Unchained, a short story

Cette nouvelle en anglais, que j'ai écrite en 2023, est celle qui m'a plongé dans la vie de Gengis Khan, passionnante et encore pleine de mystère.

Let him go. Temüjin pushed the curtain of sheep wool obstructing his path and stumbled on his feet, knocking over a servant who had bent to kiss his feet. As he attempted to put some distance with the ger, the voice murmured again. Let him go.  The words echoed louder in his mind, the pain they held like a piercing arrow thrown at him. Haunting him, torturing him. As the it tightened its grip on him, rage briefly consumed him, Temüjin turned around and slapped the poor servant who had just rose. He collapsed and the Khan slapped him again. Harder.

« Great Khan ! »

A voice resonated from the outskirts of the camp. He suddenly pushed himself far from the servant whose bloody nose was now slightly bent on the left. His breath strained, he chased the harmful melody from his thoughts, trying to sweep away the control it suddenly had on him.  His gaze traveled over the valley awakening in front of him and the blurred movements of his soldiers. The sun was rising gently, warming the chilly wind of the late spring. No one was paying him any attention.  As if he was invisible.

It had been seven days since his warriors had bravely clashed with Tayang and Jamukha. They had forced them into a disorganized retreat in the heart of the Altai Mountains. Tayang, the Khan of the Naiman, had met Temüjin in a lethal fight at the foot of Mount Naqu before the ravines ravished him. Hours later, the Khan was still sitting at the place where he had witnessed the mark of death in Tayang’s eyes. But, as he had gone back to the gure’en, a dozen of Jamukha’s soldiers were awaiting him with their former leader as a prisoner - a symbol of their newly-found loyalty. Temüjin had frozen for a brief moment, his mask of impassivity had fractured when his childhood friend was thrown violently at his feet. Their interaction had been brief : Jamukha had spat on his furred black boots, the Khan had ordered his confinement. Then he  had retreated in his ger and stayed there for six days. 

However, Temüjin could not delay the departure anymore. Too much was at stake. Amidst the blocks of dust, he could discern the tired faces, the bodies dragging themselves, the unrest and irritation not to be home. He could end it all. One snap of his fingers would suffice to dispose of the prisoner. But indecision was gnawing on him. In the smallest, most reeking ger some hundred meters from him was the man who had broken him.

“Great Khan.” 

The interpellation, now closer, pushed Temüjin out of the maze of thoughts he had found himself trapped in.

“Is there any sign of disturbance behind the Altai?”, prompted the Khan, looking for traces of alert on Jelme’s face. His war helmet partly concealed his expression and the gold ornaments decorating the headgear did little to soften his death glare and imposing stance. His armour, put on top of his felt tunic, was rusty and its color was no longer the dark grey of iron.

“Not yet. But scouts have reported growing movements in the North.” The Khan slowly nodded at the report.

“What of our warriors ?”

“There’s some wonder about the reason of our stay in the area."

Silence filled the space between them as the Khan took the direction of the end of the gure’en with Jelme in his footsteps. But between the fenced areas where the horses and livestock were kept, his gaze dropped on the stains of blood easily discernible on the dusty soil. Temüjin could feel Jelme’s gaze on him while he clenched his jaw, veins pounding in fury, blood rushing to every part of his being. Both men could still easily remember the sound the head of the traitors made when they hit the ground.

"Great Khan, when do we leave ?"

As the question hung free in the air, Temüjin relased a breath. Jelme had been at his side since childhood. He too, had crossed path with Jamukha. He too, knew what was at stake. Years ago, the general had not hesitated before sucking the poison out of Temüjin’s wound when the latter was shot by an arrow. This act of courage earned Jelme the rank of War Dog and the Khan’s respect. He answered him.

"Tomorrow."

They will leave tomorrow.

The sun had continued its ascent towards the moon when they arrived in front of the little ger guarded ferocisously by Subutai. With a subtle bow, both generals retreated. Yet Temüjin remained paralyzed, memories flowding incessantly. Each time he had welcomed him in his ranks, Jamukha ended up leaving. Every time he had been near, Temüjin had let his guard down. He made mistakes unforgivable for a Khan. Seeing Jamukha always was a temptation. Like a deity he should not catch. A deity he should not taste. A deity who would only crush him. Mercilessly. In front of Jamukha, the Khan was no more. But that belonged with his younger self. Inside, there should be no place for the past. No place for the hurt he was feeling, the anger seizing his throat, the despair sickening him. Temüjin closed his eyes and crossed the wooden step of the entrance.

Obscurity dawned on him the moment the Khan set foot in the narrow yurt. In the dim light, his eyes took in the walls made of brown beech, the fur upholstering them and the metallic pot on his right until they finally rested on the pillar at the center of the ger. Then, slowly, they dropped down on the man resting on his knees, his hands attached behind his back to the pole which maintained the whole structure together. Temüjin studied him. Calmness was transposed in Jamukha’s manners, in the way he held his head high, in the way he threw his hair back. He could sense it behind the harshness of his features and the cruelty held in his eyes - how hard he was trying to hung onto his control. One touch away, Jamukha impersonated the fervor that Temüjin had stored inside. He felt trapped. Here in his own ger in his own camp, he wastrapped in a memory they should not have created. Not with his rival. How did he find himself in this situation ?

