Conqueror: The Complete 5-Book Collection. Conn Iggulden
had been pitiful to the boys.
Kachiun and Khasar had climbed far up the cleft, scouting the land and looking for any animal that might have strayed away from a herd and gone wild. Kachiun had made himself a small bow and three arrows with tips hard and black from the fire. Temujin wished them luck, but he knew he had a better chance of saving them, if he could only make a good strike. He could almost taste the hot meat of the marmot as it sat up twenty paces away. It was a shot a child could have made if the arrows had been flighted. As it was, Temujin was forced to wait while the agony built in his arms. He dared not speak aloud, but in his mind, he called to the nervous creatures, willing them to wander a little further away from safety, a little closer to him.
He blinked stinging sweat from his eyes as the marmot looked around, sensing there was a predator nearby. Temujin watched as the animal froze, knowing the next movement would be a vanishing scuttle as the alarm went up. He released his breath and loosed the shaft, sick with the expectation of seeing it wasted.
It hit the marmot in the neck. The strike had been without any real force, remaining stuck as the animal struggled in a frenzy, pawing at it. Temujin dropped the bow and leapt to his feet, running towards his kill before it could recover and disappear underground. He saw the lighter belly fur and the legs jerking manically as he ran, desperate not to lose his chance.
He fell on the marmot, gripping it frantically. It went berserk and, in his weakened state, he almost lost it as it writhed in his grip. The arrow fell away and blood spattered on the dry ground. Temujin found there were tears of relief in his eyes as he pulled the neck out and twisted it. The marmot still kicked and jerked against his leg as he stood panting, but they would eat. He waited for dizziness to pass, feeling the weight of the animal he’d caught. It was fat and healthy and he knew his mother would have some hot meat and blood that night. The tendons would be ground into a paste and layered with fish glue onto his bow for strength. His next shot would be at a longer range, the kill more certain. He placed his hands on his knees and laughed weakly at his own relief. It was such a small thing, but it meant so much, he could hardly take it in.
Behind his back, he heard a voice he knew.
‘What did you get?’ Bekter said, walking across the grass towards his brother. He carried his own bow on his shoulder and he did not have the pinched and starving look of the others. It had been Kachiun who first voiced the suspicion that Bekter was not bringing his kills back to the family. He accepted his share readily enough, but in the four days since they had come to that place, he had brought nothing of his own to the fire. Temujin stood straight, uncomfortable with the way Bekter’s eyes drifted over the prey he had taken.
‘A marmot,’ he said, holding it up.
Bekter leaned closer to see and then snatched at it. Temujin jerked backwards and the limp corpse fell sprawling into the dust. Both boys grabbed for it, kicking and punching wildly at each other. Temujin was too weak to do more than hold Bekter back before he was thrown off and left looking up at the blue sky, his chest heaving.
‘I will take this one back to our mother. You would only have stolen it and eaten it yourself,’ Bekter said, smiling down at Temujin.
It was galling to have Kachiun’s own suspicion thrown in his face and Temujin tried to struggle up. Bekter held him down with a foot and he could not fight him. His strength seemed to have vanished.
‘Catch yourself another, Temujin. Don’t come back until you do.’
Bekter laughed then and snatched up the limp marmot, jogging away down the hillside to where the greenery became dark and thick. Temujin watched him go, so angry he thought his heart would burst. It fluttered in his chest and he wondered with a pang of terror if hunger could have weakened it. He could not die while Eeluk ruled the Wolves, or while Bekter had not been punished.
By the time he sat up, he had mastered himself once more. The foolish marmots had returned while he lay there, though they scattered as soon as he rose. Grimly, he returned to his arrow and notched it into the braided string, settling back into the stillness of the hunter. His muscles ached and his legs threatened to cramp under the strain, but his heart slowed to beat with force and need.
There was only one marmot to feed the family that night. Hoelun revived as Bekter brought it to her and made a larger fire to heat stones. Though her hands shook, she nicked the belly neatly and scooped out the guts and organs, filling the space with pebbles hot enough to crack. She kept her deel wrapped around her hands, but twice she winced as the heat stung her fingers. The meat was seared from the inside and then the bloated skin rolled in the embers, charring it to crisp deliciousness. The heart too was roasted in the ashes until it sizzled. Nothing would be wasted.
The smell alone seemed to put a little colour in Hoelun’s cheeks, and she hugged Bekter, her relief turning to tears she did not seem to feel. Temujin said nothing of what had happened. She needed them to work together and it would have been cruelty to accuse his smiling brother when she was so weak.
Bekter basked in the attention, his gleaming gaze falling on Temujin at regular intervals. Temujin stared darkly back when his mother was not looking. Kachiun noticed as the evening faded to night, and he jogged his brother with an elbow.
‘What’s wrong?’ the little boy whispered, as they settled down to eat.
Temujin shook his head, unwilling to share his hatred. He could hardly think of anything else except the steaming scraps of meat pressed into his hands by Bekter, who chose the portions like a khan feeding his men. Temujin saw he kept the shoulder, the best piece, for himself.
None of them had ever tasted anything as fine as that meat. The family became a little happier, a little more hopeful, as it warmed them. One shot with the bow had brought about the changes, though Kachiun had added another three small fish and a few crickets to the fire. It was a feast that ached and burned inside them as the younger boys forced the morsels down too quickly and had to drink water against the heat. Temujin might have forgiven the theft if his brothers had not been so generous in their praise. Bekter accepted it as his due, his small eyes filled with an inner amusement only Temujin understood.
There was no rain that night and the boys slept in the second of the rough shelters they had constructed, a tiny part of their hunger laid to rest. It was still there, hurting, but they could hold it back once more and show the cold face to discomfort as they retreated from a ragged edge where no control was possible.
Temujin did not sleep. He rose on silent feet and padded out into the darkness, looking up at the moon and shivering. The summer would not last much longer, he realised as he walked. The winter was coming and it would kill them as surely as a knife in the chest. The marmots slept in their burrows in the cold months, far underground, where they could not be reached. The birds flew south and could not be trapped. Winter was hard enough for families in warm gers, surrounded by cattle and horses. It would be murder for the family of Yesugei.
As he stood and emptied his bladder onto the ground, he could not help thinking of the Olkhun’ut and the night he had crept out after Koke. He had been a child then, with nothing better to do than settle scores with other boys. He ached for the innocence of that night and wished Borte were there to hold. He snorted to himself at that thought, knowing Borte was warm and well fed, while his bones were showing.
Temujin sensed a presence behind him and spun, dropping low and ready to lunge or run.
‘You must have good ears, brother,’ Kachiun’s voice came. ‘I am like a silent breeze at night.’
Temujin smiled at his brother, relaxing. ‘Why are you awake?’
Kachiun shrugged. ‘Hungry. I’d stopped feeling it all day yesterday, then Bekter brings in a handful of marmot meat and my stomach has woken up again.’
Temujin spat on the ground. ‘My marmot. I killed it; he was just the one who took it from me.’
Kachiun’s face was difficult to read in the moonlight, but Temujin could see he was troubled.
‘I guessed it. I don’t think the others noticed.’
He fell silent,