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THE MIDNIGHT HORDE

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David J. West


I never should have been here. I never should have come back to the lands of my forebears, but desperation leads to foolhardy, even irrational actions. Who can say how it will all play out?

How did I get here? Some said it was the once-in-a-lifetime rains that finally broke the dam, others said our own super weather machines like HAARP did it.

I never heard the truth.

A month and a half back feels like an eternity ago. I remember the rainstorms flooded and finally overwhelmed the Three Gorges Dam, utterly devastating everything in the Yangtze River’s path. This crippled China economically and pushed it far beyond what it could bear. Chinese forces hungry for vengeance attacked Taiwan, and after a hell of a fight, it fell. But there was no gain in Taipei’s destruction, no plunder left after the Pyrrhic victory.

In the chaotic aftermath, a great fracture shattered China into a host of warring states that competed for resources and supremacy. At least six different general secretaries wrested control of the government. None lasted a week. When those warring factions reunited again after a brutal civil war, China directed its attention north, invading Siberia to reclaim the land Russia had stolen from it during its imperial decline.

Doing the weekend warrior thing to pay for college had seemed like a pretty darn good idea until I had been mobilized for active duty. World War Three had never been on my bingo card.

My name is Baatar Evans. And even though I’m half Mongolian, I had never really thought I’d ever see the country where my great-grandparents had been born. It just hadn’t been in the cards. There were so many other places I’d wanted to see. Because I could still speak half-ass Mongolian, my recruiter had told me not to worry. He’d assured me my language skills would guarantee I’d stay behind a desk as a human-intelligence collector, translating voice intercepts out of Mongolia. Then before I knew it, I was being sent as an interpreter, attached to a Special Forces A Team on the ground in Mongolia. I didn’t know anyone else on the flight. I skimmed my dossier. We were heading for Damansky in Russian or Zhenbao in Chinese, an island in the Ussuri river, astride the border between Chinese Heilongjiang and Siberian Primorye, where already over a thousand soldiers had died, mainly on the Chinese side. My arrival coincided with the brutal aftermath of a head-to-head clash between twenty-one Russian and twenty-eight Chinese brigades on the longest border on the face of the planet: 2,670 miles. A lot more people were going to die here. They had to cut fat from somewhere.

I landed in what was left of Osan Air Force Base about sixty-four klicks south of the Korean DMZ and then boarded an old retrofitted C-141 for a one-way trip to the Transbaikal where our Russian allies planned to halt the Chinese advance. I couldn’t believe it, the Russians hadn’t been our allies in almost a hundred years. I’m not sure where we were when we took some flak, but the aircraft came down hard. Credit to the pilot for getting us to the ground in most of one piece.

I’ll not burden you any further with how I’d managed to survive that first night in the burning wreckage, nor how my Russian allies had nearly killed me when I’d stumbled into one of their ambushes while crossing a frozen field. The gods alone know how I’d survived that night run. Later I’d been captured by the Chinese and had escaped thanks to the timely intervention of Mongol rebels. That’s what’s important, that is where my story really begins.

Now I traversed the lands of my ancestors with a motley band of Mongols, lost Russians, and even a few Japanese to fight the invading Chinese. I remember my great-granddad mentioning forces like this that he had heard about when he was still a kid in Ulaanbaatar. Way back before the Maoists took over. All the stories I had learned when I was six or seven years old came flooding back to me now. Tales of blood and thunder out on the open steppe.

This is the story of the old gods and how they remain . . . 

We camped in a ravine and dared light a small fire to cook a sheep that one of the Mongols found lost in a crevasse.

Chinggis, one of my inadvertent rescuers, recounted what happened back at the river the day prior. “Several of the Russians were burnt by flamethrowers, and no longer had faces, just blistered bundles of flesh. A bullet had taken away the lower jaw of one man. The meat patching the wound did not fully cover his trachea. I could see his breath escaping in wheezing bubbles. Machine-gun rounds had threshed into pulp the shoulder and arm of another man, who was also without any bandages. I’ve been on five overseas deployments, but I have never seen anything like this.

