Taran stood numbly in the cold, his thoughts sluggish. At last he nodded to himself, then began to walk back past the two dead men. He would not fail. Tsubodai was waiting for news.

Behind him the snow fell thickly, covering the dead and erasing all the signs of the bloody struggle until it was frozen and perfect once more.

The encampment was not silent in the snow. The generals of Genghis had their men riding across it, practicing maneuvers and archery, hardening themselves. The warriors covered their hands and faces in thick mutton grease, and they worked for hours firing arrows at full gallop into straw dummies, ten paces apart. The straw men jerked again and again and boys ran to yank the arrows out, judging their chance before the next rider came down the line.

The prisoners they had taken from the cities still numbered in their thousands, despite the war games Khasar had made them play. They sat or stood in a mass outside the gers. Only a few herdsmen watched over the starved men, but they did not run. In the early days, some had escaped, but every warrior of the tribes could track a lost sheep and they brought back only heads, casting them high into the crowd of prisoners as a warning to the others.

Smoke hung over every ger as the stoves worked, the women cooking the slaughtered animals and distilling black airag to warm their men. When the warriors were training, they ate and drank more than usual, trying to add a layer of fat against the cold. It was hard to build it with twelve hours in the saddle each day, but Genghis had given the order and almost a third of the flocks had been killed to satisfy their hunger.

Tsubodai brought Taran to the great ger as soon as the young scout reported. Genghis was there with his brothers Khasar and Kachiun, and he came out as he heard Tsubodai approach. The khan saw that the boy with Tsubodai was exhausted, swaying slightly in the cold. Black circles lay under his eyes and he looked as if he had not eaten for days.

"Come with me to my wife's ger," Genghis said. "She will put hot meat in your stomach and we can talk." Tsubodai bowed his head and Taran tried to do the same, awed at speaking to the khan himself. He trotted behind the two men as Tsubodai told of the pass he and Vesak had found. As they spoke the boy glanced at the mountains, knowing that Vesak's frozen body was up there somewhere. Perhaps the spring thaw would reveal him once again. Taran was too cold and tired to think, and when he was out of the wind, he took a bowl of greasy stew in numb hands, shoveling it into his mouth without expression.

Genghis watched the young boy, amused at his ravenous appetite and the way he cast envious glances at the khan's eagle on its perch. The red bird was hooded, but it turned toward the young newcomer and seemed to watch him.

Borte fussed around the scout, refilling his bowl as soon as it was empty. She gave him a skin of black airag as well, making him cough and splutter, then nodded as a bloom appeared once more on his frozen cheeks.

"You found a way through?" Genghis asked him, when Taran's eyes had lost their glassy look.

"Vesak did, lord." A thought seemed to strike him and he fumbled with stiff fingers in his pouch, producing something that was clearly an ear. He held it up with pride.

"I killed a soldier there, waiting for us."

Genghis took the ear from him, examining it before handing it back.

"You have done well," he said patiently. "Can you find the way again?"

Taran nodded, gripping the ear like a talisman. Too much had happened in a short time and he was overwhelmed, once again aware that he was speaking to the man who had formed a nation from the tribes. His friends would never believe he had met the khan himself, with Tsubodai watching like a proud father.

"I can, lord."

Genghis smiled, his gaze far away. He nodded to Tsubodai, seeing his own triumph reflected there.

"Go and sleep, then, boy. Rest and eat until you are full, then sleep again. You will need to be strong to lead my brothers." He clapped Taran on his shoulder, staggering him.

"Vesak was a good man, lord," Tsubodai said. "I knew him well."

Genghis glanced at the young warrior he had promoted to lead ten thousand of the people. He saw a depth of grief in his eyes and understood that Vesak was of the same tribe. Though he had forbidden talk of the old families, some bonds went deep.

"If his body can be found, I will have it brought down and honored," he said. "Did he have a wife, children?"

"He did, lord," Tsubodai replied.

"I will see they are looked after," Genghis replied. "No one will take their flock, or force his wife into another man's ger."

Tsubodai's relief was obvious. "Thank you, lord," he said. He left Genghis to eat with his wife and took Taran out into the wind once more, gripping him around the back of the neck to show his pride.

The storm still raged two days later when Khasar and Kachiun gathered their men. Each of them had supplied five thousand warriors, and Taran would lead them over the peaks in single file. Their horses were left behind and Genghis had not wasted those two days. The archery dummies had been copied by the thousand, placing men of straw, wood, and cloth on every spare horse. If Chin scouts were able to see the plain at all in the snow, they would not notice the smaller number of men.

Khasar stood with his brother, rubbing grease into each other's faces in preparation for the hard climb to follow. Unlike the scouts, their men were burdened with bows and swords as well as a hundred arrows in two heavy quivers strapped to their backs. Between them all, the ten thousand men carried a million shafts-two years of labor in the making and more valuable than anything else they owned. Without birch forests, they could not be replenished.

Everything they carried had to be wrapped in oiled cloth against the wet, and they moved stiffly under the extra layers, stamping their feet and clapping their gloved hands together against the wind.

Taran was stiff-backed with pride at leading the khan's brothers, so filled with excitement that it was all he could do to stand still. When they were ready, Khasar and Kachiun nodded to the boy, looking back at the column of men who would cross the mountains on foot. The ascent would be fast and hard, a cruel trial even for the fittest. If they were spotted by Chin scouts, the men knew they had to reach the high pass before their movements were reported. Anyone who fell would be left behind.

The wind tore through the ranks as Taran started off, looking back as he felt their eyes on him. Khasar saw his nervousness and grinned, sharing the moment of excitement with his brother Kachiun. It was the coldest day yet, but the mood was light amongst the men. They wanted to smash the army that waited for them on the other side of the pass. Even more, they reveled in the thought of coming up behind them and shattering their clever defenses. Genghis himself had come out to see them off.

"You have until dawn on the third day, Kachiun," Genghis had told his brother. "Then I will come through the pass."

GenghisLordsoftheBow