“Very well,” he said, and he lifted the sword.
She sprang up, like a deer bolting from brush, and sprinted away, trying to disappear in the darkness beyond the torchlight. One of the men on horseback dropped his torch as he scrambled for his bow, and sparks scattered on the ground, startling the horses. They moved, jostling each other, and the men started shouting at the one who had dropped his torch.
Munokhoi threw his knife, almost lazily, and from the darkness, Gansukh heard a squeal of pain and then the sound of a body falling. “Hai!” Munokhoi shouted at his men. “Control your horses.”
The riders brought their mounts under control, moving them away from the guttering torch on the ground, where a tiny grass fire was starting to spread. As the animals calmed down, Gansukh heard a guttural moaning from beyond the circle of torchlight.
Munokhoi glanced at him, his face suffused with the feral grin again.
“Now she has your knife,” Gansukh said, enjoying the change in Munokhoi’s expression that his words caused.
Munokhoi stalked over to the fallen torch. He stamped out the grass fire and scooped up the torch. “Careful, pup,” he snarled. “When I get it back, I might use it on you.” Munokhoi walked quickly in the direction he had thrown his knife, and after a moment, his torch swept down as if he were sweeping a stone floor clear of debris. The woman screamed, a long wail that collapsed into a sob.
Who is she? Gansukh hadn’t had a chance to consider the woman’s claim that she wasn’t an assassin. If what she said was true, then what had she been doing in the palace? Was she a thief? What had she stolen?
They needed answers, and the discovery of the woman and subsequent chase had been fraught with confusion, including, Gansukh realized, some of the guards mistaking him for the woman’s companion.
He glanced at Munokhoi’s men, his throat suddenly tight. Even though the men were Torguud, sworn to protect the Khagan, they were Munokhoi’s handpicked warriors. We’re far from court, he thought, away from the eyes of the Khagan. It would be easy for there to be an accident. No one would claim otherwise.
“She’s not an assassin,” Gansukh shouted. “How can we protect the Khagan if we don’t learn what she was doing at the palace?”
Two of the riders stiffened in their saddles, their body language changing with Gansukh’s reminder of the Torguud’s primary purpose. He had just bought himself a little breathing room. As long as he kept their focus on the woman, the rivalry between him and Munokhoi would be an awkward distraction to the issue at hand. His men wouldn’t tolerate Munokhoi indulging in petty revenge.
Exhaling, Gansukh turned away from the riders and strode toward Munokhoi’s now dancing torch.
Munokhoi was struggling to control her. Hampered by both torch and knife, he couldn’t hold her still. There was blood on her shoulder, a wet darkness made slick by the torchlight, and the aroma of burnt hair filled Gansukh’s nostrils as he got close. She spotted Gansukh approaching, and her movements became even wilder, clawing and scratching at Munokhoi. She hit his left arm—the one holding the torch—and the fire danced dangerously close to his face; when he jerked his head back, she pulled herself free of his grip.
She ran—not into the darkness, but straight at Gansukh. Surprised, he lowered his sword so she couldn’t impale herself on the blade (if that was, indeed, what she was trying to do), and she didn’t slow down. She collided heavily with him, and he staggered, trying to keep her from attacking his face or grabbing at his sword. She did neither, and for an instant her hands were pressed hard against his chest, and then Munokhoi was on them.
He grabbed her hair, yanked her head back, and slipped his knife under her neck. Gansukh flinched at the approach of the blade, but he couldn’t get free of the woman. Her hands pulled at the cloth of his deel as if she could rip it open and hide inside the voluminous garment, and it was only after Munokhoi applied a little pressure to his blade—drawing a thin bead of blood on her exposed neck—that she relented.
Munokhoi glared at Gansukh from behind the woman as he wound his hand more firmly in her hair. “She’ll talk,” he laughed. “I’m very good at not killing people.”
She shivered uncontrollably, and the wild look in her eyes reminded Gansukh of an animal that saw its death approaching.
“She’s my captive,” Gansukh said, not giving any ground.
Munokhoi snorted. “I command a jaghun of the Khagan’s Torguud,” he said. “You are nothing but a lapdog of the Great Khan’s brother. Your word means little in Karakorum.”
But it means something, Gansukh thought, which is why you have only threatened me out here, far away from the ears of men whom you don’t command. Gansukh stared at Munokhoi for another second or two, and then he looked away. He stepped back and to the side, relinquishing his claim on the woman. For now.
Munokhoi grunted, assured of his superiority in this situation, and he marched the captive—his captive now—past Gansukh. “Tie her up,” he called to his men. “Let’s take her back to the city.” He shot Gansukh one more contemptuous glance.
Gansukh watched the men tie the woman’s hands together and then lash her across the saddle of Munokhoi’s horse. In a few minutes they rode off, quickly dwindling to fireflies before disappearing entirely.
Gansukh retrieved the torch Munokhoi had dropped, and as he was stomping out the fire it had started, he realized the woman had slipped something into his deel.
Gansukh returned to Karakorum as quickly as he could, but it took some time to find his horse, even with the assistance of the weak torchlight. As a result, he reached the palace after dawn—dusty, aching, worn out, and irritable. Even the respite of a morning breeze licking his face as he dismounted in front of the palace did nothing for his mood.
The large doors of the palace were shut, the imposing motifs of carved dragons thrust out at the world. A quartet of guards stood in front of them, dressed in the ornate bronze armor and pristine white lamb furs of the Day Guard. They were stoically formal as Gansukh approached, unmoved by his approach or his mood.
“I have important information for the Khagan,” said Gansukh, “about the intruder last night.”
“The intruder has already been interrogated,” one of them said.
Gansukh thought about the tiny box the woman had given him. Nestled against his undershirt, it was rectangular, lacquered black, just big enough to fit into his palm, and without a visible seam. When he had shaken it, he had heard something rattle.
“I was the one who captured her,” he said. “The Khagan will want to hear my report.”
“Torguud commander Munokhoi captured her,” countered the guard.
Gansukh stepped closer to the man, and behind him, two of the other guards dropped their pikes to form a barrier. “Are you calling me a liar?” he said, putting his face very close to the other man. “I am the envoy of Chagatai Khan, and I have been sent to personally report to the Khagan. If you do not step aside and let me in the palace, I will…”
The guard tried to call his bluff. “You will what?”
“I will bury my knife in your guts.” Gansukh pulled his lips back from his teeth. “Your companions will probably kill me, but then they will have to tell the Khagan who they have killed, and why. Do you think they are willing to do that for you? Perhaps the Khagan will even let them live long enough to tell Chagatai Khan himself what they have done.”