shaking fingers. The view beyond the barricade was blocked with grasping hands and blades and bloody faces. She did not understand what was happening at first. She flinched at a roar as more men came into the outer room. Some of those struggling with Ogedai and Tolui turned at the sound and then they were yanked back. Sorhatani saw a sword appear through the throat of a man facing her, as if he had grown a long and bloody tongue. He fell jerking and the view was suddenly clear.
Ogedai and Tolui panted like dogs in the sun. In the other room, a group of armoured men were finishing off the attackers with quick, efficient blows.
Jebe stood there, and at first he ignored the survivors, even Ogedai. He had seen Tsubodai on the ground and knelt at his side just as the general struggled to his knees. Tsubodai was shaking his head; dazed and gashed, but alive.
Jebe rose and saluted Ogedai with his sword.
‘I am pleased to see you well, my lord,’ he said, smiling.
‘How are you here?’ Ogedai snapped, his blood still surging with anger and fear.
‘Your uncles sent me, lord, with forty bondsmen. We had to kill a lot of men to reach you.’
Tolui clapped his brother on the back in delight before he turned and embraced Sorhatani. Kublai and Mongke punched each other on the shoulders and mock-scuffled until Kublai was in Mongke’s headlock.
‘Tsubodai? General?’ Ogedai said.
He watched as Tsubodai’s glazed eyes cleared. A warrior put out his hand to steady the general and Tsubodai batted it away irritably, still shaken by how close he had come to death at the feet of the attackers. When Tsubodai got to his feet, Jebe turned to him, as if reporting.
‘The Broken Lance closed the gates of the city. All the tumans are outside, on the plain. It may be war yet.’
‘How then did you get inside my city?’ Ogedai demanded. He looked for Huran and remembered with a pang of loss that the man had given his life at the first door.
‘We climbed the walls, my lord,’ Jebe said. ‘General Kachiun sent us before he rode to try and force his way in.’ He saw Ogedai’s look of surprise and shrugged. ‘They are not so very high, my lord.’
The rooms were lighter, Ogedai realised. Dawn had come to Karakorum and the day promised to be fine. With a start, he remembered this was the day of the oath-taking. He blinked, trying to put his thoughts in some sort of order, to see a way through after such a night. That there even was an ‘after’ was more than he had expected in the last moments. He felt dazed, lost in events beyond his control.
In the corridor outside, running footsteps could be heard. A messenger came pelting into the room and skidded to a halt, shocked by the mass of dead flesh and the collection of blades levelled at him. The room stank of opened bowels and urine, thick and choking in the enclosed space.
‘Report,’ Jebe said, recognising the scout.
The young man steadied himself. ‘The gates have reopened, general. I ran all the way, but there is an armed force coming.’
‘Of course there is,’ Tsubodai said, his deep voice startling everyone there. They all looked to him and Ogedai felt a surge of relief that he was there. ‘Everyone who was outside the walls last night will be coming here to see who survives.’ He turned to Ogedai then.
‘My lord, we have just moments. You must be clean and changed when they see you. This room must be sealed. It will keep for today at least.’
Ogedai nodded gratefully and Tsubodai snapped quick orders. Jebe went first, leaving six men to form a guard for the one who would be khan. Ogedai and Torogene followed, with Tolui and his family close behind. As they hurried down a long corridor, Ogedai saw that Tolui’s hand kept drifting to his wife or his sons as he strode, still hardly able to believe they were all safe.
‘The children, Ogedai,’ Torogene said.
He glanced at her and saw that her face was pale and drawn with worry. He put his arm around her shoulders and both of them took comfort from the other. Looking over her head, Ogedai could see no one who knew the palace well. Where was his servant, Baras’aghur? He addressed Jebe, as the closest man.
‘General, I must know if my son Guyuk survived the night. My daughters also. Have one of your men find their quarters – ask a servant. Bring me the news as quickly as you can. And find my chancellor, Yao Shu – and Baras’aghur. Get them moving. See who still lives.’
‘Your will, my lord,’ Jebe said quickly, bowing his head. Ogedai seemed almost manic, his mood hard to read. It was more than the excitement that can come after a battle, when life courses more strongly in the veins.
Ogedai rushed on, his wife and Guards struggling to keep up. Somewhere ahead, he could hear marching feet and he darted down another corridor away from the sound. He needed fresh clothes and to wash the blood and filth off him. He needed time to think.
Kachiun had become cold and pale as they rode through the streets, approaching Ogedai’s palace. There seemed to be bodies everywhere, with pools of darkening blood staining the polished stone gutters. Not all of them bore the marks of Ogedai’s Guard tuman. Others wore dark deels or armour rubbed with lamp-black, dull and greasy in the dawn light. The night had been bloody and Kachiun dreaded what he would see in the palace itself.
Chagatai rode lightly, shaking his head at such destruction until Khasar considered cutting his throat and wiping the expression off his face. The presence of three of Chagatai’s bondsmen kept his hand from his sword hilt. They did not stare at the dead. Their eyes were only for the two men riding with their lord, the man who would be khan before the end of the day.
The streets were silent. If any workers had left their homes after the clashes and screams of the night, the sight of so many bodies had sent them scurrying back to bar the doors. The six horsemen made their way to the steps leading up to the palace doors. Dead men lay splayed on the pale marble, their blood in patterns along the veins of stone.
Chagatai did not dismount, but urged his pony up the steps, clicking his tongue as it trod gingerly past the corpses. The main door to the first courtyard stood open and there was no one to challenge his right to enter. Crows called to each other and there were hawks and vultures already overhead, drawn by the scent of death on the breeze. Kachiun and Khasar looked at each other in grim surmise as they passed under a bar of shadow into the yard beyond. The tree of silver shone there in the dawn, beautiful and lifeless.
The generals could read the patterns of dead well enough. There had been no fixed battle, with lines of men cut down. Instead, the bodies lay randomly, killed from behind or taken by shafts they never saw. They could almost sense the defenders’ surprise as men dressed in shadows had appeared and killed, cutting through them before anyone could organise a defence. In the silence, Chagatai was rapt as he dismounted at last. His pony was skittish with the smell of blood and he made a point of tying the reins securely to a post.
‘I begin to fear for my brother,’ Chagatai said.
Khasar tensed and one of the bondsmen raised a hand to him, reminding him of their presence. The man was grinning, enjoying his master’s show.
‘You need not fear,’ came a voice, making them all jump.
Chagatai spun instantly, his sword leaping out of its scabbard in one movement. His bondsmen were barely slower, ready for any attack.
