"I have never seen anyone shoot a bow as well as that one. In near darkness, on a rocking boat, he killed six men without hesitation. Are all your people so skilled?"

Quishan busied his hands with the mah-jongg tiles, placing them back in their leather carrying case.

"I am not, but the Uighurs value learning and trade more than any other tribe. The Wolves are known for their ferocity." He paused, his hands growing still. "It is almost too much to believe that the tribes have united under one man, one khan. He must be extraordinary."

Quishan snapped the clasp closed on the leather box, leaning back. He wanted a drink to settle his stomach, but Chen Yi never allowed alcohol when the night needed clear heads.

"Will you welcome my people when they ride to the walls?" Quishan asked softly. He felt Chen Yi's gaze on him, but he did not look up from his folded hands.

"You think I betrayed my city?" Chen Yi asked him.

Quishan raised his gaze, seeing a dark anger in the man he had grown to trust over the years. "All this is new. Perhaps this new khan will be destroyed by the emperor's armies and those who called themselves allies will suffer the same fate. Have you considered that?"

Chen Yi snorted. "Of course, but I have lived too long with a foot on my neck, Quishan. This house, my slaves, all those who follow me are just what the emperor's ministers have missed through sloth and corruption. We are beneath their notice, like rats in their warehouses. At times, they send a man to make an example and he hangs a few hundred. Sometimes they even catch people who are valuable to me. Or loved by me." Chen Yi's face was like stone as he spoke and Quishan knew he was thinking of his son, no more than a boy when he had been caught in a trawl of the docks two years before. Chen Yi himself had taken the body down from where it swung in the river breeze.

"But a fire does not know who it burns," Quishan said. "You are inviting the flames into your home, your city. Who knows how it will end?"

Chen Yi was silent. He knew as well as Quishan that the three strangers could be made to vanish. There were always bodies in the Yellow River, naked and bloated as they floated by. The deaths would never come back to him. Yet something he had seen in Khasar had stirred a thirst for revenge Chen Yi had buried since the morning he had carried his son's limp weight.

"Let them come, these people of yours who use bows and horses. I judge them more by you than the promises of men I do not know. How long have you worked for me?"

"Nine years, master," Quishan said.

"And you have kept honor with me to pay your debt. How many times could you have escaped and gone back to your people?"

"Three times," Quishan admitted. "Three when I thought I would be able to run clear before you heard."

"I knew about them," Chen Yi replied. "I knew of the boat master who made the first offer. He was one of mine. You would not have gone far before he cut your throat."

Quishan frowned at this information. "You tested me, then."

"Of course. I am not a fool, Quishan. I never was. Let the flames come to Baotou. I will stand alive on the ashes when they are done. Let the Imperial officers burn their plumes in them and I will know contentment. I will know joy at last."

Chen Yi rose and stretched, his back clicking audibly in the silent rooms.

"You are a gambler, Quishan, it is why you have worked for me for so long. I have never been one. I have made this city my own, but still I must bow my head whenever I see one of the emperor's prancing favorites ride down the streets. My streets, Quishan, yet I bow and step into the filth of the gutters rather than stand in their path."

Chen Yi looked out into the darkness, his eyes dead in his face.

"I will stand now, Quishan, and the tiles will fall as they please."

GenghisLordsoftheBow

A S MIDNIGHT CAME, a heavy rain began to fall on the city of Baotou. The downpour hissed on the streets and rattled on the tiles so that it sounded like distant thunder. Chen Yi seemed pleased at the turn in the weather as he handed swords to his men. Even the beggars would shrink back in their doorways while the rain came down. It was a good omen.

As they stepped out onto the dark street, Khasar and Ho Sa stared up and down its length to see if they were observed. The moon was hidden and there was only dim light when the rushing clouds drifted open in patches. Temuge had assumed the water would wash away some of the stench of the city. Instead, it seemed to bloom in the air, the taint of human filth carried on the damp so that it seeped into his lungs and made him nauseous. The gutters were already full and Temuge saw dark, wet things he could not name tumbling along, borne by the current. He shuddered, suddenly aware of the writhing press of humanity all around him. Without Chen Yi, he would not have known where to begin his search in the maze of houses and shops, piled on top of one another in all directions.

Two more of Chen Yi's men had joined them at the gate. Although there was no official curfew, ten men would be challenged by any soldiers still on the streets. Chen Yi gave one the task of scouting each crossroads, and instructed two more to hang back and see if they were followed. Temuge could not escape the feeling he was heading into a battle. As the rain poured down he handled the wet hilt of the sword Chen Yi had pressed on him, hoping he would not have to draw it. He was shivering as they set off, moving at a light trot. The gates closed behind them with an audible clang, but no one looked back.

On some of the streets, the overhanging eaves of houses formed a strip of dry road. Chen Yi slowed to a walk as he led the group past those, unwilling to have the sound of running feet draw residents out to watch. The city was not fully dark, nor sleeping. Temuge saw occasional lights from forges and warehouses, still working into the night. Despite Chen Yi's precautions, Temuge was certain he could feel eyes on them as they passed.

In the gloom, Temuge lost track of time until it seemed he had been running for half the night. There was no pattern to the streets as they wound over and around each other, sometimes little more than dirt tracks with clotted mud that spattered them up to their knees. Temuge was winded after only a short time, and more than once, someone took his arm in the darkness and yanked him onwards, forcing him to keep up. He swore under his breath as one such jerk on his sleeve made him step into a gutter and something soft and cold became trapped between his toes. He hoped it was rotten fruit and nothing worse, but he did not stop.

Only once did the front runner return to guide Chen Yi down a different path. Temuge hoped the soldiers were spending the night in a warm barracks rather than being frozen and drenched as he was.

Chen Yi stopped his panting men at last in the shadow of the city wall itself. Temuge could see it as a bank of deeper darkness. On the other side lay the world he knew and he had a sense of the protection it brought to the city. Such a wall had served the Xi Xia king in Yinchuan. All the warriors Genghis had summoned could not make a breach in such a thing. It ran into the distance, looming over a wide street of houses that looked much as Chen Yi's own home. These, though, were not hidden in the slums, but rose well spaced and carried the scent of flowering gardens on the breeze. Even the pattern of streets had changed in this part of Baotou. They jogged through a grid of islands, each one separate from the city behind its gates and walls. Temuge struggled to catch his breath. He almost choked as Khasar slapped him on the shoulders, his brother standing comfortably as if he had been out for an evening stroll.