Bones of the Hills

  Tsubodai thought he could have the dead horses butchered and sent back in pieces along the line. He dismissed the idea as quickly as it had struck him. They needed to get out of the chimney of rock and gutting horses would take too long, even if they had room to swing the axes.

  Instead, Tsubodai saw the mantlets could be used to cover dead men and horses, allowing the rest to walk over them. It would be a grisly business, but without a way forward, it didn’t matter if the iron gate could be battered out or not.

  The echoing crash of the gate falling could be heard far back along the line, bringing a ragged cheer from the warriors. Tsubodai saw the men ahead lunge forward and then cry out as they were struck by something unseen. Tsubodai squinted, but there was little light in that place and the mantlets reduced it almost to nothing in their shadow. Just ahead of him lay the horse he had seen struck. Its rider had been pinned against the wall as the animal slumped. Blood had come from his nose and he was pale and still. Tsubodai did not know if he lived, but he gave orders without hesitation.

  He passed his own mantlet forward to cover the battered pair. With Tsubodai urging him on, the closest warrior dug in his heels, forcing his mount up and onto the unstable platform.

  It lurched under the weight and the terrified pony resisted, but Tsubodai and the rider yelled at it. The warrior belted its flanks with his sword scabbard until the animal lurched over, whinnying in distress. Tsubodai grimaced and followed, trying not to hear the sound of breaking bones under his weight. He told himself the man beneath was surely dead.

  Tsubodai’s horse almost bolted free at the sight of an empty path ahead. He reined in desperately, knowing that whatever had silenced his men was still waiting. Only one warrior rode ahead of him and that man raced forward madly, calling a war cry and brandishing his sword.

  Tsubodai passed through the rubble of the gate and sunlight struck his eyes, almost blinding him. Beyond, he caught a glimpse of a wide spot in the path. His horse was running for it, desperate to get away from the fear and stench of blood in the pass. Tsubodai yanked the reins savagely, turning his mount left as arrows whirred past him. The other warrior had ridden straight in and arrows appeared in his chest. Tsubodai saw him stagger, but his armour held and he had time to kill a bowman before another shaft took him under the chin at close range.

  The general gasped for breath, blinking as more warriors clattered out of the pass to join him. Those who had broken arms and collarbones were unable to use their weapons, but they ran into the arrows to clear the pass behind them.

  The archers facing them were dressed in white robes, pulled open by the action of drawing their bows. Tsubodai could see they wore the mark of serenity and fury swept over him. He kicked his mount at the massed lines of men. There was nowhere to run or manoeuvre. His warriors would either break the line or die in twos and threes as they came out.

  It helped that the horses ran mad with terror. The Mongol warriors hardly tried to stop them as they charged. Tsubodai’s horse went straight at an archer fumbling another arrow onto the string. The shot went buzzing past the general and he swung his sword as he plunged past, his horse kicking the next man down. Tsubodai showed his teeth in cruel pleasure as his warriors began to cut further into the lines. Each man’s chest bristled with arrows, but the armour was good and the archers poor. The Assassins were not warriors, for all the fear they created. They had not trained every day from the moment they could walk. They could not crush fear and pain to make one last cut into an enemy. The warriors of the khan could and did.

  The pass ahead was wide enough for five horses to gallop abreast. Perhaps a hundred bowmen stood on tiers of rock, cut almost like steps. They could not hold the flood coming out at them. Volleys might have broken the first ranks, but Tsubodai saw that every man shot alone. He swung his blade at another, cutting a great gash in the man’s side as he whipped past. His horse was foundering, with two arrows deep in its chest. Only its panic kept it running, but Tsubodai was ready when the strength in the animal vanished and it fell hard. He leapt lightly down, staggering almost into the arms of an Arab. Tsubodai spun in a frenzy, so that his sword came round at neck height. The man died and the next he faced was caught helpless between shots. Tsubodai took two sharp strides and plunged his sword into the bare chest, right at the level of the serenity tattoo. A warrior who had come through still mounted kicked out as Tsubodai braced to block a third, sending his intended victim tumbling backwards. Tsubodai looked up in thanks and saw it was Genghis, bloody and jubilant.

