Under Nurzan’s decade-long reign, Saryozek had become manifest evil out of time. It was a cancerous thing that lay half a kilometer off the A353, a walled fortress built out of the scrapped, salvaged remains of the 747 that had crash-landed into Saryozek sixteen years ago.

The easternmost part of the city had been built against the mountain, the walled semicircle surrounded by a deep, water-filled moat. Nergui watched in fascination at the absurdity of this place: its drawbridge built out of scrap and fasted by chains, the rows of crooked, sharpened girder-spikes that stuck out from the top of the wall, from the tips of which hung cages where withering men and women screamed against the hungry crows that pecked at their exposed flesh.

The drawbridge came down with a great whirr and a crash as Nergui’s captors signaled the unseen guard with their flashlights. He was led within the loud, screaming interior, half-dragged, half-walking and gaped in awe at the cold white glare of the halogen lights laid out across the guard posts. The men that looked down at Nergui grinned crooked grins and he counted among them Kazakhs and Uzbekis, some Chinese officers (still dressed in the tattered remains of their field garb). There were a few white and black faces here and there, scarred and scowling.

The Kazakhs moved across the threshold, as Nergui was showered with cat-calls from the guards on duty. He couldn’t make out what they were saying, but he had been to prison long enough to know:

“Here, fishy-fishy!”

“New meat!”

“He looks big, boys! Bust those teeth, might help him lose some weight!”

Something pressed against Nergui’s back and pushed, causing him to fall on the ground, face-first. Before he could look, the huge Kazakh that had captured him had already let go of his chain. In one, fluid motion, he grabbed the white man that had struck Nergui and slammed his elbow across his chin. The man collapsed on the ground, his lip split and bleeding.

“Up! Up!” said the gaunt Kazakh, who dragged the chain, forcing Nergui on his feet.

His captors dragged Nergui across Saryozek, down the long, dirt-covered road that led to the airplane-carcass fortress that had been built against the mountain. It was an absurd sight, this fortress that was the heart of Saryozek. Its front was adorned with the faded logo of the United Emirates airlines, extending halfway across its face, until the point where they had run out of hull and had begun supplementing their losses with cement and the mountain’s face itself.

The fortress was three stories high, made in parts from stone, its face bristling with crude girder spikes, thankfully unadorned of hanging cages and screaming prisoners. The chimney-stack, set on top of it, let out a steady stream of furnace-black smoke.

Nergui looked around at the shanties that had been built out of and into the ruins of Saryozek, at the huddled rabble milling about. He saw a dozen children, overseen by a single Chinese soldier, turning a crank attached to what could only be a crude generator, the dynamos revving inside, building up enough of a charge to maintain…what? Nergui couldn't tell. A ways further, he saw women kneeling, picking at the hard ground, raking their fingers until they were raw to produce some meager trophy: a shriveled potato or some beets. One of them, Nergui noticed, had hidden a mangy-looking beet in her blouse. The guard on duty saw her and ripped off her clothes to get at it. Thankfully, she had been out of Nergui’s line of sight by the time he heard the gun’s report.

Beside what seemed like a red-brick factory where men turned wheels endlessly while others fed the hungry furnaces, a man looked up at Nergui: starved, one-eyed, broken. He looked at the biker-scout and suddenly seized up. Raising a trembling finger, he screamed:

“Mongol! Mongol!”

The men stopped working the wheels as soon as they heard the words. A child dropped its bread basket in terror. Somehwere, a woman screamed. Nergui was suddenly paralyzed with fear. The people here, he knew, were survivors of the Horde’s march through China. They were probably workers and officials from Beijiing, from Jiunquan, from every possible place that had fled to the west, only to find themselves in this hell that had become Saryozek.

And now, the Mongols had come, once again.