“Not a cry, not a moan escaped the lips of these wounded, who were almost all seated on the grass. Hardly had the distribution of supplies begun than the Russians, even the dying, rose and flung themselves forward. The man without a jaw could scarcely stand upright. The one-armed man clung to a tree trunk, the burnt men advanced as quickly as possible. A half dozen of them lying on the frozen earth also rose, holding in their entrails with one hand and stretching out the other with a gesture of supplication. Each left behind a stream of blood which flowed into an ever-increasing river.”

“That’s enough,” said the eldest Mongol. “It will do no good to dwell on such misery while we eat.”

“We need to know what we’re up against,” protested another.

The first speaker continued despite the old man’s warning, “As I was saying, the most horrifying opponents encountered on the modern mechanized atomic battlefield are the gyonshi. We need to find a way to counter them before they overrun our entire land.”

Gyonshi? What’s that?” I foolishly asked.

“Walking atrocities,” spat a grim man at the edge of the firelight.

The look on my face made it clear I did not understand.

The old Mongol answered, “They are the unclean dead, who will not rest. War creates them as much as anything. The fields where men have fallen in wrath and fear spawn them. It is unwise to speak of them.”

“Bad feng shui,” added another man.

Nothing more was said, but I remained as puzzled as ever. Later that night on watch, young Ganzorig, who was the friendliest to me, said, “Rumors persist that gyonshi are almost as dangerous to their side’s own troops as they are to us. I’ve heard that evidence was collected in the field allegedly proving that gyonshi are not animated corpses. I think they are chemically altered.”

“How did you hear that?”

“Before everything went to hell, and we were on the run like this, I worked in intelligence, like you. My commander, Khasar, said they were manmade. Like zombies. But the enemy wants to play upon our fears and superstitions.”

“So, it’s all a PSYOP?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure what to trust. I’ve seen things out here that still make me wonder. Rumors persist that anyone wounded by gyonshi is susceptible to the ‘gyonshi disease’ and may become one.”

“That does sound like a zombie.”

“The gyonshi are unable to use any kind of firearm, much less drive a vehicle, they rely on their hands and crude close-combat implements.”

“So we can shoot them in the head?”

“If you can. Gyonshi can wear body armor. They’re clumsy and slow, and tend to walk into obstacles before going around them.”

“How many are there?”

“We saw more the last few days before we attacked that outpost where we found you. But gyonshi tactics are simple: once they are driven away from their release point—usually by judicious application of cattle prods or bayonets—they head in a mob in a straight line in that direction until they stumble into people, which they immediately attack regardless of affiliation. You cannot surrender to the gyonshi. If you are cornered, you’ll be torn apart. When attacked by gyonshi, most of our units panic unless the unit is elite or highly disciplined.”

“What about what Chinggis was saying?”

Ganzorig shook his head. “It takes a lot to put the gyonshi down, and we’re running low on ammo.”

The next day our group split up, judging we’d be harder to track down by the advancing Chinese forces. Our three Russian comrades headed northwest, our two Japanese companions went east, and the Mongols and I trekked eastward into the mountains where we hoped to evade the drones flying on the edge of the horizon. While I was supposed to be attached to the Russians, in my heart, I didn’t believe any but the Mongols would survive the coming days.

By late the next day, our small group moved northward through a small river valley that wound through the mist-shrouded mountains. The road was rocky and covered with snow. We tread carefully, passing the ruins of a burnt-out fortress, which swung around the shoulder of a ridge. After fording several streams, we began to ascend the mountain. Bound together by a single length of rope, climbing was hard and dangerous. The trail snaked through mountain ravines and passed over jagged ridges before slipping back down into shallow valleys, and then climbing ever upward. One of the peaks ripped through the fog-laden ridges, and we witnessed a vast expanse of snow dotted with black spots.

“What are those?” I asked.

“Those are the obo. Sacred signs and altars to appease the demons who guard this pass,” said the eldest Mongol. “This pass is called Jagasstai. Many old tales about it have been passed from one traveler to the next for eons.”

