Chapter 4: More Than a Beautiful Face

I slept deeply. I knew not for how long but something in that darkness awoke me, and my eyes were wide for it was not the desire of the Khagan that drew me from my sleep.

A movement in the darkness, a stirring of the still autumn air, a slight chill where before the room had been warm. Outside the night creatures fell silent, and I had heard night creatures earlier in the evening. The chirping of the night insects, the soft calls of owls hunting -- but now there was silence. Of a sudden I was wide awake, alert, my heart pounding, still held in the Khagan’s arms, my back to him as he lay behind me, and indeed it was not he who had woken me, for his breathing was smooth and regular.

A curtain stirred where there was no breeze, a sudden chillness of the night air on my skin and my knife was in my hand, for perhaps unknown to the Khagan, it had been where I always placed it when I slept, unsheathed, the blade naked, close to hand, and tonight it had lain under my feather pillow. If the Khagan had known, perhaps he would not have slept so soundly. Perhaps again he would have, for my weapons were close and I had sworn to him as a warrior swears.

That curtain, it moved. A black shape knelt on the sill, silhouetted against the moonlight, and my heart thumped, for no guard of the Khagan would have entered this bedroom surreptitiously, let alone through a window that had been closed and was now open. The blade in that shapes hand glinted for a second, and I reacted now without thought. My hand moved, my knife flew through the air, sank home and even in the darkness I knew where it had struck as that shape coughed once and sank to its knees. There was a louder thump as what was now a body toppled to the floor, but by then I was in motion.

“Ware, Lord,” I screamed, lashing out with one foot to kick him, and I was not gentle with that kick. My hand found my sword hilt where I had placed my blade naked on the stand beside that bed, as I always did each night, for if you need a blade at hand in the darkness, the need is immediate, there is no time to unsheathe. My father’s guards had trained me well it seemed.

“Guards, guards, to the Khagan,” I screamed and I was on my feet, between the bed and the window opening where the heavy wooden shutters had been silently worked open. My bared blade was in my hand. I was leaping forward as the curtains were flung aside, and the bright moonlight flooded the room. My blade took the first unawares in the darkness, cutting his neck half asunder before his falling body forced me back. Half a dozen black-clad men burst in after him and I was on guard, barring their path to the Khagan for an instant as he grunted himself awake behind me and death flowed across the polished wooden floor towards me and around me.

“Guards,” I screamed again, knowing I was dead and what was there to do but die with honor, for I had pledged myself to the Khagan as a warrior. I had sworn on blood and steel, and I would not break that word, even should it mean my death, for I was Xiongnu, and honor was everything.

“To the Khagan, guards,” and the assassins were leaping forwards towards me -- and I knew I had only moments to live as my blade met the first of them, steel clashing, sparks flying, and I could not hold them all. But the remainder bypassed me, moving around me, and I knew their target was the Khagan. But my scream, that moment of warning, that had alerted him and blades clashed at my back, and I knew he was on his feet and armed.

“Guards,” I screamed, again. “Guards,” and the wooden doors shook, but they were barred from the inside. Those doors and those bars were thick and heavy, and my hand threw a feather pillow from the bed at my back towards the second of the assassins I faced. A move made in desperation, for my single blade could not hold off two trained warriors for more than a few seconds.

That assassin’s blade slashed without thought at that sudden movement, a cloud of feathers flew. I used that moment to leap backwards onto the bed and spin, to leap across to the far side where the Khagan stood naked, sword in hand. He was facing six of them, a sword in either hand, both of them flickering and clashing with lightning speed as he defended himself; but still, they were six and he was but one.

fell on one of his attackers unawares from the side, my sword slashing across his neck so that the bright red blood sprayed outwards. His sword dropped from his lifeless hand, and my desperate kick jolted another so that the Khagan’s sword took him, and now the Khagan faced but four.

““Guards,” I screamed again. “To the Khagan, guards,” and the Khagan’s voice roared with mine, but I had to defend myself now, for the two who had attacked me at the start were on me again, and death was in their eyes, and I could not turn my back on them to aid the Khagan. The wooden door shook as the guards assaulted it, but those assassins were between the Khagan and that door, and the door was solid, and it was well barred, resistant to his guards as it had been built to be.

“Huyayayayayayaaaaaaa!” My shrill war-cry, the war cry of the Xiongnu, sounded full-voiced as I attacked, for to defend was to die. Only by attacking would I live long enough to draw a few more breaths and thus protect the Khagan as I had sworn to do. Behind me there was a choked off groan that was not the Khagan’s, an amputated hand flew past my head trailing droplets of blood; and one of the two I faced was distracted for a second.

Less than a second but that was all I needed as my sword whipped forwards, the tip sliding through his flesh as if it was silk, slicing through his jugular so that the red arterial blood sprayed bright and far, and the assassin beside him stepped backwards, wiping the blood that momentarily blinded him from his eyes as I took that moment and hewed the first’s head from his body, grimacing as the red blood geysered high, spraying my naked body.

