Oleg was gone. And what remained was silence - heavier than his steps. His words still lingered in the vaulted air:
- Rus is ruled by oaths and blood
The flame of a nearby candle trembled, then stilled. Alexander wiped his fingers with a cloth and looked toward the door where Oleg had disappeared. His shoulders were still tense, as if he were still standing before him.
- Let him argue, - he said quietly.
He lowered his gaze to the records, gathered them together. One scroll slipped from his fingers, struck the floor, and slowly unrolled. Alexander bent to lift it - and realized he no longer saw what belonged where.
His thoughts tangled. He knew this sign: not weariness, but burnout - when the mind still holds, but the inside has gone hollow. Rus cannot be ruled in such a state; it's not the work that breaks then, it's the man.
He exhaled, clenched his hand to feel again the weight of the earth, and rose. He had to stop, if only for a moment.
Upstairs, his chamber met him with the warm, thick scent of wax, wood, and faint smoke from the hearth. On a small table by the wall, the brazier still glowed; the servants had just trimmed the candles and left a basin of warm water, a cloth, and a cup of mead - for the prince to wash away the day and take a sip of rest.
At the threshold, he pulled off his boots and slipped into soft ones - as if shaking the whole day from his feet. The scar at his side pricked on the inhale - sharp, like a needle. He didn't touch it. He stood still until the pain ebbed.
He exhaled hard, grabbed the jug. Cold water hit his throat like a blow; his eyes watered. He coughed, wiped his mouth with the cloth. The water tasted of iron, as if drawn from the deep of the well.
From the direction of Saint Sophia came the evening bell - dull, drawn, heavy.
The sound rolled through the stone, settled in the palace walls. Alexander stood and listened until the ringing faded.
Then he unbuckled his belt, took off his upper tunic, and extinguished the extra candle. The bed waited - flat, covered with linen and fur. He lay down, pulled the fur mantle over himself; warmth closed around him like a lid.
The last toll of the bell trembled and died. The candle burned steady; his shoulders sank. From a crack in the window drifted damp air, tinged with wormwood. Beyond the door, the guards changed - two steps, a whisper, silence. The wax smoked sweetly in the dish.
The silence settled - but the world was already stirring.
Beyond the walls, Rus slept. And in the steppe, a new day was rising.
Dawn was sharpening over the hills, gray as steel. Far away, the metal of the steppe was already ringing.
Beyond the horizon, in the Desht-i-Kipchak - where no walls are built, and power is counted by horse and plunder - the feather grass spilled seed into boots, lime dust clung to the tongue, and hooves struck the earth with dull, short blows that echoed in the chest.
A strap creaked, a fly landed on an eyelid and was swept away by the wind. Shadows gathered under hooves. The sun nailed the zenith. Everyone knew: soon it would fall.
In the Black Sea Horde of Kara-Buran, a storm of encampments had risen - not of wind, but of decisions by the elders.
Khan Kara-Buran still held the reins, still raised his voice. But the Horde no longer followed. He lived; power did not. His tent stood in the center, but the path to it was overgrown with other men's steps.
He knew why. That summer, he had led a wing east, beyond the Don and Manych, - to hunt the Oghuz, but the pastures were empty, the spoils thin. In winter came the hard crust, the dzut: the ice cut the tethers, foals died in the stalls.
In spring, during the migration, his people crossed the boundary of the Salt Ravine and entered the salt lands of the Kay clan - the elders remembered. A marriage envoy to the Bulgars on the Itil died of fever on the road - the alliance collapsed.
And that summer, a new star hung over the steppe. The elders said: the Sky had withdrawn its favor.
His name still held part of the steppe, but it was weakening - they tied a spare rope to it. He saw. He understood. He stepped half a pace back - to stay standing.
He had not fallen. He had shifted - like a beast before the shot. Like a wolf cornered not by blades, but by pause.
The circle had closed.
The elder clans gathered - not under one rule, but in three wings. No longer a - single Horde, - but knots of uluses, each with its own fire, cauldron, and winter camp.