Eager for something to break the monotony, I asked him to share some of these tales.

As he spoke, he uprooted several long, peppered gray hairs from his head and cast them into the wind as an offering. He rocked on his feet for a moment and looked around tentatively before beginning his story. “Very long ago, the grandson of the great Genghis Khan ruled all of Asia from a Chinese throne. Through treachery, Chinese usurpers killed our Khan and vowed to sever any right of succession by slaying his kin.

“A wise old lama secreted the favored wife, Tah Sin Lo, and the heir out of the palace. They left on swift camels, which carried them beyond the Great Wall and out to our rolling desert plains. The Chinese usurpers searched for the trail of the refugees and ultimately discovered it. They sent a detachment on horseback to capture and slay them. When the Chinese had nearly caught up with the Khan’s fleeing heir, the lama called down a blizzard from the heavens. The snow was so deep only the camels could pass through it. This lama was from a distant monastery and knew the old ways of the land. He knew they were not yet safe and had to get beyond Jagasstai Pass. And it was here that the old lama suddenly became ill. He was struck down with the foulest of Chinese sorcery. He rocked in his saddle and fell dead upon the cold ground. Witnessing her rescuer’s death, Tah Sin Lo, the widow of the great Khan, burst into tears.

“Pressing towards the frigid pass, the Chinese were drawing ever closer. Tah Sin Lo’s camels were tired and could run no farther. The widow did not know how to drive them on. The Chinese drew nearer. Their bloodthirsty cries echoed in the valley, taunting her that they’d take their heads back to Peking to be desecrated by the masses. In desperation, the widow lifted her tiny son towards the heavens and cried out to the earth and the gods of Mongolia to protect this descendent of the mighty Genghis Khan.

“She then noticed a tiny white mouse sitting upon a stone nearby. It jumped to her knees and spoke: Fear not, I am here to help you. The lives of your son’s enemies have come to an end.

“The widow did not understand how a small mouse could hold back more than three hundred men screaming for blood. The rodent jumped back and said, I am the demon of Jagasstai, but because you’ve doubted my power, from this day, Jagasstai will be dangerous for both the righteous and the wicked.

“The Khan’s widow and son were saved by the demon, their pursuers perished in blood and fire, but Jagasstai has remained a merciless and dangerous pass, and during the journey, one must always be on guard. For the demon of the mountain is ever watchful and vigilant. One false move, and it will bring the very might of the mountain down upon you.”

The top of the ridge was thick with uplifts of rock and gnarled branches. We passed an altar of towering stone, left by some wayward traveler to appease the gods for the doubts of the widow.

Evidently the demon expected us.

When we began our ascent, the cold wind assailed our faces. Whistling and roaring, it threatened to cause an avalanche from above. We couldn’t distinguish anything around us and were scarcely able to see one another.

The ground gave way beneath me. I dropped like a stone. Faster than thought, I stopped. I looked around. Nothing was visible. Dangling between two stones over a deep crevasse, my feet swayed in the empty air. The only thing separating me from life and certain death was the rope securing me to my companions above. I had slipped and fallen in a crevasse while the bags slung over my back had caught on a rock and arrested my fall.

This time the demon of Jagasstai had only played a joke. But soon he showed more displays of anger. With furious gusts of wind, he almost dragged us off our feet and nearly knocked us over the cliff’s edge. He blinded us with freezing snow, preventing us from finding shelter. At last we entered a small valley where the wind whistled and roared with a thousand voices.

It was dark.

The elder Mongol wandered around searching for the trail. He returned, waving his arms. “We must stop here. The path is lost, and we are snow blind.”

Against howling winds and blistering snow, we struggled in the cold to pitch our tent. With frozen hands, we stowed our weapons and equipment, and packed the outside of the tent firmly with snow to insulate it from the cold.

And yet being without fuel, we shivered. Some had begun to show the signs of frostbite and hypothermia. While a fire might give away our position, without one, many would die in the night.

Saying nothing, Chinggis grabbed an axe and ventured into the darkness. He returned an hour later with a big wooden cylinder.

