The Last Khagan

Chapter One: The Beast and the Khan

Deep beneath the earth down under the howling winds above, amid the compacted earth and within the ancient mounds. In the claustrophobia of winding tunnel systems and the wicked twisting branches of dying trees. Amongst the gnawing critters and the groaning mammals. In the safety of the tomb and away from that of the Great Khan, stirred the sacred beast. The creature granted to the world under the spirit of the big sky. The underworld beneath the scarce plains host to the seeded life of Boz Tengri’s hand, the animal’s form lifted from the depths of Tamag by the caring embrace of Ugen. The creature’s fur pulsated with the respiration of its struggling lungs. The whistling wind from the endless grasslands above meandered within, like smoke wisps from a dying fire. The cool air laced its gusts through the creature’s matted hair. The keratinous layers rising from an unfilled belly absorbed the blow. The creature’s mind lay dormant in the darkness. Glowing amber eyes hid from the wild world still teeming with predators. Millenia of evolution had gifted the creature with a third ocular layer, a dirty trick to be played on any that dare seek its downfall. Its ilk may have been the pride of the khans, but nature is a cruel and foul mistress. One that spared nothing, no matter its place in the hierarchy of beings. Whilst its kin had returned to their father with tales of the sudden emptiness of apes to the west, the steppes above remained unchanged. Its far away now gorged on a land of plenty, profiting from settlements cleansed of ape life. This was not a privilege extended to him, however. In this world, it meant little to him if all the apes in all the steppe vanished, for they had never been its masters.

Unlike his lucky relatives, here there were no forests in which to roam freely. No towering stags nor lazy careless hares. No broods of bucktoothed marmots foolishly wandering the brush beneath the evergreens. Nor could he compare his lot to that of his brothers to the east, supping on the spring water of bursting rivers. Their elongated maws dragging in litres of life giving liquid, eager to sustain their long hunts. Instead, his domain was that of eternal struggle. The creature’s ears twitched involuntarily, the wind irritated his senses. Had he not dug far enough? Clearly not, yet he could hardly go further. He did not have the luxury of the pathetic blind rodents that liberally dug their labyrinths around him. He craved Kayra’s air more than he craved flesh. If he did not, then to catch such delectable prey as the blind rats, would have been easy. But to dig deeper meant his death. He clenched his eyes shut to open them would mean the inevitable stirring. The awakening from the deep slumber that sustained him. His starving form would begin its siren call. “Go out. Go out” it would whisper. It was an exchange with which he was familiar. The urges which his unsophisticated brain could not counter with logic or self-control, had no answer save from the one they wished. “Not yet”. He pleaded with himself. A little longer in the warm. But that was the problem. The killer, the idea of comfort. When he monitored the bipeds that crossed the land with their enormous steeds, he saw animals clearly not designed to live in his world. Furless and slow, unable to move far on their own. Once he had gotten close enough to see them breath. It was a story his brood mates loved to hear, but its details were now long forgotten. How he had crept into one of their dens above the ground. How he had planted his four spindly legs over a dormant ape. He had seen their small teeth, their enclosed mouths and their thin furless skin. It was a physical form he could not understand. His fellows had cackled at him when he had told them. Their drooping fangs had glistened with anticipatory saliva upon his revelation of their vast stocks of meat, their fragile bodies and the ease to which he had clambered upon them.

