The screaming had lasted for hours. Baraat stayed there and listened to every second of it, staring at the screaming woman. He had even stayed as long as he could, until the child had pushed its way out of her body obscenely between her legs, screaming as it came out of her, covered in blood and mucus.

He had run out of the RV, past the tents of the officers and had finally collapsed at the other side of Lenin Square, his bile pouring out from between his lips. He felt cold and terrified and shriveled. He huddled against the wall, knees close to his chest, as Heng’s cries reached a crescendo and were abruptly replaced by the infant’s wailing. Baraat stayed that way, even after then child had gone silent, even after the nurses and the doctors had left, even after the last midwife had gone. He sat there, against the wall, until the night rolled in and he had mustered the courage to return to the RV, to open the door and breathe in the smell of sweat, blood and tears, to look at Heng with the child in her arms, as it suckled at her breast.

“Her name is Ying.” Heng said, looking up at the myangan-lord.

“It’s a good name.” he managed.

Baraat did not say another word, choosing to sleep in the driver’s seat as Heng sang to the child in Chinese, the sight of its birth haunting him every time he closed his eyes, even for a second until finally exhaustion mercifully overtook him.

***

He was more than eager to join the campaign briefing discussions: to dwell in this place among the officers, to look at maps jotted with scribbles, designs, to look into rows upon rows of deployment figures. He was the first in and the last out, all to get away from Gansukh’s RV (now his own, if only in name), to escape Heng and the child.

She had given birth to Gansukh’s child, this much Baraat knew. He wouldn’t dare look at Ying, for fear of being reminded of her father. She would not approach Heng, not after what he had seen that night. The sight of the child being born had been, to Baraat, obscene; almost dehumanizing, turning Heng from the object of his desire into something else that he could not quite put into words. Suffice it to say that it revolted him, even though he did his absolute best not to let it show. He would not touch Heng, would not look at her but he would provide for her, in the manner befitting a Mongol and he knew that Heng was more than happy to accept those terms.

“Raise the child as your own for now. She is the daughter of a myangan-lord so you will have little trouble sending her away, when she comes of age.” Asai advised him. “You can always have another child with the Ogtbish, maybe you’ll succeed in having a boy where Gansukh failed.” And then he’d clap him on the back and Baraat would look at Heng and she would give him that strange, knowing smile of hers, the one that said I know you won’t touch me, even though you want me. You look at me and you think of the child, you think of her father, the man you killed. But more than that, more than the fact that Baraat had killed Gansukh like a coward and dumped his body in the river, it was the fact that she had been his before him. It was childish, a selfish desire that would have had him ridiculed among the Mongols, but horrified Baraat nonetheless. Heng had been to him the radiant being of his vision, pure and gleaming. Now, she was earthly and impure and for all the aching between his legs for her, he could never muster the courage to have her. So he attended the meetings and he took down notes and when the Khan asked for volunteers to join the vanguard on the attack on Moscow, Baraat raised his arm quicker than any other man in the room.

Anything to get away from here, he thought. Let me be anywhere else but here.

From time to time, he would catch Tuzniq looking at him. The boy was radiant, feeding off Baraat’s misery. He had promised to destroy him and the boy would do it, in time. He could not afford to stay there. He had to move, to leave Volgograd, to leave Russia, to take Europe and then perhaps Africa in the name of the Khan and after that? What would be left for him? How much of the road could he still travel and conquer, before he was safe? He was the young wolf now and the Horde had chanted his name and forced the Khan himself to give him command of a myangan, but when the time came that his claws were blunted and his gums were slack, his mane a patchy gray, would he be safe then?

No, I will never be free of him, he thought, even as he inspected his men, the zuun-lords standing at attention, saluting each in turn. Evan as Ganbold, the shaman-engineer, fell to his knees when he came over to inspect the Tngri of his myangan, even as he raised the banner at the Khan’s side and they left Volgograd, moving up across the M6. The thunderous roar of the engines of the Horde soothed him, but it was not enough to drown out his worry. The constant radio chatter eased his troubled mind, but it could do nothing to allay the dread that washed over him.

In the middle of the night, even as his eyelids grew heavy and his designated driver took Baraat’s place at the wheel, he would find some little peace in the dark and silent place behind his eyelids. Until Ying would begin to cry and he would stay awake, staring at the road, until the nightmares overwhelmed him.