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  Shaft after shaft broke against his red armor as he closed on them. Before he reached the line, a young warrior galloped out to meet him, his sword raised. Giam shouted once, but the warrior ducked under his blow, carving a great gash under the general’s right arm. Giam swayed in the saddle, his horse slowing to a walk. He could hear the warrior circling back, but his arm hung on sinews and he could not raise his sword. Blood rushed across his thighs and he looked up for a moment, never feeling the blow that took his head and ended his shame.

  Genghis rode triumphantly through the mounds of scarlet dead, their armor resembling the gleaming carcasses of beetles. In his right hand, he held a long pike with the head of the Xi Xia general on top, the white beard twitching in the breeze. Blood ran down the shaft onto his hand and dried there, gumming his fingers together. Some of the army had escaped by running back through the spikes where his riders could not follow. Even then, he had sent warriors to lead their horses on foot. It had been a slow business and perhaps a thousand of the enemy in all had made it close enough to the city to be covered by archers. Genghis laughed at the sight of the bedraggled men standing in the shadow of Yinchuan. The gates remained closed and they could do nothing but stare in blank despair at his warriors as they rode among the dead, laughing and calling to each other.

  Genghis dismounted as he reached the grass and rested the bloody pike against his horse’s heaving flank. He bent down and picked up one of the spikes, examining it with curiosity. It was a simple thing of four nails joined together so one remained upright no matter how it fell. If he had been forced to take the defensive position, he thought he would have laid bands of them in widening circles around the army, but even then, the defenders had not been warriors as he knew them. His own men had better discipline, taught by a harder land than the peaceful valley of the Xi Xia.

  As Genghis walked he could see the fragments of torn and broken armor on the ground. He examined a piece of it with interest, seeing how the red lacquer had chipped and flaked away at the edges. Some of the Xi Xia soldiers had fought well, but the Mongol bows took them even so. It was a good omen for the future and the final confirmation that he had brought them to the right place. The men knew it, as they looked on their khan in awe. He had brought them through the desert and given them enemies who fought poorly. It was a good day.

  His gaze fell on ten men wearing deels marked in Uighur blue stitching as they walked amongst the dead. One of them carried a sack and he saw the others reach down to bodies and make a quick jerking motion with a knife.

  “What are you doing?” he called to them. They stood proudly when they saw who addressed them.

  “Barchuk of the Uighurs said you would want to know the numbers of the dead,” one of them replied. “We are cutting ears to be tallied later on.”

  Genghis blinked. Looking around, he saw that many of the bodies nearby had a red gash where an ear had been that morning. The sack bulged already.

  “You may thank Barchuk on my behalf,” he began, then his voice trailed away. As the men shared nervous glances, Genghis took three strides through the corpses, sending flies buzzing into the air around him.

  “There is a man here without any ears at all,” Genghis said. The Uighur warriors hurried over, and as they saw the earless soldier, the man with the sack began to curse his companions.

  “You miserable offal! How can we keep a straight count if you cut off both ears?”

  Genghis took one look at their faces and burst into laughter as he returned to his pony.

  He was still chuckling as he took up the pike and tossed the cluster of black nails into the grass. He strolled toward the walls with his grisly trophy, judging where the archers of the Xi Xia could reach.

  In full view of the city walls, he jammed the pike into the ground with all his weight, standing back from it as he stared upwards. As he had expected, thin arrows soared out toward him, but the range was too far and he did not flinch. Instead, he drew his father’s sword and raised it toward them, while his army chanted and roared at his back.

  Genghis’s expression became grim once more. He had blooded the new nation. He had shown they could stand even against Chin soldiers. Yet, he still had no way to enter a city that mocked him with its strength. He rode slowly to where his brothers had gathered. Genghis nodded to them.

  “Break the canals,” he said.