Nergui tried to beg the screaming crowd, to somehow motion them to be quiet. But the more he looked at them, the more faces he recognized: the old man with his face half-burnt from a factory fire. The hollow-eyed woman with the scarred, deformed cheeks. The child with the lame leg and the eyes sunk deep into his sockets. He had known them, because he had seen them, struggling to get out of the inferno that had been their home, after he had led the Horde to them. He had seen them in Koktal, in Huoseng and in Quapqal. He had dogged them as they were leaving Illi and gunned down their defenders on their way out of Tokkuztara. Their loved ones had been left behind across the G30 and the A353, food for the crows and the vultures.

His nightmare ended abruptly, as the gaunt man sent his entourage to subdue the crowd. As he tugged Nergui’s chain, he brought him close enough to choke him and whispered something in his ear in poor Chinese:

“You see Nurzan, then work with them. Break your back on the wheel.”

Nergui suddenly found himself longing for the prospect of a bullet in the head. Perhaps even, he thought, death in the forest would have been best. It would have been painful, but clean. It would be nothing like the blind, howling wrath that these people would unleash against him. They would kill him democratically and in degrees, he was certain of it.

He was thankful upon reaching the jury-rigged vault door of the fortress of Saryozek, its entrance flagged by two jet turbines welded to the wall. The guards had moved out of the way of the Kazakhs, the doors opening at the sight of them. There was apparently one law in Saryozek and that law was thou shalt not hamper the Arystani.

The ground level of the interior of the fortress was a mish-mash of featurless corridors, some hewn into the rock, others built out of patchwork iron and stripped aluminum, leading into rooms cluttered with machinery, operated by slaves. Nergui saw the wiry frames of men obscured by occasional gusts of steam that hissed from the valves, the clicking and the ticking of distant gears and the whistling of pressure valves being released. The lights inside the fortress’ ground level flickered in tandem with this cacophony. Once or twice, Nergui stumbled on bundles of wires that were strewn about the floor, leading out into Saryozek through holes in the walls or in the upper levels.

Up a crudely fashioned spiral staircase perhaps pilfered from a foundry or an antique shop, Nergui was led to the upper level of the fortress, where the constructed floor was poked with holes, great nets strewn across them to facilitate movement. Small rooms were set all around, each illuminated by the flickering lights, equipped with bunk beds where men in tattered uniforms slept or ate. None spared a glance at the bruised biker-scout, for they were the Saryozek’s elite, the royal guard of the one the Kazakhs called Nurzan.

The two men stopped and motioned Nergui to stand still at the foot of a scaffolding. The gaunt one said:

“Up.”

And up he went, with Nergui’s chain wrapped round his wrist, pulling the captive upward, to the highest level of the Saryozek fortress, to the throne room of the king of Hell.

He saw Nurzan sitting behind a teak desk, looking out from the glass window taken from the 747’s cockpit, at his smoldering, screaming, despairing domain. The man beside him was a ruined thing, wheelchair-bound. Like a broken marionette, it cocked its head the moment Nergui and the gaunt man entered. It made a hoarse, moaning noise. Nergui felt his stomach churn at the sight of it.

Its mouth was a shriveled, scabbed wound, the lips turned inward. Its one good eye was wide open, mad-eyed, forever staring. The fingers of its left hand were crooked, broken things with long nails, caked in what could only be blood. Every digit in its right hand (except for the thumb) were stumps that wiggled obscenely at him. Nergui imagined that the wheelchair-thing was perhaps making a gesture, a run or a kneel with the ghost of its extremities. It was dressed in the tattered, soiled camo gear of an officer. Ablack beret was set impeccably at the top of its head a.

“Mongol,” the gaunt man said, amidst a torrent of unknown words, before kicking at the back of Nergui’s legs, forcing him to kneel. The man turned and Nergui bit his lip to stifle his scream.

If the wheelchair thing had been agony made manifest, then Nurzan, was pure evil on two legs. The right half of his face was a gaping, scabbing wound that revealed spots of faded white, spotted with yellow. The eye at that side of the head was almost exposed, the wound reaching almost all the way down to his eyelids, leaving the entire bulb exposed inside the socket. Nergui watched, in grim fascination, as it moved around the room, to the gaunt man, back to him, seeming as if it was about to slip out of its socket and roll on the ground at any moment.

