He heard Kachiun shout with pleasure and opened his eyes to see a shaft in the very center of the target. Temujin straightened and strolled over to his brothers, his gaze automatically scanning the land around them as he had a thousand times before. They could never be safe and they lived with the fear that they would see Eeluk riding back with a dozen grim men at any moment.

That sense of foreboding was a constant in their lives, though it had dulled with time. Temujin had seen that it was possible to live beneath the notice of the great tribes as other wanderer families did. Yet it could all be taken from them by a single raiding party out for sport- at any moment, they could be hunted like animals and their gers torn apart or stolen.

“Did you see the shot, Temujin?” Kachiun said.

Temujin shook his head. “I was looking the other way, my brother, but it is a fine bow.” Like the one in his ger, the double-curved length had been dried for a year before the boiled strips of sheep horn were glued and overlapped onto the frame. The fish glue had made the gers stink for weeks afterwards, but the wood had become iron hard with its new layers and they were proud of what they had made.

“Take a shot,” Kachiun said, holding the bow out to his brother.

Temujin smiled at him, seeing again the way his shoulders had filled and the new height that seemed to come in bursts. Yesugei’s sons were all tall, though Temujin had grown beyond the others, matching his father’s height in his seventeenth year.

He took a firm grip on the shaft of the bow and notched an arrow with a bone head, drawing it back on the calloused pads of his fingers. He emptied his lungs and, at the moment when he might have taken a breath, he released the arrow and watched it plunge home beside Kachiun’s.

“It is a fine bow,” he said, running a hand along the yellow length of horn. His expression was somber as he faced them, and Kachiun was the first to notice, always sensitive to his brother’s thoughts.

“What is it?” Kachiun asked.

“I heard from old Horghuz that the Olkhun’ut have come back to the north,” Temujin said, looking out over the horizon.

Kachiun nodded, understanding immediately. He and Temujin had shared a special bond since the day they had killed Bekter. At first, the family had struggled simply to live through the winter and then the next, but by the third, they had enough felt for the gers and Temujin had traded a bow and wool for another pony to match the tired old mare they had taken from the herdsmen in the first days. The new spring of the fourth year had brought restlessness on the wind for all of them, though it affected Temujin particularly. They had weapons and meat and camped close enough to woods to hide from a force they could not handle. Their mother had lost her gauntness and, though she still dreamed of Bekter and the past, the spring had woken something of the future in her sons.

In his own dreams, Temujin still thought of Borte, though the Olkhun’ut had vanished from the plains, with no way of following them. Even if he had found them, they would have scorned a ragged wanderer. He did not have a sword, nor the means to barter for one, but the boys rode for miles around their little camp and they talked to the wanderers and listened for news. The Olkhun’ut had been sighted in the first days of spring, and Temujin had been restless ever since.

“Will you fetch Borte to this place?” Kachiun asked, looking around at the camp.

Temujin followed his gaze and he swallowed back bitterness at the sight of their rough gers and bleating sheep. When he had seen Borte last, it had been with the unspoken promise that she would marry him and be the wife of a khan. He had known his worth then.

“Perhaps she has already been given to another,” Temujin said, sourly. “She will be what? Eighteen? Her father was not a man to leave her waiting for so long.”

Khasar snorted. “She was promised to you. If she has married another, you could challenge him.”

Temujin glanced at his brother, seeing again the lack of understanding that meant he at least could never have ruled the Wolves. Khasar had none of the inner fire of Kachiun, the instant grasp of plans and strategies. Yet Temujin remembered the night when they had killed the herdsmen. Khasar had fought at his side. He had something of his father in him after all, though he could never grasp the subtleties Yesugei had loved. If their father had lived, Khasar would have been taken to the Olkhun’ut himself the following year. His life had also been thrown from its course by Eeluk’s treachery.

Temujin nodded reluctantly. “If I had a new deel, I could ride to them and see what has become of her,” he said. “At least I would know for certain.”

“We’ll all need women,” Khasar agreed cheerfully. “I have been feeling the urge myself and I don’t want to die without having one under me.”

“The goats would miss your love, though,” Kachiun said.

Khasar tried to cuff him, but his brother swayed away from the blow.

“Perhaps I could take you to the Olkhun’ut myself,” Temujin said to Khasar, looking him up and down. “Am I not the khan of this family now? You are a fine-looking lad, after all.”

It was true, though he meant it as a joke. Khasar had grown into lean strength and was dark and wiry under a mop of uncut hair that reached right down to his shoulders. They did not trouble to braid their hair anymore, and when they could be bothered to take a knife to it, it was just to hack off enough to clear their vision for hunting.

“Ten of the ewes are carrying,” Temujin said. “If we kept the lambs, we could sell a few goats and two of the older rams. It would get us a new stitched deel, and maybe some better reins. Old Horghuz was fussing with a set while I talked to him. I think he wanted me to make an offer.”

Khasar tried to hide his interest, but the cold face of the warrior had been lost between them for too long. They had no need to guard themselves the way Yesugei had taught, and they were out of practice. As poor as they were, the decision was Temujin’s alone and the other brothers had long accepted his right to lead them. It raised his spirits to be khan even of some ragged ponies and a couple of gers.

“I will see the old man and bargain with him,” Temujin said. “We will ride together, but I cannot leave you there, Khasar. We need your bow arm too much. If there is a girl come into her blood, I will talk to them for you.”

Khasar’s face fell and Kachiun clapped him on the arm in sympathy.

“What can we offer, though?” Khasar said. “They will know we have nothing.”

Temujin felt his excitement ebb and spat on the ground.

“We could raid the Tartars,” Kachiun said suddenly. “If we ride into their lands, we could take whatever we find.”

“And have them hunt us,” Khasar responded irritably. He did not see the light that had come into Temujin’s eyes.

“Our father’s death has never been settled,” he said. Kachiun sensed his mood and clenched a fist as Temujin went on. “We are strong enough and we can strike before they know we are even there. Why not? The Olkhun’ut would welcome us if we come with cattle and horses, and no one will care if they bear Tartar brands.”

He took his two brothers by their shoulders and gripped them.

“The three of us could take back just a little of what they owe us. For everything we have lost because of them.” Khasar and Kachiun were beginning to believe, he could see, but it was Kachiun who frowned suddenly.

“We cannot leave our mother unprotected with the young ones,” he said.

Temujin thought quickly. “We will take her to old Horghuz and his family. He has a wife and young boys. She will be as safe there as anywhere. I’ll promise him a fifth of whatever we bring back with us and he’ll do it, I know he will.”

As he spoke, he saw Kachiun glance toward the horizon. Temujin stiffened when he saw what had attracted his brother’s eye.