was reaching its end as the sun slowly dragged down toward the horizon. Olajai, ignoring arrows, went about during lulls, carrying a goatskin jar of brackish water.
“Easier each round,” Timur said, and licked the dust from his lips.
She laughed. “They’re well whittled down, too!”
Of Tekil’s men, scarcely fifty were able to fight: the others were dead, or they had left the field because of wounds. As for Timur, only seven were about his standard.
Charge after charge had been swept back, for in the beginning, Tekil’s men had blocked each other, only a few at a time being able to present themselves to the enemy; and closing in on Eltchi Bahadur was a swift way to the mercy of Allah.
Those who first charged up the little knoll had struggled in sandy soil, facing a hail of arrows: and the next wave had been blocked by windrows of fallen horses and men. Finally, exhaustion took the heart from all but the strongest. Skill failed, and so did the will.
“Only seven to one now, my dear! Give Bahadur a drink!”
He turned to his sister-in-law: “I’ll get you horse tails, tie them to the standard.”
There were plenty of once splendid mounts who had no further use for their tails. Timur hacked, and Dilshad Aga set to work.
Timur waited. The ring of winded, wounded enemies waited. The air had the dead stillness of a well-fired oven, except when hot wind drove scorching sand. Tagi Bouga Barlas and Sayfuddin were now on foot. Eltchi Bahadur grinned, though wearily; blood and sweat and dust made his homely face a devil’s mask.
“Hai, Bahadur! The sons of pigs would turn tail if someone knocked that Tekil out of action.”
Timur snorted. “I’ve spent all day trying to get at him. I’ve been cutting meat till my arm’s ready to fall off, he always gets someone between me and him.”
Hussein came up; debonair, head cocked like the head of a falcon, eyes aglitter. “Why take down our standard, brother?”
“It’s coming up in a second.” Then Dilshad Aga called, and Timur went to take the staff. Hussein saw the three horse tails. “The standard of Genghis Khan! By Allah, why not? This is our day. God does what he will do, and here we are.”
Timur planted the staff, and said to Hashim, “Sound off!”
The one unbroken saddle drum rolled and grumbled in the hot silence; a hot wind made the three horse tails ripple, then fan out. Timur challenged the enemy: “Sons of Bad Mothers! Here is the standard of Genghis Khan, the Master of all Mankind. He rides again!”
Hussein mounted up, wordlessly, and with the smooth swiftness of a panther. Sword out, he raced down the slope. Then came Eltchi Bahadur’s great voice; the drum stopped rumbling. Olajai cried out—many men had died, but this was her brother, and a clump of swordsmen had swallowed him up.
The others were at his heels. Tekil’s standard, clipped in half, was trampled in the dust. Eltchi Bahadur smashed home with all his weight and steel. And as he raced, Timur plucked his bow. One shot. Just one. A single shaft, threading through the shifting fighters, caught Tekil between the teeth. The impact knocked him from his horse.
Then an arrow caught Timur’s mount. The beast crumpled, flinging the rider asprawl. Timur rolled, recovered, and from the bloody sand he snatched a half-pike. Eltchi Bahadur had hewn a path to Tekil. Timur bore down on the pike, driving through armor, driving it through the man, and deep into the earth.
Whoever could run or ride fled to the fortress. Seven wounded victors left the field, to find whatever safety they could, before Tekil’s men recovered from the shock, and began to think of vengeance.
They retraced their course. At the desert’s fringe, three of the survivors said, “Lord Timur, Allah does what he will do, and with your permission, we go to our homes in Khorassan, while you raise an army.”
This also had happened before, so Timur answered, “Go with my blessing.”
Then on the night when they were not far from the Jihun, Timur said to Hussein, “There are not enough for any defense, only enough to be conspicuous. Better we separate. You go to Hirmen, and spend the winter with the Mikouzeri tribesmen. I’ll go back home to Kesh, incognito, and I’ll meet you in Hirmen, later.”
So they parted. And when Timur was alone with Olajai, he said, “Shireen, you married a prince in Kesh, and now look! Not one rider behind me.”
“I’m not worrying. Though I was scared silly, until you had that crazy notion of hoisting three horse tails!”
He eyed her sharply. “You quit worrying then? Mmmm … it did something to your brother, the crackbrain, he was off before I knew what was happening.”
She nodded. “That shocked me, too. Then, suddenly, I knew that Tekil’s men would break. For a crazy instant, it was as if Genghis Khan had come back through all these nine generations, and out of his grave.”
“The sun, my dear. It was bad.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t see anything, I didn’t hear anything, I just felt something. As though you had really had the right, that moment, to put up the horse tail standard. And they felt it.”
“You’re giving Eltchi Bahadur and Hussein not much credit!”
“I notice you took the tails off before we left. I’m not worried. It’s working out. What that darvish said. Only he didn’t say all. Maybe he didn’t know, maybe he couldn’t see so far ahead. But I do.”
“What’s that?” His voice was sharp.
“My grandfather made kings. He unmade them. Always, he put on the throne of Samarkand someone of the direct line of Genghis Khan. And there was peace, the very name made peace. You know, he could have taken the throne himself.”
“He could. And Kazagan Khan would have filled any throne.”
“But he didn’t, he wouldn’t. Timur—don’t you see what I mean? You have a right to the name, you’ve proved the right, back there.”
They marched, from brackish well to drywell where there was water only by digging. Then the worst of the two horses collapsed. Timur dismounted and said “Take mine.”
She gaped. He said gruffly, “Mount up!”
“Why—darling—whatever—you’re crazy.”
Her incredulity was natural. A man tramping on foot would be too worn out to fight. It was plain sense that he should ride while Olajai walked.
“But—”
“Mount up!” he commanded and she obeyed.
He tramped along holding the stirrup leather.
And that afternoon toward sunset as they halted to rest he looked at his boots. The soles were gone.
“See! The darvish is right! Timur of the race of Genghis Khan is barefooted. This thing had to be. And now that I cannot go any lower I must go higher and the Power is with God!”
She was no longer worried by his seeming madness in walking while a woman rode. “You lied to me, you knew what happened on that knoll, as well as I did!”
They were coming near to a well, or to where one should be. The sun’s level rays bent into their backs so that their shadows reached long and dark ahead of them.
Then he saw the horsemen riding into the glare. “How many?” he asked Olajai, very calmly.
“Ten—twelve—fifteen—too many, Timur, and you’ve been walking.”
“Who are they—what are they?”
“Turkomans,” she answered. “I was afraid of that.” The Governor of Kivac’s force had been largely Turkoman.
Olajai said, lightly, “We can’t use horse