Autumn's breath flowed through the mountains.
Across the vast, colorless landscape a few cascades of yellow birches and cottonwoods slipped into steep runoff trails. But between them, only the mountain's wind-blasted bones jutted from barren soil. Farther down the slopes, ancient scrub bristling with hoarfrost twisted across the land. Little else could survive here.
Below the scrub-covered foothills, dun tussocks of grass hunched amid the sage where a small band of wiry, large-headed horses grazed. Thin spirals of steam rose from their shaggy bodies and disappeared in the frigid air. They were nervous as they fed, as if they knew that soon they would be made to travel again. Only the clipping and grinding of their teeth, punctuated by an occasional snort, broke the stillness at first light.

Not far away, at the base of one of the bright canyons, the masters of the horses were moving about their fire. Despite the cold they wore only roughly-sewn tunics of thick wool felt, rawhide breeches and hard, boiled-leather boots.
Six of them. Dark-haired and tawny-skinned, war-scarred and weather-beaten. Soldiers of the northern Hun. Two of them--immense, brawny, thick-limbed men with shaven heads and carefully sculpted, scowling moustaches--were searching the edge of the camp, thrusting his arms through the crackling brush. One paused with a grunt.
"Ha! Shirchin! Found it!" He rose upright with a triumphant grin, and tossed a bronze-studded, leather helmet to a third comrade who lounged behind them, arms crossed. "Now favor us and cover up that ugly Magyar head of yours."
"Gaitan," said Shirchin, catching the helmet in one hand, "Seeing as you're the one who lost it when you stowed our tack, I think we're now even. Count yourself lucky that my papa’s spirit blesses your sharp eyes, and tells me to spare you the beating your tongue so often tries to earn you."
Gaitan opened his mouth to reply, but the other searcher, even taller and broader than he, approached and slapped a hand on his shoulder. "Leave it, Brother. He just needs some breakfast to sweeten his mood."
Shirchin fitted the helmet to his close-cropped head. He, too, was broad and muscular, his barrel chest almost disproportionate to the narrow hips and short, powerful legs. Though he was as dark-haired as his companions, his light complexion and pale blue eyes reflected the heritage of his tribe, who dwelt in the mountain forests of Lake Bajkal.
"How fast that happens depends on the cook," he said, jabbing a thumb towards the fire. "Smells pretty good. Las, how about those birds?"
"I'll let you know."
Lasuluun sat on a log, whetting his knife as he tended several staked pheasants roasting in the coals. He was shorter than his mates, rangy and lean. His long, angular face, with slightly downturned eyes, wore a perpetually dour expression. An old scar slanted across the right side of his mouth, drawing a small part of his lip upwards. He plucked a strand of his long, dark hair and sliced it to check the edge of the blade.
"You'll lose those soon enough without driving them out at knifepoint." A fifth comrade sauntered to fireside. The dome of his own head was bald, and a fringe of black hair fell to his shoulders. He was long-bodied and thin, hard as knotted pine from a lifetime of riding. His short legs, the mark of his people, were thick with muscle. Taking a seat by the fire, he plucked at the bow he had just re-strung and drew an arrow from his quiver. Brushing the feathered end against one high cheekbone, he sighted along the shaft, and traced a smooth semicircle with the point. With a quiet grunt of satisfaction, he lowered it, released the tension, and held the arrow loosely nocked in place.
He gave a languid yawn, rolled his neck and gazed up at birch-fringed sky. Above them, a falcon dipped into view. With a grim smile, he refitted the arrow and almost lazily took aim.
"Ulaan, are you trying to bring the wrath of your tenger down upon us?" The voice was deep and quiet.
The edge of Ulaan's mouth turned up, but he continued to track the bird's path. "In all these years, have you ever known me to shoot a falcon?" he said. "I'm just imagining that's a Khyatad head in my sights." He lowered his weapon and glanced over at the one who had admonished him.
The leader lay supine on a flat slab of granite, hands folded under his head, bent legs crossed in casual repose. Bright, amber-colored eyes met Ulaan's for a moment before he looked away with a yawn, revealing straight, white teeth with almost fanglike canines. "Anyway, you don't need the practice."
The yellow-eyed man rose from his resting place and dropped to the ground with an easy grace that belied his huge frame. Broad, massive shoulders and chest tapered to narrow, powerful hips. His legs, like those of his men, were solid muscle from years of riding the rough-gaited plains horses that waited for them on the flatlands. He ran a palm across his scalp, bald to the crown where his hairline began, and shook his dark, thick braid, unkempt and stuck with bits of leaves and twigs after weeks of travel. He arched his back and groaned as he moved to the edge of the fire. "I'll be glad not to sleep on rocks tonight."
He pulled out one of the staked pheasants and gingerly poked at it with a finger.
"Done enough for me." He broke the charred carcass and gave half to Ulaan. "Let's eat and go. It's still a long ride."
He started his breakfast, motioning for the others to come and do the same.
"Fine cooking," Shan Yu mumbled, cheek full of pheasant. "Yet once again you expect me to ride all day again without my morning rice."
Lasuluun snorted. "He gives me no peace. We must be getting too close to China, and he can smell all that wonderful rice on the wind."
The others gathered around the fire to take their share. Over the years, the five companions had come to accept the Chinese idiosyncracies their chieftain had acquired in his youth, though for as long as the six of them had been friends, he had told them little about it. They vaguely knew that he had served in the Chinese army and there had gained the martial skills he had put to good use here. But because Lasuluun had confided to his comrades that the subject was painful to him, they did not press for details. It was enough that, largely because of his Chinese customs and skills, their chieftain had become the most powerful khan north of the Great Wall.
For sixteen years the five comrades had followed him into battle, first as defenders of one of their own beseiged camps, later as mercenaries paid by powerful chieftains to drive rival clans from disputed lands, and finally in defense of a land they had chosen for their own, on the forested banks of Khovsgol, far to the north. As the young stranger from China had learned Hunnic ways, so also had he honed the archery, falconry and horsemanship skills he had learned as an Imperial soldier.
He called himself Shan Yu, a Khyatad name given him by the Emperor's general who had adopted and raised him. It was rumored that Shan Yu himself did not know his true name or even the Hunnic tribe from which he was sprung. It no longer mattered; he was Hun to them now.
He traveled in fitting company. As his five comrades had helped him learn Hunnic ways and skills, so had Shan Yu refined the natural gifts he had discovered in them, training them as rigorously as he had trained many in the Imperial Army. Ulaan Mor was the Master Archer, grim-faced Lasuluun, the Master Tracker. Taciturn Shirchin, swordsmith and swordmaster, had never been bested in battle or wargame. And despite their size and having been raised in the saddle, the giant fraternal twins, Batu and Gaitan, had become swift, lethal masters of both sword and hand-to-hand martial combat. Together, the five might give an army of tribesmen pause. Yet they followed Shan Yu with a devotion bordering on worship.