  Against unarmoured men, Tsubodai thought the archers would have stolen victory even from a large number. The chimney of rock was the best defence he had ever seen and he understood why the Assassins had stayed there to fight. No doubt they thought they could hold against anyone. Tsubodai wiped his mouth, where he tasted something foul and sticky. His hand came away red and he spat on the ground.

  Around him, the last of the archers were being cut down and the Mongol riders let out a bellow of victory, releasing all the fear and anger they had not shown before. Tsubodai did not join them. His body was aching from a hundred impacts and he sat down on the stone steps, using his foot to shove away a body and make a space. He found himself panting hard for air, as if his lungs could not fill properly. The sun was high above their heads, not yet even at noon, and Tsubodai laughed weakly at the sight. He felt as if he had been trapped in that dark place for years and every breath was a struggle to find calm.

  He looked further up the path, past the warriors and the dead. He had seen the fortress standing over them all the time he had fought, but only now did it enter his thoughts.

  The Assassins had made their stronghold from the mountain stones, building it right across the pass so that there was no way around. The cliffs on either side were too smooth to climb and Tsubodai sighed as he studied the single great gate that blocked him still.

  ‘Hammers here!’ he shouted. ‘Hammers and mantlets.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The catapults Genghis had brought from Samarkand could not be dragged through the narrow pass, even in pieces. Instead, the work fell to men wielding hammers and wall hooks. The door into the fortress was made of bronze and brass, set well back into stone columns. Progress was incredibly slow and the work was exhausting. Tsubodai organised the hammer teams, with other men bringing up the mantlets so they could work under their protection. By the end of the first day, the columns on both sides of the door were chipped and battered, with great gouges from where iron bars had been struck with hammers. It still held. Above their heads, arrows came at intervals, but the best archers in the nation were standing ready for them, sending shafts up before the Assassins could aim. Even then there were not many defenders and Tsubodai wondered if the main force of the Assassins already lay dead on the bloody steps to the fortress. The Assassins worked best in darkness and with stealth. They did not have the numbers to stand against a determined army, as Genghis had said. All their strength lay in their home never being discovered.

  It was a tedious business arranging supplies through the crack in the mountain, but Tsubodai organised torches and food as he relieved his men and fresh warriors took up the task of smashing in the door columns. The archers on the walls had an easier task during the night. They could see the Mongols working, though the mantlets were still held over their heads. Those warriors who passed close to the torchlight risked a sudden arrow humming down at them. As dawn came, seven of Tsubodai’s men had been struck and one holding an iron bar had slipped and had his wrist broken with a hammer. Only three died. The others were dragged back beneath the steps, where they nursed and bound their wounds, waiting for daylight.

  As the door held through the morning, Genghis gave orders to level the village of stone behind him. His minghaan officers went back with instructions to knock the stone houses apart and drop them down the cliffs so that more men could use the open space as a staging ground. Almost twenty thousand men waited impotently, unable to reach an ene
my while just a few sweated at the wall. Tsubodai seemed confident his men would break in, but as the second day wore on, Genghis had to force the cold face to conceal his impatience.

  The Old Man of the Mountains stared down at the armoured soldiers working in the sunlight. He could hardly contain the fury that swept over him. Over the course of his life, he had been honoured by princes and shahs, from the Punjab in India to the Caspian Sea. He demanded respect, even deference, from the few men who knew who he was, without regard for their wealth and blood. His fortress had never been attacked since his ancestor first found the crack in the mountains and formed the clan that would become the most feared force in Arab lands.