  CHAPTER 8

  WITH EVERY ABLE-BODIED MAN working with stones and iron hammers, it still took six days to reduce the canals around Yinchuan to rubble. At first Genghis looked on the destruction with savage pleasure, hoping the mountain rivers might flood the city.

  It disturbed him to see how the waters rose so quickly on the plain, until his warriors were ankle deep before they had finished destroying the last of the canals. The sultry days brought huge quantities of snowmelt down from the mountain peaks, and he had not truly considered where all the water might go once it wasn’t channeled down toward the city and the crops.

  Even gently sloping ground became sodden mud by noon of the third day, and though the crops were flooded, the waters continued to rise. Genghis could see the amusement on the faces of his generals as they realized the error. At first the hunting was excellent as small animals escaping the flood could be seen splashing from far away. Hundreds of hares were shot and brought back to the camp in slick bundles of wet fur, but by then, the gers were in danger of being ruined. Genghis was forced to move the camp miles to the north before water flooded the entire plain.

  By evening they had reached a point above the broken canal system where the ground was still firm. The city of Yinchuan was a dark spot in the distance, and in between, a new lake had sprung from nothing. It was no more than a foot deep, but it caught the setting sun and shone gold for miles.

  Genghis was sitting on the steps leading up to his ger when his brother Khasar came by, his face carefully neutral. No one else had dared to say anything to the man who led them, but there were many strained faces in the camp that evening. The tribes loved a joke and flooding themselves off the plain appealed to their humor.

  Khasar followed his brother’s irritated gaze out onto the expanse of water.

  “Well, that taught us a valuable lesson,” Khasar murmured. “Shall I have the guards watch for enemy swimmers, creeping up on us?”

  Genghis looked sourly at his brother. They could both see children of the tribes frolicking at the water’s edge, black with stinking mud as they threw each other in. Jochi and Chagatai were in the center of them as usual, delighted with the new feature of the Xi Xia plain.

  “The water will sink into the ground,” Genghis replied, frowning.

  Khasar shrugged. “If we divert the waters, yes. I think it will be too soft for riders for some time after that. It occurs to me that breaking the canals may not have been the best plan we have come up with.”

  Genghis turned to see his brother watching him with a wry expression and barked a laugh as he rose to his feet. “We learn, brother. So much of this is new to us. Next time, we don’t break the canals. Are you satisfied?”

  “I am,” Khasar replied cheerfully. “I was beginning to think my brother could not make an error. It has been an enjoyable day for me.”

  “I am pleased for you,” Genghis said. Both of them watched as the boys on the water’s edge began to fight again. Chagatai threw himself at his brother and they thrashed together in the muddy shallows, first one on top, then the other.

  “We cannot be attacked from the desert and no army can reach us here with that new lake in the way. Let us feast tonight and celebrate our victory,” Genghis said.

  Khasar nodded, grinning. “Now that, my brother, is a fine idea.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Rai Chiang gripped the arms of his gilded chair, staring out over the drowned plain. The city had warehouses of salted meat and grain, but with the crops rotting, there would be no more. He turned the problem over and over in his mind, despairingly. Though they did not yet know it, many i
n the city would starve to death. His remaining guards would be overwhelmed by the hungry mob when winter came, and Yinchuan would be ruined from within.

  As far as his eye could see, the waters stretched back to the mountains. Behind the city to the south, there were still fields and towns where neither the invaders nor the flood had yet reached, but they were not enough to feed the people of the Xi Xia. He thought of the militia in those places. If he stripped every last man from those towns, he could assemble another army, but he would lose the provinces to banditry as soon as the famine began to bite. It was infuriating, but he could not see a solution to his troubles.

  He sighed to himself, causing his first minister to look up.

  “My father told me always to keep the peasants fed,” Rai Chiang said aloud. “I did not understand its importance at the time. What does it matter if a few starve each winter? Does it not show the displeasure of the gods?”

  The first minister nodded solemnly. “Without the example of suffering, Majesty, our people will not work. While they can see the results of laziness, they toil in the sun to feed themselves and their families. It is the way the gods have ordered the world and we cannot stand against their will.”

