Be careful in your life, Tolui. I want you fit and strong for when I come for you.
No worthy goal should come easily, he told himself. Suffering created value.
You obey orders, because if you do not, you cannot expect the same from your men. You are part of the wolf, not the whole wolf. I would have thought you had learned that when you were a boy, but it is...
There is a price for all things, my son, for all men. I have merely to find his.
There are many who say ‘I believe this,’ but would they hold true to those beliefs if their children were threatened? No. But Genghis would. If you told him you would kill his children, he would tell...
Courage cannot be left like bones in a bag. It must be brought out and shown the light again and again, growing stronger each time. If you think it will keep for the times you need it, you are wrong....
The world has grown too large for one army of the nation, my brother. You will ride where I tell you to ride, conquer where I tell you to conquer. The world is yours, if you can put aside the base par...
There is a world outside the one we know,” he said softly, “with cultures and races and armies who have never heard of us. Yes, and cities greater than Yenking and Karakorum. To survive, to grow, we m...
Get up,” she said. “Get up, my lord. If you do not have long, there is still much to do. You must not waste another day, another morning! Take hold of your life with both hands and crush it to you, my...
The world cannot be full of lead dogs, or the pack would pull itself apart.
Sometimes, power could change hands as quickly as a knife thrust.
They had learned that Sorhatani expected the same sort of instant obedience as her husband. She had grown up around men of power and had married into the great khan’s family at a very young age. She k...
Those who cannot conquer must bend the knee. They must find strength, or serve those of us who have. You are my generals. I will send you out: my hunting dogs, my wolves with iron teeth. When a city c...
Xuan smiled at the thought of men sleeping peacefully next to those they would try to kill in daylight. Only humanity could have conceived such a strange and artificial way to die. Wolves might tear t...
History was more than just stories, he reminded himself as the men walked forward with their burdens. It taught lessons as well.
For the khan, we will take their cities, their women, and their lands. This is the great raid, the farthest strike in the history of the nation of Genghis. We will not be stopped.
He would never understand women, he thought. They were life’s great mystery.