They split into three coalitions, each behind one of the khan's sons.
The eldest, Kara-Tash - pillar of the - father's house- : the weight of name and custom, wintering grounds, old men who valued order over risk.
The middle, Tukal-bey - the favorite of strength: backed by frontier clans who lived by plunder and horse, joined by one of the oldest noble lines that sanctified power with tradition.
The youngest, Tuman-Taysha - the cautious flank: his mother's kin, coastal pastures, and elders who wanted power without fire.
Knowing that a wall-to-wall war against Tukal meant defeat, Kara-Tash and Tuman invoked not law but custom. The elders agreed: a khan is not elected - he is recognized when he takes his place by force.
Let valor decide, not herds. That way, the Horde would not split in two.
Three heirs would meet in the circle - each for himself. The duel was not for blood, but for vow. Bows were banned; in the circle only sabre and lasso - the loop that ends faster than the blade. Three passes, and elders watching from the edges. No future for the second.
Whoever stayed in the saddle would lead. Whoever fell - would fade into the past. Blood, if it spilled, would only seal what the elders had already chosen.
While the elders divided the circle, steel was already ringing - not in council, but in the tent.
Under the heavy felt canopy, Tukal was sharpening his blade. The dull light of the fire trembled on the steel, and the metal threw back his face - strange, yet already fitting him like a second skin.
His finger slid along the edge. A thin red line flared on the skin; a drop gathered, glimmered, and fell onto the cloth, leaving a dark stain. He smiled - the smile of a man checking whether he still breathes.
He had never felt so free, so alive. In his century, men were judged for everything: anger, weakness, a strike, even a thought. Here there was no trial, no laws to bind all men in chains.
In this steppe, no one asked why. You either stood, or you fell. And for the first time, that felt honest.
He laughed - a rough, hollow sound, forced out of his chest.
The air was thick - not with smoke, but with blood, iron, and raw wool. The fire crackled, but it was not the only thing burning.
Behind him, on the rugs, lay the dead. Not strangers - his own. Those who had sat by the fire the night before, sharing the cauldron, arguing about horses and women. Now their faces were twisted by rigor, each with a slit throat.
Five of them. Nökers - men of the khan, his sworn guard, bound not by blood but by oath. One of the few who belonged to the house rather than to his father, Kara-Buran.
He had recruited these five himself, quietly, to strengthen his claim before the circle. But with their arrival, the air in camp had changed - arguments, disappearances, whispers. Then came the poison.
It should have ended him months ago. But death passed by. And in its place, another entered this body - Timur, who became Tukal-bey, the khan's second son.
For the first few days, he barely breathed - not from fear, but from the shock of recognition. The air of the steppe was the same as before - dusty, heavy, tasting faintly of blood.
Sometimes his grandfather's voice flickered in his mind:
- Don't look with your eyes. Look with your blood. The steppe waits for its own
He remembered the concrete cracking under the sun, and men breaking ribs with their fists. He had already died once. Only then there had been no horses, just headlights and concrete.
Now death had brought him back - to where strength still meant something.
But the world was the same. Only the names had changed: clans instead of corporations, oaths instead of contracts. The same glances, the same words whispered behind one's back, the same hunt for a seat by the fire. All that changed was the weapon and the century. People remained the same.
Timur knew: the true conspirators wouldn't rest until he was dead. They were among his own, but all had alibis. That was the danger - the trap was too clean, too deliberate.
When many came to wish him luck before the duel, it looked almost innocent. To refuse trusted companions would have been strange; to accept - natural. The yurt was full of men. Tukal knew: if they hadn't struck before, this was their last chance. He was certain he would win in the circle - no other outcome existed for him.
The elders left first, then others began to drift away. Those who stayed were called out by - senior men. - The servants went to fetch food. The yurt emptied - until only he and the five nökers remained.
At first, he simply sat and drank. Then one of them - accidentally - brushed his weapon. Another rose suddenly and lunged. The rest followed.
