The Great Khan Ch. 01

The howl of the wolven winds from the north did not reach them inside the ger.

***

"And with the coming of dawn, we shall see the Tengeriin dor dain, the War beneath Heaven."

Boldbator stood atop the stout outcropping of rock, a singular anomaly in these wide, flat lands, looking eastward. The winds of the previous night had retreated before the goddess Sun, her warming light kissing the endless plains. Her wan rays were only just beginning to warm the steppe but he was wearing only a light del, enjoying the crisp morning air.

This outcropping had traditionally delineated the easternmost boundaries of the Tengger tribe's territory, though Arslan had expressed a desire to expand their control over lands belonging to weaker tribes. The orkhan had taken swathes of land to the north from the Kichar people, leading a determined press through the heart of the enemy holds. Boldbtor had fought by his father's side, slaughtering any who resisted. In spite of his youth, he had proven an exceptional and deadly warrior, even taking command of a whole zuun of warriors when their commander had been killed.

Arslan had ambitions, intent on becoming the ilKhan of the region, creating a strong protectorate or confederacy of the tribes, strong enough to defend themselves from the Kirghiz or Uhlans, even against any Chinese armies that engaged in occasional punitive raids across the Great Wall.

But Arslan was gone, murdered by the treachery of a rival tribe. And now that Boldbator, his eldest son had avenged him, he would serve as an honoured member of the bahatur, the sworn bodyguards of the red god of war. The onus of leading the Tengger people now fell to him. Supported by his brash, aggressive younger brother and a network of alliances, the kurultai confirmed his ascension to the position of orkhan.

But new dangers would now assail him and his valiant people- he was young for a tribal khan, and others would certainly see this as a libility and seek to wrest control of these lands from him, by force if necessary. Some might not even attempt negotiation and simply come to destroy the Tengger clan. Arslan's death would be known from one corner of the steppe to the other before long, and his lands in the central plains would be a tempting prize for many a warlord.

That would be their downfall, because Boldbator was not only fierce in battle but a subtle tactician and very well-educated for a steppe nomad. Even his father had been impressed with his grasp of battlefield strategy and how to destroy an enemy with minimal risk. Perhaps unusually, he knew he needn't worry about venal treachery on the part of his younger brother, for although Kula was a ferocious warrior, he was not overly intelligent and he knew this about himself. He was content to make sure that his brother carried out the family's destiny, awaiting whatever instructions were given to him, as long as they involved killing. The only other person Kula respected and perhaps even feared was their mother, Turkina.

Now there was a dangerous woman. Related to the distant Kereyit tribe, she was solemn and wise, as well as exceptionally beautiful. Boldbator had known her embrace and very much enjoyed coupling with her, although she seemed reticent about such unions.

Maybe she would change her mind now that he was the khan.

"What do you look for, akh düü?" Kula asked as he squatted nearby, carving out abstract patterns in the tough soil nearby. "You have hardly said a thing since dragging me out here, when by all rights you should be back in your ger, fucking your wives."

"Some things are more important than fucking, brother-mine," Boldbator said coolly. To be honest, he'd been so intent on his observations that he had almost forgotten Kula was there.

"Only fighting is more important, than fucking, Boldbator, and if you brought me with you, that means you are thinking about battle. You believe that the Sukh tribe will attempt to avenge themselves soon?"

"I would," replied the older brother simply. "But they will not come without help, because they know the Sukh tribe alone will be no match for us. They will gather allies, promising them a part of the plunder once we are utterly annihilated."

Kula grunted. "Who would ally with those snakes?"

"Maybe the Changara, possibly the Sangyr-Bulak... there are many conniving and greedy tribes who would jump at a chance to plunder our riches from the Song empire and control our lands."

"The Sangyr-Bulak are a large tribe, they could have as many as a thousand warriors to ride against us," Kula mused. "We might have that many if all the families support us. And if we include the Sukh and Changara, there might be as many as three thousands. Do you have a plan, then?"

Boldbator nodded, his eyes harder than flint. "Aye, a daring one. A plan that will not only defeat our foes but cause fear in any who seek to do us harm. Galina gave me the idea when she showed me old scrolls she had brought with her. They spoke of a distant empire she called Daqin and how one of their greatest armies had been destroyed by a shrewd enemy general with a deadly feint."

