When the smoke cleared over the Eurasian landmass, the world had been flattened, but the conquerors had broken their own hearts.
For a generation, the Mongol Empire had owned the earth. The descendants of Genghis Khan had drawn a map that stretched from the Pacific Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea. But an empire that spans the world cannot share a single soul. By the 1260s, the Toluid Civil War permanently fractured the Mongol superpower into rival factions, turning brother against brother in a fight for the very identity of their people.
Down in the dirt of Central Asia, that ideological war smelled of woodsmoke, sweat, and fermenting mare's milk.
In the Chagatai Khanate, a massive camp of thousands of felt gers—traditional yurts—was on the move. Massive wooden carts groaned under the weight of dismantled homes, hauled by teams of oxen. The air was thick with the dust of ten thousand livestock trampling the sparse, green steppe grass. At the edge of the moving city, a herd of horses thundered past, driven by riders who looked as though they had been born in the saddle.
Watching them from a low rise was Kaidu Khan. In his mid-fifties, Kaidu was barrel-chested, rugged, and completely weather-beaten. He wore pragmatic, heavy hide armor and a rough ramie deel—a traditional robe—patterned with metallic thread that caught the harsh sunlight. A fur-brimmed cap shadowed a deeply lined, scarred face framed by long, coarse hair and a braided beard. Leaning on a battered riding crop, he radiated the stubborn, immovable, and dangerous aura of an aging wolf.
He was watching his children ride.
Kaidu had fourteen sons, and they were all striving to catch the lead horse. At the front of the boys rode Chapar. Though only a teenager, Chapar was stocky and brooding, his tangled dark hair falling over a permanent, bitter scowl. He wore overlapping dark leather armor that looked slightly too bulky for his frame, weighed down by the heavy pelts of the Ögedeid house. Clenching his reins with white-knuckled tension, Chapar rode aggressively, cutting off his brothers, always trying to take up more space than he earned.
But he was losing.
He was losing to a girl.
Cutting past Chapar on a muscular steppe pony was Khutulun. Even as a teenager, she was imposing—tall, heavily muscled, and possessing a sheer physical size that made her look almost giant-like compared to her brothers. Her dark hair was tightly braided back with leather straps to keep her vision clear in combat. Her sharp, wind-burned face broke into a joyous, predatory grin as she spurred her mount faster. She wore no silk. Her everyday attire was a heavy, rough-spun cotton deel lined with coarse fur, folded left over right, worn over baggy dark trousers and thick leather gutal boots.
Her name translated to "Moonlight," but there was nothing soft about her. As Chapar whipped his horse in a desperate, furious attempt to catch her, Khutulun leaned low over her saddle, laughed into the wind, and left her brother choking on her dust.
Kaidu Khan let out a rough bark of laughter. Birthright belonged to the boys, but the future belonged to the strongest.
*
Kaidu kept his children in the dust and the cold because of a choice made thousands of miles to the east.
In 1271, his cousin Kublai Khan founded the Yuan Dynasty. Kublai had conquered China and decided he rather liked the luxuries of the people he had subjugated.
In the grand palaces of Dadu—modern-day Beijing—Kublai Khan sat upon an ornate, cushioned throne, gripping a jewel-encrusted wine goblet. Approaching his sixties, the Emperor of China was grotesquely obese, suffering from gout, and visibly corrupted compared to his rugged steppe relatives. His soft, fleshy face was heavily shadowed, his thinning beard resting against shimmering silk brocades covered in intricate woven dragons, draped over pristine white fur. His soft hands were weighed down by heavy jade rings. Kublai exuded a distant, decadent, but suffocatingly gravitational power.
Kublai wanted a sedentary empire. He wanted taxation, bureaucracy, urban palaces, and the silken comforts of a settled civilization.
But Kaidu Khan believed that abandoning the nomadic ways of riding, hunting, and moving with the seasons would destroy the Mongol soul.
So the two Khans went to war.
Kaidu launched a thirty-year crusade to preserve the traditional lifestyle of the steppe. He violently rejected Kublai's assimilation. For Kaidu's people, there would be no stone palaces. No comfortable courtyards. Only the endless horizon, the biting wind, and the absolute necessity of strength.
*
By the late 1270s, the brutal reality of Kaidu's world had attracted the attention of an outsider.
Sitting near the edge of the training grounds, wrapped in a light-toned tunic and a small turban, was Marco Polo. The Venetian merchant, now in his mid-twenties, had completely assimilated into Tartar dress. With his sharp, inquisitive eyes and prominent nose, he sat perpetually observant, scribbling furiously on a rough leather-bound journal with a dark charcoal stylus.
Marco Polo viewed the violent Mongol world with a mix of commercial calculation and romantic awe. And he was horrified by what it took to survive here.
He watched as Kaidu's soldiers practiced warfare. This was not the ceremonial combat of European knights. When provisions ran low on long rides, Marco recorded, these men would open a vein in their horse's neck, drink the raw blood to stay alive, and patch the wound. He watched women manage the camp finances, drive the massive ox-carts, and butcher livestock without a second thought.
He also watched Khutulun.
Because Khutulun was raised exactly like her fourteen brothers, she possessed none of the delicate mannerisms Marco expected of a princess. She lived in the saddle. She could draw a composite bow with a draw weight that would tear the shoulders out of a Venetian sailor.
And Marco Polo was about to see exactly what Kaidu Khan's brutal meritocracy had forged.
As the sun dipped low over the Altai Mountains, casting long shadows across the camp, a large circle was drawn in the dirt. Torches were lit, smelling of pitch and burning dung. Hundreds of warriors gathered around the perimeter, their voices rising in a rhythmic, guttural chant.
It was time for Bökh—traditional Mongolian wrestling.
There were no weight classes here. No time limits. No ropes. It was a violent, standing grappling sport where the only objective was to force any part of your opponent's body—other than the soles of their feet—to touch the earth.
A massive, battle-scarred warrior stepped into the center of the ring. He wore the traditional open-front jacket and heavy briefs, slapping his thighs and performing the eagle dance to honor the spirits of the steppe.
On the edge of the circle, Chapar shifted his weight. He gripped his heavy mace, assuming he or one of his older brothers would be called to face the man. He puffed out his chest, looking toward their father.
But Kaidu Khan wasn't looking at Chapar.
Marco Polo’s charcoal stylus snapped in his hand.
Stepping past her scowling brother, Khutulun walked into the center of the torchlit ring. She was a teenager, a princess of the bloodline of Genghis Khan, but she stood face-to-face with a fully grown, battle-hardened man.
The warrior lunged.
Khutulun didn't flinch. She caught his wrists, absorbed his forward momentum, and pivoted her hips with terrifying leverage. Before the warrior could adjust his stance, she swept his leg. The impact of his massive body hitting the hard-packed dirt echoed like a thunderclap across the silent camp.
Khutulun stood over him, her chest heaving, breaking into a brilliant, dangerous grin.
Marco Polo stared, his mouth slightly open, reaching for a fresh piece of charcoal. In the silken courts of the Yuan Dynasty, a princess was a bargaining chip, kept behind high walls. But here, in the dust of the Chagatai Khanate, a princess had just thrown a killer to the earth.
They had the blood of conquerors. What they did not have, Marco realized, was any intention of being tamed. Why was a princess fighting in the dirt?