  The Old Man gripped the stone sill of an open window as he stared out at the ants working to get to him. He cursed the Shah of Khwarezm who had tried to buy the death of this khan, as well as his own fate for taking the man’s note. He had not known then that the shah’s cities would fall to the invader, the stocks of gold with them. He had sent his chosen men to bring down just one, but somehow it had stirred the khan to this desecration. The Old Man had known within days of the failure in Samarkand. His followers had become overconfident, seduced by having the enemy within easy reach. They had died well enough but, in doing so, brought these mindless attackers to his sanctuary.

  The Mongols did not seem to care how many lives they lost. The Old Man could almost admire them for that, if he did not consider them less than men. It seemed it was his fate to be brought down by godless wolves, after all he had achieved. The khan was a relentless, driven enemy and the old ways were falling in pieces around him. It would take a generation to rebuild the clan after this day, at least. He swore to himself that his Assassins would eventually repay this blood debt, but at the same time he was afraid, close to terrified of the man who had thrown himself so hard against the fortress stones. No Arab would have done it. They would have known that to fail was to invite destruction down to three generations of everyone they held dear. Even the great Saladin ceased to trouble the Assassins after they had found him in his own command tent.

  The Old Man heard footsteps behind him and turned reluctantly from the window arch. His son stood in the cool chamber, dressed for travel. At forty years of age, the younger man knew all the secrets of the clan. He would need them all to start again. With him went the last of the Old Man’s hopes. They shared a gaze of grief and anger before his son touched his forehead, lips and heart and bowed in respect.

  ‘You will not come with me?’ his son asked one last time.

  The Old Man shook his head.

  ‘I will see this out to the end. I was born in this fortress. I will not be driven from it.’

  He thought of the garden of paradise to the rear of the stronghold. The women were already dead at his order, poisoned wine allowing them to drift into sleep. With the last of his men on the wall, there was no one to remove the bodies and the garden was heavy with the smell of corrupting flesh. Still, it was a better fate for them than to fall into the hands of the invaders. The Old Man thought he might spend a little time there while he waited for the khan. The garden had always brought calm to the turbulence in his soul.

  ‘Remember me and rebuild, my son. If I know that you will reach out and snatch this khan from the world, or his sons, I can die in peace.’

  His son’s eyes burned into him before he bowed again.

  ‘I will not forget,’ he said.

  The Old Man watched him stride away, his steps sure and strong. There was a hidden path behind the fortress that his son would take, leaving behind only destruction. Two men would travel with him, experienced Assassins well versed in all the forms of death. Even they had needed his own order to send them away. They saw no shame in dying to defend their home. Just thirty more waited for the Mongols to break the wall. They knew they would be killed and enter paradise and they were full of joy.

  Alone once more, the Old Man of the Mountains turned from the setting sun. He made his way down marble steps to the garden for the last time, breathing in the air with pleasure as it became thick with the scent of flowers and the dead.

  The right-hand column of the door shattered into two pieces at noon the following day, leaning out under the weight of stones above it. The khan stepped forward, hungry to see what lay within. The door yawned open without its support and Tsubodai’s men put their hooked poles into the gap and heaved at it, the leading edge cutting a furrow in the dusty ground.

  Genghis was in full armour and carried sword and shield ready in his hands as he waited for the gap to open. Tsubodai saw his intent to be first into the fortress and the general joined his men at the gate, taking a grip on the edge with his bare hands so that he would be closer. He did not know if Genghis guessed his thoughts, but Tsubodai was the first man through to the courtyard beyond. He heard the rattle of shafts breaking on the stones and ducked to one side as he surveyed the fortress they had worked so hard to win. There were still men on the walls, but when Genghis came through, he took their shafts on his shield, seeming to pluck them out of the air so that they vibrated in the surface.