The plan was simple: strike, wound, spill blood. If Tukal retaliated, they'd say he had gone mad, attacked first. A few cuts would be enough to remove him from the trial.
The ritual of the circle demanded purity - anyone stained with blood before the duel was struck from the rite. Five witnesses - all from his own guard - were more than testimony.
They were living proof of his madness.
In the eyes of the elders, it meant loss of hand and honor - therefore, no entry to the circle.
Not judgment - custom.
After that, the elders would have their iron reason:
- He who raises his hand against his own cannot enter the circle
They wouldn't bother with truth.
- The Horde does not accept blood before the circle. Let him cool his anger - the circle will wait for others
In truth, it was exile disguised as justice.
After that, the first heir, Kara-Tash, would gain the field - left alone with the youngest. His victory would be all but sealed; and once he became khan, he'd wash the traces away with words:
- The elders judged rightly - Tukal had gone mad
No one would argue. Power would stand, the circle complete, the case closed.
But things didn't go as planned.
Before them stood not the Tukal who had grown up in the sands, but a predator that had waited too long - and finally slipped its chain.
They came too close, and gave him the one meter he needed to kill.
He didn't defend. He worked. His body moved short, precise, as if the air itself folded around him.
The first dropped from a palm strike to the throat and an elbow to the temple - fell silent, like a sack of grain. The next reached for his knife, but Tukal stepped aside, caught the wrist, twisted until the joint cracked, and drove the blade back into its owner's ribs. The third was shouting:
- He's mad! - when Tukal's fist found his jaw and turned the cry into darkness.
The last two came together - men who feared to stand alone. One blade flashed past his thigh; Tukal caught the arm, used it as a lever, and steel slid into the second man's chest. The last lunged, but Tukal was already behind him - the sabre cut sideways, under the collarbone.
Those still breathing no longer remembered why. Tukal finished them quickly, without anger - simply so the air wouldn't be wasted.
The yurt froze. The smell of blood and smoke pressed down like the heat of a forge. Blood ran along the walls; the bodies lay like discarded hides.
Tukal drew a deeper breath and sat. To him, it wasn't stench - it was wind breaking through the felt, cold and clean, as if the steppe itself were breathing inside him.
He sat among the dead as though in a palace where the walls were felt and the throne clung to his feet.
A throne heavy, sticky - but the first to accept him as its master.
Silence rang like steel cooling in water.
Morning rolled closer with the hum of hooves and voices.
Horses struck the ground, bits jingled, shamans began their guttural chant. Smoke from the fires crawled low, stinging the eyes, smelling of ash and milk.
Voices blended, and no one noticed how one of the yurts seemed to draw in air - a short, strangled breath.
A dull thud. Another. Then the fabric swallowed the sound.
- Hey, did you hear that?
- Probably just the hearth cracking…
Someone chuckled, someone called to his horse - and the noise of the camp swallowed the oddity.
Two guards stood watch by the tent, two more patrolled around it. The shift passed as usual - slow steps, brief calls. At the doorway, one paused.
He listened. From inside came nothing - no breath, no rustle.
Silence. Dead silence.
He stepped closer and touched the felt curtain - carefully, as one checks if something still breathes. Inside - nothing. A moment ago, there had been laughter.
Footsteps came from behind - heavy, even, unhurried. The kind of stride that belonged to those long used to command and to war.
Targul-Arystan approached and stopped beside him. A descendant of the Kiyat line, childhood friend of Tukal - a man whose every movement was precise as a saber's cut. He always walked straight ahead, never looking aside, as if the earth itself moved out of his way.
Under his left eye ran an old scar - a white thread, the trace of a blade - and because of it, that eye looked paler, as though the light had burned through skin and pupil alike.
He looked at the curtain, then at the guard.
- What are you looking for? - he asked quietly.
