Jelaudin sat cross-legged on a narrow beach, staring over the choppy waters of the Caspian at the black shore he had left earlier that day. He could see fires of driftwood burning there and moving shadows flickering around them. The Mongols had reached the sea and there was nowhere left to run. Jelaudin wondered idly if he and his brothers should have killed the fishermen and their families. The Mongols would not have known then where he had taken the shah and perhaps they would have given up the chase. Jelaudin grimaced at his own desperation. He did not doubt the fishermen would have fought. Armed with knives and sticks, the dozen boatmen would probably have overwhelmed his small family.

The island was barely a mile offshore. Jelaudin and his brothers had dragged the boat into the cover of straggling trees, but they might as well have left it. No doubt the fishing families had told the Mongols where they had gone. Jelaudin sighed to himself, more tired than he could ever remember before. Even the days in Khuday seemed a dim dream. He had brought his father there to die, and after that he half suspected his own end would come quickly. He had never known an enemy as implacable as the Mongols, who stayed on his trail through snow and rain, always coming closer until he could hear their horses in his sleep. Sound carried across the water between them and occasionally Jelaudin could hear reedy yells or voices raised in song. They knew they were close to the end of the hunt, after more than a thousand miles. They knew the prey had gone to ground at last, with all the hopelessness of a fox vanishing into its den, waiting in terror to be dug out.

Once again, Jelaudin wondered if the Mongols could swim. If they could, it would not be with swords at least. He heard his brothers talking amongst themselves and could not summon the energy to rise and tell them again to be quiet. The Mongols already knew where they were. The final duty of the shah’s sons was to watch him die, to allow him the dignity he deserved.

Jelaudin rose, his knees protesting as he unbent and cracked his neck. Though the island was tiny, it was covered in trees and thick foliage, so that he and his brothers had been forced to hack a path. He followed the route they had cut, using his hands to remove the slim branches that snagged his robe.

In a clearing formed by a fallen tree, his father lay on his back with his sons around him. Jelaudin was pleased to see the old man was awake to see the stars, though every catch and wheeze of breath made his chest shudder with effort. In the moonlight, he saw his father’s eyes turn to him and Jelaudin bowed his head in greeting. His father’s hands gestured feebly and Jelaudin came close to hear the man he had always thought was too vital to fall. Those truths of his childhood had crashed around him. He knelt to listen and even there, so far from home, part of him yearned to hear his father’s old strength, as if his frailty could be banished by will and need. His brothers shuffled closer and for a time they forgot the Mongols across the deep waters.

‘I am sorry,’ the shah said, gasping. ‘Not for me. For you, my sons.’ He broke off to suck at the air, his face red and sweat running freely.

‘You do not have to speak,’ Jelaudin murmured. His father’s mouth jerked slightly.

‘If not now,’ he wheezed, ‘when?’ His eyes were bright and Jelaudin ached at seeing the gleam of an old, dry humour.

‘I am… proud of you, Jelaudin,’ the shah said. ‘You have done well.’

The old man choked suddenly and Jelaudin rolled him onto his side and used his fingers to wipe a gobbet of phlegm from his lips. As he turned his father back, his eyes were wet. The shah gave out a long breath, then filled his tortured lungs slowly.

‘When I am gone,’ the old man whispered. Jelaudin began to object, but his words died away. ‘When I am gone, you will avenge me,’ he said.

Jelaudin nodded, though he had left his own hopes long behind him. He felt his father’s hand clutch at his robe and he gripped it in his own.

‘Only you, Jelaudin. They will follow you,’ the shah said.

The effort of forcing out the words was hastening the end and every breath came harder. Jelaudin wanted the old man to find peace, but he could not look away.

‘Go to the south and call holy war on… this khan. Call the devout to jihad. All of them, Jelaudin, all.’

The shah tried to struggle up, but it was too much for him. Jelaudin gestured to Tamar and together they helped their father to a sitting position. As they did so, he breathed out completely and his mouth fell slack. His thin body jerked in their hands as it struggled for air and Jelaudin wept as he felt the bristles of his father’s beard brush across his hand. The shah threw his head back in a great spasm, but breath did not come and the shuddering became twitches and then nothing. Jelaudin heard a hiss of foul air as the old man’s bowels opened and his bladder released, pungent urine drenching the sandy ground.

Gently, the two brothers laid the old man back. Jelaudin opened out the clawed fingers, stroking the hand as he did so. He watched as Tamar closed their father’s eyes and still they waited, hardly believing that he was truly gone. The chest did not move and one by one the sons stood and looked down at him. The world was quiet and the stars shone overhead. Jelaudin felt they should not, that there should be something more than the gentle lap of waves to mark the passing of a great man.

‘It is over,’ Tamar said, his voice catching.

Jelaudin nodded and, to his surprise and shame, he felt a great weight lifted from his shoulders.

‘The Mongol animals will come here in the end,’ he said softly, glancing back to where he knew they camped, though the dark trees hid them from sight. ‘They will find the… they will find our father. Perhaps it will be enough for them.’

‘We cannot leave him here for them,’ Tamar replied. ‘I have a tinderbox, brother. There is enough dry wood and what does it matter now if we are seen? We should burn the body. If we live to return, we will build a temple here to honour him.’

‘That is a good thought, brother,’ Jelaudin said. ‘Very well, but when the fire takes hold, we will leave this island and cross the sea beyond. The Mongols are not sailors.’ He recalled the maps he had seen in his father’s library at Bukhara. The sea had not looked too wide to cross. ‘Let them try to follow us across the deep waters where we leave no trail.’

‘I do not know the lands across the sea, brother,’ Tamar replied. ‘Where will we go?’

‘Why south, Tamar, as our father told us. We will raise a storm with the Afghans and in India. We will return with an army to crush this Genghis. On my father’s soul, I swear it.’

Jochi and Chagatai caught up with the Arab army as it began to descend into a bowl of hills to the east of Samarkand. The scout’s estimate of numbers had been low if anything. As Jochi conferred quickly with his younger brother, he thought the best part of forty thousand men had come to the aid of the shah’s jewelled city. He did not let the thought worry him. In Chin lands and Arab, Genghis had shown quality of men was more important than sheer numbers. Tsubodai was credited with winning against the best odds when he had routed a city garrison of twelve thousand with only eight hundred men on a scouting raid, but all the generals had proved themselves against larger forces. They were always outnumbered.

The bowl of hills was a gift and neither brother delayed long as they sighted the enemy. Veterans of mounted battles, they knew the extraordinary benefit of having the high ground. Arrows flew further and horses became unstoppable in a charge as they struck the enemy. Chagatai and Jochi talked briefly, their enmity put aside for the moment. Chagatai merely grunted his assent when Jochi suggested he ride around the bowl and hit the Arab formations on the left flank. It would be Jochi’s task to meet them head on at the foot of the valley.