There was horror in Nurzan's expression. Borne from constant torment which had long since seeped so far down into his pores that it had merged with the evil inside Nurzan’s heart. His expression was the one that Nergui knew belonged to a terminally ill man, one who had seen Hell beckoning and had decided to take as much of the world around him along for the ride. Nurzan responded to the gaunt man in Kazakh, as he hobbled to Nergui, his hand clasping his thigh. He leaned closer and looked down at his face, studying it. The gaunt man said something, almost apologetically and the Nurzan cleared his throat and spoke, in passable Chinese:

“You are not Mongol. You are advance scout,” his breath carried the stench of rotting things. His mouth was a study in scab-red and midnight-black.

“Yes” Nergui responded.

“How much ahead are you?” Nurzan said, leaning closer. Nergui tried to pull back, but the Kazakh’s hand reached out and grabbed him by the back of his neck. “How far?” he snarled.

“A week.” Nergui lied. Nurzan nodded and then struck Nergui across the chest with his fist, knocking the wind out of his lungs.

“Don’t lie. I can smell lying. How far?”

“Three days.” Nergui gasped. Nurzan tugged his head back by the hair.

“How many men?” he asked.

“Two thousand.” Nergui said through clenched teeth. Nurzan only nodded and exchanged a few words with the gaunt man.

“Heavy artillery? Tanks? APCs?”

“No, none,” Nergui said and his heart sank. Nurzan bit his lip and then slammed his forehead down on Nergui’s eye, blinding him momentarily. There was a flurry of blows as Nurzan’s boot came down on Nergui’s ribs and arms, before finally striking his thigh and grinding against his wound.

“You will not have Saryozek. Saryozek is mine. Your people will come and I will kill them in front of my gates. You are now here, with me, in Hell. And you will suffer with me.”

Nurzan hissed an order at the gaunt man, who left the throne-room without a word. Nergui was pulled up to his feet and set to kneel beside the broken thing in the wheel chair. Producing a pair of handcuffs from his desk, Nurzan strapped him to it.

“You will not be with the slaves, because the slaves would kill you. I will keep you alive instead. I will make you watch and care for Temir. Temir is lonely, wouldn’t you know. Needs someone to care for him.”

Nergui nodded silently as he looked up at the drooling, hateful Temir, his sole eye radiating pity.

“I will kill you after I have taken care of the Mongols. But if you have lied to me, you will join him. I will sew you to each other. Understood?”

“Good. Good”

Temir let out a sound that could have been a cackle, or perhaps a moan. Nergui wished he had the courage to cry. So instead, he prayed.

***

Baraat dreamt that he was a hare, clawing its way out of the hard earth, to poke its head out and scan the white landscape around it. He sniffed at the still, cold air searching for predators. Finding the immediate area free from the musky scent of fox or the fear-instilling scent of wolf, the hare pushed himself out, in search of food.

This hare had no warren or family. It had no female to care for or children to feed. It moved aimlessly, hopping across the hard-packed snow, poking its head into the patches of frozen grass to look for food. Every now and then, it would find a berry and pop it in its mouth and chew at it for a while, occasionally stopping to look around for any lingering predators. When it was done, the hare would go back in search for food. When it thirsted, it would chew on soft snow and let it melt in its mouth.

The hare had found a particularly enticing bit of root sticking out of the ground and had been nibbling at it, trying to pry it out of the earth, when a gust of east wind blew down from the mountains: it was new to it but it bore the tell of predator. It carried the metallic stench of blood and brought to its mind the image of long, gnashing teeth, of tongues lolling inside long mouths, clicking against bony palates.

The hare turned its head and found that the hole it had emerged from was gone, subsided into the snow, so it began to run. Hopping furiously across the snow, bouncing over patches of hard earth, the hare looked for a hole in a tree trunk of a patch of wet earth to bury in and get away. Behind it, it could hear the predators’ beating feet as they came closer, the clickety-clacking of their talons, the hissing noise of long tails whipping at the snow. The hare turned to look for a moment and saw only a glimpse of green-red, a momentary flicker of eyes the color of Baltic amber. They were only a few paces away from it now, closing in.