He sighed and folded his arms over his chest. "Play now, Kula, while I call to the spirits of our ancestors."

Kula nodded and retrieved a wrapped object from his mount. Within the stout covering was a morin khour, a long-necked, two stringed instrument with a carved horse's head on top of the wooden neck. Kula settled himself on the side of the outcropping and drew his horsehair bow across the strings, tuning the instrument. The thin, wailing notes carried on the light, morning breeze.

Whatever his impediments might have been considering his intellect, Kula was superlative on the morin khour, a trait Boldbator had always found very useful. Facing the sun as it climbed into the sky, the older brother growled in his throat and started to sing in the sacred khoomei, the ancestral oral traditions of the steppe tribes.

"Dakhin neg udaa tulaan duu duulsan baina. Tsag khugatsaa ir khurtsalj bolon sum ni

Ösgiitei jingenesen tengeriig shok . Khürd ayanga delkhiig gazar khödlölt

Döl ni manai gazar nutag shataj baikhad , ta nar muu temtsekh khangalttai zorigtoi baina

Ter ch baitugai olon myangan morin mökhöj baina, bidnii duu nd khiine

Döl ni manai gazar nutgiig doosh tülegdsen üyed tenger üürd alga baina

Gekhdee bodoj , esvel ergelzekh chadakhgüi baina

Als khol ekhlen tulaan duu mönkhöd bidniig khürgedeg!"

It was a supplication of war.

***

"You are the orkhan now, son," Turkina said quietly as she sat next to the hearth with her eldest son. "You have brought glory with your victory, but also set in motion a series of events that may doom the Tengger people."

He looked into the fire, his eyes studying the seemingly random, crackling flames that sprung up. He wondered if they were as random as they appeared, or if every single, stabbing tongue was part of a larger whole, a great karmic wheel he could not fathom or ever hope to understand. They only certainty about them was that they consumed everything they touched, be it the dead and useless wood, the yak chips they threw on or even the very air that they breathed. Fire was the Great Consumer and cleanser.

"Do you think this is my fault, mother?" he asked, curious rather than defensive. He knew her to be wise and he always valued her council.

"Not for acting, no," she replied. "Your father's murder required vengeance since there was now a reckoning between our clans. But it was your audacity, Boldbator, the unmitigated audacity you showed by attacking the Sukh and defeating them single-handed that is the source of my concern. Your actions will be answered with all the force they can muster, honour demands it. The Sukh and all their allies will come against us, not merely to defeat the Tengger but to destroy us utterly, to erase all trace and memory of us, such is the stain you left upon their integrity."

"I see what you mean," he admitted, nodding his head, yet not ready to concede the problem. "But to my mind, this is the opportunity we need, mother, to be rid of these venal foes once and for all. I will admit to you now, my audacity does not end with avenging my father's death."

Turkina looked up into the dancing shadows on the ceiling of her opulent ger, lost in thought. "So it had always been your intent to force a pitched battle with them, yes? With the demise of the Sukh, you can force a peace with the other central tribes, perhaps even compel them to swear fealty to you, which your father had always aspired to."

He nodded his affirmation. "As you say. I do not mean to live with this uncertainty. Mother, great treasures lie within our reach south of the Wall, but we cannot risk our strength in such endeavours if we are always watching our backs. If I must beat them down, if I must grind the other steppe peoples into the dust, so be it. But then I will lift them up and point the way to the future of the Mongol people."

She still looked into the darkness, preferring it to the steely gaze of her son. "You would unite the tribes? There is indeed a touch of the divine in the way you speak and see things, then. You would be the ilKhan of the central plains, Boldbator?"

He nodded. Turkina said nothing.

"And now I am orkhan of our people, mother," he said quietly. "What does this mean for us? For you and I?"

She closed her eyes. "I obey the khan, as do all people blessed to be Tengger. You need but say your decree, my son and lord, and it shall be done."

He felt a tinge of frustration because she did not say that she would willingly give herself to him, but by saying she would obey any wish he made, Turkina now told him that she would not resist if he pillowed with her. It was not as if they had never done this before, she was indeed the one who had taught him how to make love and pleasure a woman.

