Chapter Eleven

 

“EVERY MATCH COUNTS!” Tayy exhorted his teammates as they waited to the right of the wrestling platform that now covered a broad swath of the playing field. He settled his wrestling leathers more comfortably across his shoulders and slapped Altan on the arm in passing.

“You’ll do fine,” he assured his friend.

“I’ll do my best,” Altan dolefully assured him.

The prince moved to the next wrestler with a word of encouragement. He had no worries about Jumal, who strode beside him as he passed up the line with a word of support or a friendly punch for each of his hundred. Altan, however, neither excelled at wrestling nor consented to leave his companions for the more likely competition among the archers. He kept hoping to improve, which never happened.

Tayy had learned enough from the Shannish captain, Kaydu, to know Altan should compete where his skills might shine. Since losing his lifelong friend Yurki in the first of many long battles for the Cloud Country, however, he hadn’t the heart to deny their presence at his side to any of his closest companions. In deadly combat he would choose differently, but it seemed pointless to turn Altan away in the friendly contest of a festival. He wasn’t the worst wrestler on the team, after all—just not as good as he might be at other games.

But the handlers had completed the platform. Tayy made his way up to the front of his line. He had prepared his team, and his mind, for the bouts to come. Now he watched his uncle attentively for the formal call to the matches.

 

 

 

“ubalpeople,” Mergen-Khan cried. The crowd returned his salutation with cheers of “Mergen-Khan! Mergen-Khan!” for their leader.

Mergen waited until an expectant silence descended. “Welcome your sons and brothers as men,” he invited them with arms flung wide to take in the hundred young warriors on either side of the platform.

At this signal, the captains led their teams onto the platform. On his right, Prince Tayyichiut marched out with his hundred wrestlers following. From the opposite side Qutula stepped forth, his team of the same number behind him.

Each contestant had earned his blooding during the recent wars. The ceremony accepting them into the ranks of the army as seasoned soldiers had come while the heat of battle was strong in their stink and their blood. But Bolghai had argued that the old and the timid, the weak and the women held by tradition in the rear would yearn to celebrate the rite of passage into adulthood of their youths as well.

As he gave the call for the contestants to stand before him, therefore, the khan invited the gathered throng to join him with their praise. “See how they return to your tents and your camps as warriors, with the blood of your enemies on their hands!”

Mergen’s words, traveling back through the crowd on the tongues of his criers, were met by clapping and whistling and stamping of feet. But he was not finished and the crowd, knowing this, quickly settled.

“Grandmothers!” the khan commanded them with a sly smile, “do your work among your granddaughters—your grandsons yearn for the comforts due a new husband!”

The little flocks of silken butterflies scattered through the crowd answered this exhortation with a comely squeal as the teams of wrestlers, two hundred souls to face each other, moved forward in cadenced step on the platform. The ground shook with the appreciation of the clans and the khan added his smile to acknowledge the maidens’ eagerness to serve the khanate with their romances. Now, however, it was Yesugei’s turn to take the part that Mergen had played so often as Chimbai-Khan’s right hand.

 

 

 

Eluneke expected the khan to say something to the wrestlers gathered in two lines before him. Instead, the famed general Yesugei nudged his horse a step closer to the platform, putting himself between the contestants and Mergen-Khan. The crowd, more experienced at royal festivals than she was herself, hushed to hear the general’s challenge.

“Who stands before the khan in honorable contest?” Yesugei asked, letting his voice roll deep and sonorous from the bottom of his belly.

“The Nirun, Sons of Light.” Their captain stepped forward to speak for his team. “Come to do battle for the glory of the khan!” With that he led his hundred in a deep bow, first to the khan and the khaness, Lady Bortu, then to the crowd, which roared its approval of such courtly manners. When he rose from his bow, the breath caught in Eluneke’s throat. She had known her future husband to be highly placed, but a captain among the nobles? It seemed so . . . unlikely. Bolghai must surely know the young captain’s history, however, and after today, she would have a name to give him: Nirun. But no, that was a new hero-tale. “The bright shining one.” Nirun was the name of his team. She’d heard snatches of the song as she’d wandered through the crowd and now she heard voices around her taking up the refrain, “Sons of Light! Sons of Light!”

