In the distance, Tsubodai ordered wooden barricades forward, protecting his warriors as they pulled at weakened stones with long hooked pikes. The city archers could not take a shot without risking their own lives, and even when they were successful, their arrows thumped into wood and were wasted.

As Genghis watched, a group of defenders showed their heads to tip an iron pot over the crest of the wall. Many of them fell to arrows, but there were always more to take their place. Genghis frowned as they succeeded in drenching a dozen pikemen in black liquid. The warriors ducked down behind their wooden shield, but only moments later, torches were thrown onto the oil and flames exploded, louder than the choking screams as their lungs charred.

Genghis heard men curse around him. Tsubodai's burning pikemen went stumbling into the other groups, fouling the smooth rhythms of the attack. In the confusion, Chin archers picked off anyone who stepped from his shield to fend them off or put an end to their agony.

Tsubodai roared fresh orders and the shield groups moved slowly back, leaving the writhing men until they were consumed. Genghis nodded in approval as the catapults began to whistle once more. He had heard of the oil that burned, though he had never seen it used in such a way. It took flame much faster than the mutton fat in Mongol lamps, and he decided to secure a supply. Perhaps there would be some left in Linhe when it fell. His mind filled with the thousand details he needed to remember each day until his head felt swollen with plans.

Dark, smoking bodies lay under the wall and he could hear thin cheering inside the city. Genghis waited for Tsubodai to make a breach, his impatience growing. The light would not last much longer and at sunset Tsubodai would have to order his men to retreat for the night.

As the catapults sang again, Genghis wondered how many they had lost in the assault. It did not matter. Tsubodai commanded the least experienced of his warriors, and they needed to be hardened in war. In the two years he had spent in the Khenti mountains, another eight thousand boys had reached their adult growth and mounted to join him. Most of them rode with Tsubodai and called themselves the Young Wolves to honor Genghis. Tsubodai had almost begged to be first in the assault on Linhe, but Genghis had already planned to have those boys lead the attack. Along with their new general, they had to be blooded.

Genghis heard the cries of wounded men carry on the wind and tapped his wrist guard unconsciously against the lacquered plates of his thigh. Two more sections of wall fell. He saw a turret of stone collapse, spilling a nest of archers almost at the feet of Tsubodai's gleeful warriors. The walls of Linhe now resembled broken teeth, and Genghis knew it would not be long. Wheeled ladders were rolled up as the catapult teams stood down at last, exhausted and triumphant.

Genghis felt the excitement build around him as Tsubodai's Young Wolves swarmed over the defenders, darkening the pale gray stone with their scrambling bodies. His best archers covered the assault from below, men able to pierce an egg at a hundred paces. Chin soldiers who showed themselves on the walls were fat with quivering arrows by the time they fell back.

Genghis nodded sharply to himself and took the reins of his mare to mount. The animal snorted, sensing his mood. He looked to his left and right, seeing the patient faces of his bondsmen and the ranks and columns in a great circle around the city. He had made armies within armies, so that each of his generals commanded a tuman of ten thousand men and acted on his own. Arslan was lost to sight behind Linhe, but Genghis could see the horse-tail standard of Jelme fluttering in the breeze. The sunlight cast them all in burnished gold and orange, throwing long shadows. Genghis looked for his brothers, ready to ride into the east and west gates if they opened first. Khasar and Kachiun would be keen to be first in the streets of Linhe.

At his shoulder, the huge figure of Tolui who had once been bondsman to Eeluk of the Wolves was worth only a glance, though Genghis saw the man stiffen with pride. Old friends were there, responding with nods. The front line of the column was only twenty horses wide, men approaching thirty years of age, as he was himself. It lifted Genghis's spirit to see the way they strained forward, watching the city hungrily.

Smoke spiraled into the air from a dozen points within Linhe, like the distant threads of a rainstorm on the plains. Genghis watched and waited, his hands shaking slightly with tension.

"May I bless you, great khan?" came a voice he knew, interrupting his thoughts. Genghis turned and gestured to his personal shaman, first among the men who walked the dark paths. Kokchu had thrown away the rags from his days serving the Naiman khan. He wore a robe of dark blue silk, tied with a sash of gold. His wrists were bound in leather hung with pierced Chin coins, and they chimed as he raised his arms. Genghis bowed his head without expression, feeling the cool touch of sheep blood as Kokchu striped his cheeks with it. He felt a rush of calm settle on him, and he kept his head lowered as Kokchu chanted a prayer to the earth mother.

"She will welcome the blood you send into her, my lord, as much as if the rains themselves ran red."

Genghis let out a slow breath, pleasantly aware of the fear in the men around him. Every one of them was a warrior born, hardened in fire and battle from the first years, but still they closed their mouths of idle chatter when Kokchu walked amongst them. Genghis had seen the fear grow and he had used it to discipline the tribes, giving Kokchu power by his patronage.

"Shall I have the red tent taken down, my lord?" Kokchu asked. "The sun is setting and the black cloth is ready for the frame."

Genghis considered. It had been Kokchu himself who suggested this means to sow terror in the cities of the Chin. On the first day, a white tent was raised outside their walls, its very existence showing that there were no soldiers to save them. If they did not open their gates by sunset, the red tent went up at dawn and Genghis sent the promise that every man in the city would die. On the third day, the black tent meant that there would be only death without end, without mercy, for anyone alive within.

The lesson would be learned by cities to the east, and Genghis wondered if they would surrender more easily as Kokchu said. The shaman understood how to use fear. It would be difficult not to allow the men to loot them as savagely as the cities that resisted, but the idea appealed to him. Speed was everything and if cities fell without a fight, he could move all the faster. He inclined his head to the shaman, giving him honor.

"The day is not yet over, Kokchu. The women will live without their husbands. Those who are too old or too plain for us will take the word further and the fear will spread."

"Your will, my lord," Kokchu said, his eyes gleaming. Genghis felt his own senses kindle in return. He needed clever men if he was to take the path his imagination drew for him.

"My lord khan!" an officer called. Genghis snapped his head round, seeing the north gate heaved open by Tsubodai's young warriors. The defenders were still fighting and he could see some of Tsubodai's men fall as they struggled to keep the advantage they had won. On the edge of his vision, Khasar's ten thousand kicked into a gallop and he knew the city was open in at least two places. Kachiun was still stationary on the east gate and could only watch in frustration as his brothers moved in.

"Ride!" Genghis bellowed, digging in his heels. As the air whipped past him, he recalled racing across the plains of home in distant days. He hefted a long birchwood lance in his right hand, another innovation. Only a few of the strongest men had begun to train with them, but the fashion was growing amongst the tribes. With the point held upright, Genghis thundered across the land, surrounded by his loyal warriors.