Sel Lates
After the meeting ended, I returned to the Ibin tribe without a moment's delay and gathered the warriors who were ready to join my cause.
Beike and Orhan, my old friends, led the way.
“If Temur says we fight, then we fight with him.”
“Finally, we’ll give those damned Iteon and western noble bastards a taste of our arrows.”
Hundreds of Ibin warriors, carrying the fire that had never been quenched despite countless defeats, mounted their horses.
From there, we headed to the Irayte tribe’s encampment, a force as mighty as the Irent tribe.
The hellish training we received there exceeded even our expectations.
“Looks like those crazy old bastards raised a bunch of savages… no beast pack comes close.”
The moment we reached the Irayte training ground, Beike muttered in disgust.
On the wide dirt field, Irayte warriors—shirts torn off—clashed in brutal sparring, their bodies slamming together in clouds of sweat and blood. They beat each other half to death, jabbed with blades, and turned men into human hedgehogs with arrows.
“…No matter how skilled the shaman is, the pain will still be the same…”
I thought that, but for someone who needed to grow strong as quickly as possible, it was a solid training method.
“Don’t hold back, Beike. We’re going to be just like them soon.”
“…Yeah. If it means becoming strong enough to avenge our enemies.”
When I showed no intention of yielding, Orhan pulled his bow from his back and readied himself for the drill.
The training method was brutally intuitive.
The older, battle-hardened Irayte warriors threw us Ibin men into real combat.
What I focused on most was the horse-archery core of the Mangudai tactics—the heart of the mobile warfare that would one day sweep across the continent.
I left behind all the flimsy knowledge and half-baked instincts from my previous life and started over, training until my body remembered it.
“Temur, the bowstring is pulled with your back muscles, not your fingers. Pull until the string kisses your ear, then hold your breath for a half-beat.”
Orhan corrected my posture and helped me lay the foundation, giving me more than a few tips.
The man, one of our tribe’s best archers, fired the bowstring with skill that matched even the Irayte warriors.
Ping—thwack!
The arrow I released flew and buried itself in the dummy’s shoulder.
The target wasn’t the exact center, but the power and speed had grown far beyond anything I’d felt before the training began.
My fingertips were raw, calluses thick, and the pain in my right shoulder and back muscles screamed as if they might snap at any moment. I ignored it, yanked another arrow from the quiver, and kept going.
Steel and magic had turned the armor into something that demanded more than brute strength to pierce.
I had to shoot faster and harder.
“Good. One more time.”
Just as I drew the bowstring taut again.
Whoosh—!
A whistle rang out from somewhere.
“What, standing there like an idiot shooting arrows? Get your ass back on that horse!”
At the familiar voice, I turned. Sarnai stood right in front of me.
Fitting the name of the western plains’ greatest rider, she gripped the horse’s flanks with nothing but her thighs, balancing perfectly without reins.
I was still surprised for a moment.
Now used to it, I smoothly took the seat she’d occupied.
“I told you. Riding with your ass glued to the saddle is the same as being cargo. Squeeze your thighs, and let your upper body flow naturally with the horse’s movement.”
Sarnai lightly flicked the horse’s rump with her leather whip.
Hihih!
The horse suddenly surged forward, and my body rocked wildly.
I reached for the reins in a panic, but Sarnai slapped the back of my hand from behind.
“Hands off. How are you supposed to shoot while holding the reins?”
“Ugh… fine, fine.”
I slowly let go of the reins.
At the same time, the horse’s rough jolt traveled straight through my thighs and back.
Sarnai clung close, watching every detail and correcting my stance.
“Eyes forward. Feel the horse’s movement with your knees. Think of your body as one with the animal. Right now you look like a scared kid shaking on the saddle.”
“Kid?!”
The direct rebuke stung, but every word was true.
For the Mangudai tactics of the Mongol Empire, we needed overwhelming riding skill to turn on a dime at full gallop and pull the bowstring without losing balance.
I gritted my teeth through the raw sting of my inner thighs and the shaking of my muscles, letting the horse’s motion carry my body exactly as Sarnai commanded.
We crashed to the sandy ground countless times in those days, but each fall I brushed the dirt off and climbed back on.
Two weeks into learning to ride.
“Oh, that last one wasn’t bad. Still got a long way to go, though.”
“Thanks.”
Sarnai tossed the compliment lightly, embarrassed. I accepted it roughly.