“You are more than a beautiful face, Princess of the Xiongnu,” the Khagan grunted from behind me, and how he had noticed. I had no idea.

“I am no Han maiden, Lord,” I grunted myself, that first assassin lying dead at my feet, his head six feet from his body and my sword dripped blood as I held myself poised, facing the second and now I was more confident, for one warrior I could face. “I guard your back.”

“That much I have seen for myself,” the Khagan said without looking back. “My back is yours to guard,” and his own swords were clashing with those before him.

I was moving as he moved; my back to his and the assassin before me looked for an instant at my naked breasts as I smiled at him, my hand cupping one naked breast as if I offered it to him for his delectation, and his eyes responded as a man’s eyes do to a woman’s naked beauty, and I was not modest, for amongst my people I was spoken of as one whom all men desired. My sword struck at that moment, piercing that assassin’s throat in a sudden flickering slash. The blood spurted, fountained from the artery I had sliced open even as his fingers sought to contain the flood.

He sank to his knees, his sword still reaching for me as his breath whistled, and he gagged as the blood choked him, and his eyes said he sought my death even as his soul faded. Parrying his desperate thrust, I lunged forward, my blade taking him through the heart this time, and his eyes widened, their luster faded, life left him; his sword clattered on the flooring; his body sagged in death.

I spun to the Khagan’s left, and dangerous he was, as fast as a snake, as lethal as a white tiger in the snow, for four bodies lay scattered across the floor before him now, and he had faced five after I had killed that one unawares, while I had faced only two, and the luck had been with me for they had perhaps thought I was some helpless Han concubine, and those that remained knew how wrong they had been.

Two yet remained, attacking furiously now for they knew they were the last. As I spun to the Khagan’s left, his shield arm, I displayed my naked body, drawing the eyes of both of those remaining for an instant for they knew now I was a threat to take seriously.

That instant was all the Khagan needed. His swords flickered, one stabbed, cut. The assassin nearest me began to topple, and I took his head off cleanly, just as the barred wooden doors to the Khagan’s bedchamber crashed open and the remaining assassin went down under the Khagan’s sword. His sword-hand still holding his blade as it was cut from his arm, his left hand scrabbling for his knife, but the Khagan’s kick took him down, and his foot pinned the remaining hand.

The first of the Khagan’s guards burst through the shattered door, others poured after, and almost, they took me.

“Hold,” the Khagan roared. “Hold. Not the Princess.” His left hand dropped the sword it held, and his arm shielded me from his guards for long enough that I remained alive, my sword dripping the thick red blood, and then Chingay’s men were there, a wall half-surrounding me, their backs to me, guarding me as the Khagan’s guards guarded the other half of that circle around us, a solid wall.

As the Khagan glanced at me, I smiled, and I knelt before him, laughing, for indeed in the aftermath of killing, a man becomes aroused, and the Khagan was naked, covered with blood and priapically aroused; and I was here with him, and I was not afraid for I had survived alive and unharmed, although I knew not how, and he was my husband, and he had taken me once this night and now...

“It seems I am indeed destined to be taken this night in the old way, Lord,” I said, taking his erection in my left hand for my right still held my sword. Stroking him slowly, I admired his length, for his manhood was indeed a thing of beauty to a woman who was no longer a virgin and who was now eager to repeat that love-making. I cared not now that his guards saw me naked, for I was the Khagan’s, and no man who desired what was the Khagan’s would live. “Surrounded by the bodies and the blood of your enemies.”

“Hold,” the Khagan commanded, halting in their steps the guards who were about to drag the prisoner from his bedchamber. His hand, the left hand, not the hand that held the hilt of his sword, that hand gripped my long black hair, tied high in the mare’s mane, forcing my face to look upwards at him.

“Princess Altani of the Xiongnu.” His eyes held mine as the stallion holds the mare, dominating her, enthralling her; and I gazed up at him. Indeed I was enthralled, for desire shone bright in the eyes of the Khagan. Desire for me.

“Lord.” My voice was soft now, the voice of a woman whose man comes to her with sword and blood and death in the night, and my virgin blood was dried on my thighs, the blood of the Khagan’s enemies slick and red and wet on my body and on his and on the floor and the bedding around us.

The Khagan’s guards surrounded us, on edge, violence and death personified in their fury, searching the room, bursting outwards into the gardens, their cries of rage echoing off the stone walls as they found their brothers on guard outside lying slain on the green grass. Their alarm and anger boded ill for anyone they found with no good reason to be there, and my sword hand carefully and slowly laid my sword on the floor, and instead cupped the Khagan’s balls.

“Take me, Lord. Take me now. Take me as a maiden of the Xiongnu should be taken, in the midst of death and in violence and in blood, here and now, surrounded by bodies of the men you have slain, the screams of your dying enemies’ music to your ears. Show me to your men and make me yours again before their eyes so that none may doubt I was a maiden and that you have taken me as your wife in the old way. The way of our peoples, Lord, for I am Xiongnu, and I am of the blood of the Khorula’s, and through me, through our children, you will unite my people as one with yours.”

