again. It had to if he were to stay ahead of the khan’s army. No message could move faster than those riders. Until he spoke to Batu himself, the man would be completely unaware of the threat against him.
As Kublai left, the yam servant stared thoughtfully after him. He’d never seen yellow eyes like those before. Genghis was said to have had such eyes. The man scratched a flea bite on his cheek, lost in thought. After a time, he shrugged and went back to work.
The four men had watched the trail for three days, hunting in pairs, so that there were always rabbits for the stew each night. There was a huge warren nearby and it was easy enough to set strangling snares over the holes. They had a good view of the road through the mountains and so they spent their time talking, or gambling with knucklebones, or just repairing old kit. They knew they could expect to be relieved in another two days and they were approaching the end of their time. There had been little excitement. Just one family of peddlers had passed through and the men were not interested in the cheap goods they had in their little cart, drawn by an ancient pony with one white eye. With rough laughter and a kick, they had sent them on their way.
‘Someone coming,’ said Parikh, the youngest of them.
The other three shuffled over to the edge of their small camp, looking down at the trail below while being careful not to show their heads. Their bows were well wrapped against damp, lying unsprung so the strings didn’t stretch. Nonetheless, each man had the weapons in easy reach. They could have an arrow ready to fly in moments. They peered down, cursing the morning haze that blurred the air, seeming to come from the rocks themselves before it burned off.
Despite the mist, they could see a single man walking slowly, leading a lame horse. His head was bowed and he looked like any poor warrior, stumbling home after many nights hunting, or searching for a lost animal. Even so, the watchers had been placed on that road as the first line of defence and they were wary of anyone. The oldest, Tarrial, had seen more than his share of ambushes and battles. He alone had scars on his forearms and they looked to him for decisions. Sound carried far in the mountains, and with a silent gesture Tarrial sent Parikh off on his own along the ridge. The lad would scout for anyone else creeping up on them, as well as providing a second shot from hiding if something went wrong. The others waited until Parikh reached a place where he could see half a mile along the back trail. The young man raised a flat palm to them, visible at a distance. Clear.
Tarrial relaxed.
‘Just one man. Stay here and don’t steal my food. I’ll go down to him.’
He made no attempt to hide his progress as he scrambled down the rocky scree. In fact, he made as much noise as possible, rather than make the stranger nervous. Years before, Tarrial had seen his jagun officer killed on patrol in Samarkand. The officer had kept to the shadows while thieves robbed a store. As one of them passed him, he had stepped out and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, hoping to scare the thief half to death. His ploy had worked, but the man jammed a dagger into his ribs in panicked reflex. Tarrial smiled fondly at the memory of the officer’s face.
By the time he reached the trail, the stranger was close enough for Tarrial to make out his features. He was tall, unusually so. The stranger looked exhausted, his feet barely lifting with each stride. The pony was as dust-covered as he was and favoured its right foreleg.
Kublai sensed Tarrial’s gaze and jerked his head up. His hand dropped to his hip, but there was no sword there and, with a grimace, he raised his free hand to show he was unarmed.
‘Yam rider?’ Tarrial called.
‘Yes,’ Kublai replied. He was furious with himself for walking so blindly into the hills. He had lost track of the days, even of the horses he’d exchanged at yam stations along the way. Now, everything he had achieved could be undone by a few thieves. Not for the first time, he regretted leaving his weapons behind.
‘Who is the message for?’ Tarrial asked. There was something about the man that had his instincts twitching, though he couldn’t say what it was. Through all the grime that layered him, pale yellow eyes glared at Tarrial and more than once the rider’s hand dropped to his hip, as if he was used to carrying a sword. Odd, for a simple yam rider who always went unarmed.
‘No one stops the yam,’ Kublai said sternly. ‘The message isn’t for you, whoever you are.’
Tarrial grinned. The man couldn’t be much older than Parikh, but he spoke like one used to authority. Again, that was a strange thing for a yam rider. He couldn’t resist prodding a little further, just to get a reaction.
‘Seems to me a spy would say the same thing, though,’ Tarrial said.
Kublai raised his eyes to the sky for a moment. ‘A spy on a yam horse, with a leather bag? With nothing at all of value on him, I might add.’
‘Oh, we’re not thieves, lad. We’re soldiers. There’s a difference. Not always, I admit, but usually.’
To his surprise, Kublai straightened subtly, his gaze sharpening.
‘Who is your minghaan officer?’ he said curtly.
‘He’s about a hundred miles away, lad, so I don’t think I’ll be bothering him with you, not today.’
‘His name,’ Kublai snapped. There were only ten minghaans to every tuman. He knew the name of almost every man who held that rank in the nation.
Tarrial bristled at the tone, even as he wondered at it. Alone, unarmed, hundreds of miles from anywhere and the man still had an air about him that made Tarrial reconsider his first words.
‘You’re not like the yam riders I’ve seen before,’ he said warily.
‘I don’t have time for this,’ Kublai replied, losing patience. ‘Tell me his name, or get out of my way.’ Before Tarrial could reply, he tugged on his reins and began walking again, taking a path straight at the warrior.
Tarrial hesitated. He was tempted to knock the rider on his backside. No one would blame him, but some instinct for survival stayed his fists. Everything had been wrong about the meeting from the first words.
‘His name is Khuyildar,’ he said. If the rider tried to barge past him, Tarrial was confident he could put him down. Instead, the man stopped and closed his eyes for a moment, nodding.
‘Then the message is for his master, Batu of the Borjigin. For his ears alone and urgent. You had better take me to him.’
‘You only had to say, lad,’ Tarrial replied, still frowning.
‘Now.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
There wasn’t much conversation as Tarrial and Parikh led Kublai through the mountains. They had left only one man behind to watch the road, while the last of the four rode back to inform their officer. Kublai’s lame horse rested with the other mounts, while he had been given the smallest of the scouts’ ponies, an irritable animal that tried to bite whenever it saw a finger.
Parikh shared his waterskin with the strange yam rider, but neither Kublai nor Tarrial seemed to be in a mood to talk and his first efforts were ignored. With Tarrial in the lead, they followed a wide path that wound its way upwards into