The challengers had come quickly that night. He’d seen them off of course. His cousin had been such a poor specimen in the event. Had he been given the capacity to feel guilt or empathy, it is beyond doubt that he wouldn’t have. His challenger’s neck had been torn asunder without him suffering a scratch. Perhaps devouring the thick iron-rich blood that had poured forth, was a stretch too far in his search for dominance. Then again, if he had not then his brother would have. Why let others consume such easy nutrients? That was why he was the pack alpha. Not because he had the sweetest howl, nor because he had any genetic claim to be superior. No, it was simply because he was the fastest and the most prepared. Restless and paranoid. That is what had got him to the top. He had no desire to relinquish the title, and when his sons came of age he had every intention of showing them too. He stretched out his front legs. The thin fur resting on his forward limbs had been the most concealed. Until now they’d been cozily ensconced beneath his protruding ribcage. Hidden under layers of well conserved fat. Now the leathery cracked skin on his paw pads felt fresh earth for the first time in days. It was grainy and fine. The filth made him shudder and he opened his eyes. The murk obscured his vision. A tiny pillar of light sneaked into his turgid domain. His dirt encrusted muzzle shifted side to side as he carved out a hole in the den’s roof. The structure fell apart easily. Its matter crumbled, forming neat piles either side of the canine-made mound. The full light of the coming evening crept into the sensitive photoreceptors hidden in his irises. His excellent nocturnal vision rendered late evening as day. His fur-clad head poked above the hill he’d built. He spun it around and looked to renew his environmental knowledge. His nose twiddled wildly. He began to search for the scent of fresh meat. He wondered if his littermates had stirred, or if they dawdled in their caverns. He protruded his angular head forward and puffed out his bony chest. He let out a howl. Its lyrical harmony was picked up by the roaring wind and scattered across the rolling plains beyond. He waited. Nothing.

The creature dug itself further from his den. His blunt claws scratched away, and his powerful body yearned for freedom. He shook his brawny torso from side to side. The walls of his former abode now collapsed with ease. He was out in the open once more. King of all he surveyed. His competitors slept whilst he was on the prowl. There was a scent in the air that he could not quite place. It was familiar and not too distant. Could it be? No, not here. They had never been in here, in all his years patrolling the wilderness bipeds had stayed away. Why would they be here now? It was precisely their absence which had led him to build his fortress upon the low earth of the south. Yet that smell was nothing like that of the little winged meat sacks that flew across the sky, nor the meaty giants that occasionally wandered into his lair. The odour was heavy and warm, there was something underneath. A rich musky smell that overpowered his sensitive nostrils. The long-term sense memories granted to his kind by the big sky activated their vast library of sensations. It was the smell of the fleshy shelter that night. The night he had encountered the bipeds in their domain. The aroma that had captured his spirit and had driven him to kill his own flesh and blood. If that all-powerful whiff was in the air, then so were they. He set himself low. His ribs expanded slowly minimising the calorie deficient furnace within. If the bipeds were there, he would not lose the opportunity a second time. Tonight he would kill or be killed. The sight of their bodies on that moonfall many suns past, had filled him with such promise that he had hated himself ever since for not feasting on them. The promise of nutrient rich sustenance, the knowledge that their bellies were bloated with game, that was all he needed. Sure they had their sharp tools that shone like his fangs, but they couldn’t kill him if they couldn’t see him. Some may have said that a month munching on little more than big eared rodents had sent him mad, to think he could kill a den of bipeds. Maybe that was true, but at this moment it mattered little. He had to eat and eat well.

He stalked the ground and moved forward silently. His belly rested an inch off the dirt and his nose protruded outwards. His ears stood to attention like attentive radar dishes. Up and proud. The manner in which he wished to die. He clambered over an adjacent hillock to look down across the valley below. In the gloom of the late evening beneath a smoky red sky, he saw the unmistakable faded light of fire. He growled between bared teeth. Their dead flesh accommodation, was adorned in the hanging remains of gutted meat sacks. The deceased corpus of the hanging prey had been flayed to reveal the succulent sustenance below. All red and white. He licked his lips with his rolling tongue. The saliva built up in his mouth and foamy droplets of white liquid oozed on to the dry ground. The little brainpower he possessed faded from his consciousness and the red mist of hunger took over. Nutrition was all he could conceive. He leapt forward in an explosion of motion. He broke into a low run, his head leant downwards, and his rippling legs dashed forth. Paws hit the ground hard, again and again he pounded down on the earth. His tongue dashed wildly from his lips and the wind flew through his form. His follicles stretched and bounded with the gusting wind. His speed rendered the world a blur of motion. The relative stillness of the abyssal plains in front of him boiled down to a single kaleidoscope of muted colour. The air flowed fast into his bursting lungs. His body recycling the oxygen at an alarming rate. He panted loud like the engine of a thundering racing motor on some mediterranean circuit. Humming baritone huffs blasted through the tranquil soundscape. He accelerated repeatedly, his body honing in on its target. All pretence of stealth had been traded in for a glorious dash to either his death or his salvation. It mattered little to him, the animal had taken his cautious mind hostage. The last hurrah of an aging patriarch. In what seemed like half a second, the old canid had reached the confines of the human lair. He screeched to a stop. His paws slid into the earth kicking up splinters of dirt, that scattered themselves over his pristine white coat. Why stop now? Something was telling him to wait, his back erupted in spiked hair. He could feel it. He was being watched. He dare not turn around. He could feel eyes penetrate his body. He froze. Bipeds.

