Homo Avatarius: ( Your Consciousness is an Alien ) (2 page)

We never tire of fighting. We are always on the border, always pushing everything, everybody…even fate. When we set off on horseback, we keep moving even while asleep.

Nothing is moderate for us. When we suffer from hunger, we suffer for days and weeks.

And when we eat, we eat until we vomit and drink
koumiss
until we black out.

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I am Cuci, the eldest son of Genghis Khan, first child of his wife, Börte, elder brother of Ogheday, the commander and crown prince of Genghis Khan. I’ve always known that I won’t be Khan after my father dies. But, because I was born, like everyone else, I drag my fate along after me.

“
Cuci” means “guest.” In the Mongolian tradition, whoever has the right of a guest cannot be harmed. My father—who wasn’t yet a khan at the time—once took me into his arms, hugged me tight, lifted me up in front of the eyes of the public, and cried out, “Cuci!”

This announcement was not only a confirmation but an acceptance; it was also a threat. Whoever didn’t respect my birthright as both Cuci and a
Cuci
paid with his life. When I was pulled back into the arms of my father Temüjin, the one of iron, I was a guest of the iron: safe but shunned.

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It has been hours since the biggest army on the plains of Mongolia made a move.

My soldiers’ know how to move in formation and signal each other like a pack of wolves. A wolf makes its opponents accept its superiority by looking at them with a piercing stare until they cower and run away. Each of my soldiers is a wolf, and I only fight with wolves. The rest are either my slaves or my enemies.

Now, we are moving towards the southeast, the destiny of the Mongolians. We are following my father, who has united all the Mongol tribes and has, after many battles, become not Temujin, but “Genghis Khan.” We are moving toward China, the largest empire in the world, based on a civilization that has existed for thousands of years. As a wolf pack leaving its home in the steppes, we are advancing on the enemy’s biggest city—a place with the highest walls, the best weapons, and supposedly the best army in the world. Despite the warnings, we press on.

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When we reach the base of a huge mountain, we began to move slowly, waiting to gather our forces. The narrow passage that the scouts directed us to is the only breach in this impenetrable wall—a gap made even narrower by sharp rocks. Only two men, side by side, can pass through the breach in order to reach the plain beyond —the plain where an army awaits.

The pioneers reach the other side of the passage before dawn and secure the exit with the help of the supporting forces. My father already knows of the military camp on the other side, a camp of countless colorful tents housing thousands of soldiers.

The Khan sends a division of ten thousand around the north side of the mountain along narrow and precarious roads. The men are led by his greatest commanders, Cebe and Sobutay. Their duty is to reach the valley from an unexpected direction by taking goat paths over snowy mountain peaks. Only a determined Mongol could pass through such snowstorms and incredibly cold passes in the rock. Even so, by the time they make it through, the Mongol dead outnumber the living. This passageway between deep cliffs and frozen rocks is a road of death.

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Thin snowflakes hurled by the bitter wind melt on my face as we gather in front of the entrance to the passage. A battalion of my raiders attacks with sharp screams, rapidly moving forward until we make an opening.

My father enters the passage on his horse, slowing down, but never stopping. As the army enters the passage, it leaves the light of the former world behind. The sound of hundreds upon thousands of horsemen hangs in the air with the dust and ice crystals.

Before the first division passes through the exit, a mass of trees tumbles down from the hills. They smash on the ground like thunder splitting the sky. The horsemen in the rear, who are now trying to enter the passage, crash against those stopped in the front.

“
Trap!” I cry. The ones who hear my cry turned aside, allowing me to move forward. I realize I won’t be able to pass on horseback through the passage now blocked by hundreds of soldiers. With a roar, I stand up on my horse and advance by jumping and stepping on soldiers and horses. The ones who hear my voice stand strong and shift their swords and spears to make way, but they still manage to nick my armor, causing tiny sparks to fly as I press forward. For a moment, I glimpse the wolf, its ears perked up at my shouts.

I arrive at the massive tree. It is the height of three full-grown men. Many bewildered eyes are on me, Cuci, the eldest son of Genghis Khan. It is impossible for them not to recognize me, and it is also impossible for the experienced soldiers not to hear my commands. As I step on the tops of heads, shoulders, and hands, I scream, “Everyone get back! Empty the passage! Make space for those with axes!”

I then reach down, snag the knives and swords of a few nearby soldiers, and stab the weapons into the massive tree trunk, one after another, building makeshift steps to scale the tree. I quickly arrive at the top of the tree, grab hold with my nails and cry out, “Rope!”

From above, I stare over the trees and down into the battlefield. Our soldiers, no more than 50 in total, are surrounded by an endless sea of enemies. Still, they ride their horses over the corpses and wave their swords against anything and anyone that surrounds them. I faintly glimpse my father standing beside his dead horse, surrounded by a heap of soldiers. There is no time to delay. I spot a knife with a rope bound to its handle stuck into the trunk next to me. Without slowing down, I grab the knife and the rope and jump down. I find a horse collapsed on a soldier, wrap the rope twice around its neck, and get it upright. Then, I race toward my father without looking back. The wolf, which has just passed through a space under the tree trunk, is already ahead of me, weaving around obstacles and running toward its own target.

…
[START]

1. Winter 1214, Zhongdu ( Ancient Beijing )
   

Mongol

As I ran with my bow drawn, I shot arrows at the enemies surrounding my father, but hundreds more soldiers remained.

