The interior of the Yugo smelled like stale cigarette smoke, its odor so deeply infused in the leather seat that it could no longer be dissipated by wind or car freshener. The severed jaws of fallen foes dangled from the rearview mirror, the bones clacking against each other and the windshield, clickety-dok, clickety-dok.

Baraat Buriyat dragged on his knockoff Chinese Marlboro cigarette, blowing great puffs of smoke from the corner of his mouth, enjoying the way it flowed out through the window and swept away with the western wind. He looked through his side view mirror (the glass skewed, the plastic shell cracked and coated with blood from where he had rammed a Kazakhstani defender) and looked at the pillars of smoke rising from what had once been Koktal, a tiny little village on the outskirts of Kazakhstan.

The Horde had washed over Koktal like a great wave of chrome, headlights shining balefully in the night, their riders smashing their fists against the car roofs, letting out their terrible cries. Koktal had known terror that night and the terrible touch of steel. It had choked on the smell of gunpowder that poisoned the air and had ringed with the screams of its women and the pleading of its men.

Koktal had burned fiercely and shortly. No witnesses had remained to tell the story of its fall, no women or children had been taken for slaves. This had been a massacre of convenience, something to sate the Horde’s bloodlust after the long, treacherous trek across the G30 Interstate out of China and into Kazakhstan. The warriors had been on edge for the past thirty miles, rattling their sabers and oiling their guns, snarling obscenities at each other as they raced across the asphalt. The myangan-lord had seen his thousand men frothing at the mouth and growling at each other like hunting dogs left too long in their pens. He had wisely sent scouts ahead to look for small, defenseless settlements that would provide ample loot and make for easy pickings.

There had been treasures aplenty in Koktal: gold, jewelery and spindly-armed women with small breasts and barely a fight left in them; there had been men with great round eyes and dark faces, whose heads had made perfect adornments for the zuun-lord Chuluun Ursut’s fender. Their features, distorted by agony, were just the addition he had needed to make his mount stand out from the rabble.

“Pass me the pack” grumbled Chuluun Ursut, as he rose from his sleep. He was a giant of a man, with a vest that was covered in the severed ring fingers of his enemies sewn into the fabric. Baraat (barely a rider in the Chrome Horde) was terrified and awed by the singular opportunity to be the designated driver of a man of his standing.

Baraat passed Chuluun the pack of knockoff Marlboros. The warrior took two in his mouth and lit them up, offering Baraat one after a few puffs. Baraat immediately discarded his last cigarette (the fire having consumed the tobacco, now licking at the filter) and immediately began to puff at the fresh one.

“Where are we?” Chuluun asked.

“Kazakhstan. About thirty miles past Koktal.”

Chuluun nodded, puffing great billows of smoke from the corner of his mouth and into Baraat’s face. Baraat chanced a look at the direction the warrior was facing: there was nothing around them but great rocky plain, dotted here and there with the skeletal remains of power relay stations, long since torn apart by scavengers and the elements.

“Kazakhstan. A waste of our damn time, if you ask me.”

“Gansukh Kiryat thinks otherwise.” Baraat said, feeling suddenly weak at the knees as the warrior turned his head to look at him. Crushing his cigarette on the faux-leather dashboard, Chuluun muttered:

“Pah. Gansukh Kiryat’s a poor excuse for a myangan-lord.”

Baraat said nothing, only fixed his eyes on the road. He daren’t speak his mind in the presence of a senior (and superior) warrior. If a man like Chuluun thought ill of the lord of a myangan of the Chrome Horde, who was he to judge?

Baraat flinched as Chuluun reached across from him and removed the driver’s cutlass from its place in the seat-scabbard. Awed, he looked at the finely honed edge of the blade and marveled at the way the sun glinted against the virginal bare metal.

“Now here’s a fine specimen!” Chuluun exclaimed. “Who did you filch this from?”

“No-one” Baraat said, his eyes fixed on the road, at the proudly waving banners ahead of them. “It’s mine.”

