"Take swords and mount!" he shouted. Once more, the order was repeated and he saw his men dash joyfully over the dead to leap into the saddles of Chin horses. There were more than enough, though some of the mounts were still wide-eyed with terror and spattered with the blood of their last rider. Kachiun sprang into the saddle then, standing in the stirrups to see what the enemy was doing. He wished Khasar was there to see this. His brother would have loved the chance to charge the Chin army with their own horses. He bellowed a challenge and dug in his heels, leaning low over the saddle as his mount hit its stride and leaped forward.
The end of the pass was in chaos as Genghis rode over the dead. The crossbows of the Chin soldiers had killed almost all of his prisoners, with half a million iron bolts lying in shifting piles underfoot. Yet some of them had run onto the Chin ranks, berserk in their terror. Genghis had seen them grabbing weapons and barricades with bloody hands.
The organized volley fire became sporadic as the last of them tore at the lines. Hundreds forced their way past the first rank, clawing and kicking in desperation. When they found a weapon, they used it to strike wildly around them until they were cut down.
As Genghis pressed forward he felt bolts zipping by him and ducked in his saddle as one came too close. The vast Chin army was ahead and he had done everything he could. The gap opened as he rode at it and he realized only one side was a wall of rock. From far back, he had thought of the gap as a great gate, but close to, he saw the Chin had raised a huge tree trunk upright on one side. Ropes stretched from the top and Genghis realized it could be dropped across the pass itself, cutting his army in half. If it fell, he was finished. As panic swept through him, his advance staggered to a halt against a hill of dead bodies. Genghis cried out in frustration, waiting to be struck or see the tree fall. He called men ahead of him by name, ordering them forward on foot and pointing to the great bole that would crash down on all his hopes. They struggled to reach the ropes and cut them.
Beyond the gap, Genghis could see the Chin lines swirl. Something was wrong and he risked standing in his stirrups to see what it was. The last of the prisoners were heaving at the wicker barricades that protected the Chin soldiers while they reloaded. Genghis held his breath as his warriors joined the exhausted prisoners, their swords bright lines in the sun. The crossbows had fallen silent at last and Genghis could see gesturing arms calling for more.
They had run out of bolts at last, as he had hoped. The ground was black with the ugly little spikes of iron, and every sprawled body was fat with them. Let the tree stand and he would have his breach yet in the Chin ranks. Genghis drew his father's sword, feeling the pressure give suddenly like a breaking dam. Behind him, the Mongols lifted lances or long blades and jammed in their heels, forcing their mounts to leap up piles of dead men. The remaining barricades were kicked aside. Genghis passed under the shadow of the huge tree and could not stop as he was carried into the army of the Chin emperor.
The line of horsemen speared into the Chin soldiers, cutting deeply into their ranks. The risk increased with every length they traveled, as they were faced with men not only at the front but at the sides. Genghis hacked at anything that moved, a butcher's style he could keep up for hours. Ahead he saw a line of panicking cavalry smash into their own lines, breaking them apart. He could not take a moment to look back at the tree with so many blades whirling around him. Only when another line hit the cavalry at full gallop did he glance up, recognizing his own people on the back of the Chin mounts. He yelled hoarsely then, sensing the swelling panic and confusion in his enemies. Behind him the impotent crossbow regiments were being gutted by his men as they cut a path deeper and deeper into the massed ranks. It would not have been enough without the flanking charge, but Genghis saw the riders wreak havoc in the Chin lines, the best horsemen in the world running wild amidst their enemies.
A blade caught his mount in the throat, opening up a great gash that pumped blood onto the faces of struggling soldiers. Genghis felt the animal falter and jumped free, knocking two men down as he hit them with his full armored weight.
His feel for the battle was lost in that instant and he could only continue the fight on foot, hoping they had done enough. More and more of his warriors were surging out of the pass, crashing into the center. The Mongol army came through like an armored fist, sending the Chin ranks reeling.
General Zhi Zhong could only watch openmouthed as the Mongols gutted his front lines. He had seen his cavalry routed and then driven back into the main army, spreading panic through the ranks. He could have held them steady, he was certain, but then the cursed Mongols followed them in on stolen horses. They rode with astonishing skill, balancing perfectly as they fired volleys of arrows at the gallop, opening a hole. He saw a sword regiment collapse and then the front ranks at the pass crumpled back and a new wave of them sprang through his soldiers as if they were children with swords.
The general gaped, his mind blank. His officers were looking to him for orders, but too much was happening too quickly and he froze. No, he could still recover. More than half his army had yet to meet the enemy, and another twenty cavalry regiments waited further down the line. He called for his horse and mounted.
"Block the pass!" he shouted, his messengers racing through the line to the front. He had men ready for the order, if they still lived. If he could cut off the Mongols coming through the pass, he could surround and destroy those who rode so recklessly through his own lines. He had raised the tree as a last resort, but it had become the only thing that would buy him time enough to regroup.
Tsubodai saw Genghis crash through the end of the pass, his horse wild. He felt the terrible pressure begin to give around him as more and more men followed their khan through the gap. Tsubodai's Young Wolves bayed in excitement. Many of them were still so hemmed in by men and horses that they could not move. Some had even been turned around in the heaving mass and were struggling to get back to the fighting ahead.
Tsubodai had lost sight of Genghis when he saw one of the ropes above his head grow taut as men heaved on it. He looked up, understanding in an instant that the shuddering tree could be dropped and cut him off from those who had gone through.
His men did not see the danger and kicked and urged their mounts forward, whooping like the young men they were. Tsubodai swore as another rope lost its slackness. The tree was enormous, but it would not take much to pull it down.
"Targets there!" he roared to his men, giving them the direction as he drew and loosed as fast as he ever had before. His first shaft took one of the struggling Chin in the throat and he fell away from a rope, sending two companions sprawling. It went slack, but more ran to complete Zhi Zhong's order and the tree began to tip. Tsubodai's Young Wolves answered with a swarm of arrows, dropping dozens of men. It was too late. The last of the Chin soldiers pulled the massive trunk right on top of them, with a crash that slammed up and down the pass. Tsubodai was no more than twenty paces from the plain beyond when it fell. His horse reared in panic and he had to heave to bring it back under control.
Even the surviving prisoners were jolted from their bloody frenzy by the sound. As Tsubodai stared in stunned horror, silence fell across the packed lines for a moment before a single terrible cry came from a warrior whose legs had been crushed. The side of the tree blocked the pass to the height of a man. No horse could leap it. Tsubodai felt thousands of eyes turn automatically to him, but he did not know what to do.