I shot my last arrow and, drawing my sword, began to prune away the enemies that came my way. Fighting wasn’t my aim. Neither was killing. My aim was just to keep moving. I made space by cutting off the arms and legs that came at me, cutting the necks of those who tried to save themselves, and knocking down the bodies I couldn’t pass over. I sometimes used the flat of my sword like a shovel and avoided directly stabbing with my knife: it took time to remove the weapon from the bodies.

In one mistaken move, I stabbed the sword so deep between the neck and armor of a Chinese soldier that it got stuck. I put supported all my weight on my sword and used all my strength to lift myself, step onto the soldier, and then jump on the closest cavalryman. While gliding in the air, I grasped the back of the saddle with my free hand and swung my sword at the horseman’s neck. His head fell to the ground, and I yanked the cavalryman off of the horse and let the headless body fall.

As I rode closer to my father, a few arrows glanced off my armor, and I escaped the weak sword blows of the infantrymen. A few horsemen came at me, but I raced past them as I watched my father cut down the riders nearest him. He stood upon stacks of corpses, but the crowd of enemy soldiers was only growing. The cavalrymen who had been protecting him were now all dead, and my father was standing alone on the battlefield.

Time stopped.

The distance was getting shorter but it also seemed to stretch on forever. I watched in horror as an arrow, shot from close distance, punctured my father’s armor. I screamed as if to tear my lungs out and then another blow pierced his foot. It seemed that I was too late. Had I given all this effort just so I could witness the end?

Then I saw the wolf.

It was making a path through the crowd, thrashing through those in front of him like they were stalks of wheat. For a moment, the wolf disappeared, and then it leapt in the air and landed on the shoulders of my father. He stumbled for a second but remained standing.

With this living armor on his back, Genghis Khan plodded forward, slicing those in front of him as blood sprayed from the blows of swords and arrows, and his pale skin turned red. I headed toward my father, trampling the soldiers in front of me with my horse. I took my sword in my left hand and grabbed my father’s arm with my right, pulling him onto my horse. With my father in the saddle, I jumped down and smacked the horse on the rear to send it away. My father was carried safely away from the heart of the battle, but I didn’t watch him go. My eyes were fixed on the ground and on the bloody pelt curled up next to my feet.

Time stopped once more and the world lost all meaning. Our rabid and bewildered enemy moved closer, but the only movement from me was from the growing knot in my throat as I gazed upon the remains of the wolf.

The first sword blow skipped off my helmet and fell on my shoulder armor. I felt the blow, but it didn’t hurt. The next sword blows were supposed to kill me, but they couldn’t. I stood still, half on my knees, a bloody pelt underneath me, a knot in my throat, and steam in my eyes. The only thing protecting me were the movements of the soldiers around me as they stood in each other’s way.

The sword in my hand should have fell, but it didn’t. Instead, the sword swung from side to side, its grip smashing the heads of the enemy. It didn’t feel like me. It was something I only witnessed. I stabbed everything in reach and wound the intestines out of someone’s abdomen and around their neck. I killed men with my bare hands and tore their faces with my bloody nails. I felt the warmth of the blood of the necks I ripped with my teeth.

…

Night was falling. As I, covered in blood, looked for more lives to take, someone grabbed me from behind and used his knee to bring me low. I would have beaten him, too, if I could have, but I was unable to move.

“
It’s over,” a familiar voice said. “Calm down!”

It was Sobutay.

“
The fight ended hours ago,” he said, leaning over me, “but we couldn’t calm you down. You continued. I would have watched you with pleasure, but you began to attack our own soldiers.”

I was so exhausted. If Sobutay hadn’t helped me stand, I would have probably slept among the dead. In the twilight, I gazed upon the endless corpse sea, the frozen mud of blood and intestines, the abandoned and dead horses, and the smoke of extinguished fires. It was like other battlefield scenes, with one difference: the lack of prisoners.

I watched as bodies were piled and five hundred sacks were filled with the ears of the dead—200,000 in total, enough flesh and bone to cover the soil.

When I arrived at the tent, the snow flurries and frost had already caused my wounds to form scabs. My armor was so shredded that snowflakes easily exploited the gaps and fell against my naked body. I groaned as the remains of my armor were removed and felt about to faint as I lay on the ground in the warm sent with servant girls and shamans beside me attending to my wounds.

“
You look much worse than the fur of your wolf. There is nowhere on you that isn’t torn,” the shaman said.

Before he could say one more thing, I grabbed him by his hair and pressed his head to the ground. “How dare you?!” I hissed. “Now go and pray for the soul of the wolf, perform the ceremony, and bring me a piece of his fur. Then be out of my sight!”

The shaman left the tent, silent except for the clatter of his bone and bead jewelry. Amidst the cold and quiet of the dark, the servant girls applied ointment and bandaged my wounds. I fell asleep shivering.

…

I woke up tired, hungry, and thirsty. The woman next to me told me I had been asleep for two days. Next to me were a few plates of half-consumed food and some cups of water. The servants must have made me eat. I looked around frantically and found what I was looking for. There it was! The piece of fur, about one-and-a-half hands wide, had been cleaned and now shined bluish-gray even in the dim light.

The female caretaker called the guard and helped me dress quickly. After I exited the tent, I realized we had moved. Even though I was used to waking up in different seasons and places, I was still baffled by what I saw: a giant plain that dwarfed our endless tents and enormous army. In the middle of this plain was a magnificent stone wall reaching up to the sky and stretching toward the horizons, a wall made of fortresses and towers signifying the upper limit of civilization.

I suddenly felt an inexplicable anger. It was an anger that cleared all my fatigue away. As memories briefly appeared, piece by piece, before again disappearing, my rage moved from my chest to my throat, and I reached my boiling point, ready to attack those around me.