  “But now, they will all go hungry,” Rai Chiang snapped, tired of the man’s droning voice. “Instead of a just example, a moral lesson, half our people will be clamoring for food and fighting in the streets.”

  “Perhaps, Majesty,” the minister replied, unconcerned. “Many will die, but the kingdom will remain. The crops will grow again, and next year there will be an abundance for the mouths of the peasants. Those who survive the winter will grow fat and bless your name.”

  Rai Chiang could not find the words to argue. He stared down from the tower of his palace at the throng in the streets. The lowest beggars had heard the news of the crops being left to spoil in the water from the mountains. They were not hungry yet, but they would be thinking of the cold months and already there were riots. His guard had been ruthless on his order, culling hundreds at the slightest sign of unrest. The people had learned to fear the king, and yet in his private thoughts, he feared them more.

  “Can anything be saved?” he asked at last. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he thought he could smell the rich odor of dying vegetation on the breeze. The first minister considered, looking through a list of events in the city as if he might find inspiration there.

  “If the invaders left today, Majesty, we could no doubt salvage some of the hardier grains. We could sow rice in the waterlogged fields and take one crop. The canals could be rebuilt, or we could direct the course of the water around the plain. Perhaps a tenth of the yield could be saved or replaced.”

  “But the invaders will not leave,” Rai Chiang went on. He thumped his fist into the arm of the chair.

  “They have beaten us. Lice-ridden, stinking tribesmen have cut right to the heart of the Xi Xia, and I am meant to sit here and preside over the stench of rotting wheat.”

  The first minister bowed his head at the tirade, frightened to speak. Two of his colleagues had been executed that very morning as the king’s temper mounted. He did not want to join them.

  The king rose and clasped his hands behind his back. “I have no choices left. If I strip the south of the militia in every town, it will not equal the numbers who failed against them before. How long would it be before those towns become strongholds for bandits without the king’s soldiers to keep them quiet? I would lose the south as well as the north and then the city would fall.” He swore under his breath and the minister paled.

  “I will not sit and wait for the peasants to riot, or this sickly smell of rot to fill every room in the city. Send out messengers to the leader of these people. Tell him I will grant him an audience that we may discuss his demands on my people.”

  “Majesty, they are little better than savage dogs,” the minister spluttered. “There can be no negotiation with them.”

  Rai Chiang turned furious eyes on his servant. “Send them out. I have not been able to destroy this army of savage dogs. All I have is the fact that he cannot take my city from me. Perhaps I can bribe him into leaving.”

  The minister flushed with the shame of the task, but he bowed to the floor, pressing his head against the cool wood.

  As evening came, the tribes were drunk and singing. The storytellers had been busy with tales of the battle and how Genghis had drawn the enemy past their ring of iron. Comic poems had the children in fits of giggles, and before the light faded, there were many contests of wrestling and archery, the champions wearing a grass wreath on their heads until they drank themselves to insensibility.

  Genghis and his generals presided over the celebration. Genghis blessed a dozen new marriages, giving weapons and ponies from his own herd to warriors who had distinguished themselves. The gers were packed with women captured from the towns, though not all the wives welcomed the newcomers. More than one fight between women had ended in bloodshed, each time with the sinewy Mongol women victorious over their husbands’ captives. Before nightfall Kachiun had been called to the site of three different killings as anger flared with the airag liquor in their veins. He had ordered two men and a woman to be tied to a post and beaten bloody. He did not care about those who had been killed, but he had no desire to see the tribes descend into an orgy of lust and violence. Perhaps because of his iron hand, the mood of the tribes remained light as the stars came out and though some of them missed the plains of home, they looked upon their leaders with pride.

