatai turned his face from the foolish praise of his brother, Genghis cleaned the bowl with a finger and chewed the last of it. Silence fell as he put the bowl aside and sat perfectly still.
‘Samuka and Ho Sa must be dead by now,’ Genghis said at last. ‘The garrison at Otrar cannot be far away and I do not know how many survived the fire and arrows.’
‘They won’t stop for darkness,’ Kachiun said. ‘Perhaps they will walk their horses, but they’ll still reach the shah before dawn.’ As he spoke, Kachiun stared out into the night, to where they could expect the garrison to arrive. Further off, he could see the fires of the shah’s camp, and even after so much death, there were still hundreds of pinpoints of light, just a few miles away. No doubt Arab scouts were already riding back to join with the Otrar garrison and lead them in. The darkness would hide them well enough.
‘I have scouts out in a ring around us,’ Genghis said. ‘If they attack tonight, there will be no surprises.’
‘Who attacks at night?’ Khasar said. His thoughts were with Samuka and Ho Sa and he barely looked up from the dry goat meat he forced between his lips.
In the light of the flames, Genghis turned a cold gaze on his brother.
‘We do,’ he said.
Khasar swallowed the meat faster than he had intended, but Genghis went on before he could reply.
‘What choice do we have? We know where they are and the arrows are all gone anyway. If we strike from all sides, we will not foul each other’s lines.’
Khasar cleared his throat and spoke thickly.
‘The moon is weak tonight, brother. How could we see flags or know how the battle is going?’
Genghis raised his head.
‘You will know when they break, or when you are killed. It is the only choice left to us. Would you have me wait until a garrison of twenty thousand men joins them at dawn — fresh men who have not fought as we have?’ In the firelight, he looked around at his generals. Many of them moved stiffly and Jelme’s right arm was wrapped in bloody cloth, still wet.
‘If I know Samuka, there won’t be half that number,’ Khasar muttered, but Genghis did not reply.
Tsubodai cleared his throat and Genghis’ eyes slid over to the young general.
‘My lord khan, the flying columns worked well when we had arrows. In the night, each attack would be met by men with shields in solid ranks. We could lose them all.’
Genghis snorted, but Tsubodai went on, his quiet voice calming the others.
‘One column could cut its way in, but we saw that today. They do not run from us, these Arabs, not easily. Every step brings more and more men onto the flank of the charge until it is overwhelmed.’
‘You have an alternative?’ Genghis snapped. Though his voice was hard, he was listening. He knew Tsubodai’s sharp mind and respected it.
‘We need to confuse them, lord. We can do that with a false second attack, circling around. They will send men to hold and we will roll them up from our side.’
Genghis shook his head, considering. Tsubodai pressed on.
‘What if we had a small number of men drive horses at the shah’s left wing, lord? Have them take all the spare mounts and make as much noise as they can. When the shah commits his soldiers there, we attack the right with everything we have. It might make a difference.’
He waited as Genghis thought it through, unaware that he was holding his breath.
‘It is a good plan,’ he began. All the men at the fire stiffened as they heard a scout’s horn sound in the night. Almost in response, a roar sounded in the distance, coming towards them. While they talked and ate, the shah had attacked their fires.
As one, the generals surged to their feet, keen to get back to their men.
‘This is simpler, though, Tsubodai,’ Khasar said as he passed.
Tsubodai grinned at the insolent tone. He had already planned for such an attack and the warriors were ready.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As he trotted thr
ough the darkness, Jelaudin stared at the fires ahead of him. The men running at his stirrups were exhausted, but he had pressed his father for one more massed charge, knowing that their best chance lay in catching the Mongols asleep. He seethed at the thought of his father’s precious guard still barely blooded. The shah had refused his demands to have them accompany him, just when they would have justified their existence. Jelaudin cursed his father and Khalifa too, for losing the cavalry, then pressed away his anger to concentrate. Just one sweep through the enemy camp could be enough to break them at last. The moon was hidden by clouds and Jelaudin rode slowly over broken ground, waiting for the uproar that would follow.
