There would be other cities, he knew, but these first ones would always be sweetest in his memory. He roared with his men, the column galloping at full speed through the gates, scattering defenders like bloody leaves in their wake.

Temuge walked through pitch darkness to the ger of Kokchu. As he passed the door, he heard the muffled sound of weeping from within, but he did not stop. The moon was absent from the sky and Kokchu had told him that was when he would be strongest and most able to learn. Fires still burned in the gutted shell of Linhe in the distance, but the camp was quiet after the destruction.

Close by the shaman's ger was another, so low and squat that Temuge had to go down on his knees to enter. A single shuttered lamp cast a dim glow and the air was thick with fumes that made Temuge dizzy after just a few breaths. Kokchu sat cross-legged on a floor of wrinkled black silk. All the things inside had come from the hand of Genghis, and Temuge felt envy mingling with his fear of the man.

He had been called and he had come. His place was not to question, and as he sat and crossed his legs to face the shaman, he saw Kokchu's eyes were closed and that his breath was no more than a slight flutter of the chest. Temuge shuddered in the thick silence, imagining dark spirits in the smoke that filled his lungs. It came from incense burning on a pair of brass plates, and he wondered which city had been looted for them. The gers of his people were host to many strange objects in these bloody days, and there were few who could recognize them all.

Temuge coughed as the smoke came too thickly into his lungs. He saw Kokchu's bare chest shudder and the man's eyes opened blindly, looking for him but not seeing. As the focus returned, the shaman smiled at him, his eyes in deep shadow.

"You have not come to me for a full turn of the moon," Kokchu said, his voice hoarse from the smoke.

Temuge looked away. "I was troubled. Some of the things you told me were… disturbing."

Kokchu chuckled, a dry hacking in his throat. "As children are wary of the dark, so are men wary of power. It tempts them and yet it consumes them. It is never a game to play lightly." He rested his gaze on Temuge until the younger man looked up and winced visibly. Kokchu's unblinking eyes were strangely bright, the pupils wider and darker than Temuge had ever seen them.

"Why have you come tonight," Kokchu murmured, "if not to plunge your hands into the darkness once more?"

Temuge took a deep breath. The smoke no longer seemed to irritate his lungs and he felt light-headed, almost confident.

"I heard you found a traitor while I was away in Baotou. My brother the khan spoke of it. He said it was wondrous how you picked the man out of a line of kneeling warriors."

"Much has changed since then," Kokchu said with a shrug. "I could smell his guilt, my son. It is something you could learn." Kokchu summoned his will to keep his thoughts focused. He was used to the smoke and could take a great deal more of it than his young companion, but still there were bright lights flashing at the edges of his vision.

Temuge felt all his worries dissolving as he sat there with this strange man who smelled of blood despite his new silk robes. Words tumbled out of him and he did not know he slurred them.

"Genghis said you laid your hands on the traitor and spoke words in the oldest tongue," Temuge whispered. "He said the man cried out and died in front of them all without a wound."

"And you would like to do the same, Temuge? There is no one else here and there is no shame between us. Say the words. Is that what you want?"

Temuge slumped slightly, letting his hands drop to the silken floor so that he could feel it slide under his fingers with extraordinary clarity.

"It is what I want."

Kokchu smiled wider at that, showing dark gums as his lips slid back. He did not know the identity of the traitor or even if there had been one. The hand he had pressed against the man's scalp had held two tiny fangs and a venom sac embedded in wax. It had taken him many nights of hunting the vicious little pit viper he wanted, risking being bitten himself. He began to chuckle again at the memory of the awe on the face of the khan as the victim writhed from just a touch. The dying man had gone almost black in the face before the end, the twin spots of blood hidden by his hair. Kokchu had chosen him because of the Chin girl he had taken to wife. She had roused the shaman to lust as she passed his ger to draw water, and then she had refused him, as if she were one of the people and not a slave. He laughed harder as he remembered the knowledge coming into her husband's eyes before death stole it away with everything else. Since that moment, Kokchu had been feared and honored in the camp. Not one of the other shamans of the tribes dared challenge his position, not after that display of power. He felt no guilt at the deception. His fate was to stand with the khan of the nation, triumphant over his enemies. If he had to kill a thousand to do so, he would count it worth the price.

He saw Temuge was glassy-eyed as he sat there in the stifling smoke. Kokchu clamped his jaw shut, pressing away his amusement. He needed his mind clear to bind the younger man, so close that he would never tear free.

Slowly Kokchu reached into the small pot of thick black paste at his side, holding up a finger so that tiny seeds were visible in the gleaming muck. He reached out to Temuge and opened his mouth without resistance, smearing the paste onto his tongue.

Temuge choked at the bitter taste, but before he could spit, he felt numbness spreading quickly. He heard whispering voices behind him and he jerked his head back and forth as his eyes glazed, searching for the origin of the sound.

"Dream the darkest dreams, Temuge," Kokchu said, satisfied. "I will guide you. No, even better. I will give you mine."

It was dawn before Kokchu staggered out of the ger, sour sweat staining his robe. Temuge was unconscious on the silk floor and would sleep for most of the day to come. Kokchu had not touched the paste himself, unwilling to trust the way it made him babble and not yet sure how much Temuge would remember. He had no wish to put himself in the other's power, not when the future was so bright. He took deep breaths of freezing air and felt his head clear itself of the smoke. He could smell its sweetness coming out of his pores, and he giggled to himself as he crossed back to his own ger and banged open the door.

The Chin girl knelt where he had left her, on the floor by the stove. She was incredibly beautiful, pale and delicate. He felt his lust swell for her again and wondered at his own stamina. Perhaps it was the remnant of smoke in his lungs.

"How many times did you disobey me and rise?" he demanded.

"I did not," she said, trembling visibly.

He reached out to raise her head, his hands slipping clumsily from her face and enraging him. The gesture became a blow and he knocked her sprawling.

He stood panting as she scrambled back and knelt once more. Just as he began untying the sash on his deel, she raised her head. There was blood on her mouth and he saw her lower lip was already swelling. The sight inflamed him.

"Why do you hurt me? What more do you want?" she asked, tears shining in her eyes.

"Power over you, little one," he said, smiling. "What does any man want but that? It is something in the blood of every one of us. We would all be a tyrant if we could."

GenghisLordsoftheBow