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  A gong sounded, making Rai Chiang start. He could hardly believe it was the hour of the dragon already. He had been lost in contemplation, but it had not brought him the usual sense of peace before the day truly began. He shook his head against the malicious spirits that sapped the will of strong men. Perhaps the dawn would bring better news. Preparing himself to be seen, he straightened in his throne of lacquered gold and tucked the sleeve with the broken thread under the other. When he had spoken to his ministers, he would have a new robe brought and a cooling bath to make his blood flow with less turbulence.

  The gong sounded again and the doors to the chamber opened in perfect silence. A line of his most trusted advisers walked in, their footsteps muffled by shoes of felt so the polished floor would not be scratched. Rai Chiang regarded them impassively, knowing that they took their confidence from his manner. Let him but show one trace of nervousness and they would feel the storms of panic that blew through the slums and streets of the city below.

  Two slaves took up positions on either side of their king, creating a gentle breeze from large fans. Rai Chiang hardly noticed their presence as he saw his first minister could barely maintain his calm. He forced himself to wait until the men had touched their foreheads to the floor and proclaimed their oath of loyalty. The words were ancient and comforting. His father and grandfather had heard them many thousand times in this very room.

  At last they were ready to begin the business of the day, and the great doors shut behind them. It was foolish to think they were completely private, Rai Chiang reflected. Anything of note in the throne room became market gossip before the sun set. He watched the ministers closely, looking for some sign that they felt the fear curdling in his breast. Nothing showed and his mood lightened a fraction.

  “Imperial Majesty, Son of Heaven, king and father to us all,” his first minister began, “I bear a letter from Emperor Wei of the Chin.” He did not approach himself, but handed the scroll to a bearer slave. The young man knelt and held out the roll of precious paper, and Rai Chiang recognized the personal chop of Prince Wei. Rai Chiang hid the stirring of hope in his breast as he took it and broke the wax seal.

  It did not take long to read the message, and despite his control, Rai Chiang frowned. He could sense the hunger for news in the room, and his calm had been affected badly enough for him to read it aloud.

  “It is to our advantage when our enemies attack one another. Wherein lies the danger to us? Bleed these invaders and the Chin will avenge your memory.”

  There was utter silence in the room as the ministers digested the words. One or two of them had paled, visibly disturbed. There would be no reinforcements. Worse, the new emperor had described them as enemies and could no longer be considered the ally his father had been. It was possible that they had heard the end of the Xi Xia kingdom in those few words.

  “Our army is ready?” Rai Chiang said softly into the silence. His first minister bowed deeply before replying, hiding his fear. He could not bring himself to tell his king how poorly prepared the soldiers were for war. Generations of peace had made them more adept at bullying favors from city prostitutes than martial skills.

  “The barracks are full, Majesty. With your royal guards to lead them, they will send these animals back into the desert.”

  Rai Chiang sat perfectly still, knowing no one there would dare to interrupt his thoughts.

  “Who will keep the city safe if my personal guard goes out onto the plains?” he said at last. “The peasants? No, I have sheltered and fed the militia for years. It is time they earned what they have had from my hand.” He ignored the taut expression of his first minister. The man was merely a cousin, and though he ran the city’s scribes with rigid discipline, he was out of his depth with anything requiring original thought.

  “Send for my general, that I may plan an attack,” Rai Chiang said. “The time for talk and letters is over, it seems. I will consider the words of . . . Emperor Wei, and my response, when we have dealt with the closer threat.”

  The ministers filed out, their nervousness showing in their stiff bearing. The kingdom had been at peace for more than three centuries, and no one there could remember the terrors of war.

  “This place is perfect for us,” Kachiun said, looking out over the plain of the Xi Xia. At his back, the mountains loomed, but his gaze lingered over green and gold fields lush with growing crops. The tribes had covered ground at incredible speed over the previous three months, riding hard from village to village with almost no opposition. Three large towns had fallen before the news had gone ahead and the people of the tiny kingdom began to flee the invaders. At first the tribes had taken prisoners, but when they had close to forty thousand, Genghis had grown tired of their wailing voices. His army could not feed so many and he would not leave them behind him, though the miserable farmers did not look like any kind of threat. He had given the order and the slaughter had taken an entire day. The dead had been left to rot in the sun, and Genghis had visited the hills of the dead only once to see that his orders had been carried out. After that he thought no more of them.

  Only the women had been left alive to be taken as prizes, and Kachiun had found a couple of rare beauties that very morning. They waited for him in his ger and he found his thoughts straying in that direction instead of to the next move in the assault. He shook his head to clear it.

  “The peasants don’t seem warlike at all and these canals are perfect for watering our horses,” he went on, glancing at his older brother.

  Genghis sat on a pile of saddles next to his ger, resting his chin on his hands. The mood of the tribes was cheerful around the two men, and he saw a group of boys setting wands of birch into the ground. He raised his head in interest as he saw his two eldest sons were part of the chattering gang, pushing and shoving each other as they argued over how best to set the sticks. Jochi and Chagatai were dangerous company for the boys of the tribes, often leading them into trouble and scuffles that resulted in their being slapped apart by the women of the gers.

