Conqueror: The Complete 5-Book Collection. Conn Iggulden

their eyes.

      Temujin and Kachiun had suffered less than the other pair because of what they had found. As soon as there was light enough to see, Temujin began to scramble out of the cleft to collect the first of the young eagles. He almost lost his grip when a dark shape swept in from the west, an adult eagle that seemed as large as he was.

      The bird was not happy to find two trespassers so close to its young. Temujin knew the females were larger than the males and he assumed the creature had to be the mother, as it screamed and raged at them. The chicks went unfed as the great bird took off again and again to float on the wind and look into the rock cleft that sheltered the two boys. It was terrifying and wondrous to be so high and stare into the black eyes of the bird, hanging unsupported on outstretched wings. Its claws opened and clutched convulsively, as if it imagined tearing into their flesh. Kachiun shuddered at the sight, lost in awe and fear that the huge bird would suddenly spear in at them, winkling them out as it might have done with a marmot in its hole. They had no more than Temujin’s pitiful little knife to defend themselves against a hunter that could break the back of a dog with a single heavy strike.

      Temujin watched the brown-gold head turn back and forth in agitation. He guessed the bird could remain there all day and he did not enjoy the thought of being exposed on the ledge below the nest. One blow from a claw there and he would be torn loose. He tried to remember anything he had ever heard about the wild birds. Could he shout to frighten the mother away? He considered it, but he did not want to summon Bekter and Khasar up to the lonely peak, not until he had the chicks wrapped in cloth and close to his chest.

      At his shoulder, Kachiun clung to the sloping red rock in the cleft. Temujin saw he had prised out a loose stone and was weighing it in his hand.

      ‘Can you hit it?’ Temujin asked.

      Kachiun only shrugged. ‘Maybe. I’d have to be lucky to knock it down and this is the only one I could find.’

      Temujin cursed under his breath. The adult eagle had disappeared for a time, but the birds were skilled hunters and he was not tempted to be lured out of his safe haven. He blew air out of his mouth in frustration. He was starving, with a difficult climb down ahead of him. He and Kachiun deserved better than to leave empty-handed.

      He remembered Bekter’s bow, far below with Temuge and the ponies, and cursed himself for not having thought to bring it. Not that Bekter would have let him lay a hand on the double-curved weapon. His elder brother was as pompous about that as he was about all the trappings of a warrior.

      ‘You take the stone,’ Kachiun said. ‘I’ll get back up to the nest, and if she comes, you can knock her away.’

      Temujin frowned. It was a reasonable plan. He was an excellent shot and Kachiun was the better climber. The only problem was that it would be Kachiun who had taken the birds, not him. It was a subtle thing, perhaps, but he wanted no other claim on them before his own.

      ‘You take the stone. I’ll get the chicks,’ he replied.

      Kachiun turned his dark eyes on his older brother, seeming to read his thoughts. He shrugged. ‘All right. Have you cloth to bind them?’

      Temujin used his knife to remove strips from the edge of his tunic. The garment was ruined, but the birds were a far greater prize and worth the loss. He wrapped a length around each palm to have them ready, then craned out of the cleft, searching for a moving shadow, or a speck circling above. The bird had looked into his eyes and known what he was trying to do, he was certain. He had seen intelligence there, as much as any dog or hawk, perhaps more.

      He felt his stiff muscles twinge as he climbed out into the sunlight. Once more he could hear thin screeching from the nest, the chicks desperate for food after a night alone. Perhaps they too had suffered without their mother’s warm body to protect them from the storm. Temujin worried that he could hear only one call and that the other might have perished. He glanced behind him in case the adult eagle was soaring in to hammer him against the rock. There was nothing there and he pulled himself onto the high ledge, dragging up his legs until he crouched as Kachiun had the previous evening.

      The nest was deep in a hollow, wide and steep-sided, so that the active young birds could not clamber out and fall before they could fly. As they caught sight of his face, both of the scrawny young eagles scuttled away from him, wagging their featherless wings in panic and cawing for help. Once more, he scanned the blue sky and said a quick prayer to the sky father to keep him safe. He eased forward, his right knee pressing into the damp thatch and old feathers. Small bones crunched under his weight and he smelled a nauseating gust from ancient prey.

      One of the birds cowered from his reaching fingers, but the other tried to bite him with its beak, raking his hand with talons. The needle claws were too small to do more than lightly score his skin and he ignored the sting as he held the bird up to his face and watched as it writhed.

      ‘My father will hunt for twenty years with you,’ he murmured, freeing a strip from one hand and trussing the bird by wing and leg. The second had almost climbed out of the nest in panic and Temujin was forced to drag it back by one yellow claw, causing it to wail and struggle. He saw that the young feathers had a tinge of red amidst the gold.

      ‘I would call you the red bird, if you were mine,’ he told it, pushing them both down inside his tunic. The birds seemed quieter against his skin, though he could feel claws scrabble at him. He thought his chest would look as if he’d fallen in a thorn bush by the time he was down.

      Temujin saw the adult eagle coming as a flicker of darkness above his head. It was moving faster than he would have believed possible and he only had time to raise an arm before he heard Kachiun yell and their single stone thumped into the bird’s side, knocking it off its strike. It screamed in rage as real as he’d ever heard from an animal, reminding Temujin that this was a hunter, with a hunter’s instincts. He saw the bird try to flap its huge wings, scrabbling at the ledge for balance. Temujin could do nothing but crouch in that confined space and try to protect his face and neck from the lunging claws. He heard it screech in his ear and felt the wings beat against him before the bird fell, calling in anger all the way. Both boys watched the eagle spiral down and down, barely in control of the descent. One wing was still, but the other seemed to twist and flutter in the updraught. Temujin breathed more slowly, feeling his heart begin to slow. He had the bird for his father and perhaps he would be allowed to train the red bird for himself.

      Bekter and Khasar had joined Temuge with the ponies by the time Temujin made his slow way down. Kachiun had stayed with him, aiding where he could so that Temujin never had to scramble for a hold, or risk his precious cargo. Even so, when he finally stood on the flat ground and looked up to the heights, they seemed impossibly far away; already strange, as if other boys had climbed them.

      ‘Did you find the nest?’ Khasar asked, seeing their answer in their pride.

      Kachiun nodded. ‘With two eagle chicks in it. We fought off the mother and took them both.’

      Temujin let his young brother tell the story, knowing that the others would not understand what it had been like to crouch with the world under his feet and death beating against his shoulders. He had not been afraid, he’d found, though his heart and body had reacted. He had experienced a moment of exhilaration on the red hill and it disturbed him too much to talk of it, at least for the moment. Perhaps he would mention it to Yesugei when the khan was in a mellow mood.

      Temuge too had spent a miserable night, though he had been able to shelter with the ponies and had occasional squirts of warm milk to sustain him. It didn’t occur to the other four to thank him for his sighting of the eagle. Temuge hadn’t climbed with them. All he had from his brothers was a hard clip from Bekter when he discovered that Temuge had emptied the mare’s teats during the night. The little boy howled as they set off, but the others had no sympathy. They were all parched and starving, and even the usually sunny Khasar frowned at him for his greed. They had soon left him behind as they trotted together across the green plain.

      The boys saw their father’s warriors long before they were in sight of the gers of the tribe. Almost as soon as they were out of the shadow of the red hill they were spotted, the high-pitched