Bones of the Hills

  The conqueror series

  BONES OF THE HILLS

  Conn Iggulden

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  Dedication

  To my son, Arthur

  MAP

  CONTENTS

  MAP

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  EPILOGUE

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  Also by Conn Iggulden

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  The fire roared at the centre of the circle. Shadows flickered around it as dark figures leapt and danced with swords. Their robes swirled as they howled over other voices raised in ululating song. Men sat with stringed instruments across their knees, plucking out tunes and rhythms while they stamped their feet.

  At the edges of the fire, a line of Mongol warriors knelt bare-chested with their hands bound behind them. As one, they showed the cold face to their triumphant captors. Their officer, Kurkhask, had been beaten savagely in the battle. Blood caked his mouth and his right eye was swollen shut. He had known worse. Kurkhask was proud of the way the others refused to show fear. He watched the dark-skinned desert warriors shouting and chanting to the stars, waving curved blades marked with the blood of men he had known. They were a strange breed, Kurkhask thought, these men who wore their heads bound in many thicknesses of cloth and loose tunics over wide-legged trousers. Most were bearded, so that their mouths were just a red slash in black bristles. As a group, they were taller and more heavily muscled than the largest of the Mongol warriors. They reeked of strange spices and many of the men chewed at dark roots, spitting brown clots on the ground at their feet. Kurkhask hid his distaste for them as they jerked and yelped and danced, building themselves into a frenzy.

  The Mongol officer shook his head wearily. He had been too confident, he knew that now. The twenty men Temuge had sent with him were all seasoned warriors, but they were not a raiding party. By trying to protect the carts of gifts and bribes, they had reacted too slowly and been caught. Kurkhask thought back to the months before and knew the peaceful mission had lulled him, made him drop his guard. He and his men had found themselves in a hard land of dizzying mountain passes. They had passed valleys set to straggling crops and traded simple gifts with farmers as poor as any they had ever seen. Yet game was plentiful and his men had roasted fat deer on their fires. Perhaps that had been a mistake. The farmers had pointed to the mountains in warning, but he had not understood. He had no quarrel with the hill tribes, but in the night a host of warriors had overtaken them, coming out of the darkness with wild cries and slashing at the sleeping men. Kurkhask closed his eyes briefly. Only eight of his companions had survived the struggle, though he had not seen his oldest son since the first clash of arms. The boy had been scouting the path ahead and Kurkhask hoped he had survived to carry word back to the khan. That thought alone gave him pleasure to set against his vicious resentment.

  The carts had been looted of their trinkets, the silver and jade stolen by the tribesmen. As Kurkhask watched from under lowered brows, he saw many of them now dressed in Mongol deels with dark splashes of blood on the cloth.

  The chanting intensified until Kurkhask could see white spittle gather at the edges of the men’s mouths. He held his back very straight as the leader of the tribe drew a blade and advanced on the line, screaming. Kurkhask exchanged glances with the others.

  ‘After tonight, we will be with the spirits and see the hills of home,’ he called to them. ‘The khan will hear. He will sweep this land clean.’

  His calm tone seemed to drive the Arab swordsman to an even higher pitch of fury. Shadows flickered across his face as he whirled the blade over a Mongol warrior. Kurkhask watched without expression. When death was inevitable, when he felt its breath on his neck, he had found all fear could be put aside and he could meet it calmly. That at least gave him some satisfaction. He hoped his wives would shed many tears when they heard.

  ‘Be strong, brother,’ Kurkhask called.

  Before he could reply, the sword took the warrior’s head. Blood gouted and the Arabs hooted and beat their feet on the ground in appreciation. The swordsman grinned, his teeth very white against dark skin. Again, the sword fell and another Mongol toppled sideways on the dusty ground. Kurkhask felt his throat constrict in anger until he could almost choke on it. This was a land of lakes and clear mountain rivers, two thousand miles west of Yenking. The villagers they had met were in awe of their strange faces, yet friendly. That very morning, Kurkhask had been sent on his way with blessings and sticky sweets that gummed his teeth together. He had ridden under a blue sky and never guessed the hill tribes were passing word of his presence. He still did not know why they had been attacked, unless it was simply to steal the gifts and trade goods they carried. He searched the hills for some glimpse of his son, hoping again that his death would be witnessed. He could not die badly if the boy watched. It was the last gift he could give him.

  The swordsman needed three blows to take the third head. When it finally came free, he held it up by the hair to his companions, laughing and chanting in their strange language. Kurkhask had begun to learn a few words of the Pashto tongue, but the stream of sound was beyond him. He watched in grim silence as the killing continued until, at last, he was the only man still alive.