“Piss off! Such a fine blade isn’t fit for a driver! Such a fine blade isn’t even fit for Gansukh!” Chuluun said, holding it up outside the window, looking closely at the intricate carving on the handle.

“It was my father’s. He was Ba’Atur of the Buriyat. And it had, before him, been passed down from his father…”

“Who had kept it, I bet, over the mantelpiece, never once having drawn it from the scabbard, using it for a conversation piece instead!” Chuluun butted in. Baraat felt the heat rise in his cheeks at the warrior’s derisive tone.

The Buriyats hadn’t always been a tribe of warriors or raiders. It was true that the blade had not drawn blood in at least four generations. But when Batu Khan had come from the Buir Nuur and had called upon his ancient heritage, calling the Great Mongol Nation to fight by his side, the Buriyats were among the first to answer. Like their ancestors before him, they had ridden their mounts (made of steel and glass, instead of inadequate muscle and brittle bone) and joined him in conquest.

“It cut the throats of many Chinese officers, in the battle of Jiuquan. I lopped the head of a tank gunner clean off with it!” Baraat said, bile rising to his throat. Chuluun just scoffed.

“Jiuquan was a sorry excuse for a massacre. The city was barely defended. I bet the officers there had been green little runts, starved and outgunned. Had you been in Beijing, you would have truly witnessed the Chinese Army’s might.” Chuluun beat his chest with his fist. “We rode against tanks and APCs there, ramming them with cars filled with explosives. Then, as they burned, we climbed on the armored vehicles, pried open the reinforced doors and we killed the crew, turning their weapons against them!”

“And lost 3 zuuns in the process. 600 men and 300 mounts.” Baraat spat, smiling wickedly. Beijing had been a costly victory for the Chrome Horde, to say the least. The loss of so many men had meant a terrible setback in the Horde’s march, which delayed the Khan’s plans for almost an entire year. Baraat felt Chuluun’s hand close around the back of his neck and choke him, holding him the way a man might grab a kitten.

“I fought and bled for the Khan that day. I lost a driver who was twice as smart and half as insolent. What did you do, when we took Beijing? I bet you were sucking on your mother’s teat, wiggling your dick around, playing at being a warrior!”

Baraat was about to speak, when something exploded in the road ahead. The lead cars were suddenly engulfed in flame. Swerving at the last second, Baraat avoided the chunks of concrete and the flaming metal that rained above and around him, crashing among their ranks.

Baraat was driving around the crater, struggling to regain control on his mount by turning the steering wheel against the spin of the tires. Baraat caught a glimpse of Chuluun screaming: the man's voice drowned out by the ringing in his ears and the screech of burning rubber.

Look! Chuluun mouthed, his arm waving madly, pointing at something that rolled out of the conflagration and the smoke, shedding its camo cover as it moved. It had been an ambush, the tank placed on the road ahead to block their progress, the crew possibly huddled there for weeks. Baraat watched in horror, as the T-72 SIM tank rolled out of the carnage, running over cars with helpless war brothers trapped inside, their blood staining the fallen banner. Around him, the myangan was struggling to regroup, each car desperately looking for direction.

“-around! We need to get past it!” Chuluun’s voice became distinct as the din subsided. Baraat felt something trickling down the side of his left ear, but chose to ignore it. “Go around it! Fall back toward the interstate!”

Baraat looked at the armored monstrosity that had wreaked havoc among their number; it seemed like something out of myth, a vehicle so large and unwieldy, yet so destructive. Like a dragon that devoured gas and spat molten metal, an invulnerable beast that tread across the Earth. They were behind it now, out of its line of sight. if they chose to run, they might still make it, provided it kept its eye on killing off their brothers.

“We need the banner. We must signal an attack.” Baraat muttered.

“What?”

“In the backseat, there is a memento from Jiuquan. I need you to get it.”

