As he stared out across Jiankang, Xuan ground his teeth silently, the only sign of his tension. They had scorned his fire-pots and hand-cannon. The Sung had such things in their thousands and of more advanced designs. It was clear they thought themselves untouchable. Their armies were strong and well supplied, their cities wealthy. Some bitter part of him almost wanted the Mongols to reveal the folly of such arrogance. It made his stomach churn to see the way the Sung officers glanced at him and whispered, as if he had just given Chin lands away to herdsmen. It was a peculiar thing to take pleasure in the image of the Mongol khan riding his warriors into Jiankang, sending the Sung armies running in disarray.
Xuan smiled at the thought. The sun had risen and the silk looms could be heard tapping like insects deep in a beam of wood. He would spend the day with his senior advisers, talking endlessly and pretending they had some purpose while they waited for the Sung emperor to notice their existence.
As Xuan looked over the roofs of Jiankang, a bell sounded nearby, one of a hundred different tones that rang across the city at different times in the day. Some signalled the changing hours or announced the arrival of messengers, others called children to school. As the sun set, the words of a poem from Xuan's youth came back to him and he murmured the lines, taking pleasure in the memories.
'The sun grows dim and sinks in the dusk. People are coming home and the bright peaks darken. Wild geese fly to the white reeds. I think of a northern city gate and I hear a bell tolling between me and sleep.'
Tears sprang into his eyes as he thought of his father's kindness to the thin little boy he had been, but he blinked them away before someone could see and report his weakness. The horses Mohrol had chosen were all young mares, capable of bearing foals. He had taken them from the herd of spare mounts that followed the tumans, spending half a day selecting each mare for perfection of colour and unblemished skin. One of the owners stood in mute misery as two of his best white mares were marked for sacrifice, the product of generations of careful selection and breeding. Neither had borne foals and their bloodlines would be lost. Ogedai's name made all resistance vanish, despite the near-sacred relationship between herdsmen and their beloved mounts.
Such a thing had never been seen before on the plains. The tumans pressed so closely around the ger where Ogedai lay that Mohrol had to ask for them to be kept away. Even then, the warriors crept forward with their wives and children, desperate to see magic and great sacrifice. The life of no other could have been worth such a price and they watched with fascination and dread as Mohrol sharpened his butcher's knives and blessed them.
Khasar sat close to where Ogedai lay on a silk-covered pallet in the setting sun. The khan had been dressed in polished armour, and at intervals, his mouth opened and shut slowly, as if he gasped for water. It was impossible to see his pale skin and not think of Genghis laid out for death. Khasar winced at the thought, his heart beating faster at an old grief. He tried not to stare as the first white mare was brought forward with two strong men holding her head. The other horses were kept well back where they would not see the killing, but Khasar knew they would smell the blood.
The young mare was already nervous, sensing something in the air. She pranced, jerking her head up and down and whinnying aloud, fighting the tight grip of fingers in her mane. Her pale skin was perfect, unmarked by scars or ticks. Mohrol had chosen well and some of the watching warriors were tightmouthed at such a sacrifice.
Mohrol built a bonfire taller than himself in front of the khan's ger, then lit a branch of cedar wood, snuffing the flames so that the wood gave off a trail of fragrant white smoke. The shaman walked to Ogedai and held the smoking branch over his body, cleansing the air and blessing the khan for the ritual to come. With slow steps, he made a path around the supine form, muttering an incantation that made the hair on Khasar's neck stand up. Khasar glanced at his nephew Tolui and found him rapt, fascinated by the shaman. The younger man would never understand how Khasar had once heard Genghis speaking an ancient tongue, with the blood of enemies fresh on his lips.
The darkness seemed to come quickly after looking into the flames of Mohrol's fire. Thousands of warriors sat in silence and even those who had been injured in the fighting had been moved far away so that their cries of pain would not disturb the ritual. The quiet was so perfect that Khasar thought he could hear their keening cries even so, thin and distant, like birds.
With great care the mare's front and rear legs were bound in pairs. Whinnying in distress, she struggled briefly as warriors pushed at her haunches, rolling them so that she could not remain upright. Unable to take a step, she fell clumsily, lying with her head raised. One of the warriors took her muscular neck in his arms, holding her steady. The other gripped the back legs and they both looked up for Mohrol.
The shaman would not be rushed. He prayed aloud, singing and whispering in turn. He dedicated the life of the mare to the earth mother who would receive the blood. He asked again and again for the khan's life to be spared.
In the middle of the ritual, Mohrol approached the mare. He had two knives and continued to sing and pray as he chose a place below the neck, where the smooth white skin began to sweep down into the mare's chest. The two warriors braced themselves.
With a quick jerk, Mohrol jammed the blade in to its hilt. Blood streamed out, pumping rich and dark, covering his hands. The mare shuddered and whinnied in panic, snorting and struggling to rise. The warriors sat on her haunches and the blood continued to gout with every beat of her heart, covering the warriors as they struggled to hold her slippery flesh.
Mohrol placed a hand on her neck, feeling how the skin grew cold. The mare was still struggling, but more weakly. He pulled back her lips and nodded at the sight of the pale gums. In a loud voice, the shaman called once more to the spirits of the land and reached out with his second knife. It was a heavyhilted block of metal, as long as his forearm and fine-edged. He waited until the blood flow was sluggish, then sawed quickly, back and forth across the mare's throat. The blade disappeared into the flesh. More blood rushed and he watched her pupils grow large and infinitely dark.
Mohrol's arms were red as he walked over to the khan. Unaware of all that was being done in his name, Ogedai lay unmoving, pale as death. Mohrol shook his head slightly and marked the khan's cheeks with a red stripe from his finger.
No one dared to speak as he returned to the dead mare. They knew there was magic in sacrifice. As Mohrol brushed a biting insect from his face, many of them made a sign against evil at the thought of spirits gathering like flies on carrion.
Mohrol did not look discouraged as he nodded to the men to drag away the dead animal and bring in the next. He knew the mares would struggle as they smelled the blood, but he could at least spare them the sight of a dead horse.
Once again, he began the chant that would end in sacrifice. Khasar looked away and many of the warriors drifted off rather than witness such wealth being ruined with a blade.
The second mare seemed quieter than the first, less spirited. She allowed herself to be walked in, but then she sensed something. In just a moment, she was panicking, whinnying loudly and using all her strength to pull the rein away from the man holding her. As they heaved in opposite directions, the halter snapped and she was free. In the darkness, she cannoned into Tolui, knocking him to the ground.