The captain puffed his chest out and the leather worked with gold of his wrestling vest stretched open to his waist, revealing well developed muscles slashed by a ragged scar across his belly, still red from recent healing.

“The prince,” voices whispered around her. “Prince Tayyichiut.”

“The dead khan’s son—”

“—Nearly killed in the wars for the Cloud Country—”

The prince? They had to be wrong. How would she win an introduction to the khan’s heir, let alone marry him? Little more could she imagine the prince’s grandmother arranging such a match. The vision must be wrong. Glancing that way, Eluneke felt herself run through by the Lady Bortu’s fearsome gaze. A shaman’s eye, that was, though the mother of two khans had never taken training. At least, Eluneke had never heard so. A khaness, however, would have ways of hiding such things from the far-scattered clans.

“And who would best this challenger?” General Yesugei asked, while the criers carried his words to the back of the crowd.

Darkness. The word drifted through her mind a moment before a second youth strode forward to accept the challenge.

“The Durluken, Sons of Darkness, come to do battle for the glory of the khan.” When the captain stepped forward, a superstitious shudder ran through the gathered audience. He wore a bit of jade pinned to the open breast of his wrestling costume and, on his back, the markings of a snake worked in green and black seemed to writhe across the leather.

Lady Bortu’s intense gaze had fallen on the challenger. Though she hid her thoughts well, Eluneke could see trouble ghosting across her face like the distorted image in a flawed mirror.

“What do you think of that, girl?”

“What . . . ?” The skills of a shaman in training sometimes swept her on their own course without her bidding. So Eluneke was dismayed, but not completely amazed, when the voice of the khaness echoed sternly in her head. Suddenly, her perspective tilted. Eluneke looked down on the young warrior as if from the back of a horse, with the age-dimmed eyes of the Lady Bortu. Terrified, but hoping she could hide it from the old woman riding in her head, Eluneke looked where she was told.

On the challenger’s breast, with the jade talisman pinned so that it seemed to rest just within reach of the inky jaws, a tattoo of the emerald-green bamboo snake coiled on oiled muscle. The tattoo would have troubled her enough; such a snake had murdered the former khan and his khaness, the Lady Temulun, after all. A green mist seemed to hover around the young man, however, and in its insubstantial depths, she saw eyes looking back at her. Terrible, deadly obsidian eyes. The murderous spirit of the demon-snake enfolded the young warrior. Qutula, the khaness supplied, regret leaking between their minds. An unacknowledged grandson. There was more to that sorrow, something the lady hid much deeper in her mind than the thoughts she shared by choice, but Eluneke had no intention of pursuing it.

Next to her, in the Lady Bortu’s perspective, the khan spoke.

“You take this naming of your team too close to the heart,” he muttered softly.

Qutula’s head snapped back as if he’d been struck. “I serve my khan,” he insisted with forced dignity. “I didn’t sing the song or choose the names.”

“You chose the mark on your breast and on your wrestling clothes.”

“To remind me that nothing is certain,” Qutula answered with a bow. “I did not mean to offend.”

A lie, but covering what, Eluneke couldn’t tell. She would have liked to see his eyes—you’re not the only one, girl, she heard in her head—but he kept his lids downcast in proper demonstration of contrition.

Qutula seemed on the point of saying something more, but with an open palmed gesture to let it go, he led his team in the same formal bows that the prince had given, first to khan and khaness, then to the crowd. It seemed for a moment that his glance lighted on the place where her body remained standing in the crowd. A little frown marred his brow, but he withdrew into the form of the contest with no sign that he had resolved whatever had troubled him.

At her side, Mergen took a beautiful many-layered bow with silver chasings that General Yesugei handed to him and raised it over his head. “To the winner, the honor of the battle and the khan’s own bow, a family treasure since the age of the first khan!” No worry that the bow might leave the family, the wry voice of the khaness commented in her mind. It remained a mystery which captain might win the day, but not that one of them would do it. And each shared blood with the khan.