It came sooner than he expected, as enemy scouts blew warning notes before they were cut down. Jelaudin drew his sword and risked his neck with a faster pace. The running men fell behind as he aimed his mount at the Mongol fires.
The khan had made only a rough camp after days of fighting. Jelaudin saw the left flank was a mass of lights, revealing the presence of many men. The nights were cold and they would be clustered close to the flames. On the right, the night fires were more widely spaced, dwindling to just a few points of light on the furthest edge. It was there that he led his men, racing to take revenge for the battering they had suffered.
He heard the Mongols rise against the attack, howling in their mindless anger. Jelaudin shouted a challenge into the night, echoed by his men. The fires came closer and suddenly there were men on all sides and the forces met. Jelaudin had time to shout in surprise before his stallion was cut from under him and he went flying.
Tsubodai waited, with Jochi, Jebe and Chagatai. It had been his idea to arrange the fires to draw in a careless enemy. Where the lights were thick, he had just a few men tending them. In the darkness there, veteran tumans clustered with their ponies, far from warmth. They did not heed the night cold. For those who had been born on the frozen plains of home, it was nothing to them. With a great shout, they charged the Arab ranks coming in.
As the two forces came together, the Arabs were sent reeling, smashed from their feet by men who had fought and trained from the earliest years. Their right arms hardly tired as they punched through the enemy and rocked them back. Tsubodai bellowed orders to advance and they trotted forward, shoulder to shoulder, their mounts stepping delicately over dying men.
The moon rose above them, but the attack was broken quickly and the Arab force sent streaming back to their main camp. As they ran, they looked over their shoulders, terrified that the Mongols would ride them down. Not half of their number made it clear, though Jelaudin was one of them, humiliated and on foot. He staggered back to his father, still dazed from the chaos and fear. In the distance, the Mongols finished off the wounded and waited patiently for the dawn.
Shah Ala-ud-Din paced his tent, glaring at his eldest son as he turned. Jelaudin stood nervously, wary of his father’s anger.
‘How did they know you would attack?’ the shah snapped suddenly. ‘There are no spies in the ranks, not here. It is impossible.’
Still smarting from his failure, Jelaudin did not dare to reply. Privately, he thought the Mongols had merely prepared for the possibility of an attack, not known of one, but he could not seem to praise them while his father raged.
‘You see now why I did not give you my personal guard?’ the shah demanded.
Jelaudin swallowed. If he had ridden in with five hundred horsemen, he did not think the rout would have been so easy or so complete. With an effort, he strangled a retort.
‘You are wise, father,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, they will take the fight to the enemy.’ He fell back a step as his father rounded on him and stood close enough for the bristles of his beard to touch his son’s face.
‘Tomorrow, you and I are dead,’ the shah snarled. ‘When the khan sees how many men I have left, he will fall on us and make an end to it.’
Jelaudin was relieved when he heard a throat cleared at the entrance to the tent. His father’s body servant, Abbas, stood in the lamplight, his eyes flickering from father to son and judging the mood within. Jelaudin made an impatient gesture for the man to leave, but Abbas ignored him, coming in and bowing to the shah. Jelaudin saw he carried a sheaf of calfskin vellum and a pot of ink and he hesitated before ordering the man out.
Abbas touched his forehead, lips and heart in respect to the shah before placing the writing materials on a small table to one side. Jelaudin’s father nodded, his fury still evident in his clenched jaw and flushed skin.
‘What is this?’ Jelaudin said at last.
‘This is vengeance for the dead, Jelaudin. When I have put my name to it, this is an order for the Assassins to rid my land of this khan.’
His son felt a weight lift from his shoulders at the thought, though he repressed a shudder. The sect of Shia fanatics had a dark reputation, but his father was wise to bring them in.
‘How much will you send them?’ he said softly.
His father bent over the thick parchment and did not reply at first as he read the words Abbas had prepared.
‘I do not have time to negotiate. I have offered a note for a hundred thousand gold coins, to be redeemed from my own treasury. They will not refuse such a sum, even for a khan’s head.’