“Don’t worry little pup.” The creature understood nothing of the bipeds words, yet he felt no danger from it. Skittishly he turned his body to face it. To his surprise the biped was accompanied by a domesticated canid. A vile diminution of his kind. A genetic deviation which was due no respect. Eager to kill its own ancestors, it of course had to be treated with caution, but distain was the more natural reaction. Its head was immense and boxy. The elongated snout which he and his brethren treated with such reverence was absent. These biped-made mutants were no sons of Ay Dede, born of the intervention of apekind, rather than in the shadow of the crescent moon. The abomination attempted a snarl. The creature broke into a toothy grin. “Atilla, stay!” the biped called out to his mutt. The creature howled out and mocked the dog. It was as alien to the featureless steppe as the biped that held its will in his hand. The creature sat, perhaps the biped would feed him just to save itself from his wrath. Maybe the duo could be useful to him. To be fed without a fight would certainly be welcome. Perhaps they’d even let him get warm, afterall they let these mutants sit with them and sup at their feet.

Oghuz Tagaev Khan looked upon the low slung wolf that faced him. A skinny little thing. It had barely enough fur to cover its scrawny shoulders. The animal’s half fang stood out to Oghuz. The mark of an unsuccessful hunter perhaps. Its head was scabby and its eyes tired. Wherever it had come from it can’t have yielded much in the way of food. Atilla grumbled silently. His drooping face and sullen eyes belied to Oghuz the will for the new arrival to return from whence it came. In that act of sitting on the parched yellow grass of the rain deprived steppe, the wolf had made its pacific intentions known. Oghuz didn’t know much about the world beyond his host, but he did know animals. This one was hungry and old. Whatever life it had left in it wouldn’t make the summer. He was certain that the creature saw himself as virile and lively, they’d didn’t have the self-reflexive streak of dogs. Their brains too primitive. Eat, kill and wander. That is all a pup like that could conceive. Perhaps it was this likeness that had always drawn Oghuz to care for their kind. Of course such preoccupation with the welfare of predators had brought him much scorn. The other Kazakh khans in days gone by had ridiculed his humanitarian side. He could hear Aiday Khan’s chortles even now some forty years later, “Why bother humouring the beasts, when you could just get another dog to chase them away.” Well, Aiday wasn’t here now to judge. Oghuz looked down to his sabre. He recalled the shock on Aiday’s face in the moment of his death. When the slicing blow had torn through his cousin’s belly, there had been nothing but non-plussed silence. The blood had cascaded over the steel, his intestines had spilled out in short order and the yurt’s simple floor had soaked in his viscera. He’d not shed the blood of kin in many years, now he thought about it Aiday may have been the last. “Get another dog.” He murmured scornfully. Mocking Aiday from beyond the grave. He knelt down and his aging knees clicked, audible even through the furs he had adorned himself with. He brought himself level with the wolf. Their eyes met. The desperate huffing of the old beast’s lungs punctuated the wind’s unrelenting cacophony. “Would you like to eat? With gums like that I’m sure you must be very hungry.” Oghuz said sweetly. The wolf let out a subdued delighted call to the skies. “Then let it be so.” Concluded the old Khan.

