It is late when the palace turns inward upon itself that Batu slips away through night’s veil on the long, southerly lope to the Alukhai. He wishes to show the mongols that peace could be restored. Yet his rage is a palpable thing, rolling in the muscled legs grown strong again through rigorous use. A hundred faces gone and slaughtered.

Met with vehemence is a doe, her flesh divided at the circle of gers.

Bloodied muzzle dips against the lea, placing roe rump to the paws of Oyun . A sister known in the confines of nazgur and noble blood. Now both are gone, and they share meat together. This is the new way.

“ Khatar has remained loyal since we first found each other together among the han. In another life, he would be khaan. I will raise him to kheshig.” Tongue clicks against teeth, the taste of haunch flesh still coating. A decision khaan wishes khatun to be aligned in its making.

She catches sight of Batu's arrival, his form made but a shadow sprawled across moonlit terrain, and moves to meet him.

Flesh rolls bloodily before her, earning a low grunt of acknowledgment before she lifts eyes to his, nod - then - as appreciation. Quiet but sure to be undeniably understood. They need not spill words where significance of presence reigns king. Her, staying. Him, returning. This is enough.

Oyun bends to tear free a chunk of meat and chews as he speaks.

"I trust him," she says, for this matters most before all else. "But he is soft of heart... Not an unfortunate thing to be but the work of a kheshig is often heavy, at times cruel." She licks clean her lips. "You think he can bear it?"

Soft of heart fallow doe brings balance to the blue-grey wolf. Batu sees the use in being diverse and elevating a man of no relation to nazgur. It is how he might bring the narrower views of past khaans into greater, worldly understanding.

But Oyun is right. If Khatar cannot cannot wield that brutality which is due their enemies, then he is not kheshig. Unrivaled military dominance is the way they must secure their future.

“He will decide for us,” khaan turns a darkened grin from sister to the gathering around the gers, “Khatar!”

“Aanda . (blood brother) Alukhai wishes to see you rise as captain of nokud. Of our enemies, those who surrender will be spared and nurtured as conquests. But those who resist us must face eradication. Their villages will be pillaged, and people enslaved. Used as shields, if we must.” To umber warrior Batu jerks his chin. Brown eyes watchful.

“Tell us your thought on this.”

Khatar rests, eyes trained upon the stars above him. They are not the same glowing lights he knew once. Constellations in the sky are new, and must be mapped. It is a venture he will not take.

He flicks a short ear at his name called upon by Batu. The dark wolf rises, tail flicking lazily and rising to meet Batu and Oyun.

The khaan to be explains his plans and while the umber prince understands, it hardens his face. His brow becomes stern and he allows it to sit within him. It is uncomfortable and ugly and he is not sure which to sacrifice first: the honor of being a man of the steppes, knowing he cannot be as harsh as the plains that raised them? Or gentleness, and become who mother and father wished for him to always be. Like Jochi. A ghost that would remain in every tale woven by Alukhai.

The warriors who oppose us will not be given mercy upon a battlefield, he agrees. There is some understanding for anyone that takes up the sword that they are compliant in devastation; of family, of culture, of life itself. There is even responsibility that lay on the shoulders of royalty who never leave their gilded palace, commanding those they deemed beneath them to sacrifice a wake of bodies in their stead. He thinks of Shēnléi. He thinks of the empress. But Khatar still hones a golden heart and thinks of Tatsuhime and those of the kingdom that are innocent.

We should sway the hearts and minds to us and grow alliances where we can. Inspire trust and repay it. Take any children left behind and raise them as one of us. Do not lead others to believe we are the barbarians they already call us.

Oyun would not have thought poor of him for refusing. It is only time that has distanced them, made foreign what once was easy, his heart is still gentle all the same. She understands the purpose of delicate tendencies but it is not stayed hands Alukhai needs.

His acceptance, although not so bluntly stated, is not surprising either. Too long have their people warred amongst one another; their teeth are to be angled to a common enemy now.

Quietly, she mills over this. Khatar's reason brings with it benefit. She sees no reason to appeal to the palates of han or other alike but no child should fall for the doing of their elders, too many young of theirs have been lost so. Alliance sours her a little more.

Oyun's jaw tightens, voice lowers, "There's promise in that. With Tianlong's impending journey, it's certain some of their most loyal will be joining the caravan, which leaves some malleable or weary minds behind," she will amuse this. If he is to be kheshig then he must be given chance to prove himself. "We build alliance in the han king's absence; when time comes, they may leave us to our bidding... or turn fang to him as well." As they stand now, no number to theirs is to be dismissed. Even theoretically.

Khatun looks to Batu and she questions, "What say you of his approach? I don't mind it presently."

Their countenance, alight from within, glows around, the unseen fires alive in the heart of all good horse people, and with lively affection, he gazes on both, and nods.

“Soon Tianlong will count their allies the way we count our goats.” A grunt, for the imperial kingdom would continue to live richly while their mongols pay the damages of defeat.

“Khatar and I have laid eyes on their walled pavilions and the satriyan palaces below. Alukhai will never be able to purchase aid,” aloud, this musing. Jewels, ivory, seeds and herbs are a sign of han wealth: from this can be imagined the enticement of their other luxuries.

“It will be difficult to appeal to their pathos. It has been the han’s strategy to set barbarians against barbarians: back a weak barbarian against a strong. A far against a near.” Before, the tribes had been disintegrating to perpetual hostility. Only too often the eager khans mistook robbery and debauchery for worthy feats of arms. What they owned was squeezed from them in reparations to the han, until they lived in the grimmest poverty, wearing the skins of rats and eating their flesh on the sea-blown steppe.

“But to grow rapport,” he nods, “we will dispatch only information-scroungers on Tianlong. Nothing that might raise suspicion. Beyond them, I would see the trade road established again. We are centrally positioned. Many must pass through us to reach the wider continent.” It would affix Alukhai to the map as an artery of the world once more. “Then we will sway hearts and minds.” And through horse hair and milk.

Batu finds iron sternness in khatun, the same quality reflected in his aanda, the man he would name as kheshig. They would show terror where it is needed, mercy when it is earned, and discipline until such a time.

Concerns stew in the back of Khatar’s churning mind. The Emperor and Empress are due to journey with royal counsel any day now and he wonders how many allies they will gain along the way.

Batu is correct in that regard. Satriya could never be an ally, not when they value gold, sapphire and exotic wines from afar more than they would a steady trade of horses, of meat, of an army of soldiers.

Khatar settles in the grass, the Khaan’s words filling the umber man with a familiar resentment. His own clan, destroyed by another, far more rowdy and of many more men than Angarag. Forgiveness would be thin for them, but he had none for the royals and political court of Tianlong, who had sanctioned violence if they got the scraps of rewards.

We could offer safe passage for those who come here. Give them pelts, meat, koumis. Everyone’s happier with a full stomach. It is rudimentary, but on long journeys, who cares for studded jewelry or perfumes if the pelt is thin and the belly growls? And for those who steal, or would attack. . .

He needs not say it. Absentmindedly, he turns head to groom down his shoulder, glancing again at Oyun. Khatun. If anyone is built for it, it is her!

I should spend some time in Tianlong and see if anyone is unhappy, he says plainly. Granted, they may not be so easy to sway. They’re awfully full of pride.