He stood and looked down at her. "Then I would have you tonight, for tomorrow I ride forth, perhaps to my doom."

Turkina stood and looked deep into her son's eyes. "I will make love with you, lord of the Tengger."

She took his hand and led him to the kang, which was covered in blue and yellow silks. There, she turned to him and waited expectantly. Boldbator slowly undid his mother's robes and let them fall to the floor. Shadows from the firelight danced over her naked skin. She was fairer in colour than her children, having been Behichi, the daughter of a noble family and never having had to attend to strenuous labour. Turkina was indeed considered one of the fairest women living, comparable to the great beauties of China.

Boldbator placed his hand on her breast and she trembled, sighing at his touch. Though she could not bring herself to tell him, she had missed her eldest son's caress. Boldbator was a skilled lover, she had seen to it. Slowly, almost reverently, she undressed him until he stood as naked as she was. She gazed at his strong body, noting the magnificent scars that crossed his chest and powerful shoulders.

"I serve only you, my lord." Turkina murmured as she knelt slowly before him. She kissed his taut skin on the way down, pressing her lips lightly against him. Her fingernails grazed lightly over his skin and Boldbator shuddered at her loving touch, caressing her face with his hands. She nipped at his stomach, pinching the skin gently between her teeth. One hand gently came to rest on his already-hardening cock. She caressed it slowly, marveling at the length as it stood in front of him, twitching with desire.

Without another word, she kissed the throbbing head and pressed on it with her tongue. Slowly swirling it around the head, she teased him, eager to feel like she had some tiny measure of control over this powerful, extraordinarily dangerous man. He groaned as she took his cock head into her mouth and then slowly slid down the shaft. She shuddered in quiet thrill as his hands flexed in her hair. She started to slowly bob back and forth, keeping him measured and rapt. If she was going to make love to her son, she did not want it to be over quickly. She felt like a willing captive, both unable and unwilling to escape her imprisonment.

Her hands came to rest on his muscular buttocks, bracing him against her. His mannish, almost brutal scent permeated the air around her. She could feel herself growing wetter as she dared imagine what he would feel like inside her once again. It had been so long, it seemed.

The warmth of the ger now showed on their skin, a glistening sheen of sweat that also spoke of mutual desire. When he felt that he might peak, Boldbator lifted his mother and laid her back on the bed. He gazed on her porcelain skin, shining in the dim, flickering lights of the hearth and braziers. Slowly, with all the control he could muster, he took her ankles and spread her legs. Turkina had, seemingly, taken after the fashion of his Song concubine and shaved her womanhood completely. He felt maybe a twinge of irritation of Galina's influence over his mother but could not stop looking at her in fascination.

He laid between her legs and began kissing her pussy, He felt her shudder at the touch of his mouth. He pushed her thick outer lips apart gently, exposing a delicate, almost unreal shade of pink within, a colour unlike any he had seen elsewhere in the wide lands around with any woman. Not even his Chinese bride could claim this.

His tongue snaked deep inside her and Turkina moaned loudly. He shivered as he tasted her, a treat he had so long missed. Massaging her pussy while squeezing her inner thighs, her felt her squirm and twist, gripping the sheets in her fists.

"Yes, my love..." she breathed, her limbs tingling with pleasure. "Boldbator, I have missed your tongue..."

He pushed deeper inside her, thrilling to how he made her feel. He had hoped his mother had missed their congress, barely dared to dream of it. She grew wetter around his willing tongue, her body almost fluttering beneath his ardent touch. Her legs hooked behind his back, helping to pulling him deeper into her.

Turkina could take no more and pulled her son up to her, kissing him greedily as he laid atop his mother. She kept her legs spread wide for him, yearning for him to enter her. Their tongues snaked and tangled lustily as she writhed beneath him. His cock pressed to her entrance and without another word, slid inside. His mother groaned loudly, pushing her hips up against Boldbator with a dreadful eagerness.

Turkina panted shamelessly, lost to the forbidden pleasure of lovemaking with her son. The casual power of his body drove her to exquisite heights. His cock lanced in and out of her, feeling like he was about to tear her apart from within before leaving a deep, aching emptiness. She needed more.

