"If Mother Bayalun created all the trouble, why did you marry her?" Koja asked. His horse became restless, so he gripped the reins tighter.
"Politics. Custom. She was powerful." Yamun shrugged his shoulders. "Mother Bayalun has the respect of the wizards and shamans. Through her they are protected. I could not have her turning them against me. Besides, she realized that I was meant to be khahan."
"So why does she stay in your ordu?"
Exasperated, Yamun snapped, "Why, why, why. You ask too many questions. Which snake is better, the one in your talons or the one in the grass?" With that, the warlord wheeled his horse toward Goyuk and called out, "What've the scouts seen?"
Koja rode the rest of the day without seeing the khahan. He worried that he had offended Yamun, so he tried to occupy his mind by watching the surroundings. The land was slowly changing. The gently broken steppe was giving way to steeper, harsher hills. Small gorges cut through the dry and rocky ground. Outcroppings of sandstone jutted through the surface in heavily eroded heaps. Snow drifted into the hollows. There were fewer patches of grass and more scrubby brush, but it was probably only the result of twenty thousand horses passing through the countryside.
That night, the army divided into a number of smaller camps. Koja left Hodj to set out the rugs for another night under the stars. The priest walked toward Yamun's oxcart, brushing the dust from his clothes.
"Greetings, Khahan," the priest hesitantly called to Yamun. Sweat-caked dust clung to the ruler's silken clothes. Grime coated his face. Yamun unceremoniously scooped a ladle of kumiss from a leather bucket and guzzled it down.
"Food!" he ordered, wiping the kumiss from his mustache with his sleeve. He scooped up another ladle of the drink. "You don't sleep, priest?"
"No, Lord Yamun," Koja said softly. "I waited to speak with you."
"Then get on with it," Yamun said gruffly. "I want to sleep." He filled the ladle once more.
"I ask to be your envoy to the prince of Khazari." He spoke in a quick monotone, trying to keep himself from panicking.
"Eh?" Yamun stopped in midswallow, looking sharply at Koja over the top of the ladle.
The priest straightened his robes and stood up a little straighten "I want to be your envoy to the Khazari."
"You? You are Khazari," he sputtered in surprise.
"Khahan, I know it is unusual," Koja hurriedly continued, shifting uneasily on his toes. "But I know my people, and I have learned much about the Tuigan. I am sure I can make them—"
"Yes, yes, that's fine," Yamun said. "Still, these are your people. How do I know you won't betray me?"
"I owe you a life," Koja answered simply.
"What is the truth?" The khahan probed. "Not your rationale—the truth."
Koja sucked in his breath. "Because I want to save Khazari," he blurted. "If you conquer, what will you do with the country? You have not made plans. You know how to conquer, but can you rule?" Koja clamped his jaws tight, waiting for Yamun's outburst.
The khahan slowly returned the ladle to its bag. He paused by the kumiss sack, staring past Koja. Finally, he slapped his knout against the leather bag.
"I'll think about it," he announced at last, his voice cold and unfriendly. "Now I am going to sleep. We ride early in the morning."
"By your word, it shall be done," Koja said with a trembling voice as he made a low bow. The khahan had already turned away, his heavy coat flapping around his bowed legs.
The next day's ride was uneventful, even tedious for the priest. It seemed like a constant battle against minor irritations—biting flies, hunger, and thirst. Dust, churned up by thousands of horses, settled into everything. To Koja it seemed that his robes crackled with the stuff. Dust coated his scalp, which now bristled and itched with a stubby growth of hair; it caked on his eyelids and lined his throat. The hot afternoon sun raised tiny drops of sweat that ran like mud down his arms. All afternoon his horse thudded along in a monotonous, pounding rhythm.
With the evening came a welcome relief from the jolting, bone-breaking ride. Koja gladly turned his horse, a gray and yellow pony with an unmanageable urge to bite, over to Hodj for the night. The lama had taken to calling the horse Cham Loc, after an evil spirit who fought the mighty Furo. Relieved of his mount, the priest decided to walk out the cramps in his muscles.
The army had camped in a bowl-shaped depression, where several streams flowed in together. Koja climbed to the top of a small sandstone promontory on the edge of a steep hill. His guards scrambled along behind him.
On the overlook, the lama sat watching the sunset, a brilliant band of red-orange topped by a sapphire-blue sky. Koja was reminded of another time, when, as a child, he sat at the edge of a towering cliff and watched the long shadows of the mountains fill his valley below.
From his vantage, Koja could see the entire campsite spread out before him. The fires clustered into small knots spaced almost evenly across the floor. In between them were occasional clumps of moving darkness, only a small part of the thousands of horses set out to graze for the night.
"Each fire is a jagun," explained one of the guards, pointing toward the shimmering lights.
Koja looked out over the plain with a greater appreciation for the size of the army. He guessed there were a thousand, perhaps several thousand fires dotting the entire valley floor. Absentmindedly he began counting the lights of the jaguns.
"We must go now," interrupted one of his guards, "before it gets too dark."
The sun had slid almost out of sight. It cast so little light that Koja could barely see his black-robed guards.
The priest climbed down from the rock, heeding the suggestion. Quietly, he made for the fires of Yamun's camp. The guards hurried after him, carefully staying as close as was their duty but no closer. As they approached Yamun's fire, the guards stopped as they always did. Koja went the rest of the way alone.
Tonight, there was a small group around Yamun's fire, just the khahan and a few of the noyans. A kaychi, a singer of stories, was sitting cross-legged near the fire. He was a young man, smooth-faced with rounded features and a carefully groomed mustache and goatee. Across his lap lay a small two-stringed violin, his khuur.
"Are you at peace?" asked Yamun when Koja was within easy speaking distance. It was a standard greeting that needed no answer. "Sit."
Koja took the seat offered him and accepted a cup of wine a quiverbearer poured. The storyteller struck the first note on his instrument and then put his bow to it, beginning his tale. He sawed at his khuur madly as he sang. His voice leaped from high, quavering notes to hoarse growlings.
In a moment between the kaychi's songs, Koja turned to Yamun. "Khahan, although I spoke rashly yesterday, I ask you to consider my request." The priest spoke softly, so only the khahan could hear.
Yamun grunted. "In time, priest, in time. I need to think about it. You'll know in time." The khahan pointed to the kaychi, commanding the man to wait.
The singer set aside his instrument. Yamun stood and raised his kumiss ladle to the other khans. "Our friendship has been raised."
The khans around the fire raised their ladles and repeated the toast. That finished, they got to their feet, stopping long enough to kneel to the khahan.
Koja rose and, after a moment's hesitation, knelt too. Before the khahan could call him back, he hurried away. Returning to his own camp, Koja crawled into the rugs and furs Hodj had laid out. Within seconds of lying down, the priest was sound asleep.
When he opened his eyes, Koja was once again on the hilltop overlooking the valley, watching the sun set over the army. The colors were splendid, more intense than he had ever seen them before. The troops formed a black, seething mass, arching and humping over the ground. The men fused and joined into a single being, a freakish thousand-legged centipede, then a dragon that coiled around and bit at itself. The fires flared up, becoming the pinpoints of its eyes. Soundlessly, it writhed and shuddered toward him. Arms, hands, and horses' heads heaved out of the mass and fell back. Koja looked down at his hands, held out in front of him. They were covered with huge droplets of sweat. He suddenly felt fear, a fear that locked every joint in his body.