Oghuz Khan began to walk back to the yurt. The tingling ring of chimes blasted by the tempestuous gusts called eagerly to him. Atilla seemed to lose interest in the affairs of bipeds. The dog’s impressive well-fed frame thundered away to the nearest hillock. His duty to the endless flock spread across the bare steppe now completed. The threat, if a wolf so old and weak could be called such, no longer existed. Oghuz smiled. His guardian was in the prime of its life, still filled with fire and power. He had to be out here. He still remembered the first time he’d picked up his loyal companion. He’d been big even then. Defiant and fearless, just like his owner. It saddened him to think that Atilla would be his last dog. The big sky was calling to him, that much he knew. His legs didn’t take orders as they used to. His gait was wide and the space between his thighs were like dense chasms. The evil doing of a lifetime in the saddle. His body plodded along whilst his sharp mind damned his age. He still had so much to do. He wished he could have seen more of the world than this barren place. Maybe his sons would see the world. The winds were changing, the revolution couldn’t be kept at bay forever. He felt every bit of his sixty years and had begun to sense, that maybe it would be best if he didn’t see much more. He wished to leave the world before he could no longer understand it. He reached the canvas flap doorway of his grandiose yurt. He paused and stretched his hand out to the wolf. The beast placed its muzzle into Oghuz’s open hand, and let out a smile. Their peace didn’t last, an emissary from modernity cut into their quiet. A most unwelcome guest.

The interloper was a short, skinny man with sharp features and skin the colour of cheap alabaster. Little black eyes were set into a jagged face. They poked out from under a thin untrustworthy brow. “Khan Tagaev. I don’t mean to rush you into a decision.” Before the official could finish, his eyes grew wide in terror. The intruder’s hand flew to an open holster. The wolf stood fierce. Its crooked teeth bared. The unquestionable hum of a starving beast rumbled in the air between them. It licked its lips. Oghuz placed his hand on his sabre’s hilt. If he slew this prophet of progress here and now, none would be the wiser. Fear was written across the officer’s face. An alien in a land beyond his reckoning. His chilblained hand trembled as his bony fingers clasped the weapon’s handle. Oghuz smiled. These mandarins always excreted a particular smell when they were scared. It wasn’t too hard to draw it out of them. They were products of a society that gave them everything. Food came from the central distribution board, heating came from subsidised generators, clothing came standard issue. When confronted with nature, they acted as abandoned children faced with a returning mother. They cowered and struck out in defiance against the unbridled authority of boundless primordialism. It was understandable, if a little rude to the steppe. Not that the earth mother was watching, safe above in her nocturnal slumber.

Oghuz fixed the adolescent with timeless eyes. His baggy eye lids only a mere inkling as to the wisdom that hid within. The apparatchik endured Oghuz’s stare for a moment before looking down to his boot clad feet. “It is difficult to take orders from so pathetic a man. Comrade.” Oghuz said, pausing to spit upon his final word. “I should report you to the nearest Soviet for such an assertion.” The officer said, his flaccid tone did little to advance his position. “You can. The nearest party committee is two days that way.” Oghuz replied firmly, stretching out his fur clad arm to point at the dying sun in the westerly horizon. The officer bowed awkwardly. “I respect your authority, and I apologise for my behaviour.” He said. Oghuz laughed quietly. “Why do you pester me. My sons are the future of my host. If you want us to go to the lands of the Turkmen, then you should ask them. I will repeat a last time what I have said to Arkay Khan, I have no quarrel with the Turkmen. I have a quarrel with one Turkman as my father had before me and his father before him. Yet the Red Khan and his horde have wiped them from the earth. Their fortresses are ash and their lineage naught but dust. The dushmanlik begun in the time of the Great Khan is over.” Oghuz explained. He sighed and scratched the wolf’s elderly temples. The beast’s eyes closed in contentment. Its body leant against the marmot covered fabric of Oghuz Khan’s cascading robe. “Let us eat now little one.” He said to the wolf, indifferent of the officer’s darting eyes.