“This…” Chuluun said, as he looked at the narrow tube with the mushroom-topped projectile set at the end “where did you find this?”

“I pried it from a Chinese officer’s cold, dead hands. Can you use it?”

The tank’s head swiveled, trying to pick a target among the screaming mass of metal that was scuttling around it, desperately trying to retreat. From the top of its turret, a Kazakhstani soldier emerged. Looking around, he spotted their mount.

“You’re mad! This won’t stop the tank!”

The soldier shouted something at the unseen crew and began to arm the machinegun at the top of the turret, clicking a bandolier of high-caliber rounds into place.

“Not unless you aim for the treads. We don’t need to destroy it, just cripple it. The Kazakhstani probably have only this one left running. We clear this and the Horde can roll across the Interstate all the way to the Caucasus.”

By the time the gunner had turned, his finger resting on the trigger, Baraat had already stepped down on the gas pedal and was moving toward the tank at near-top speed. The tires screeched like banshees as he swiveled around, narrowly avoiding the stream of bullets that poured from the machinegun barrel, poking holes into the asphalt. Chuluun struck the passenger door with his head, struggling to maintain a hold on the RPG.

“Steady, damn you!”

Grinning like a wolf, Baraat brought the mount full circle. The Kazahkstani soldier’s bullets punched holes the size of a child’s fist in the trunk, shattering the rear axle, but Baraat struggled against the steering wheel, steadying it. If there are gods, he thought, now would be a good time for them to show favor.

Chuluun was hanging halfway out of the car, holding onto it with his toes squeezed under the seat. Screaming the Horde’s battle-cry, he pulled the release switch, launching the projectile, as the gunner’s constant stream of fire reached the mount, tearing through the chassis. Chuluun’s head and chest dissolved into pink mist.

But even in death, the Mongol’s aim was true. As the kickback sent the Yugo flying, its chassis torn to shreds, the missile slipped beneath the treads. Baraat uttered a short prayer, in the long moment before his car rolled across the asphalt, as he glided, weightless, among the levitating cigarette butts.

The grasp of gravity cut Baraat’s religious experience short, tossing him around inside his car, striking his skull against the windshield, sending packets of jerky and AK-47 cartridges flying. Blinking his eyes to clear his vision, Baraat peered through the smoke and saw the tank lying in the middle of the interstate, its treads broken and useless, with its crew scrambling for cover.

Baraat grabbed his AK-47 and pried his father’s saber from the clutch of his dead zuun-lord. The hilt was slick with blood. Kicking the driver’s door, the Mongol crawled out and ran toward the enemy, screaming:

“Yavyaa!”

His left leg buckled as he neared the Kazakhstani soldier, who watched in horror as the mad creature with the shattered leg came at him through the smoke and flame, saber whistling through the air. He had time to see his fingers severed in a great arcing swipe. His final sight, as his head tumbled through the air, was that of the tattered warrior, climbing onto the ruined remains of the tank and raising the bloodied banner high.

“Morindoo!” Baraat Buriyat screamed, as he waved the bloodied banner. The myangan of the Chrome Horde turned about-face at the sight of the banner, racing to the lone figure that had stood above their enemies’ ruined weapon, his blade dripping gore.

Baraat climbed off the ruined tank, as his brothers dragged the crew outside, then slew them with the briefest flashes of steel, not wasting their bullets on them. When the crew was dead, the Mongols stripped the tank for parts and ammo. Warriors gave up their places so he could ride beside them. Baraat’s heart beat rapidly in his chest, adrenaline pumping through him furiously. The Chrome Horde cheered, banging their fists against the roofs of their cars. Beyond the smoke, beyond the flame, lay the Caucasus and heedless Russia and charred black Europe.

So overcome by his joy, he forgot the searing pain in his extremities, rejoicing along with his myangan. His last thought, before he lost consciousness, was the promise of the Great Khan: soon, they would cut a swath across the world, unlike any other. Then the bad blood would flow free from the world and the Mongols would help it heal again.