Bones of the Hills by Conn Iggulden Read Free Book Online Page B

I recommend Zurgadai to replace me.”
    “No one could replace you,” Genghis said immediately. “But I will honor your choice and your wisdom this last time. I know this Zurgadai, the one they call ‘Jebe,’ the Arrow.”
    Arslan grimaced slightly. “As you say. You met him first when we rode against the Besud clan years ago. He killed your horse.”
    Genghis let out a surprised exclamation. “I thought I knew the name! By the spirits, he could shoot a bow. Was it three hundred paces? I remember I almost broke my head open.”
    “He has mellowed a little, lord, but not too much. He has been loyal to you ever since you spared him that day.”
    Genghis nodded. “Then pass your gold paitze to him and invite him to my council tent. We will make the feast a celebration of your life. The storytellers will sing your praises to the sky father, and all the young warriors will know a great man is gone from the ranks.” He thought for a moment as Arslan colored in pride.
    “You will have a thousand horses from my own herd and a dozen women as servants for your wife. I will send three young men to guard you in your old age. You will not be lonely in your retirement, General. You will have sheep and goats enough to make you fat for a hundred years.”
    Arslan dismounted and touched his head to Genghis’s foot in the stirrup.
    “You honor me, lord, but I need very little. With your permission, I will take my wife and just a small herd of breeding goats and horses. Together, we will find a quiet place by a stream and there remain. There are no thieves in the hills any longer, and if by chance there are, my bow and sword still speak for me.” He smiled at the man he had seen grow from a boy to a conqueror of nations. “Perhaps I will build a small forge and make one last sword to be buried with me. I hear the sounds of the hammer in my mind even now and I am at peace.”
    Genghis found tears in his eyes as he viewed the man who had been like a second father to him. He too dismounted and embraced Arslan briefly, causing the shouting children around them to fall silent and staring.
    “It is a good dream, old man, but first we wait on your son Jelme and feast a good life.”
    The lands around the Orkhon River were a deeper green than could be found anywhere else. The river itself was wide and clear. It had to be to support two hundred thousand men and women, with twice that number of horses when Khasar and Tsubodai arrived within a day of each other. Under the khan’s ruling hand, the nation had grown and there were always children squalling somewhere. Since his return from the Chin capital, Genghis had made a near permanent camp at the river, rejecting the plain of Avraga. It was true that Avraga would always be sacred as the place he had forged a nation, but it was a dry, flat land. In comparison, a nearby waterfall beat the waters of the Orkhon into white spray, and the horses and sheep could drink their fill. Genghis had swum many times in its deep pools, regaining his strength.
    Khasar had come in first and embraced his brothers: Genghis, Kachiun, even Temuge, who was no warrior, but ran the camps and settled disputes between families. Khasar brought Ogedai with him. The boy was barely thirteen years old, but stood muscular and long-limbed, with the promise of his father’s height. In the sharp planes of Ogedai’s face, the brothers could see an echo of the boy who had once kept them alive when they were banished and alone, just a few scraps of food away from starvation and death. Khasar gripped the back of Ogedai’s neck as he sent him forward to see his father, showing his pride.
    “He is a good hand with a bow and sword, brother,” Khasar said, tilting a skin of black airag and directing a line of the spirit down his throat.
    Genghis heard the delighted cry of his wife Borte from the family ger and knew his son would be surrounded by women in just a few moments.
    “You have grown, Ogedai,” he said awkwardly.