The two men made an odd couple as they crossed the precipice into the yurt. The wolf that followed them leered longingly at the cracked sheep’s skull affixed to the tent’s mantle. The little man that walked in Oghuz’s wake, nervously eyed the assembly within. Round faced men cavorted with elegantly dressed women. Their colourful garments were soaked in the orange tint of a towering column of flame in the assembly’s centre. A dense stone circle surrounded the fire, the crisping embers flapping across their smooth centres. Luxuriant smoke clamoured in a wafting pillar, before escaping into the frigid atmosphere above. The crowd turned their heads to look at their returning Khan. His grandiose figure blocked out the snaking breeze permitted within by the flapping door. He beheld his sons ahead of him. The four men beamed at his presence. The wolf finding itself dazzled by the dizzying array of sights and smells clung tighter to Oghuz’s leg. The beast must have once been quite the specimen. Oghuz could feel its hard skull nestle against his upper leg, its stature impressive for a creature of such scarce lands. He scratched its neck and addressed the gathering. “Sons! Tonight we have a guest. The boy is hungry, and I say we do our duty by our lunar patron and make him full.” The crowd roared raucously, clinging ivory coloured cups whittled from bone inlaid with gold. The creature looked to Oghuz nervously with uncomprehending eyes. The dark lumpen meat upon the fire sizzled and crisped. The beast glanced upon its magnificence. Oghuz slapped its behind and the wolf trotted across the room, it observed its meal with obvious glee. A deathly quiet fell on the tent as it examined its prize. “Arkay Khan, carve out a serving for our companion.” Orghuz demanded. His direction was aimed at a robed man. His face stood out from the scrum. Unlike the expanded kin that now carefully watched their new friend with graceful almond eyes set among scarified visages, this man’s eyes were alert and blue. Their turquoise pigmentation made him seem ethereal, otherworldly even. His skin was free of the dents and bruises of the nomadic life. Wrapped around his left hand was a brown leather watch, its interior marked by strange five point star drawn in the drastic red of the revolution. The cleaver in his calloused right hand sliced effortlessly through the nutrient rich flesh bubbling on the fire. “Why are you skimping! Give him half if that’s what he needs! I thought you knew our ways better than that!” bellowed Oghuz. The strange man complied, with a thud the partially cooked meat landed on a waiting hot stone. Steam rose up with a hiss and the wolf began to nibble. The audience exploded into excited applause. “Glory to the big sky!” shouted Oghuz. “Good fortune comes with his presence, perhaps it will mitigate yours.” He said, eying the interloper sheepishly sitting among the gathered kin. With the amateur dramatics completed, Oghuz proceeded to slump his unwieldly body on to a bed of exquisite Persian hewn cushions.

One of the men got to his feet speedily. His face may have lacked the wisdom of Oghuz, but there was no mistaking his lineage. “Father, the Red Khan’s emissary has asked for our opinions. We have no intention of crossing your word. What did you tell him?” Asked the eldest. “I told him it would be you and your brothers that would decide.” Replied Oghuz. The eldest said nothing. Oghuz stood up abruptly and attempted to hide his pain from such a sudden movement. “Arkay Khan!” he said addressing the turquoise eyed man. The Red Khan wishes us to fight the Turkmen, to aid him in his conquests! You have travelled with us for many months now. You know us and we know you. Tell me should we believe the promises of gold and sheep told to us by the Mavi Khan?” Oghuz asked, pointing towards the unwanted officer, before gesticulating dramatically much to the amusement of his family. Arkay Khan broke into a sinister grin. The official who had since wedged himself between Oghuz’s most attractive daughters, looked skittishly to Arkay Khan. Arkay Khan paused to delight in the tension. “I say that if Mavi Khan wishes for your support he should fight for it.” Arkay Khan responded. Mavi Khan’s eyes widened in disbelief. “And what form should this challenge take Arkay Khan? To the death or to submission? With the blade or with the body? And against whom?” Oghuz queried loudly his hand now occupied by a sloshing cup of kumis. “To submission, against you Oghuz Khan. If I have earned the right to be asked, I would do you no service to respond with a lie. The future of your people is at stake. The riches of your grandchildren are there to be seized upon, but Mavi Khan has been impolite and demanding. Yet he has no right to be so. He has not taken your sword, nor has he conquered your clan. I say that if he comes from the Red Khan, he should demonstrate the power of the Red Khan or else he is not worthy to be his emissary.” Arkay Khan said confidently. “I agree.” Said Oghuz Khan solemnly. “Batu, you are the eldest and you shall referee. We fight with body and to submission.” Batu nodded in agreement. The wolf finished gorging itself and turned to examine its rescuer. Their eyes met once more, and Oghuz bowed. Their eyes married in a ritual of mutual respect and honour. Two old beings thrown a final time into the fires of fate.