Eluneke suddenly found herself alone, looking up at the wrestling platform from her own place in the crowd. She staggered with the shock and righted herself, aware out of the corner of her eye that the woman she had seen earlier watched her with wary curiosity. Sechule, the woman’s name was, though Eluneke hadn’t known that before. She didn’t have time to think about it, though. The matches were about to begin.

 

 

 

As Mergen raised the prize over his head, the newly tested warriors raised their own competing shouts, some calling, “Nirun! Nirun!” for the Sons of Light and “Prince Tayyichiut!” their captain. From the other end of the platform came the answering cry, “Durluken! Durluken!” And, “Qutula!” his own blanket-son’s name, who was captain of the Sons of Darkness.

It was just a game, but watching the referees sort the teams into contesting pairs for the first set of matches, Mergen shivered at that call. His sons had grown to manhood in shadows, unrecognized by their father, but soon he would put an end to their obscurity. When he returned the khanate to his nephew, he could give his name and family to his children, who would serve the clans with their lineage as they had with their skills.

Soothed by his own assurances, Mergen let the bow sweep a glittering curve in the sunlight as he drew his hand down, the signal to begin.

 

 

 

“Qutula!Qutula!” His heart swelled in his chest as he stood at the head of his team. For many years he had listened to the crowd call for Tayyichiut, the khan’s heir, but now followers called his own name as well. He knew he was a good wrestler, had seldom lost a play-match when they were counted boys together. Qutula did not intend to disgrace himself now that they were men and contended before the khan and the greatest of the Qubal clans. With that thought, he raised his head with princely bearing and glared at his first opponent across the neutral space that separated them, waiting for the sign that would let them begin.

There, like a glittering bird, Mergen’s bow carved an arc out of the air. Qutula took a step forward. He didn’t know the name of his opponent, but he’d seen him fight and hadn’t been impressed. Wasn’t now either. Easily done, the fool went down like a sack of dung and blinked up at Qutula in confusion.

“Next!” the referee called up another from the prince’s team who had defeated one of Qutula’s. Again they matched off. He could hear, from the continued cries, that Prince Tayyichiut had likewise won his round and went on to the next. Half as many left. Fewer now . . .

 

 

 

 

The last match save one. Tayy gasped for breath, noted Qutula did the same. Altan had made it to the third round, but finally fell to Mangkut, the best of Qutula’s Durluken save the captain himself. Knowing the bout the crowd wished to see at the end, the referees were careful about the matches they made for the captains. Jumal had the pleasure of besting Mangkut in the name of the Nirun, however. And so it came down to Tayy and his cousin, facing the khan for the honor of light, or the honor of darkness. Tayy wished that Bekter had come up with some other name in his song. It made him too much the hero, and he wondered what Qutula thought when he adopted the opposite appellation.

Mergen was talking, however, a silver arrow in his hand. The prince squinted against the flash of sunlight, determined to pay attention. “To sweeten the contest as my own ancestors did in ages past, this silver arrow if the loser can draw the bow and hit a target of his opponent’s choosing.”

Another family heirloom. No question to Tayy the message the khan sent with his choice of tokens. He allowed his opponent a small, conspiratorial smile, but Qutula returned only a flat, calculating stare. Exhausted from his own bouts, no doubt, but his cousin’s eyes gleamed hard and unforgiving in a face that seemed carved out of stone. Whatever was troubling him, they would have to have it out sooner or later. Just not now. Mergen called them to the contest and Tayy gave a low bow.

“I dedicate this match to my father, Chimbai-Khan. May his spirit rest quiet in the knowledge that his unworthy son has learned at least this much of the lessons he tried to drum into brain and muscle!”

The clan chieftains and advisers roared their laughter at the joke and their approval for the prince. Though a khan did not compete in public contests such as this, Chimbai had often exercised his skill among his nobles, clearing a space in front of the dais in the ger-tent palace where he might best any man in a throw. Once, in the pretense of a friendly match, he had challenged a traitorous noble whose back he broke in the contest, declaring the game over only when the noble was dead. Tayy hoped never to need that particular lesson and refused to let the memory darken the sunshine of the festival.