“What the heck is that?” I said.

“An old telegraph pole.” He pointed outside the tent to his left. “There’s more out there, but you’ll have to cut them down yourselves. I paid respects to the demon of the mountain, and he showed me where to find them.”

And so we ventured out into the night to find the ruins of a once great Russian telegraph network that had connected Irkutsk with Uliassutai long before the Bolsheviks had befouled the land. These abandoned poles were our salvation. Now we could rest in peace and cook hot chow beside the warmth of a fire.

Early the next morning we found the road not more than two or three hundred paces from our tent and continued our hard journey over the pass.

It caused me to wonder about how ancient the powers that held sway over this land really were. Were they gods? Nature spirits? Whoever they might be, the land was theirs long before any of the invaders had ever dreamed of venturing across the steppe.

At the head of the valley, a flock of Mongolian crows with carmine beaks circled the rocks. There, we discovered the fresh bodies of a horse and rider. They lay close together, the bridle wound around the man’s neck. His Mongolian coat was splayed open. Chiseled into his chest was a strange script. The Mongols had a Cyrillic alphabet; this was anything but that.

Our Mongol elder bowed his head and whispered, “It is a warning. The message on his chest is carved in traditional Mongolian script, used in the days of Genghis Khan. The traveler did not sacrifice to the southern obo, so the demon claimed both rider and horse.”

At long last, we exited that infernal pass, which emptied into the valley of the Adair. We followed a serpentine riverbed through towering mountains carpeted with rich grass. Broken telegraph poles of varying lengths lay on both sides of the riverbed. In the far distance, billowing smoke testified to the destructiveness of China’s Mongolian campaign.

Ever wary, we continued through this land of vengeful demons and hungry ghosts.

In many places we came across sheep carcasses with the flesh stripped from the bone.

“The work of wolves,” said the Mongol elder.

To bivouac for the night, we sheltered beneath a great stone overhang jutting from the mountain near the shore of a frozen stream. With our stove, we had a fire and a kettle to boil water for tea. Our tent was warm and cozy. We were quietly resting with pleasant thoughts to soothe us when raucous and infernal howling exploded from just outside the tent.

“Wolves,” said the Mongol elder, who took a revolver and went out into the night. He did not return for some time. A single shot heralded his return.

“I gave ’em a little scare,” he said. “They were gathered around an antelope carcass.”

“Will they return?”

“We’ll make a bonfire behind our tent, then they won’t bother us,” he said with an air of confidence.

After talk of demons, gyonshi, and now wolves, I was no longer sure what to expect.

After supper, we turned in, but I lay awake for a long time listening to the wood crackle in the fire, the snoring of my sleeping companions, and the distant howling of the wolves. But finally, despite the noise, I fell asleep. How long I had slept, I did not know, but suddenly I was awakened by a strong blow to the back of my head. I was lying at the very edge of the tent, and something was outside pushing against me. I thought it was one of the sheep chewing the tent’s felt. I took my pistol and struck the wall. A sharp yelp was followed by the sound of quick footfalls running over pebbles.

In the morning, we discovered the telltale tracks of wolves and followed them to a half-dug burrow under the tent wall.

The old man spoke, “Wolves and eagles serve the demon, Jagasstai. However, this does not prevent us from hunting wolves. But we don’t touch eagles and hawks. We even feed them. When we slaughter animals, we cast bits of meat into the air for the hawks and eagles to catch in flight, just as we might throw them to a dog. The birds of prey fight and drive away the magpies and crows, which are dangerous for cattle and horses because these pests scratch and peck at the smallest wounds until the animals become sick with disease. So, they do us a service, and we, in turn, grant them respect. Always remember to pay your respects.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

“Your blood is from the steppe, but your flesh is American. You have not learned our ways. But you have come back and must return to them. That is the only way for our people to survive what is coming.”

“What is coming? Beyond the obvious? We need tech and firepower, not stories.”

“How could you know you could defeat the enemy if you never heard stories that it could be done?” The old man didn’t wait for an answer, but shrugged at my silence and continued down the path. What could I do but follow?