The Khagan looked down at me, and there was the blood-rage in his eyes. The lust for battle and for death that I knew from my own folk -- and after an eternity, he smiled and now it was the lust and the desire for a woman that filled his eyes rather than that rage to kill. His voice was thick with need as my hand caressed him. “I have many wives and children already, Princess Altani.”

I shrugged. “You are the Khagan, it is expected, and I am your servant, Lord. You will do as you will, and I will obey; but you have many daughters and no sons, and a son of mine and yours who is conceived on this night would rule both the Xiongnu and the Mongols by blood-right. He would be your son and blessed by the blood and the death of this night, he would be such a warrior as would bring the entire world to its knees before him.”

In my heart, I knew those words were true, and my hand continued to stroke him, and his hardness was as the firmness of the spear haft, rigid and unbending, such a shaft as would impale a maiden mercilessly, as he had impaled me mercilessly earlier this evening -- and my heart beat faster at the thought, my sex pulsed, my knees weakened.

“Take me, Lord,” I cried out, my heart pounding wildly. “Take me now as one takes a maiden captured in the old way, ravished in the midst of blood and death. It is an omen, Lord. It is an omen and look, am I not clad in red, as befits a maiden dressed for her wedding. Have not the sacrifices chosen themselves, as in the ancient days when a Khagan of old took a wife.”

For in the long ago dawn-days, remembered now only in the chants of the shamans, men and girls were sacrificial victims, offered to the gods, slain by the hand of the Khagan to bring life to the land, fertility to the women of the tribe, and the blood of those sacrifices was painted onto the Khagan and his wife. Naked I was, naked was the Khagan, but were not our bodies painted red with blood? Did not the sacrificial victims lie around us as they had been slain? Were they not bowed at our feet? Had they not chosen themselves?

“She speaks the truth, Lord.” The old shaman, Phagpa, he was there, the dangerous one who had eyed me with those eyes that spoke of hidden knowledge and power -- and how had he appeared here? How had he been summoned? From whence had he appeared?

“Take her now, Lord. Here and now, for the omens are good, and such as she will give you sons as will make the world tremble. Conceived in blood and in death and in the screams of your dying enemies, this night is a night of power, and you should take her as she begs to be taken, Lord, for both the Eternal Blue Sky Gods and the Elder Gods from the dark depths below have spoken, bringing her to you on this night in the midst of blood and battle, as the sacrificial offerings have come of their own free will to die at your hand and at the hand of the Princess Altani.”

“Is this what you wish, wife?” the Khagan growled, his hand still gripping my hair so that I was forced to gaze up at him.

“Yes, Lord,” I moaned. “It is everything I wish.”

“Question the prisoner here,” the Khagan growled, lifting me to my feet and turning me to the bed. “Here where we can listen to his screams and watch his face as he is questioned and he is not to die, not until I order his death.”

His smile said that the prisoner would long for death before he died, His hand moved between us, cupping my sex, and I was wet for him, wet and ready; and he pushed two fingers inside me. His fingers were thick, and they were large and calloused from endless practice with the sword and the bow and the lance, and his fingers opened me and probed deep and they were red with blood that was not mine.

“Nnnnaaaaaaahhhhhh,” I cried out, for his fingers stretched me, and I had been a maiden before this night. Thus my body was unused to such things, but my sex was hot and wet and slippery for all that.

“Ahhhhhhhhh,” I cried again, but not unwillingly for the Khagan seized me and lifted me onto his bed, placing me on my back, my hips at the edge of the bed and he stood before me, his hands raising my feet to his shoulders and he found me and entered me in a slow surging thrust that penetrated to my heart, stretching and me and sliding thickly high within me.

I lay on my back on that blood-soaked bed, the Khagan standing at its edge, my feet on his shoulders and he gazed down at me as he took me slowly. His hands on my thighs, holding me in place for his use as his rigid manhood sheathed itself to the hilt within my sex again and again, slowly sliding into me, as slowly withdrawing; and I was hot and slippery and sobbing with excitement at that sheathing, my hands clutching at the blood-wet sheets in helpless surrender as the Khagan took his pleasure with me with his guards standing around us.

There were drums now, the great horse-hide war drums of the shamans, and they beat the rhythm of my heart; and it was fast, fast and pounding. As the drums pounded the shamans sang the old songs of blood and death and sacrifice while the Khagan took me as a maiden of the Xiongnu should be taken on her bridal night -- and I knew that when my brother the fool heard the tale of this night he would be sorely afraid.

More than afraid, he would be petrified with terror, and in my mind I smiled for I would use that fear to influence and control my brother in time, even as the Khagan used me now for his need and his pleasure. I welcomed that use, I gave myself to the pleasure of that use, surrendering myself to the Khagan’s pleasure, and to his need.