Conqueror: The Complete 5-Book Collection. Conn Iggulden
ached between them and Hoelun sighed.
‘You adore her, old man,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you tell her that?’
Sholoi coloured, though whether with anger or embarrassment, they could not tell.
‘She knows it,’ he muttered.
Borte paled as she stood there. She shook her head. ‘I did not,’ she replied. ‘How could I have known if you never said?’
‘I thought I must have done,’ Sholoi replied, looking out across the camp. The manoeuvres on the plain of massed warriors seemed to hold his attention and he could not look at his daughter.
‘I am proud of you, girl, you should know that,’ he said suddenly. ‘I would treat you more kindly if I could raise you again.’
Borte shook her head. ‘You can’t,’ she said. ‘And I have nothing to say to you now.’
The old man seemed to shrivel under the words, and when Borte turned to Hoelun, there were tears in her eyes. Sholoi did not see them and he continued to stare out across the plains and gers.
‘Let us go back,’ Borte said, her eyes pleading. ‘It was a mistake to come here.’
Hoelun thought of leaving her there for a few hours with her father. Temujin had been firm, however. Borte carried his heir and could not be risked. Hoelun suppressed her irritation. Perhaps it was part of being a mother, but the complexities between the pair seemed foolish. If they left then, she knew Borte would never see her father again and would spend her later years regretting the loss. Temujin would simply have to wait.
‘Make yourself comfortable,’ Hoelun snapped to her sons and Arslan. At least Khasar and Kachiun were used to her authority. ‘We will stay here while Borte visits her father in his ger.’
‘The khan was very clear …’ Arslan began.
Hoelun turned sharply to him. ‘Are we not one people?’ she demanded. ‘There is nothing to fear from the Olkhun’ut. I would know if there were.’
Arslan dropped his gaze, unsure how to respond.
‘Kachiun,’ Hoelun said, ‘go and find my brother Enq and tell him his sister will eat with him.’ She waited while Kachiun ran swiftly away, his legs moving before he thought to ask where the ger in question might be. Hoelun watched him hesitate at a crossed path and smiled. He would ask directions rather than come sheepishly back, she was sure. Her sons could think for themselves.
‘You will accompany me, Khasar, and you too, Arslan. You will eat and then we will find Borte and her father and take them back.’
Arslan was torn, remembering Temujin’s warnings. He did not relish being put in such a situation, but to argue further would shame Hoelun in front of the Olkhun’ut and he could not do that. In the end, he bowed his head.
Sholoi had turned back to watch the exchange. He flickered a glance at his daughter to see how she was taking it.
‘I would like that,’ he said.
Borte nodded stiffly and his smile lit up his face. Together, they walked back through the gers of the Olkhun’ut and Sholoi’s pride was visible from far away. Hoelun watched them go with satisfaction.
‘We are going to war,’ she murmured. ‘Would you deny them their last chance to talk as father and daughter?’
Arslan did not know if the question was aimed at him, so he did not respond. Hoelun seemed lost in memories, and then she shook herself.
‘I am hungry,’ she announced. ‘If my brother’s ger is where it used to be, I can find it still.’ She strode forward and Arslan and Khasar fell in behind, unable to look each other in the eye.
Four days after Temujin had brought the Olkhun’ut, warning horns sounded as the sun set across the plains. Though the warriors of both tribes had been run to exhaustion during the day, they leapt up from their meal, hunger forgotten as they gathered weapons.
Temujin mounted his pony to give him a better view. For a single sickening instant, he thought the Tartars had somehow marched around them, or split their forces to attack on two fronts. Then his hands tightened on the reins and he paled.
Kachiun’s eyes were as sharp as they had ever been and he too stiffened. Arslan looked at the reaction of the younger men, still unable to make out details in the growing gloom.
‘Who are they?’ he asked, squinting at the mass of dark riders galloping in.
Temujin spat furiously onto the ground by Arslan’s feet. He saw how well the strangers rode in formation and his mouth remained bitter.
‘They are my father’s tribe, Arslan. They are the Wolves.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Iron torches flickered and roared in the night wind as Eeluk entered the joint camp. Temujin had sent Arslan out to grant a meeting with the khan as soon as the Wolves halted. He would not go himself, and even as he saw Eeluk stride through the gers to where he sat with his brothers, he did not know if he could let him leave alive. To attack a guest was a crime that would hurt him with the Olkhun’ut and the Kerait, but he thought Eeluk could be goaded into breaking the protection and then Temujin would be free to kill him.
Eeluk had grown thicker in body in the years since Temujin had seen him last. His head was bare, shaved to the skull except for a single lock of braided hair that swung as he walked. He wore a heavy black deel, trimmed in dark fur, over a tunic and leggings. Temujin narrowed his eyes as he recognised the wolf’s-head hilt of the sword on his hip. Eeluk padded through the gers without looking round, his gaze fixed on the figures by the central fire. Tolui walked at his shoulder, even larger and more powerful than Temujin remembered.
Temujin had wanted to remain seated, to show how little he cared about the man who had come to him, but he could not. As Eeluk and Tolui approached, he rose to his feet, his brothers standing with him as if at a signal. Togrul saw how tense they were and, with a sigh, he too levered himself up. Yuan and a dozen of his best men stood at his back. Whatever Eeluk intended, his life would be forfeit at the slightest provocation.
Eeluk’s gaze flickered from Temujin to Khasar and Kachiun, frowning as he saw Temuge there. He did not recognise the youngest son of Yesugei, though he saw the fear in his eyes.
There was no fear in the others. Each of them stood ready to attack, their faces pale as their muscles tightened and their hearts pounded. The khan of the Wolves had been in all their dreams and they had killed him in a thousand ways before waking. Kachiun and Khasar had last seen him when he took the Wolves away, leaving them to die on the bleak plains with winter on its way. Everything they had suffered since that day could be laid at his feet. He had assumed the face of a monster in their imagination and it was strange to see a man, grown older, but still strong. It was hard to keep the cold face.
Tolui’s gaze was drawn to Temujin and captured there by the yellow eyes. He too had his memories, but he was far less confident than when he had captured Yesugei’s son and taken him back to his khan. He had learned to bully those less powerful than himself and fawn on those who ruled him. He did not know how to respond to Temujin and looked away, troubled.
It was Togrul who spoke first, when the silence became uncomfortable.
‘You are welcome in our camp,’ he said. ‘Will you eat with us?’
Eeluk nodded without looking away from the brothers. ‘I will,’ he said.
Hearing his voice brought a fresh spasm of hatred to Temujin, but he lowered himself to the mat of felt with the others, watching to see if Eeluk or Tolui reached for a weapon. His own sword was ready by his hand and he did not relax. Sansar had believed himself safe in his own ger.
Eeluk took his bowl of salted tea