  Genghis sighed, running his tongue over his lower lip as he thought. “We’re like a bear with his paw in honey, Kachiun, but they will rouse themselves. Barchuk tells me the Xi Xia merchants boasted of a huge standing army. We have not met them yet.”

  Kachiun shrugged, unworried at the prospect. “Perhaps. There is still their great city. They may be hiding behind the walls there. We could starve them out, or break the walls down around their ears.”

  Genghis frowned at his brother. “It will not be so easy, Kachiun. I expect rashness from Khasar. I keep you close to be the voice of caution and sense when the warriors get too full of themselves. We have not fought a single battle in this realm, and I do not want the men to be fat and slow when it comes. Get them back on the training field and burn the laziness out of them. You too.”

  Kachiun flushed at the rebuke. “Your will, my brother,” he said, bowing his head. He saw Genghis was watching his sons as they mounted their shaggy ponies. It was a game of skill learned from the Olkhun’ut, and Genghis was distracted as Jochi and Chagatai readied themselves to gallop past the row of wands in the soil.

  Jochi turned his pony faster and raced along the line with his child’s bow fully bent. Genghis and Kachiun watched as he loosed his arrow at full speed, sending the head slicing through the slender stick. It was a good strike, and in the same instant, Jochi reached down with his left hand and snatched the falling piece of wood, raising it triumphantly as he turned back to his companions. They cheered him, though Chagatai merely snorted before beginning his own run.

  “Your son will be a fine warrior,” Kachiun murmured. Genghis winced at the words and Kachiun did not look at him, knowing the expression he would see.

  “While they can retreat behind walls five times higher than a man,” Genghis said stubbornly, “they can laugh at us riding around on the plains. What does their king care for a few hundred villages? We have barely stung him while this Yinchuan city sits safe and he reside
s in it.”

  Kachiun did not respond as Chagatai rode the line. His arrow cut the wand, but his flailing hand failed to snatch it before it fell. Jochi laughed at his brother and Kachiun saw Chagatai’s face darken in anger. They knew their father was watching, of course.

  At his back, Genghis made his decision, rising to his feet.

  “Get the men sober and ready to march. I will see this city of stone that so impressed the scouts. Somehow or other there must be a way in.” He did not show his brother the worries that plagued him. He had never seen a city girdled in high walls as his scouts described. He hoped that the sight of it would bring some insight into how he could enter without seeing his army dash itself uselessly against the stone.

  As Kachiun left to relay the orders, he saw Chagatai had said something to his older brother. Jochi leaped from his pony as he passed, sending them both thumping into the ground in a flurry of elbows and bare feet. Kachiun grinned as he passed them, remembering his own childhood.

  The land they had found beyond the mountains was fertile and rich. Perhaps they would have to fight to keep it, but he could not imagine a force capable of defeating the army they had brought a thousand miles from their home. As a boy, he had once levered a huge rock free on a hillside and seen the way it gathered speed. At first it was slow, but after only a little time, it was unstoppable.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Scarlet was the Xi Xia color for war. The king’s soldiers wore armor lacquered in vivid red, and the room where Rai Chiang met his general was unadorned except for polished walls of the same shade. Only a single table spoiled the echoing emptiness, and both men stood to gaze down at maps of the region, held with lead weights. The original secession from the Chin had been planned within those red walls; it was a place to save and win a kingdom, rich with its own history. General Giam’s lacquered armor was such a perfect match for the room that he almost vanished against the walls. Rai Chiang himself wore a tunic of gold over black silk trousers.

  The general was white-haired, a man of dignity. He could feel the history of the Xi Xia hanging heavy in the air of that ancient room, as heavy as the responsibility he would bear himself.

  He placed another marker of ivory on the lines of dark blue ink.

  “Their camp is here, Majesty, not far from where they entered the kingdom. They send their warriors out to raid a hundred li in every direction.”

  “A man cannot ride further in a day, so they must make other camps for the night,” Rai Chiang murmured. “Perhaps we can attack them there.”

  His general shook his head slightly, unwilling to openly contradict his king. “They do not rest, Majesty, or stop for food. We have scouts who say they ride that far and then back from dawn to sunset. When they take prisoners, they are slower, driving them before them. They have no infantry and carry supplies with them from the main camp.”

  Rai Chiang frowned delicately, knowing that would be enough criticism to make the general sweat in his presence.

  “Their camp is not important, General. The army must engage and break these riders who have caused so much destruction. I have a report of a pile of dead peasants as high as a mountain. Who will gather the crops? The city could starve even if these invaders left us today!”

  General Giam made his face a mask rather than risk further anger. “Our army will need time to form and prepare the ground. With the royal guard to lead them, I can have the fields sown with spikes that will destroy any charge. If the discipline is good, we will crush them.”

  “I would have preferred to have Chin soldiers with my own militia,” Rai Chiang said as if to himself.

  The general cleared his throat, knowing it was a sensitive subject. “All the more need for your own guards, Majesty. The militia are little better than peasants with weapons. They cannot stand on their own.”