  Tsubodai’s archers followed, walking backwards into the courtyard and loosing shafts up at anything that moved. The Assassins had no protection inside the walls. The black-garbed figures were outlined against the lighter stone and they fell quickly. Genghis watched them strike the courtyard with no expression on his face, then nodded, satisfied, as silence came again. The hammer men walked with him, still red-faced and sweating as the general and the khan made their way deeper into the fortress. Others climbed stone stairs to the walls, determined to root out every possible survivor as well as checking the dead. Tsubodai did not look back as he heard a struggle on the wall before someone fell with a cry. He knew his men would sweep the courtyard and the rooms beyond. He did not have to watch over them; could not while his khan walked so carelessly into the nest of the Assassins.

  Beyond the courtyard, a pillared cloister supported the main building. Genghis found a door there, but it was just wood and his hammer men smashed it open in a few blows. There was no one waiting for them, though Tsubodai held his breath as Genghis walked into shadow as if he strolled among his gers. The khan seemed determined to meet his fear head on and Tsubodai knew better than to try and hold him back while they searched the stronghold.

  The home of the Assassins was a maze of rooms and corridors. Tsubodai passed halls set with weapons and iron weights, open ground with bows set in racks, even a dry fountain, with water gathered in a pool where golden fish still swam. They found single rooms set with beds of fine linen as well as dormitories where rough wooden bunks lined the walls. It was a strange place and Tsubodai had the sense that it was freshly abandoned, that at any moment the occupants would return and fill the echoing halls with noise and life. Behind him, he could hear his men calling to each other, their voices muffled as more and more spilled into the fortress and began looking for anything worth carrying away. In one place with barred windows, Tsubodai and Genghis found an overturned cup with the wine barely dried. Genghis walked on, taking it all in, but never pausing to rest.

  At the end of a hall hung with silk banners, another heavy door blocked their path. Tsubodai summoned the hammer men, but when he lifted the iron locking bar, it moved easily and the door swung open to reveal steps. Genghis hardly slowed, so Tsubodai darted in ahead and went up as quickly as he could, his sword ready. The air was thick with strange scents, but even then he was not prepared for what he found and came to a sudden stop.

  The garden lay at the rear of the fortress, overlooking mountains stretching into the blue distance. Flowers were everywhere, but they did not hide the smell of death. Tsubodai found a woman of surpassing beauty lying beside a bank of blue flowers. Her lips were dark with red wine that had stained her cheek and throat as she fell. He nudged her body with his foot, forgetting for a moment that Genghis was just behind him.

  The khan did not look down as he passed. He strode over the perfectly tended pat
hs as if they did not exist, moving further in. There were other women lying in that place, all beautiful and all wearing very little to cover the perfect musculature of their bodies. It was sickening even for one used to death and Tsubodai found himself raising his head and gulping for clean air. Genghis did not seem to notice, his gaze on the mountains in the distance, snow-capped and clean.

  Tsubodai didn’t see the man sitting on a wooden bench at first. The robed figure sat so still he could have been another ornament in that extraordinary setting. Genghis was almost abreast of him when Tsubodai jerked and called out a warning.

  The khan stopped and raised his sword to strike with some of his old speed. He saw no threat from the man and lowered the blade as Tsubodai caught up.

  ‘Why did you not run?’ Genghis said to the man. He spoke in the Chin language and the man raised his head and smiled wearily, before answering in the same tongue.

  ‘This is my home, Temujin.’

  Genghis stiffened to hear his childhood name from a stranger. The sword jerked in his hand from instinct, but the man on the bench raised empty palms slowly before letting them fall.

  ‘I will take it down, you know,’ Genghis told him. ‘I will tip the stones off the cliffs so that no one will even remember there was once a fortress in these mountains.’

  The Old Man shrugged.

  ‘Of course you will. Destruction is all you know.’

  Tsubodai stood very close, looming over the man on the bench and ready to kill at the first sharp movement. He did not seem a threat, but his eyes were dark under heavy brows and his shoulders looked massive despite the lines of age on his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Genghis sheathe his sword and Tsubodai did not dare turn away as the khan sat on the bench, blowing air from his lips in relief.