Kachiun grunted to himself in grudging admiration. He had seen many forces who would have broken before this. He reached the head of the column and swung back to the inside line once more, feeling his shoulders burn as he bent the bow again at full speed. He imagined his brother's face when the straggling remnants reached the welcome they had prepared at Yenking. Kachiun barked a laugh at the thought, his fingers growing sore as he scrabbled in the fast-emptying quiver. Ten more at most, but the column seemed to shudder as panic spread again through the ranks. The crossbow bolts had not stopped and Kachiun had to make a decision. He could feel his men looking to him for the order that would have them draw swords and carve the column to pieces. They were all running low on shafts, and when the last massed volley was fired, their work was over. They knew the orders as well as he did, but still they watched him, hoping.
Kachiun tensed his jaw. Yenking was far away and Genghis would surely forgive him if he finished the column on his own. He could feel how close they were to breaking. Everything he had learned over the years of war made it something he could almost taste.
He grimaced, chewing his own cheek as the moment swelled around him. At last he shook his head and drew a wide circle in the air with his fist. Every officer in sight repeated the gesture and the lines fell back from the shattered remnants of the column.
Kachiun watched his men form up in panting lines, exhilarated. Those who still had arrows loosed them with enormous care, taking men as they pleased. Kachiun could see their frustration as they reined in behind the column and watched it move away from them. Many of them patted the necks of their mounts and stared at their officers, furious at being called back from the killing. It made no sense and Kachiun had to be deaf to the shouts of complaint from all quarters.
As the column put distance between them, many of the soldiers looked back in terror, convinced they were going to be attacked from behind. Kachiun let a gap open, then walked his pony forward. He ordered the right and left wings to move up, so that they cupped the rear of the column and herded it onwards to Yenking.
Behind them, they left a trail of dead men over more than a mile, with fluttering pennants and pikes in piles. Kachiun sent a hundred warriors to loot the bodies and dispatch wounded men, but his gaze didn't leave the column as it made its way to his waiting brother.
It took until late afternoon for the battered column to sight the city it had come to relieve. By that point, the Chin soldiers who had survived the slaughter walked with their heads down, their spirits broken after so long with death at their backs. When they saw another ten thousand barring their way, fresh men with lances and bows, they sent up a moan of utter misery. The column shuddered again as they hesitated, knowing they could not fight their way through. Without a signal, they halted at last and Kachiun raised a fist to stop his men riding too close. In the gathering gloom, he waited for his brother to approach. He was pleased he had not denied Genghis this moment when he saw him ride apart from the tuman of warriors and come cantering across the grass.
The dull-eyed Chin soldiers watched him, panting and exhausted at the pace they had been forced to set. The carts of goods had drifted back through the hurrying ranks, left behind while Kachiun peeled men off to investigate the contents.
In a deliberate show, Genghis judged the mood of the column and rode right along the edge of it. Kachiun heard his men murmur in pleasure at the khan's display of courage. Perhaps there was still a risk that crossbows might take him from the saddle, but Genghis did not look at the Chin soldiers as he passed, seemingly unaware of the thousands of men turning to watch him from under lowered brows.
"You have not left me with many, brother," Genghis said. Kachiun could see he was pale and sweating from the ride. On impulse, Kachiun dismounted and touched his head to his brother's foot.
"I wish you could have been there to see the faces of their officers," Kachiun replied. "We are truly wolves in a world of sheep, brother."
Genghis nodded, his weariness preventing him from sharing Kachiun's light spirits. "I see no supplies here," he said.
"They have left them all behind, including as fine a herd of oxen as you will ever see."
Genghis perked up at that. "I have not eaten beef in a long time. We will roast them before Yenking and waft the smell of the meat over the walls. You have done well, brother. Shall we finish them?" Both men looked over the grim column of soldiers, now no more than half the original size.
Kachiun shrugged. "They are too many mouths to feed, unless you will give them the supplies they brought to this place. Let me try to disarm them first, or they could still fight."
"You think they will surrender?" Genghis asked. His eyes sparkled at his brother's suggestion, touched by Kachiun's evident pride. Of all things, the tribes revered a general who could win with wits rather than force.
Kachiun shrugged. "Let us see."
He summoned a dozen men who could speak the Chin language and sent them out to ride along the column as close as Genghis had himself, offering peace terms if they gave up their weapons. No doubt it helped that the men were near exhaustion after a day of being chased by an enemy who struck with shocking power while remaining untouched. Their morale had been left on the march, and Genghis smiled as he heard the crash of weapons being thrown down.
It was almost dark before the pikes, crossbows, and swords had been removed from the silent ranks. Genghis had sent fresh quivers by the thousand back to Kachiun, and the Mongols waited in calm anticipation as the sun made the plains gold.
Before the last light faded, a horn rang across the plain and twenty thousand bows bent. The Chin soldiers screeched in horror at the betrayal, the sound choked off as the volleys struck and struck and struck until it was too dark to see.
As the moon rose, hundreds of oxen were killed and roasted on the plain, and on the walls of the city, Zhi Zhong tasted his own bitter saliva, filled with a grinding despair. In Yenking, they were eating the dead.
When the feast was at its height, the spy saw the shaman rise and stagger drunkenly through the gers. He rose like a shadow to follow him, leaving Temuge to sleep off the haunch of bloody beef he had devoured. The warriors were chanting and dancing around the fires, and the drummer boys pounded out a fierce rhythm that hid the small noise of his steps. The spy kept the older man in sight as Kokchu paused to urinate on the path, fumbling blearily at himself and cursing in the darkness as he splashed his feet. The spy lost sight of his quarry as the man slipped into deep darkness between two carts. He did not hurry, guessing the man was going back to the Chin girl he kept as a slave in his home. As he walked he thought what he might say to the shaman. On his last trip to the walls, he heard the lord regent had begun a death lottery in the city, where a member of each peasant family was forced to reach into a clay pot as deep as his arm. Those who pulled out a white tile were butchered to feed the rest. Every day brought scenes of unimaginable pain and grief.
Lost in thought, he saw a shadow twitch as he came round the edge of a ger and let out a cry of shock and pain as he was knocked back into the side of it. The wicker braces creaked against his back and he could feel a cold blade at his throat, stopping his breath.
When Kokchu spoke, his voice was low and firm, with no sign of the extravagant drunkenness the spy had witnessed before.
"You have been watching me all night, slave. And now you follow me home. Hsst!" Kokchu made the sound as the spy raised his hands automatically in fear.