LITMIR.BIZ

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chuckled, raising his sword.

      ‘Then I will make you see,’ he said. He saw Temujin had removed part of his armour and Eeluk held up a palm. Temujin stood ready, unmoving as Eeluk untied the boiled leather shields that had kept him alive in the battle. Temujin raised his arms and his brothers did the same for him, so that both men stood in just tunics, leggings and boots, with dark sweat patches drying in the breeze. Both of them hid their weariness and worried that the other seemed fresh.

      Temujin raised his sword and eyed the blade Eeluk held as if the weight was nothing. He had seen Eeluk’s face in a thousand training bouts with Arslan and Yuan. The reality was different and he could not summon the calm he desperately needed. Eeluk seemed somehow to have grown in height. The man who had abandoned the family of Yesugei to die was hugely strong and, without his armour, his frame was intimidating. Temujin shook his head, as if to clear it of fear.

      ‘Come to me, carrion,’ he murmured and Eeluk’s eyes narrowed.

      Both men exploded into movement from utter stillness, darting forward with quick steps. Temujin parried the first blow at his head, feeling his arms shudder under the impact. His chest ached where the arrow had torn his muscle and he struggled to control a rage that would kill him with its wildness. Eeluk pressed him hard, swinging his blade like a cleaver with huge force so that Temujin either had to leap aside or bear a staggering blow. His right arm was growing numb as he caught and turned each impact. The men of three tribes gave them space in a great ring, but they did not call out or cheer. Temujin saw their faces as a blur as he circled his enemy, switching gaits to reverse back on himself as Eeluk swiped at air.

      ‘You are slower than you used to be,’ Temujin told him.

      Eeluk did not reply, his face growing hot. He lunged, but Temujin batted the blade aside and hammered his elbow against Eeluk’s face. Eeluk struck back instantly, his fist thumping into Temujin’s unprotected chest in a straight blow.

      Pain soared through him and Temujin saw Eeluk had aimed for the bloody spot on his tunic. He growled aloud as he came in, his fury fed by the agony. Eeluk met his wild swing and punched again at the bloody muscle, starting a thin red stream that stained the tunic over older streaks. Temujin cried out and took a step back, but when Eeluk came with him, he stepped outside the line of his father’s sword and chopped hard into Eeluk’s arm below the elbow. With a less powerful man, he might have taken it off, but Eeluk’s forearms writhed with muscle. Even then, the wound was terrible and blood spurted from it. Eeluk did not look down at his useless hand, though blood dripped through his knuckles and fell in fat drops.

      Temujin nodded to him, showing his teeth. His enemy would weaken and he did not want it to be quick.

      Eeluk came forward once more, his sword a blur. The clash of metal sent tremors right through Temujin each time they struck, but he exulted, feeling Eeluk’s strength fade. As they fell back, Temujin took a gash along his thigh that made his right leg buckle, so that he remained in place while Eeluk circled. Both men were panting by then, losing the last reserves of energy they had recovered after the battle. The tiredness was crushing their strength until it was only will and hate that kept them facing each other.

      Eeluk used Temujin’s bad leg against him, launching an attack then stepping swiftly aside before Temujin could adjust. Twice the blades rang just clear of Temujin’s neck and Eeluk caught the replies with ease. Yet he was faltering. The wound on his arm had not ceased its bleeding and, as he stepped away, he suddenly staggered, his eyes losing focus. Temujin glanced down at Eeluk’s arm to see the blood still pulsing out. He could hear it spattering on the dust whenever Eeluk was still and now there was a paleness to his skin that had not been there before.

      ‘You are dying, Eeluk,’ Temujin said.

      Eeluk did not respond as he came in again, gasping with every breath. Temujin swayed aside from the first of his blows and let the second cut him along his side, so that Eeluk came in close. He struck back like a snake and Eeluk was sent staggering away, his legs weakening. A hole had appeared high in his chest and blood gouted from it. Eeluk bent over the wound, trying to brace himself on his knees. His left hand would not respond and he almost lost his sword as he struggled for breath.

      ‘My father loved you,’ Temujin said, watching him. ‘If you had been loyal, you would have stood here with me now.’

      Eeluk’s skin had gone a sick white as he heaved for air and strength.

      ‘Instead, you dishonoured his trust,’ Temujin continued. ‘Just die, Eeluk. I have no more use for you.’

      He watched as Eeluk tried to speak, but blood touched his lips and no sound came out. Eeluk went down onto one knee and Temujin sheathed his sword, waiting. It seemed to take a long time as Eeluk clung to life, but he slumped at last, sprawling sideways on the ground. His chest became still and Temujin saw one of the Wolves walk out from where they watched. Temujin tensed for another attack, but he saw it was the bondsman Basan, and he hesitated. The man who had saved Temujin from Eeluk once before came to stand over the body, looking down on it. Basan’s expression was troubled, but without speaking, he reached down to pick up the wolf’s-head sword and straightened. As Temujin and his brothers watched, Basan held out the blade hilt first and Temujin took it, welcoming its weight to his hand like an old friend. He thought for a moment that he might pass out himself before he felt his brothers hold him upright.

      ‘I waited a long time to see that,’ Khasar murmured under his breath.

      Temujin stirred from his apathy, remembering how his brother had kicked Sansar’s corpse.

      ‘Treat the body with dignity, brother. I need to win over the Wolves and they won’t forgive us if we treat him badly. Let them take him up to the hills and lay him out for the hawks.’ He looked around at the silent ranks from three tribes. ‘Then I want to go back to the camp and claim what is mine. I am khan of the Wolves.’

      He tasted the words in a whisper and his brothers gripped him tighter on hearing them, their faces showing nothing to those who watched.

      ‘I’ll see to it,’ Khasar said. ‘You must have your wound bound before you bleed to death.’

      Temujin nodded, overcome with exhaustion. Basan had not moved and he thought he should speak to the Wolves as they stood stunned around them, but it would wait. They had nowhere else to go.

      CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

      More than two hundred warriors had been lost in the battle against the Tartars. Before Temujin’s forces left the area, the skies were filled with circling hawks, vultures and ravens, the hillsides writhing with wings as they stalked amongst the corpses, fighting and screeching. Temujin had given orders that no difference would be made between Kerait, Olkhun’ut and Wolves. The shamans of three tribes overcame their dislike of each other and chanted the death rites while the warriors watched the birds of prey gliding overhead. Even before the chanting had finished, ragged black vultures had landed, their dark eyes watching the living as they hopped onto dead men.

      They left the Tartars where they had fallen, but it was not until late in the day that the carts began to move back to their main camp. Temujin and his brothers rode in the lead, with the Wolf bondsmen at his back. If he had not been the son of the old khan, they could well have killed him as soon as Eeluk fell, but Basan had handed him his father’s sword and they had not moved. Though they did not exult as the Olkhun’ut and Kerait did, they were steady and they were his. Tolui rode stiffly with them, his face showing the marks of a beating. Khasar and Kachiun had taken him quietly aside in the night and he did not look at them as he rode.

      As they reached Togrul’s camp, the women came out to greet their husbands and sons, searching faces desperately until they saw their loved ones had survived. Voices cried out in pleasure and grief alike and the plain was alive with cheering and noise.

      Temujin trotted his battered mare to where Togrul had come out and was standing

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