  Kurkhask raised his head to stare up without fear. Relief filled him as he caught a movement far beyond the firelight. Something white shifted in the gloom and Kurkhask smiled. His son was out there, signalling. Before the boy gave himself away, Kurkhask dipped his head. The distant flicker vanished, but Kurkhask relaxed, all the tension flowing out of him. The khan would be told.

  He looked up at the Arab warrior as he drew back the bloody length of steel.

  ‘My people will see you again,’ Kurkhask said.

  The Afghan swordsman hesitated, unable to understand.

  ‘Dust be in thy mouth, infidel!’ he shouted, the words a babble of sound to the Mongol officer.

  Kurkhask shrugged wearily.

  ‘You have no idea what you have done,’ he said. The sword swept down.

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  The wind had fallen on the high ridge. Dark clouds drifted above, making bands of shadow march across the earth. The morning was quiet and the land seemed empty as the two men rode at the head of a narrow column, a jagun of a hundred young warriors. The Mongols could ha
ve been alone for a thousand miles, with just creaking leather and snorting ponies to break the stillness. When they halted to listen, it was as if silence rolled back in over the dusty ground.

  Tsubodai was a general to the great khan and it showed in the way he held himself. His armour of iron scales over leather was well-worn, with holes and rust in many places. His helmet was marked where it had saved his life more than once. All his equipment was battered, but the man himself remained as hard and unforgiving as the winter earth. In three years of raiding the north, he had lost only one minor skirmish and returned the following day to destroy the tribe before word could spread. He had mastered his trade in a land that seemed to grow colder with each mile into the wastes. He had no maps for his journey, just rumours of distant cities built on rivers frozen so solid that oxen could be roasted on the ice.

  At his right shoulder rode Jochi, the eldest son of the khan himself. Barely seventeen, he was yet a warrior who might inherit the nation and perhaps command even Tsubodai in war. Jochi wore a similar set of greased leather and iron, as well as the saddle packs and weapons all the warriors carried. Tsubodai knew without asking that Jochi would have his ration of dried blood and milk, needing only water to make a nourishing broth. The land did not forgive those who took survival lightly and both men had learned the lessons of winter.

  Jochi sensed the scrutiny and his dark eyes flickered up, always guarded. He had spent more time with the young general than he ever had with his father, but old habits were hard to break. It was difficult for him to trust, though his respect for Tsubodai knew no limit. The general of the Young Wolves had a feel for war, though he denied it. Tsubodai believed in scouts, training, tactics and archery above all else, but the men who followed him saw only that he won, no matter what the odds. As others could fashion a sword or a saddle, Tsubodai fashioned armies, and Jochi knew he was privileged to learn at his side. He wondered if his brother Chagatai had fared as well in the east. It was easy to daydream as he rode the hills, imagining his brothers and father struck dumb at the sight of how Jochi had grown and become strong.

  ‘What is the most important item in your packs?’ Tsubodai said suddenly. Jochi raised his eyes to the brooding sky for an instant. Tsubodai delighted in testing him.

  ‘Meat, general. Without meat, I cannot fight.’

  ‘Not your bow?’ Tsubodai said. ‘Without a bow, what are you?’

  ‘Nothing, general, but without meat, I am too weak to use the bow.’

  Tsubodai grunted at hearing his own words repeated.

  ‘When the meat is all gone, how long can you live off blood and milk?’

  ‘Sixteen days at most, with three mounts to share the wounds.’ Jochi did not have to think. He had been drilled in the answers ever since he and Tsubodai had ridden with ten thousand men from the shadow of the Chin emperor’s city.

  ‘How far could you travel in such a time?’ Tsubodai said.

  Jochi shrugged.

  ‘Sixteen hundred miles with fresh remounts. Half as far again if I slept and ate in the saddle.’

  Tsubodai saw that the young man was hardly concentrating and his eyes glinted as he changed tack.

  ‘What is wrong with the ridge ahead?’ he snapped.

  Jochi raised his head, startled. ‘I …’

  ‘Quickly! Men are looking to you for a decision. Lives wait on your word.’

  Jochi swallowed, but in Tsubodai he had learned from a master.

  ‘The sun is behind us, so we will be visible for miles as we reach the crest.’ Tsubodai began to nod, but Jochi went on. ‘The ground is dusty. If we cross the high point of the ridge at any speed, we will raise a cloud into the air.’

  ‘That is good, Jochi,’ Tsubodai said. As he spoke, he dug in his heels and rode hard at the crest ahead. As Jochi had predicted, the hundred riders released a mist of reddish grit that billowed above their heads. Someone would surely see and report their position.