Over the course of another day and night and another day, we crossed bitter fields of snow and ice. We made camp in the late afternoon and could hear the Chinese advance before we could see it.

Chinggis scouted ahead. “They’re just over those hills. Tanks and armored personnel carriers. There must be thousands.”

“And the Russians?” I asked hopefully.

Chinggis shook his head. “They’re not coming. This valley would have been the place to face them.”

The old man said, “We can’t fight them like they fight us. Bullets and blades aren’t enough, we must ask for the help of our ancestors. The blood of the land will help us overcome, just as it always has.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

Ganzorig spoke excitedly, “The blood of the Khan flows through our veins. We have beaten them before in ages past. The Great Khan trod them under the hooves of his warhorse hundreds of years of ago, and we shall do so again!”

“How? We don’t even have any good rifles, let alone a Golden Horde.”

The old man poked me in the chest as he answered. “I told you, we ask the ancestors.”

“Ghosts? How?”

“We speak through the blood, we make sacrifice and commune with those beyond our world, those above and below the open steppe.” Seeing that I didn’t fully comprehend his words, he withdrew his knife and sliced across his hand, letting the scarlet drops fall to the icy ground.

“That is how. We perform a communion tonight under the full moon and let the spirits know our hearts. They will answer and help us. But we must be in the right place.”

“Where is that?”

“The obo of the god of war. It is near.”

I was dubious. Of course, I had heard all the old stories of Genghis Khan and the Mongol hordes, but how could that help us now? What could ancestor spirits really do today against an unstoppable foe that had already defeated the Russians?

The rising moon cast a cold light that bleached the steppe in a bone-white luster.

We approached a small monastery within a square of large buildings. These structures were surrounded by high palisades. Each side had a wall with a gate leading to the temple’s four entrances at the center of the square. The temple was built with round lacquered columns with the Chinese-style roofs that dominated the surrounding low dwellings of the lamas. An old Chinese trading post stood on the opposite side of the road. Like all old Chinese trading posts, it appeared more like a fortress with double walls for protection. But the post had long since been abandoned by the Chinese more than a hundred years ago, and all that was left was this scar in the Mongolian landscape.

There was a peculiar din, where I could hear murmuring voices and an irregular drumbeat. I looked at my companions in alarm, but they assured me not to worry. Despite these assurances, I was beginning to question their sanity in such manners.

Several triangular flags flapped in the breeze. The old man said this was a sign of the curse of disease. Near some yurts, high poles were lodged in the ground and capped with Mongolian shepherd hats—a marker that the host of that yurt had died. Packs of wild dogs in the area suggested that the corpses lay somewhere nearby, perhaps in a ravine or along a riverbank.

The frantic beating of drums, the mournful sounds of the flute, and the wailing quickened as we approached the camp. The old Mongol went forward to investigate and spoke with an old woman. After several minutes, he returned and said, “Several Mongolian families have come here to the monastery seeking medical attention from a Peace Corps aid station that had once operated in one of the buildings near the temple. These poor souls had traversed vast distances only to find that the aid station had been abandoned many years ago, just before the war.”

“So who’s treating these people then?” I asked.

“Shamans,” he said. “The people had no choice. They were dying one after another. They have already lost more than two dozen.”

“Shamans?” I asked incredulous.

As we were speaking, a shaman emerged from a yurt. The old Mongolian had a scar that cleaved his face from chin to forehead. His eyes were vacant and troubling. His blue tongue flickered from his mouth in the involuntary manner of a snake. He wore a tattered Russian Army uniform, likely stripped from the back of a fallen soldier. With drum and flute in hand, he began to whirl like a dervish, then stumble into an irregular and chaotic writhing, beating his drum, playing the flute, or shrieking into the darkness. He gesticulated until his face went ashen; his eyes, bloodshot; and he collapsed upon the snow where he writhed and wailed in some long forgotten and inhuman tongue.

It was utter madness.