The hare whimpered as it heard the snap of jaws behind it, nipping at it tail. Turning its head, it noticed another of its kind, poking its head from the entrance of its warren. Hopping madly, it reached the warren with a few strides, the predators closer now, hissing excitedly at the prospect of fresh meat in their bellies and hot blood on their tongues. The hare that was Baraat Buriyat jumped into the air, its trajectory leading it to the entrance of the warren, when suddenly a long, sinewy shadow obscured the sun. From the corner of its eye, the hare saw long fangs closing in, piercing its fur and sliding effortlessly into its hide to sink into the meat. The predator skidded to a graceless halt on the snow. Its brothers clawed and poked their heads into the warren, fresh gore spilling down their jaws to stain the snow.

The hare screeched once as the predator bit into its flesh, severing its spine. Twice and it snapped the hare’s spindly neck. It was gone down the predator’s belly the next instant.

Baraat shot up screaming, slamming his head against the roof of the Lada. Outside, the A353’s constant parade of rocky, lifeless terrain was shifting into endless expanses of near-feral wheat.

“And the warlord awakes!” Kushi said from the passenger seat.

“We’re moving?” Baraat muttered, his mouth dry as if stuffed with cotton. He looked out the rear window, at the massed mounts behind them.

“Yes, zuun-lord. We are moving.” Kushi said, passing Baraat a canteen.

“I don’t want to-”

“It’s water. Fish fuck in it. Drink,” Kushi said, before tossing Baraat a bundle of clothes. “And put something on, we can’t have you sacking Saryozek in your birthday suit.”

Suddenly realizing his nakedness, Baraat covered himself up, even as he greedily gulped down every last drop in the canteen.

“How long was I out?”

“About eight hours. Standard for someone who can’t handle his mukhomor. You’ll do better next time,” Kushi said. When the designated driver laughed, Kushi smacked him across the head with the flat of his palm to shut him up. Baraat still blushed fiercely, nevertheless.

“Was it that bad?”

“You started screaming in the middle of the screening, tore off your clothes, kicked at a bit of root and scared the Ogtbish half to death. Then you collapsed. She gunned it as fast as she could.”

“Is she okay?” Baraat asked.

“Yes, I went and got her. Gansukh was about to take her head, when we heard one of our scouts had spotted Saryozek, so we got moving. So I took you out of the infirmary, loaded you in the backseat and we got going. And here we are.”

“Where is Heng now?”

“Coward’s stockade,” Kushi said, pointing to the back of the convoy, toward the prison-RVs which, Baraat knew, lingered in the back of the marching line with the harem-RVs. “She was fine, when I went to check on her before we started.”

“Did she tell you anything? About me? Did you apologize on my behalf?” Baraat asked anxiously. The driver turned to Baraat, his face was a mess of scars, festooned with rows of piercings and said:

“Look, zuun-lord, it is all well and good you want to fuck the Ogtbish, yes? But we are going to war here. Try to get your head straight.”

“You keep your eyes on the goddamn road!” Kushi barked the order and turned to Baraat “Zuun-lord, this is arbat-lord Monkbhat. He is…”

“Steel-face,” Baraat said, grinning as he struggled with a pair of jeans. “Lord Steel-face. This is what they used to call you, wasn’t it? When I joined the myangan.”

“Yes, zuun-lord. I went by Steel-face,” Monkhbat grumbled, gripping the steering wheel so tight, his knuckles turned white. “That is no longer the case.”

“They said those piercing are the only thing holding your face together, after the Batu-Khan was done with you, wasn’t it?” Baraat said, grinning wickedly “What did you do, Steel-Face? Did you try to get in a fight with him? Did you try to steal his mount?”

“Zuun-lord, that is enough,” Kushi said, his eyes darting back and forth between the boy-superior and the snarling man at the wheel. “We need to consider…”

“One moment, Kushi,” Baraat said, enjoying Monkbhat’s rage, almost reveling in it. Leaning over between the seats, he said: wWhat was is you did, that made him cut your face and you had to staple it back together. Tell your zuun-lord, why don't you?”