  Tsubodai did not pause as he reached the ridge. He sent his mare over the edge, the rear legs skittering on loose stones. Jochi matched him and then took a sharp breath of dust that made him cough into his hand. Tsubodai had come to a halt fifty paces beyond the ridge, where the broken ground began to dip to the valley. Without orders, his men formed a wide double rank around him, like a bow drawn on the ground. They were long familiar with the firebrand of a general who had been placed over them.

  Tsubodai stared into the distance, frowning. The hills surrounded a flat plain through which a river ran, swollen with spring rain. Along its banks, a slow-moving column trotted, bright with flags and banners. In other circumstances, it would have been a sight to take the breath, and even as his stomach clenched, Jochi felt a touch of admiration. Ten, perhaps eleven thousand Russian knights rode together, house colours in gold and red streaming back over their heads. Almost as many followed them in a baggage train of carts and remounts, women, boys and servants. The sun chose that moment to break through the dark clouds in a great beam that lit the valley. The knights shone.

  Their horses were massive, shaggy animals, almost twice the weight of the Mongol ponies. Even the men who rode them were a strange breed to Jochi’s eyes. They sat as if they were made of stone, solid and heavy in metal cloth from their cheeks to their knees. Only their blue eyes and hands were unprotected. The armoured knights had come prepared for battle, carrying long spears like lances, but tipped in steel. They rode with the weapons upright, the butts held in leather cups close behind the stirrups. Jochi could see axes and swords hanging down from waist belts and every man rode with a leaf-shaped shield hooked to his saddle. The pennants streamed back over their heads and they looked very fine in the bands of gold and shadow.

  ‘They must see us,’ Jochi murmured, glancing at the plume of dust above his head.

  The general heard him speak and turned in the saddle.

  ‘They are not men of the plains, Jochi. They are half-blind over such a distance. Are you afraid? They are so large, these knights. I would be afraid.’

  For an instant, Jochi glowered. From his father, it would have been mockery. Yet Tsubodai spoke with a light in his eyes. The general was still in his twenties, young to command so many. Tsubodai was not afraid, though. Jochi knew the general cared nothing for the massive warhorses or the men who rode them. Instead, he placed his faith in the speed and arrows of his Young Wolves.

  The jagun was made up of ten arbans, each commanded by an officer. By Tsubodai’s order, only those ten men wore heavy armour. The rest had leather tunics under padded deels. Jochi knew Genghis preferred the heavy charge to the light, but Tsubodai’s men seemed to survive. They could hit and gallop faster than the ponderous Russian warriors and there was no fear in their ranks. Like Tsubodai, they looked hungrily down the slope at the column and waited to be seen.

  ‘You know your father sent a rider to bring me home?’ Tsubodai said.

  Jochi nodded. ‘All the men know.’

  ‘I had hoped to go further north than this, but I am your father’s man. He speaks and I obey; do you understand?’

  Jochi stared at the young general, forgetting for a moment the knights who rode in the valley below.

  ‘Of course,’ he said, his face showing nothing.

  Tsubodai glanced back at him, amused.

  ‘I hope you do, Jochi. He is a man to follow, your father. I wonder how he will respond when he sees how well you have grown.’

  For a moment, anger twisted Jochi’s face before he smoothed his features and took a deep breath. Tsubodai had been more like a father than his own in many ways, but he did not forget the man’s true loyalty. At an order from Genghis, Tsubodai would kill him. As he looked at the young general, he thought there would be some regret, but not enough to hold the blow.

  ‘He will need loyal men, Tsubodai,’ Jochi said. ‘My father would not call us back to build or rest. He will have found some new land to tear to pieces. Like the wolf, he is always hungry, even to the point of bursting his own stomach.’ />
  Tsubodai frowned to hear the khan described in such a way. In three years, he had seen no affection when Jochi spoke of his father, though sometimes there was a wistfulness, which showed less and less as the seasons passed. Genghis had sent away a boy, but a man would return to him, Tsubodai had made certain of that. For all his bitterness, Jochi was a cool head in battle and the men looked on him with pride. He would do.

  ‘I have another question for you, Jochi,’ Tsubodai said.

  Jochi smiled for an instant.

  ‘You always have, general,’ he replied.

  ‘We have drawn these iron knights after us for hundreds of miles, exhausting their horses. We have captured their scouts and put them to the question, though I do not know of this “Jerusalem” they seek, or who this “white Christ” is.’ Tsubodai shrugged. ‘Perhaps I will meet him one day over the length of my sword, but the world is large and I am but one man.’

  As he spoke, he watched the armoured knights and the trailing baggage lines behind it, waiting to be seen.

  ‘My question, Jochi, is this. These knights are nothing to me. Your father has called me back and I could ride now, while the ponies are fat with summer grass. Why then are we here, waiting for the challenge?’