  Rai Chiang turned his pale eyes on his general. “My father had forty thousand trained soldiers to man the walls of Yinchuan. As a child, I watched the red ranks parade through the city on his birthday and there seemed no end to them.” He grimaced irritably. “I have listened to fools and counted the cost of so many over the dangers we could face. There are barely twenty thousand in my own guard and you would have me send them out? Who then would defend the city? Who would form the teams for the great bows and hold the walls? Do you think the peasants and merchants will be of any use to us once my guard have gone out? There will be food riots and fires. Plan to win without them, General. There is no other way.”

  General Giam had been born to one of the king’s uncles, and promotion had come easily. Yet he had courage enough to face Rai Chiang’s disapproval.

  “If you give me ten thousand of your guard, they will steady the others. They will be a core the enemy cannot break.”

  “Even ten thousand is too many,” Rai Chiang snapped.

  General Giam swallowed.

  “Without cavalry, I cannot win, my lord. With even five thousand guards and three thousand of those on heavy horse, I would have a chance. If you cannot give me that, you should execute me now.”

  Rai Chiang raised his eyes from the map and found General Giam’s gaze steady. He smiled, amused at the bead of sweat that was making its way down the man’s cheek.

  “Very well. It is a balance between giving you the best we have and still keeping enough to defend the city. Take a thousand cross-bowmen, two of cavalry, and two more of heavy pikes. They will be the core that leads the others against the enemy.”

  General Giam closed his eyes in silent thanks for an instant. Rai Chiang did not notice as he turned back to the map.

  “You may empty the stores of armor. The militia may not be my red guards, but perhaps looking like them will give them courage. It will relieve the boredom of hanging profiteers and whitewashing the barracks, I have no doubt. Do not fail me in this, General.”

  “I will not, Your Majesty.”

  Genghis rode at the head of his army, a vast line of horsemen that stretched across the plain of the Xi Xia. As they came to canals, the line would bulge as men raced each other over the drop, laughing and calling to anyone who fell into the dark water and had to ride hard to catch up.

  The city of Yinchuan had been a smear on the horizon for hours before Genghis gave the order to halt. Horns sounded up and down the line and the host came to a stop, with echoing orders passing down to alert men on the wings. This was hostile country and they would not be taken by surprise.

  The city loomed in the distance. Even miles away, it seemed a massive construction, intimidating in its sheer size. Genghis squinted into the haze of the afternoon sun. The stone the builders had used was a dark gray, and he could see columns that could have been towers inside the walls. He could not guess their purpose and strove not to show his awe in front of the men.

  He looked around him, seeing that his people could not be ambushed on such a flat piece of ground. The crops could have hidden crawling soldiers, but his scouts would sight them long before they were close. It was as safe as anywhere could be to set up camp, and he made the decision, dismounting as he gave his orders.

  Behind him the tribes scurried in the routines they knew. Gers were lashed together and raised by individual families long used to the work. A village, a town, a city of their own sprang out of the carts and herds of bleating animals. It was not long before Genghis’s own cart came up and the smell of frying mutton filled the air.

  Arslan walked along the line with his son Jelme. Under their eyes, the warriors of all the tribes stood tall and kept their chatter to a minimum. Genghis approved and he was ready with a smile as they reached him.

  “I have never seen such a flat land,” Arslan said. “There is nowhere to hold, nowhere to retreat to if we are overwhelmed. We are too exposed here.”

  Jelme raised his eyes at the words, but did not speak. Arslan was twice the age of the other generals and he led cautiously and with intelligence. He would never be a firebrand amongst the tribes, though his skill was respected, and his tempe
r feared.

  “We will not be turned, Arslan. Not from here,” Genghis replied, clapping him on the shoulder. “We will make them come out from that city, or if they will not, perhaps I will just build a ramp of earth to the top of their walls and ride in. That would be a thing to see, would it not?”

  Arslan’s smile was tight. He had been one of those who had ridden closer to Yinchuan, close enough for them to waste arrows on him.

  “It is like a mountain, lord. You will see when you ride close to the walls. Each corner has a tower and the walls are set with slits where archers poke their faces through to watch you pass. It would be hard to hit them, while they have an easy shot against us.”

  Genghis lost some of his good humor. “I will see it first before I decide. If it will not fall to us, I will starve them out.”

  Jelme nodded at the idea. He had ridden with his father close enough to feel the shadow of the city on his back. For a man used to the open steppes, he found himself irritated at the thought of such an ant hill of men. The very idea offended him.

  “The canals pass into the city, lord,” Jelme said, “through tunnels barred with iron. I am told they wash away the dung of so many people and animals. There may be a weakness there.”

  Genghis brightened. He had ridden all day and he was weary. There would be time to plan the assault tomorrow when he had eaten and rested.

  “We will find a way,” he promised.

  CHAPTER 7

  WITH NO SIGN OF OPPOSITION, the younger warriors under Genghis spent their days riding as close as they dared to the city, testing their courage. The bravest of them galloped under the shadow of the walls as arrows whipped overhead. Their whooping cries echoed over the fields in challenge, yet only one Xi Xia archer managed a clean strike in three days. Even then, the tribesman recovered his seat and rode clear, pulling the arrow out of his armor and throwing it contemptuously to the ground.