The mount suddenly lurched to a halt and Baraat was thrown across the backseat to slam his head against the windshield hard enough to crack the glass. The mount screeched to a halt in the middle of the road, with the myangan speeding by it. Inside, Kushi was screaming bloody murder, as Monkbhat stuck a match and lit the cigarette lingering in the ashtray.

“You stupid, stupid ape! What will we do if you’ve killed him? They’ll have us quartered for this! They’ll have us flayed and quartered! We can’t keep going through zuun-lords like…”

“The boy is breathing. His skull is thick,” Monkbhat pointed at the spiderweb embroidered in the windshield.

"See? No blood. Lots of bone in his skull. No brain.” Monkbhat said and knocked on the back of Baraat’s head with his knuckles, before tugging him back by the hair, bringing his face level with his own. “Want to know what I did to the Batu-Khan that made me like this? I fucked his wife. Want to know why I am alive? Because she liked it. Now get back in your goddamn seat and talk tactics. I must drive.”

Baraat was reaching for his saber when Kushi’s hand grabbed him by the wrist and shoved the GPS in his hands. On it, Saryozek was marked with a big red dot.

“We don’t know the details yet, but from what we have got, this must be a pretty damn big settlement, or else the biker-scout wouldn’t have gone to hell and back to send us these coordinates. We have tried reaching him on his portable radio but so far there has been no response. It’s possible the team of scouts was killed, which means that the city must have some defenses that we should be wary of. Then again, it could just be a bunch of nuts with rifles that got lucky, but we had better be safe than sorry.”

Tapping the GPS screen, Kushi zoomed in on Saryozek, bringing the mountains it was built against into view.

“It’s on the A353, but it’s possible that its defenders have holed up in the mountains. If that is so and they know we are coming, that means they must have blocked the roads. Which means that our mounts will be useless. We can’t afford a siege, if we want to make the Volgograd rendezvous.”

“How big is Saryozek?" Baraat said, taking the device in his hands. “Isn't there any way around the place, some path we could use around their defenses?"

“Even if there is, we don't know the lay of the land. We could end up getting trapped and dispersing those bastards in the mountains only to have them taking potshots at us the entire winter. The plan, according to Gansukh, is to sack the city and then gun onward. Perhaps try staying out the winter in Aralsk, with the 300th myangan.”

“But what if we don’t make it? What’s the plan then?” Baraat insisted.

“We give up on the siege and force-drive to Aralsk. We’ve received word from another scout party who tell us that the A353 pretty much stops at Turkestan. That would mean we’d have to take some of the back roads and barely reach the 300th before winter comes. And when it does and if it finds us in the open, then we are going to be dead men, zuun-lord.”

“But if we don’t take Saryozek, we’ll pretty much starve, won’t we? There can't be anything worth taking on the way to Aralsk. Not unless Gansukh has any mobile crops at hand,” Baraat handed the GPS back to Kushi. “No, if Saryozek decides to take to the hills, we should burn the hills.”

“You can’t be serious,” Kushi laughed hoarsely.

“Why wouldn’t I be? We either take the city or we die on the road, plain and simple. If Saryozek gives us trouble, then we torch it and wait for the rats to swarm out. We pick them off as they come out and take what we can.”

“You can’t just burn a forest down because you can’t find the wolves’ den, zuun-lord!” Kushi said, “we can’t resort to arson, because of some villagers in their caves!”

“And what if those villagers have an army? What if there’s another tank or if they god a howitzer? What will we do then? Run with our tails between our legs? Is that how we do things in the Horde?” Baraat replied, stern-faced. Kushi fell silent.

“Ganuskh won’t allow this.”

“Ganuskh won’t be the one lighting the fires, arbat-lord,” Baraat said.

The only sound in the mount, as it sped up to reach its appointed place in the front of the zuun was the cackling of Monkbhat, broken by the occasional fit of coughing, as he sucked on his cigarette.