The old Mongol said that the shaman treated his patients in this manner, using his madness to frighten the disease-carrying demons away. A second shaman treated his patients with a muddy brownish water which I later learned was opium.

While the shamans railed against the unclean spirits spreading disease, the ill were left to fend for themselves. They lay huddled together under heaps of sheepskins, shaking in delirium and coughing up bloody phlegm. Beside a burning brazier, the remaining adults and children squatted. Seemingly oblivious to the suffering, they chatted, drank tea, and smoked, as if the horror around them was perfectly normal. Within the yurts, the diseased suffered with such misery that I shuddered at the reality of its cruelty.

On the one hand, the old man was telling me to respect the old ways, that it would be the salvation of the people, but on the other, I saw this, the madness of crazed healers and the lives they destroyed. I saw this camp of the dead, and I was ready to explode as I heard the groans and ravings of these dying men and women. Somewhere in the distance, the wolves howled and the shaman’s drum boomed with a discordant beat.

The old man watched and he knew my anger and frustration. He shouted aloud, “O great Genghis Khan, why with all your might have you forsaken your people? Why after they preserved the memory of your customs and traditions for generations have you denied them the peace they deserve? Why in your vast knowledge of warfare have you not returned to rescue them from the enemies that prey upon them in their multitudes? Your withering bones, secreted in some ancient charnel house in the anonymous hills and valleys of your homeland, never to be found, but only to be honored in the mausoleum of Karakorum, must lament the eradication of a once mighty people who held sway over half the civilized world!”

I can’t explain it, but my anger ebbed as I listened to the old man.

I could no longer witness this depraved horror. I could not shake the thought that some horrible apparition was stalking us. The devils of disease? The souls of men who’ve been sacrificed on the altar of darkness in Mongolia? An inexplicable fear haunted my consciousness. Only when we had turned from the road, passed over a timbered ridge into a bowl of mountains, and escaped from the sound of the drums, could we breathe easy again. It was here beside a large lake that we discovered yet another village.

On a cowhide, by a burnt-out fire sat a young girl, drowned in tears. She was inconsolable and did not respond to questions. The people in the village told us her tragic tale. Her father had been slain by the invaders. He lay now beside the war god’s obo, which we were informed was perilously close to a Chinese forward operating base.

“Is that where we must call to the ancestors?” I asked.

The old man nodded. “Deep magic from beneath the steppe is there. The war god himself consecrated that obo, and we shall reach his ear from across the void.”

“I will show you the way.” The crying girl had heard our talk. She was now standing and dusting herself off.

I still wasn’t sure what I believed anymore, but I couldn’t deny that I was here now. For whatever reason it seemed destiny or fate had placed me in the path of this desperate ritual. None of it made sense to my logical American sentimentality, but another part of me heard my ancestors calling.

We followed the girl down a winding trail through birch and fir trees until we reached the dark cedars. The icy wind whipped through the pass. Ganzorig twirled his beaded necklace, and the girl looked around anxiously.

There lay the obo, a tall pyramid of piled cedar trunks hung with innumerable ribbons, bleached and whipped to rags by the blasting wind. Figures carved in wood hung everywhere, and at the foot of the shrine lay caravan tea, corn, frozen butter, and other provisions. We deposited our sacrifices beside the sacred altar. Blood from our sliced hands, our hair, most of our meager food provisions, and even an old bronze knife.

The old man began to build a small fire.

“What if Chinese scouts see our heat signature. They could have drones.”

He shook his head. “The flame must be here to light the way for the spirits to see us. Besides, if this doesn’t work, it won’t matter, and gyonshi will devour us.” He began to softly beat upon an old skin drum, which I wondered briefly if he had taken it from one of the shamans.

I thought it was all a bad joke; a joke I didn’t find funny at all.

The old man began reciting the old chant of prayers to the ancestors, and the girl joined in. Soon both Chinggis and Ganzorig were also praying. I alone was silent as the snow that swirled around us.