  Beside the ger where Genghis met his generals was his family home, no larger or more ornate than any other raised by the families of the new nation. While he cheered the wrestling bouts and torches were lit around the vast camp, his wife, Borte, sat with her four sons, crooning to them as they ate. With the coming of dusk, Jochi and Chagatai had made themselves difficult to find, preferring the noise and fun of the feast to sleep. Borte had been forced to send out three warriors to scour the gers for them, and they had been brought back still struggling under their arms. Both boys sat glaring at one another in the little ger while Borte sang Ogedai and little Tolui to sleep. The day had been exhausting for them and it did not take long before both younger boys were dreaming in their blankets.

  Borte turned to Jochi, frowning at the anger in his face.

  “You have not eaten, little man,” she said to him. He sniffed without replying and Borte leaned closer to him.

  “That cannot be airag I smell on your breath?” she demanded. Jochi’s manner changed in an instant and he drew up his knees like a barrier.

  “It would be,” Chagatai said, delighted at the chance to see his brother squirm. “Some of the men gave him a drink and he was sick on the grass.”

  “Keep your mouth still!” Jochi shouted, springing up. Borte grabbed him by the arm, her strength easily a match for the little boy’s. Chagatai grinned, thoroughly satisfied.

  “He is bitter because he broke his favorite bow this morning,” Jochi snapped, struggling in his mother’s grasp. “Let me go!”

  In response, Borte slapped Jochi across the face and dropped him back onto the blankets. It was not a hard blow, but he raised his hand to his cheek in shock.

  “I have heard your squabbling all day,” she said angrily. “When will you realize you cannot fight like puppies with the tribes watching? Not you. Do you think it pleases your father? If I tell him, you will . . .”

  “Don’t tell him,” Jochi said quickly, fear showing on his face. Borte relented immediately.

  “I will not, if you behave and work. You will inherit nothing from him simply because you are his sons. Is Arslan his blood? Jelme? If you are fit to lead, he will choose you, but do not expect him to favor you over better men.”

  Both boys were listening intently and she realized she had not spoken to them in this way before. It surprised her to see how they hung on every word, and she considered what else she might say before they were distracted.

  “Eat your food while y
ou listen,” she said. To her pleasure, both boys took the plates of meat and wolfed into them, though they had long gone cold. Their eyes never left hers as they waited for their mother to continue.

  “I had thought your father might have explained this to you by now,” she murmured. “If he were khan of a small tribe, perhaps his eldest would expect to inherit his sword, his horse, and his bondsmen. He once expected the same from your grandfather, Yesugei, though his brother Bekter was oldest.”

  “What happened to Bekter?” Jochi asked.

  “Father and Kachiun killed him,” Chagatai said with relish. Borte winced as Jochi’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Truly?”

  His mother sighed. “That is a story for another day. I don’t know where Chagatai heard it, but he should know better than to listen to the gossip of the campfires.”

  Chagatai nodded briskly at Jochi behind her back, grinning at his brother’s discomfort. Borte shot him an irritable glance, catching him before he could freeze.

  “Your father is not some small khan from the hills,” she said. “He has more tribes than can be counted on the hands. Will you expect him to hand them over to a weakling?” She turned to Chagatai. “Or a fool?” She shook her head. “He will not. He has younger brothers and they will all have sons. The next khan may come from them, if he is dissatisfied with the men you become.”

  Jochi lowered his head as he thought this through. “I am better with a bow than anyone else,” he muttered. “And my pony is only slow because he is so small. When I have a man’s mount, I will be faster.”

  Chagatai snorted.

  “I am not talking about the skills of war,” Borte said, nettled. “You will both be fine warriors, I have seen it in you.” Before they could begin to preen at the rare compliment, she went on. “Your father will look to see if you can lead men and think quickly. Did you see the way he raised Tsubodai to command a hundred? The boy is unknown, of no bloodline that matters, but your father respects his mind and his skill. He will be tested, but he could be a general when he has his full growth. He could command a thousand, even ten thousand warriors in war. Will you do the same?”