LITMIR.BIZ

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the gers of the Wolves. They would have mourned him and taken his body for sky burial, taking comfort from the ritual. In the cleft in the hills, it was just another reminder that death walked with them. It had been an adventure for a while in the beginning, until starvation stretched their skin over their bones. As things stood, they lived like wild animals and tried not to fear the coming winter.

      Khasar had lost his laughter in the cleft in the hills. He had begun to brood after Temujin went away and it was he who cuffed Temuge for troubling their mother too often. In Bekter’s absence, they were all finding new roles and it was Khasar who led the hunt each morning with Kachiun, his face grim. They had found a better pool further up the cleft, though they had to pass where Bekter had been killed to reach it. Kachiun had searched the ground and seen where Temujin had dragged the body away and covered it with branches. Their brother’s flesh attracted scavengers, and when Kachiun found a lean dead dog at the camp’s edge on the second evening, he had to force himself to swallow every vital mouthful. He could not escape the vision of Temujin killing the animal as it worried at Bekter’s body, but Kachiun needed the food and the dog was the best meal they had found since coming to that place.

      On the evening of the fifth day, Temujin strode back into the camp. His family froze at his step, the younger ones watching Hoelun for her reaction. She watched him come and saw that he held a young kid goat in his arms, still alive. Her son looked stronger, she realised, his skin darkened by days spent on the hills in the wind and sun. It was confusing to feel such a wave of relief that he was all right and, at the same time, undimmed hatred for what he had done. She could not find forgiveness in her.

      Temujin took his find by the ear and prodded it into the circle of his family.

      ‘There are two herders a few miles to the west of here,’ he said. ‘They are alone.’

      ‘Did they see you?’ Hoelun said suddenly, surprising them all.

      Temujin looked at her and his steady gaze became uncertain.

      ‘No. I took this one when they rode behind a hill. It might be missed, I do not know. It was too good a chance to ignore.’ He shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he waited for his mother to say something else. He did not know what he would do if she sent him away again.

      ‘They will look for it and find your tracks,’ Hoelun said. ‘You may have brought them here after you.’

      Temujin sighed. He did not have the strength for another argument. Before his mother could protest, he sat down cross-legged by the fire and drew his knife.

      ‘We have to eat to live. If they find us, we will kill them.’

      He saw his mother’s face become cold again and he waited for the storm that would surely follow. He had run for miles that day and every muscle in his thin body was aching. He could not bear another night on his own and perhaps that fear showed in his face.

      Kachiun spoke to break the awful tension.

      ‘One of us should scout around the camp tonight in case they come,’ he said.

      Temujin nodded without looking at him, his gaze fixed on his mother.

      ‘We need each other,’ he said. ‘If I was wrong to kill my brother, it does not change that.’

      The kid goat bleated and tried to make a dash for a gap between Hoelun and Temuge. Hoelun reached out and gripped it around the neck and Temujin saw she was crying in the firelight.

      ‘What should I say to you, Temujin?’ she murmured. The kid was warm and she buried her face in its coat as it cried out and struggled. ‘You have torn my heart out and perhaps I do not care about whatever is left.’

      ‘You care about the others, though. We need you to live through the winter, or we’re all finished,’ Temujin said. He straightened his back as he spoke and his yellow eyes seemed to shine in the light of the flames.

      Hoelun nodded to herself, humming a song from her childhood as she fondled the ears of the little goat. She had seen two of her brothers die from a plague that left them swollen and black, abandoned on the plains by her father’s tribe. She had heard warriors scream from wounds that could not be healed, their agonies going on and on for days until the life was dragged out of them at last. Some had even asked for the mercy of a blade opening their throat and been granted it. She had walked with death all her life and perhaps she could even lose a son and survive it, as a mother of Wolves.

      She did not know if she could love the man who killed him, though she ached to gather him in and press away his sorrow. She did not, instead reaching for her knife.

      She had made birch-bark bowls for the camp while her sons were hunting and she tossed one to Khasar and Kachiun. Temuge scrambled forward to take another and then there were only two of the crude containers left and Hoelun turned sad eyes on her last son.

      ‘Take a bowl, Temujin,’ she said, after a time. ‘The blood will give you strength.’

      He lowered his head on hearing the words, knowing that he would be allowed to stay. He found his hands were shaking as he took his bowl and held it out with the others. Hoelun sighed and took a firmer grip on the goat before jamming in the blade and cutting the veins in its neck. Blood poured over her hands and the boys jostled each other to catch it before it was wasted. The goat continued to struggle as they filled the bowls and drank the hot liquid, smacking their lips and feeling it reach into their bones, easing the aches.

      When the flow was just a trickle, Hoelun held the limp animal in one hand and patiently filled her own bowl to brimming before she drank. The goat still pawed at the air, but it was dying or already dead, and its eyes were huge and dark.

      ‘We will cook the meat tomorrow night, when I am sure the fire will not bring the herdsmen looking for their lost goat,’ she told them. ‘If they come here, they must not leave to tell where we are. Do you understand?’

      The boys licked their bloody mouths as they nodded solemnly. Hoelun took a deep breath, crushing her grief somewhere deep, where she still mourned Yesugei and everything they had lost. It had to be locked away where it could not destroy her, but somewhere, she was crying, on and on.

      ‘Will they come to kill us?’ Temuge asked in his high voice, looking nervously at the stolen goat.

      Hoelun shook her head, pulling him towards her to give and take a little comfort.

      ‘We are Wolves, little one. We do not die easily.’ As she spoke, her eyes were on Temujin, and he shivered at her cold ferocity.

      With his face pressed against the frozen white grass, Temujin stared down at the two herdsmen. They slept on their backs, wrapped in padded deels with their arms drawn into the sleeves. His brothers lay on their bellies at his side, the frost seeping into their bones. The night was perfectly still. The huddled gathering of sleeping animals and men were oblivious to those who watched and hungered. Temujin strained his eyes in the gloom. All three boys carried bows and knives and there was no lightness in their expressions as they watched and judged their chances. Any movement would have the goats bleating in panic and the two men would jerk to wakefulness in an instant.

      ‘We can’t get any closer,’ Khasar whispered.

      Temujin frowned as he considered the problem, trying to ignore the ache in his flesh from lying on frozen ground. The herdsmen would be hard men, well able to survive on their own. They would have bows close by and they would be used to leaping up and killing a wolf as it tried to steal a lamb. It would make no difference if the prey was three boys, especially at night.

      Temujin swallowed past a hard knot in his throat, glaring down at the peaceful scene. He might have agreed with his brother and crept back to the cleft in the hills if it had not been for the scrawny pony the men had hobbled nearby. It slept standing up, with its head almost touching the ground. Temujin yearned to have it, to ride again. It would mean he could hunt far further away than before, dragging even large prey behind him. If it was a mare, it might have milk, and his tongue tasted the sourness in memory. The men would have any number of useful things on their person and he could not bear to simply let

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