The morning was leisurely by their usual standards. According to the Avar messenger who had found them two days before, the horses they sought were still being herded towards the settlement to their south, and would not arrive for another day or two. There in Urga they would find respite from weeks in the saddle. They had sidetracked along their way from their northern camp, visiting allied camps to be sure that tributes of supplies and horses were on their way southward and, with little more than their presence, to stir the tribesmens' passion for war. Their rest in Urga would be as brief as those other visits. It was the final stop on their journey to the Gobi desert, there to spend the winter training vast force assembled from the nomadic tribes.
That future seemed distant as they broke their fast together in the quiet ravine. As they ate, they talked and joked among themselves. Conversation eventually turned to home and families left behind. Shan Yu rose, took leave of his men and strolled along the runoff stream uphill from camp.

As he climbed, he took stock of his plans for the thousandth time. Months ago, his directive had reached the factious tribes. It was time to unite, however briefly, to confront an outside force that threatened not only their way of life, but their very survival.
The Toba Emperor Wei, born of nomad blood but given over to the ways of the Khyatad, had redoubled his efforts to close gaps in the Great Wall begun hundreds of years before any of them had been born. The Wall's very existence was a battle call to Shan Yu, a terrible reminder of the reason he had fled to the steppes so long ago. Thirty feet high and studded with defense turrets, the Wall towered between what the Imperials claimed were China to the south and Xiong-nu lands to the north.
His spies brought news. The closing Wall and six great forts along the southern edge of the Gobi were meant to serve as an unbreachable barrier against roving bands of northern brigands. Shan Yu's eyes narrowed at the idea. There was another factor ignored by the architects of the Wall. The vast structure also blocked access to ancestral grazing lands used for centuries by herdsmen of the southern tribes.
Vague rumors had reached him. Tales of Imperial troops slaughtering peaceful nomad camps along stretches bordering the Wall’s northern face. The stories awakened old terrors long buried in his heart. At first, he had been loathe to think of returning to China. But that had changed. And now even his old enemy seemed to be unwittingly smoothing his path.
Let him lead the killing, he thought. Let Li Bangshe think there is no one here to unite the tribes. Let him think I'm dead. His slaughter will inflame the chieftains further, and make it that much easier for me.
This was the culmination of sixteen years' work.
He had taken great care over the years to ensure that his small band always joined in the annual gatherings of allied camps. At first without being quite sure why, he had gradually insinuated himself with the elders, using all his father had taught him about diplomacy and politics. Word began to trickle back to him that those with whom he had sat in council--kuraltai--were impressed with this strange young chieftain's strength and fairness. He had taken great pains to learn the histories and ways not only of the local chieftains and clans, but of those even beyond the farthest mountains where most had never been. When the elders had begun to ask him to intervene and solve conflicts between rival camps, Shan Yu was rarely at a loss for a solution that most considered rational and just. And so his reputation had grown.
It was no small help that at the nighttime gathering fires he could teach others the names of the constellations and how to navigate by them. He wove tales of of warm lands where snow never fell, and where wild, salty waters stretched beyond the horizon to meet the rising sun. He made sure that his men joined in the music and festivities that bonded the people in their felt tents.
But above all, he made sure that he and his men joined the competitions where the men displayed their battle skills. The Khovsgol warriors kept themselves hard and trained all year long. They never lost a match, be it wrestling, archery, horsemanship or swordsmanship. When the clans parted ways at the end of the gathering, Shan Yu knew that stories of their prowess would be told around fires for all the coming year.
So when the first messengers rode in with entreaties for Shan Yu and his warriors to rally an attack upon the Chinese invaders, it had not come as a surprise. What had surprised him was that he had sent the first ones away without an answer.
When the chance to actually return and set his plans for revenge in motion, it had simply seemed too huge. How could he, just one man, fight through the Imperial army to reach his target? Sometimes, in the relative peace by the great lake, he had almost come to hope that his promise of revenge would die with him. The thought shamed him now.
More messengers had come. More pleas. More offers of wealth in exchange for his fighting skill. Slowly, the embers of old rage stirred to life. Memories of his youth awoke and poisoned his dreams until he could no longer find peace in his sleep. Then, one dark night, he had awakened with a cry, face contorted with unshed tears that rose at the sight of the sad, grey visage of Kong Xiang. You have forgotten your mission, Shan Yu. The voice of his father echoed in his head. You have found some shallow peace here. But what of our family's honor?
The waking realization had nearly broken him. He knew he could not hide any longer.