The Silk Road Saga: Part I - Silkworm

37 - Yin and Yang

They found the horde well before they saw it. For days they followed its path of destruction. It had burrowed its way towards Samarkand like a giant termite. The fields were emptied of wheat, the villages burnt to a cinder. Bodies were left where they fell, bloated with flies. The forest was denuded of trees, cut down in order to make battering rams and trebuchets. The landscape was desolate, more like the Moon than the Earth.

Yue could sense Erhi's growing excitement as they drew closer to Samarkand. The stump forests and barren fields bothered her little. They were part of the scenery of war, a scenery that she was used to, a scenery that Yue had only seen depicted in paintings and film. It was the smell more than anything else that he couldn't overcome. An acrid sourness filled the air, a putridness that seemed to be a sort of moral indictment, as if nature was judging mankind for what it had done. This is what Yue imagined hell to smell like. He tried to cast his mind back to the previous week, and the weeks preceding that. Weeks filled with the scent of spring flowers and the damp texture of Erhi's freshly washed hair. Weeks where the smell from the campfire was followed by passionate kisses beneath stars. Weeks where they celebrated life, and the joys it brought, rather than death.

Yue fought to keep his feelings hidden. He didn't want to give Erhi one more thing to worry about, another reason to doubt him, or his manhood, but he couldn't help himself. It wasn't that he came from a more enlightened age, or that death and destruction were any less common in the 21st century than the 13th, it was just that on a personal level he felt the urge to create and conserve rather than rend and destroy. It was a preference that at times seemed so at odds with Erhi that it made him wonder how on earth they could be attracted to one another.

But if Yue was being honest with himself and looked beyond bland statements such as opposites attract, if he looked deep into himself, he knew that lurking in the dark parts of his soul there was also an urge to attack, an urge to destroy. It was an urge that had overtaken his mother, it was an urge that had got him thrown out of school. It was the same urge that compelled him towards Erhi, and the reason why, despite wrinkling his nose at the pungent scent of death all around him, he also felt a thrill run along his spine. Similar to the uncontrollable shiver of excitement that addicts feel at the sight of a needle. Yes, this place revolted him, but it also excited him, the same way that Erhi, with her weather-beaten cheeks excited him. Man was born to kill as well as love, and those two diametrically opposed sentiments, the yin and yang of the human condition, were struggling for supremacy within Yue.

When they came within sight of the city walls, even Erhi allowed herself to gasp. The horde sprawled from one side of the horizon to the other, a seemingly endless beast that pulsed with the rhythm of war. Smoke from ten thousand campfires obscured much of their view, but when the breeze blew and cleared the air, Yue could make out great ribbons of cavalry wheeling beneath the city walls. They let fly flocks of arrows to cow the defenders, forcing them to keep their heads down as the siege equipment lumbered forwards, dragged into place by hundreds of slaves that groaned beneath a dozen whips. They were the inhabitants of the ruined villages that Yue and Erhi had passed on their way to the siege. Oxen were too valuable a commodity to use for such dangerous work, people, however, were expendable.

In the middle of the camp, reflecting the sun like some ginormous crown, was a golden tent. It was bigger than a small palace and from the way that Erhi was unable to tear away her gaze from it, Yue knew that it must be the home of the Great Khan. The chief architect of all this destruction, a man who had no qualms about giving in to the baser side of his nature, a man who had captured Erhi's attention. As ridiculous as it was, Yue couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy staring down at that tent. There was a rival for Erhi's heart, and he had a whole army at his disposal.

The sudden beat of hooves alerted them to the presence of the scouts. Four Mongols on horseback surged up the hill towards them, bows at the ready, shouting out a greeting or a warning. Erhi told Yue to act friendly and relaxed, no mean feat when four arrows were pointed at you. Erhi gave a big wave and greeted the scouts in Mongolian. Yue caught the odd word and pieced together that Erhi was weaving them a tale about hunting for deer. To give credence to her story she took out several strips of deer jerky and handed them to the scouts. The lead scout bit into the strip, chewed and nodded his approval. They looked Yue up and down, the same way you might examine a piece of livestock, but didn't address him directly. It was clear that he wasn't a Mongol, but by now the horde was so swollen with countless conquered peoples, from Han to Kazakhs, that his presence warranted little in the way of comment. The scouts exchanged a few more words with Erhi then they cantered off, continuing their patrol of the perimeter, on the lookout for any relief force foolish enough to try and relieve the beleaguered city.

"They said that there were still some good spots available to pitch our tent on the edge of the camp. There's a stream close-by and we won't be near the heart of the army, so I'm less likely to be recognised" said Erhi, her voice rising at the thought of being in camp once more.

Yue nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He was shaken by their encounter with the scouts. He had forgotten how fearsome the Mongol's looked when fully armed and how merciless and unforgiving their eyes were. He was little more than vermin to them and they wouldn't think twice about snuffing out his life. His only protection was Erhi and she was hell bent on heading straight for the thickest fighting, the point of the battle where she could prove herself a true warrior or die in the attempt.

They trotted down the slope towards the edge of the camp, picking a site as far upriver as possible, where the water was still clear and unpolluted by one hundred thousand men washing, drinking and pissing. The spot they had chosen was surrounded by a cluster of raggedy looking tents, poor warriors who were not worthy of pitching any closer to the Great Khan. Only those of noble birth and fighting fame were permitted to pitch close to Genghis, and even these men were kept at bay by a tumen of kheshig, ten thousand devoted imperial bodyguards who kept the Great Khan safe from the threat of assassination.

As they were pitching their tents a series of mighty crashes echoed through the air. This was followed by a ululating cry as the horde roared its approval. Stopping work, Yue could see that one of the towers on the city wall had collapsed, brought down by a barrage of stones from the trebuchets.

"They've found their mark, it's only a matter of time before we breach the walls" enthused Erhi.

Yue's response was lost amidst the roar of the horde, it filled his head and made him dizzy. They were baying for blood, terrifying the defenders into submission before they had even stormed the walls. Another voice added itself to the multitude, it was high pitched and trembling, but no less fearsome. Next to him Erhi shouted her lungs out, her eyes narrowed with bloodlust. Yue felt a cold hand slip inside his body. He let out an involuntary shiver. For the first time in weeks he felt alone, he no longer recognised the girl standing next to him. He realised then that she would never truly be his, that there would always be a part of her beyond his understanding, a hard kernel that he would never crack. She looked over at him expectantly, her face full and eager, her teeth shining and carnivorous. He had to choose between silence and noise, approval and disapproval, Erhi or himself. He looked into her dark piercing eyes and made up his mind. Yue took a deep breath then cried out, adding his voice to hers. Tomorrow they would storm Samarkand, together.