Reincarnated as Genghis Khan's Grandson, I Will Not Let It Fall-Chapter 21: Two Days

The lamp on the table had burned to its base.

Batu had been working through the supply tallies since the second watch and hadn’t lit a second one. The gray coming through the felt was enough.

Khulgen came in before the horse lines had run their first allocation.

He sat without being offered a seat and put a folded piece of felt on the table.

"Suuqai," Batu said.

"He can ride before midday."

Khulgen had the idea ready before arriving. The specificity of it showed.

"The Mersek detail moves to Chaidu’s rotation. Three of Suuqai’s own men hold the perimeter count."

"He takes two northeast. His choice on which ones. No Jochid markings."

"The trading kit is the question. If the merchant is running grain circuits, a rider showing up with nothing to sell looks wrong from the gate."

"Suuqai will handle it."

Batu set down the tally.

The grain merchant had moved silver through the Kerait post before the attempt on the tent. He had known how to make it look like a camp delivery.

That kind of knowledge wasn’t acquired on a single circuit.

The merchant had either stayed at the post since the attempt failed, calculating that moving would draw more attention than remaining, or he was already gone and had left contacts behind who remembered what he’d touched.

Both answers were useful. The second was more likely and would take longer to read.

"The Sartat rider," Batu said.

Khulgen had this ready too. "He’s moved through several of the western camps. The false story is dead."

Batu sat with that for a moment.

A false account corrected in the Sartat’s own voice, traveling through the same camps that had heard the original.

Every headman who received it would add it to their picture of how this camp managed its agreements.

The correction had moved without a single Jochid rider carrying it. That was the part worth noting.

"Good," he said. "Anything else."

"Nothing that won’t keep."

Khulgen left.

Batu folded the supply tally, set it on the records stack, and went to find Torghul.

The eastern flat was catching the early light when he reached it.

Two grooms were working the outer fence from the south end toward the north, moving through the morning fodder allocation with the practiced efficiency of men who had done it enough times to stop thinking about it.

The training elements hadn’t formed yet.

Torghul was at the northern edge in the position he took when he was watching rather than directing.

He heard Batu approach and didn’t turn.

"Chaidu’s element," Batu said.

"The new riders are taking the screen protocols."

Torghul’s eyes were on the middle distance, one of the grooms or the angle of the light across the ground.

"Another week and they’re at full function."

Batu stood beside him. "Sarat," he said. "The crest line. You held past the signal."

Torghul was still.

"The read was correct," Batu said.

"Their front rank was at range but the mass hadn’t committed full momentum.

Breaking at the signal would have stalled the charge on the slope.

The plan needed them over the top and the signal came in short.

The calibration assumed full commitment at that distance. The charge came in slower than that."

"I wasn’t sure you’d read it that way," Torghul said.

"I read it that way after."

Batu looked at the empty ground where the elements would shortly form.

"The protocol had a gap. That gap came from the design.

When the situation needs the protocol broken, break it. Tell me after."

Torghul nodded once. His eyes came back to the flat.

"About Kirsa’s riders," he said.

"A hundred and sixty men who’ve run that country on their own patterns won’t fit what Penk has built.

The screen protocols assume a certain kind of formation discipline."

"The value isn’t their formation discipline."

"Then Penk’s function needs a layer built around what they do run.

Whether it’s separate or integrated, that’s the review."

The value in Kirsa’s riders was specific.

Knowledge of the upper crossing territory that doctrine couldn’t replicate.

The protocols existed to serve the function. If the function required something the protocols didn’t carry, the protocols bent.

"Review it before the end of the week," Batu said. "Penk should be in the room." 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Torghul’s expression said he’d already assumed Penk would need to be in the room.

Batu left him to the morning and walked back toward the command quarter.

Orel was at the outer entrance.

Behind him stood a young rider with the particular stillness of someone who had been waiting since before it was reasonable to expect an answer, composed but carrying the effort of it.

"Yellow banner," Orel said. "He came in at the second watch change."

Batu took the felt and read.

The headman acknowledged the losses at Sarat.

He offered standard tribute and a levy of fifty horses, framed as his own figure and subject to discussion.

He had sent a young rider rather than coming himself, and the horses the rider had arrived on were better than the offer justified.

The headman had framed it as a starting position. Batu read it as a final one.

"The tribute is accepted," Batu said to Orel.

"The levy is sixty horses at my selection. He carries the terms back today."

The rider absorbed this without expression.

He had been told to carry back whatever he received and had prepared himself accordingly.

Orel was already writing.

Suuqai was at the eastern perimeter fence when Batu found him, watching a guard changeover work through its last position.

He waited for it to complete before turning.

"Mersek," Batu said.

"He walks the fence in the morning. Eats with the supply men. Sleeps before the evening watch."

Suuqai’s eyes moved briefly back to the perimeter, checking something in the changeover’s last exchange, then returned.

"He’s stopped asking questions."

A man in that position who stopped asking questions had either finished his calculations or found a way to continue them differently.

In Mersek’s case the confinement held either way. Batu set it aside.

"You’re going northeast. Kerait trading post.

There’s a grain merchant who moves between the post and the western camps.

Before the attempt on my tent, he moved silver through a supply rider there.

I want to know if he’s still at the post. Name, routes, what he’s running. Come back with what the market gives you."

Suuqai said nothing, which was how he registered he was listening.

"If the merchant sees the question coming," Batu said.

"I won’t let him."

"If he already has."

Batu held that for a moment.

"Then come back with who remembers him and when."

"Two men," Suuqai said.

"Your choice."

He was already moving toward the horse lines.

Batu was at the northeastern gate when Suuqai and his two riders came through, moving at the pace of men with a destination and no reason to announce it.

He watched them until the steppe took them, shapes flattening into the pale grass until the grass was empty.

Behind him the camp ran its midday business.

Cook fires from the central ground. A handler calling a count somewhere along the horse lines.

The ordinary sound of several thousand men in the middle of a day.

Kirsa in two days. Suuqai already northeast.

When both threads came back, Batu would know what Guyuk’s operation actually held on the western steppe.

The channel would stop running blind.

He turned back toward the command quarter.