She wrapped her arms around his back as her rocked against her, his cock finding her deepest reaches. Shr squeezed around him, caressing his cock with her inner walls, practiced and perfect in her motions. Boldbator, for his part, thrust in and out of her with a relentless strength that she loved and needed, even if she could not admit it to anyone. Though people knew it was she who had taught the young orkhan how to couple, she did not think anyone outside their immediate family knew of this current congress.

She kissed him greedily again and looked deep into his eyes, her own flashing.

"If you would truly possess me, lord," she hissed, her fingernails in his back. "Then you must truly take me in all ways..."

Boldbator understood and nodded, taking his mother by the back of the neck and turned her over, moving Turkina to her hands and knees. He reached over her body and pushed her face down into the silken sheets while her ass stayed poised in the air. She moaned wantonly as she felt him pull her ass cheeks apart and pressed his cock head against her puckered knot. Turkina groaned guttaraly as she felt him push inside. She shuddered and went rigid as he slid his whole length deep inside her ass.

Knowing that Turkina wanted to feel his authority if he was to be lord of their people, Boldbator did not spare her strength in fucking her now. As refined and dainty as she might have acted, he knew his mother to be a woman of great endurance and formidable in her own right. He gripped her hips tightly and thrust with vigour, determined to compel his mother to admit that he alone was worthy of the title of orkhan amongst the Tengger.

Turkina panted and ground back against her son, matching his thrusts with her own wanton grinding motion. He felt so good inside her secret passage, a matchless and taboo pleasure she feared might get her struck down if the gods saw her enjoying it too much.

She bit and tore at the sheets with her teeth, willing herself not to scream. Her hands clenched the silken fabric, shaking with the effort of fucking her son. His cock felt like it was getting bigger and harder inside her ass, a stretch that caused her to almost faint. His hips slapping against her cheeks and the back of her thighs carried a rhythm she tried to match and ride out with her contractions, squeezing him tightly.

Boldbator's body was slick with sweat and felt like it was somehow on fire. His breath was heavy now, his muscles trembling as his core tensed up, the tingling spreading through him. With a snarl he grabbed his mother under her arms and pulled her upright onto her knees, pinning her back against him. He thrust with demonaic strength up inside her and she jammed her lips against his, kissing her son to keep from screaming at the top of her lungs as he came inside her. Their bodies heaved and ground in sensuous unison while they climaxed. He shot ropes of thick cum deep into her while she squeezed and clamped around him.

"Thank the gods," Turkina thought. "I shall not bear him a son, whatever my desires might be. We are safe from that peril."

Boldbator held her pinned against him, still squirming together as her tight ass milked the last of his essence from his cock. His hands groped her breasts roughly and her arms flopped to her sides. She was like a rag doll in his arms, her eyes shut as he held her upright by his own strength. Slick bodies pressed and undulated, luxuriating in the afterglow of their lovemaking, their frenzied fucking.

Boldbator finally released his mother and she sighed languidly as she laid down on her back, caressing her body while she looked up at him, her eyes shining with a seductive pleasure. She felt deliciously and dangerously fulfilled, like a dangerous game was being played, one she had no intention of stopping or losing.

"Yes, my lord," she purred, reaching up and using her feet to caress his still-hard cock as it twitched and oozed over her molten pussy. "You are indeed the one and only orkhan of our great people..."

***

Aimshigt ayanga! Shuurga khödölj!

Mön shüültiin ödör duudaj baina

Setgel mini gan khücheer edgersen baina,

Aldar duudlaga

Bi gazar uruu bi olson bükh ilgeekh bolno

Alkh duu unaj

Tiim muu khümüüs ni Bi tedniig bügdiig doosh ni tsokhij bolno,

Unakh bolno

Mön ta nar minii duudlagyg medekh bolno

Er zorig minii neriig duuddag

Shönö salkhiny chimee ni

Tsus uukh bolno Minii ild

Mön bi temtsekh , tiim bi temtsekh bolno bolno

Tulaldaany üür ni!

"And I will fight in the dawn of battle." Boldbator mused to himself as he looked over the endless, flat steppes, his keen gaze pointed east. Distantly, great clouds of dust were to be seen, indicative of movement.