Despite the signs of starvation marked on his skin and the multiple scars covering his torso naked of any item of clothing, Jamukha’s presence filled the room, pride and disdain radiating from his body. Temüjin could barely distinguish the teenage Mongol with whom he rode his first raid and shared stories in the warmth of the fire camp. As his gaze locked with Jamukha’s, the sixteen-year-old boy faded away. The boy had seen too much, suffered too much, killed too much. Hatred has shaped his soul, as revenge did Temüjin’s. A smirk leisurely grew on Temüjin’s face at the sight of his old friend.

“Do you remember the year after the Merkits ?”

A beat passed. No other voice but the Khan’s filled the air.

“You threw the first punch with such forceful veracity that I stumbled on the ground. The day after you were gone. Then, a year had passed and my scouts came back saying that this new Khan of the Jadaran had raised the biggest army the Mongolian tribes had ever seen. I never understood why you chose the losing side.” said the Khan in a low frightening chuckle. His dark eyes bore into the slightly lighter ones in front of him, which were tickling with unfazed amusement.  

"And Dalan Balzhut ? Do you remember ?"

The question resonated in the yurt as only the breeze answered him. He was affected, more than he would have liked to be, to see that his old rival, his old companion, was without any remorse, and fear while he was torn apart. When Jamukha had turned his back on him and defeated Temüjin during the Battle of Dalan Balzhut, forcing the young lord into oblivion for ten years, abandon had cut him open more fiercely than any sword could have. For the Khan, he was one more enemy to vanquish, to crush and destroy.  But for Temüjin, he represented threads of his life, of his whole being. A dangerous, unpredictable character who held Temüjin’s will in the palm of his hands. Every villain’s story is not truly their own. Some part of it is shared with this significant other, this one who has forced them to grow through chaos and hell, whose path they will always cross. Jamukha embodied this second soul for Temüjin.

Let him go. Those words. Again. Unfathomable. Harrowing. Truthful.

He was the Khan. The unmoving stone holding the edifice together. He could never erase their status, their rivalry. Maybe in a place where a different Nar reigned over them all. But not in this world.

In the hour the Khan had roamed the ger, the prisoner had not uttered a word. No insult. No begging. Nothing. Until now. Maybe the prisoner sensed the shift occuring in the Mongol chief. Maybe the vulnerability conveyed in the blanks of Temüjin’s tell brought back his vehemence and disdain. Maybe, he was afraid of more confessions, more memories. For days he had not even call for water. But as the Khan approached him, their faces only a few millimeters apart, he spoke in a hoarse murmur. They were so close that the Khan could feel Jamuka’s breath on his neck as well as the naked skin under his fingertips where he held him still. Under Jamukha’s gaze, the Khan’s mask fell. Temüjin’s eyes reflected the indecision, the hesitation he had kept inside. Their eyes met for a fraction of time and Temüjin was taken aback by the emotions conveyed in the brown iris. Beneath the contempt and self-complacency, Temüjin’s feelings were mirorred .

“Anda, the cold voice of Jamuka soared, if I had stayed, my wrists would be naked of any restraining rope but my mind would be chained. Like yours is.”

The Khan abruptly detached himself from the flickers of brown and gold and forcefully seized Jamukha by the throat, forcing him to his feet, into a position unnatural for a prisoner attached to a wooden pole. Anger, like a foul spider, climbed its way up Temüjin’s body, eating him slowly. Temüjin was not mad at the man before him, he was mad at himself. For his weakness, his cowardice. For being unable to see Jamukha for what he should see him as.

Anda. Blood Brother.

The surname resuscitated past times, times of skin against skin replaced by times of shield against shield. Past times were belts as tokens were exchanged. Past times that could never be brought back. Betrayal had stained them, leaving an indelible permanent mark on both their minds. They had fought. Together and on the opposite sides of the battlefield. However, the last battle had been the final straw between them, costing Temüjin his choice. His hand tightened around his neck, feeling Jamukha’s beating pulse as the pressure intensified.          

“Dogs !”

Without a second to spare, Jelme and Subutai darted into the yurt at the order and pushed the prisoner onto the ground.

An apathetic laugh left Temüjin’s lips, as he took in his right hand one of his blades and very carefully pressed it under Jamukha’s chin.

"You won." He murmured. Then, the Khan crossed the door of felt and leather. Tonight, when the sarts will alight the sky, Jamukha will be dragged to the center of the camp and offered a bloodless death. This act will be the last one made out of mercy and devotion. No more indecision. No more hesitation. This part of him had stayed inside – Temüjin had stayed inside.

He had become Genghis Khan.