Shadows danced on the fringes of the firelight, and in my peripheral vision, I thought I saw movement. A trick of the light in the dancing snowflakes? The very air seemed to vibrate with strange energy. Hungry wolves daring to see how close they might approach? Or terrible Chinese gyonshi waiting to pounce and feed upon us like ghouls?

The old man continued his chant, his voice growing hoarse with effort. The girl looked expectantly at me as the coals flared with the vengeful wind.

At her, I silently mouthed, “What can I do?”

“Sacrifice,” she said.

What more did I have to give? Everything I had left was thousands of miles across the sea. When I was captured, all my equipment had been taken except my ACUs which were now in a wretched state. Everything I had left, the rebels had given me. It had no real value. What did I have left of any worth? What could I give up? What must I sacrifice?

I took a deep breath. I opened my mind to the possibilities of my ancestors’ beliefs. I put aside my fear and my logic, my assumptions and my scientific beliefs. I laid it all bare in my mind’s eye and let it go in the moment. I was open to anything, that everything they said could be true, no, that it was true. I caught myself shouting along with their sacred chant, almost singing it despite not knowing the words. I chanted it with them as loudly as I could.

A form materialized from within the obo and stepped forward.

The wraith did not look like a Mongol despite his red silk coat; he had blonde hair and a bristling red mustache along with the piercing eyes of a tiger.

I looked to the others and asked mutely, “The war god?”

In unison, they nodded.

“Did you wake me from my slumber?” he asked, and though his words were neither English nor Mongolian I could understand them as if they were spoken inside my mind.

“I did,” I stammered, but drew up some courage.

“Do you know me? I do not know of you, though I can see this land is in your blood.”

“I am Baatar Evans. I’m an American, though my grandparents hailed from the Mongolian steppe.”

“A prodigal returns,” the wraith said with a grim chuckle. “I am the Baron.”

“Von Ungern-Sternburg?” I gasped.

“I am he,” said the wraith.

In that ethereal haze, I understood every word, as if the wraith’s growing aura of power granted me a kind of clairvoyance and clairaudience.

The old man’s drum came to an end; I had almost forgotten it beside my own throbbing heartbeat. “The god of war has come and will light the way with sword and fire, to turn back the enemies of our land and prepare the way for the great Khan!”

The wraith rendered a salute, like a commanding general might a respected staff sergeant.

“What would you have us do?” asked Ganzorig, kneeling in the snow.

“Alert the nation. Let them know the Horde has returned and awaits the new Khan,” spoke the Baron as he raised his hand and reached toward the steppe. A twinkle like stars or tinder catching sparks spread over the steppe in ever widening ripples, and from each starlike glow, another form rose from the earth. Had I not seen it for myself, I would not have believed it. Countless figures pale as snow, bedecked in every manner of weapon and armor, raised their rusted accoutrements to the sky, and cried out like thunder, cried out in unison for battle. “Shoog! Shoog!” They would face the enemy of their land and drive the invader into the sea. Who could face such a force, who could stand against the dead and gaunt, the specter and the lich? Who could resist the bloody Baron, herald of the Great Khan to come?

Spectral horses appeared, and their corpse riders mounted them. Wreathed in ghostly light, they required neither sun nor moon, for their own phantom glow illuminated the way. The Horde formed up in units of law and chaos and rode forth.

An ebon mount appeared beside us. The Baron mounted the ghostly mare and rode to the head of the midnight Horde. Riding at unimaginable speed, they smashed against the Chinese defenses like a wave of death.

We pursued the Chinese soldiers, leaving bloody prints in the snow where our shoes had been cut to ribbons by the jagged ice as we scaled the ridge, I looked down and saw the mighty divisions of the Chinese host, firing blindly at their ghostly attackers. I heard their curses on the wind, their dying breaths caught in ice.

Science would say that madness had taken them, had robbed them of their faculties, and that they had turned upon one another. But I knew the truth of it. The ghostly Baron had swarmed over them with his undead army and laid waste to those who deign to forget the power of the midnight Horde and respect the steppe from which they had come.

From where would this new Khan emerge and to what frontiers would he lead this Horde of the dead? I did not know, but I was sure he would be coming very soon.


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