The teams had taken their seats encircling the area where the last match would take place. With no sign of Tayy’s thoughts to mar their enjoyment, they whispered admiringly among themselves, setting their own bets on the contest. “Nirun,” he heard among them, and “Durluken,” returned. Even the dogs, held to the outskirts of the playing field, raised their cries as if they wished to encourage their master.

Qutula stepped forward now, his chest running with oil and sweat in Great Sun’s yellow glare. “I dedicate this bout,” he said, and a shiver of tension went through the gathered courtiers and the closest of their friends on the platform. Would he use his dedication to confront the khan about his parentage?

“To the mother who gave me life. And to the lady of my dreams, whoever she may be!” With a smile he waved a hand in the dizzy motion that signaled a love affair, by which he could have meant to alert the families gathered there that he was looking for a wife. The slyness of his smile suggested a secret connection already made, however.

“A girl before me! You have won in the contest that counts, and now you boast of it in front of all the tents of the ulus. But don’t think you have shaken my confidence—I have more to fight for!” Tayy kept his laughing words just between the two of them, but Qutula’s glance swept the company with a pinched tightness around his mouth. A lady, perhaps, but it seemed she brought his cousin as much misery as joy.

No time to question it now, however. Each set his hands to the shoulders of the other. Tayy had never thought himself squeamish, but the flesh of his palms crawled to be so near the emerald green bamboo snake coiled on Qutula’s breast. Not an insult to the dead khan, Qutula had said, but a reminder that such terrible creatures roamed the Earth. The prince believed that much. Still, the thing seemed almost alive as it rose and fell with his cousin’s breath. He had little time to consider his uneasiness, however. Mergen gave the signal, and the match began.

Each leaned in, pressing any advantage that would send his opponent to the floor. Qutula’s greater reach made it difficult for Tayy to plant his feet as firmly as he wished, but he had the greater strength of back and arm. They struggled so with each other for minutes, neither budging while the chieftains and court advisers shouted out advice.

“There!”

“His foot moved, he is unsteady!”

“Press him now!”

“The prince will have him!”

“No, it is ’Tula!”

 

 

 

 

As he set his muscles to press his opponent and overset him, sweat broke out on Qutula’s shoulders and chest. His arms grew slick, and his hands. He lost a step, forced backward by the stronger prince. At first, focused on his own efforts, he scarcely noticed the heat pulsing at his breast. Soon, however, the sensation of movement crawling down his arm became too powerful to ignore.

“Kill him,” the well-remembered voice of his lover whispered in his ear. “Kill him now.”

Slowly, his hands slipped inward. Shifting his shoulder to hide his actions, Qutula rested his thumbs on the hollow of Prince Tayyichiut’s throat. His hands tightened, thumbs pressed inward.

Tayy tried to catch his eye, but Qutula’s gaze had locked on the serpent slithering over his biceps, down over his forearm to join its strength to his squeezing hands.

 

 

 

 

“ Qu—Qu!” Tayy scrabbled at the hands around his throat. It was impossible to breathe, impossible to utter the warning that would end the bout. Sparkling lights danced in front of his eyes.

As his head dropped to his cousin’s breast, the tattoo shifted and moved. Uncoiling, the creature raised its head. This is impossible, he thought. Daylight-sense told him it wasn’t real, but the night-sense of his fading consciousness told him otherwise. The design grew fangs and bared them, poised to strike.

 

 

 

“Notnow,you fool!” the woman Sechule muttered.

Anger seethed in her eyes.

Eluneke hadn’t recognized the danger. Her husband-to-be was dying in front of the cheering crowd, his opponent’s hands clasped around his throat. Already the flesh-and-blood face that hung like a mask over the death’s-head skull was fading.