My whole body screamed with torn muscles and tasted of blood and sand in my mouth, but the feeling was far from bad.
Then I spotted Toghrul’s father staring at me from the training ground, watching me support my back with a distant look.
He saw me bleeding and panting, then let out a booming laugh and nodded in satisfaction.
As the sun sank into the western plains, glowing red.
After fourteen days—short by any measure—of pouring every ounce of strength into my body, I sat in the corner of the training ground, caked in dirt, and tilted my water skin.
Beike and Orhan and the other Ibin warriors lay around me, chests heaving.
Some smeared herbs on their gashes; others wrapped old rags around fingers scraped raw by bowstrings.
The fear and anxiety that had lived under their eyes when they first arrived here had been washed away by sweat and dirt.
In their place burned only the poison of hunters eager to tear into their prey.
“Good. That’s enough.”
I capped the water skin and stared at the western plains night sky, unnaturally bright.
More precisely, I stared in the direction where the city that would one day rule the continent lay.
***
A few days later, a scout on the plains edge came racing back, cracking his whip urgently.
“The Iteon Alliance’s kingdoms have finally started moving!! The capital just sent word that full-scale alliance talks have begun!”
Finally. It had come.
Four kingdoms moving meant the fake spies I’d planted in the Carbes Kingdom were doing their jobs.
That meant most western lords were moving too.
“Now the time has come. Time to hunt.”
At that single command, the Ibin warriors who had been resting sprang into action.
And as if they had been waiting for the signal, Toghrul charged forward with the Irayte elite warriors at the vanguard.
One thousand and one hundred battle-hardened Irayte fighters.
Plus the eight hundred and twenty Ibin warriors led by me, Beike, and Orhan.
More than two thousand two hundred warriors galloped out of the tribe’s land, reins tight, as if the words “no more talk needed” had been spoken.
We arrived at another small plain on the western edge of the continent, far from the central plains.
This was the starting point of the vast Silk Road trading route that began at the western tip of the continent, cut through the central plains, and stretched all the way into the southern rival Nertein Kingdom’s territory.
It was also the most important and profitable road connecting Sel Lates’s estate—one of the western lords—to the Irent tribe who acted as his lackey.
I lightly reined my horse and took the lead of the cavalry.
Sarnai and Toghrul stood on either side.
Beyond the endless green plain lay a distant silhouette of a great city.
No solid walls. Just that place bloated with peace and arrogance.
Sel Lates’s estate was the trade city where he scraped up his enormous wealth—a city that remained unfortified, the only city without a fortress.
“But the number of stationed soldiers is three times more than in other fortresses.”
I slowly turned my horse to face the two thousand two hundred warriors behind me.
They had pushed their bodies to the limit for a short time, and their eyes now glowed with the poison that had risen to its peak.
No more vague fear of lords or the mindset of defeat.
Yeah. That was enough.
I pulled an old dagger from my pouch and lightly dragged my thumb across the blade.
I watched the crimson blood spatter on the western dirt, then braced my gut and shouted at the top of my voice.
“Right now the noble lords beyond are lost in the meat we threw them—tearing each other apart! With their eyes fixed on that garbage political board, we’ll cut their weakest link and leash in one go.”
“…!”
“There, starting with this battle, we’ll make the arrogant lords pay back every ounce of humiliation we’ve suffered—more than a dog’s worth at least—and begin the great story that will throw the eternal betrayers of our western plains, the Irent tribe, into the mud and crush them completely!”
I pointed at Sel Lates with my bloodied fingers and roared with all my strength.
“Everyone, are you ready?!”
“Uooooooooo!”
“Kill them! Crush them all!”
Before my voice even faded, the two thousand two hundred soldiers roared as one.
Beike slammed his massive axe into his shield, muscles bulging.
Orhan fiddled with the new bow he’d received from the Irayte, clearly pleased, and aimed at Sel Lates.
Toghrul and Sarnai looked like they wanted to leap into the fight right then, the joy of battle itself too much to contain.
Absorbing that overwhelming heat into my body, I turned my horse again and stared fixedly at Sel Lates.
“The preparation is complete. Charge!!”
The order was short.
At the same time as that single word, two thousand two hundred horses slammed their hooves into the ground and surged forward.
Toward the unguarded, complacent city of Sel Lates.
The first hunt of the Mongol-style cavalry that would one day terrorize the entire continent had begun.