Jelaudin felt his hands grow clammy at the thought of so much gold. It was enough to build a great palace or begin a city. Yet he did not speak. His chance to break the Mongols had been wasted in the night.
Once the shah had signed the note for gold, Abbas rolled the thick sheets and bound them with a strip of leather, tying the knot expertly. He bowed very low to the shah before he left the two men alone.
‘Can he be trusted?’ Jelaudin said as soon as he was gone.
‘More than my own sons, it seems,’ the shah replied irritably. ‘Abbas knows the family of one of the Assassins. He will see it safe to them and then nothing will save this dog of a khan who has shed so much of my people’s blood.’
‘If the khan dies tomorrow, will the gold be returned?’ Jelaudin asked, still thinking of the vast wealth his father had given away in just a moment. He sensed the shah walk to him and turned his head from looking at the tent’s entrance.
‘Unless Allah strikes him down for his impudence, he will not die tomorrow, Jelaudin. Do you not understand even now? Did you not see as you came back to my tent?’ He spoke with a flat intensity that Jelaudin could not understand and the younger man stammered as he tried to reply.
‘See … what? I…’
‘My army is finished,’ the shah snapped. ‘With the men you lost tonight, we have hardly enough left to hold one of his damned generals in the morning. They have reduced us to less than thirty thousand men and even if the Otrar garrison appears at this moment, we have lost. Do you understand now?’
Jelaudin’s stomach tightened in fear at his father’s words. They had fought for days and the slaughter had been terrible, but the field of battle was vast and he had not known how bad the losses had been.
‘So many dead?’ he said at last. ‘How is it possible?’
His father raised a hand and, for a moment, Jelaudin thought he would strike him. Instead, the shah whirled to pick up another sheaf of reports.
‘Do you want to count them again?’ he demanded. ‘We have left a trail of corpses for a hundred miles and the Mongols are still strong.’
Jelaudin firmed his mouth, making a decision.
‘Then give command to me, for tomorrow. Take your noble guard and travel back to Bukhara and Samarkand. Return in the spring with a fresh army and avenge me.’
For an instant, the shah’s furious expression faded. His eyes softened as he stared at his eldest son.
‘I have never doubted your courage, Jelaudin.’
He reached out and gripped his son’s neck, pulling him into a brief embrace. As they parted, Ala-ud-Din sighed.
‘But I will not throw away your life. You will come with me and next year we will bring four times as many warriors to root out these godless inva
ders. I will arm every man who can hold a sword and we will bring fire and bloody vengeance on their heads. The Assassins will have killed their khan by then. For so much gold, they will move quickly.’
Jelaudin bowed his head. In the darkness outside the tent, he could hear the noises of the camp and the moaning of wounded men.
‘We leave tonight, then?’
If the shah felt the sting of dishonour, it did not show.
‘Gather your brothers. Hand command to the most senior man left alive. Tell him…’ He trailed off, his eyes growing distant. ‘Tell him that the lives of our men must be sold dearly if they are to enter paradise. They will be frightened when they find I have gone, but they must hold.’
‘The Mongols will track us, father,’ Jelaudin replied, already thinking of the supplies he must take. He would have to gather his father’s mounted guard as quietly as possible, so as not to alarm those they left behind.
The shah waved a hand irritably.
‘We will go west, away from them, then cut north and east when we are clear of Otrar. The land is vast, my son. They will not even know we are gone until tomorrow. Gather what we need and come back here when you are ready.’
‘And Otrar?’ Jelaudin said.
‘Otrar is lost!’ the shah spat. ‘My cousin Inalchuk has brought this disaster on us, and if I could kill the fool myself, I would.’
Jelaudin touched his forehead, lips and heart with his head bowed. His dream of riding at the head of a victorious army had been crushed, but he was his father’s son and there would be other armies and other days. Despite the humiliation and horror of the battles against the Mongols, he thought nothing of the lives given for his father. They were the shah’s men and any one of them would die to protect him. As they should, Jelaudin thought.
He worked quickly as the moon passed overhead. Dawn was not far away and he needed to be well clear of the battle and the Mongol scouts by the time it came.