“Aaah!” she couldn’t stop the scream that escaped her lips. The snake that had hovered over the Durluken captain like a mist in the Lady Bortu’s eye grew, took on substance in her own as the life went out of the prince. The serpent-demon towered over the struggling warriors, fangs like curved swords poised to strike at the prince.

“No!” she cried, but her voice was lost in the din.

“Nirun!” the crowd shouted around her, unaware that their champion was dying.

“Durluken,” cried others, who didn’t see that their contender was murdering the prince.

Closing her eyes to focus on the toad that was her totem animal, Eluneke prepared to leap to the wrestling platform. What she could do there she didn’t know, but her appearance must at least distract the company enough to stop the match.

 

 

 

 

Fortunately, Tayy had learned a few tricks of hand-to-hand combat on his travels. The move would give the bout to Qutula, but they’d both survive. He shifted his hands so that he was pulling Qutula closer instead of pushing him away. As his cousin forced him down, Tayy tucked himself into a ball and fell backward, his hands still clasping Qutula’s shoulders. When his back hit the floor, he planted his feet in his cousin’s middle and lifted. The murderous hands left his throat—Qutula flew through the air and landed on his back at the foot of the dais.

 

 

 

“Iwin.” Qutula was still gasping when he said it, and he hadn’t tried to stand up yet. Neither had the prince. He didn’t know what Tayy had done to him, but his cousin had certainly taken the first fall in the doing. Mergen agreed. That much, at least, he had won.

“You certainly did,” the khan nodded down at him with a laugh, “though by what strategy I am still confounded.”

He thought for a moment that Mergen-Khan had seen his thumbs pressed to the heir’s throat. The tattoo hadn’t really moved. That was impossible, of course, though it had seemed to do so in the uncertain shadows cast by their wrestling arms. But his father wasn’t talking about his actions at all. Rather, he looked to his heir with bemused admiration.

“Did you learn to do that on your travels? I can see the use of it, though not in a bout of wrestling. The prize goes to the last man to leave his feet, not the first whose back hits the ground!”

“Qutula bested me.” Prince Tayy regained his feet with a reproachful frown at his cousin.

The others might think the prince meant the frown for his own lack of strength or skill in the contest. Standing with some effort himself, Qutula pretended he thought the same. Tayy might suspect the slipping of his hands had been no accident, but nothing in his own demeanor would give his intentions away.

“It was an equal match,” he conceded with a bow.

“Almost,” Tayy agreed.

Qutula kept his expression open and admiring for the prince’s scrutiny. After a moment a little shrug let him know that his unspoken excuse—he hadn’t realized what he had done—had been accepted.

“And now, the prize.” His father held the bow out in his hands like a sacred offering, his face glowing with the pride of a father.

“Durluken!” His followers were now joined by the clans, celebrating his victory. Bekter would make a new song, with a new hero.

“I am honored.” Qutula took the bow in his own two hands and gave a deep obeisance of gratitude, as was proper of such a royal offering. His father would say it now—it must be why he had chosen this particular prize, why he seemed so proud that his son had won it. Almost, Qutula wished he hadn’t cheated, to make the moment perfect.

“Use it well, in remembrance of this day.”

“As the khan commands.” With the victory cup, then, it must be.

“The arrow, to he that pulls the bow,” Mergen offered the silver arrow to the prince, but he turned with his question to Qutula, the victor in the match. “What target, then, to finish this contest?”

He had intended to set an impossible task, a bead on a lady’s headdress or some other challenge that the prince dare not accept. Gracious in victory, however, he offered an honorable challenge. “Hit the center of the target,” he said, “from here.” A difficult shot, but not unreasonable.

Tayy ran his arm over his brow to wipe the sweat from his eyes and drew the bow. His arms quivered, but he steadied himself and sighted on the target in the distance.

Twang! The arrow flew.

“Center!” came the judgment back through the criers. With it came the cheers of the crowd—“Durluken!” and “Nirun!”—the call and response of victory.

Mergen-Khan turned to a server and gestured to the gathered court. “Kumiss!” he said. “A victory cup to toast the winner!”

When he gives me the cup, Qutula thought, but Mergen left the words unsaid.