- Silence, - the man replied. - Inside nothing
Targul narrowed his eyes. Behind him stood warriors from different clans. Each of them felt it: something in the air had snapped, like a string. The camp around them still lived - horses, fires, shamans, voices - but all of it now sounded too loud beside that dead silence.
Targul stepped closer. The felt shifted, and a hot, metallic scent of blood seeped through. Someone behind him swallowed audibly - the sound rang like a cracked string.
- Lift it, - he said softly.
The guard raised the edge of the felt. The air rolled out, hot and heavy, like from a torn sack.
Targul stepped forward - and froze. The men behind him crowded closer. The stench of blood struck their faces before their eyes found the bodies. One man took a half-step back, then stopped - shame would burn worse than fear if anyone saw.
Inside it was dark. The hearth still smoldered, its light pulling dead shoulders and frozen faces out of the shadow.
Tukal sat upright among his nökers - the same men he'd drunk with and shared meat with only yesterday. He was motionless, like a shadow someone had forgotten to remove from the world.
He lifted his head.
- Come to remind me where my place is? - he said quietly. - They already did
His voice was even, almost tired. No rage - only cold.
The nökers and warriors exchanged glances. One stepped forward, hand on hilt. Another cursed under his breath. The silence drew tight like a bowstring. In their eyes was the question: what was he now - a brother, or a beast?
Among the dead lay their own kin, the ones they had sworn beside the fire with. The air trembled, thick with the weight before a storm.
Targul took a step closer, his voice breaking into a hoarse rasp.
- What happened here, Tukal?
Tukal didn't look away.
- They meant to mark me, - he said calmly. - So I'd be barred from the circle. They missed. That's their loyalty. That's their brotherhood
He spoke as if explaining an error in an account. And Targul understood: they had missed - but the circle had already closed.
Tukal ran a finger along his blade. A drop slid down - thick and heavy as oil.
- I did what any of you would've done, - he said. - I stood up and cut down those who thought I was already dead
The air inside the yurt was dense, soaked with smoke and iron. Silence hung like a pelt - heavy, sticky.
Tukal knew: killing one's own could be strength - if it served order. The dead of Kara-Buran's line were not betrayal, but purification.
And those behind Targul knew it too. They simply didn't want to admit it.
Two men stepped forward, faces twisted - not with fury, but with pain. Among the dead lay their brothers from the camp, men they had herded horses with, broken bread with, sworn with.
Steel stirred in its sheath. Someone's breath came short, as before a charge.
Targul raised his hand.
- Stop
The gesture - short, commanding - fell like a whip on a horse's muzzle. Everything froze.
- Are you still a man, Tukal, - he asked quietly, - or already a beast?
Tukal lifted his eyes. His gaze was flat, still - an ice-locked lake. He swept it over their faces, slow as a knife across skin. Each man felt the same cold, the same invitation to lie down beside the dead. The five corpses spoke louder than words. He - dry, unhurt, one against five - and alive.
- A man, - he said, the corner of his mouth twitching.
As if it weren't about killing brothers, but about drinking too much kumis. No apology. No defense.
The hearth cracked; someone swallowed. Another stepped back but stumbled against a body and barely bit back a curse. Hands on hilts turned white - the strength went into bone, not into heart. They all understood: to argue was to die.
- The duel is soon. Are you ready? - Targul asked. His voice trembled, a string snapping inside it.
- Ready? - Tukal's laugh was dry, sharp. - Better than ever. Today they'll learn who the khan truly is
Targul paled. Before him stood an abyss - but he nodded. Who else could hold the beast, if not the one who'd known the boy?
Tukal rose. The fabric of his clothes cracked with dried blood. He took his blade and stepped outside.
The warriors parted. Not because they forgave him - but because they knew: to oppose him was death. And fear held stronger than blood.
He left the yurt.
The wind brushed the felt, bringing the smell of smoke and wet earth. To the east, dawn was lifting - slowly, like a hand calling him to the circle. Horses snorted. Drums beat somewhere - dull, like a heart before battle.
Tukal didn't look back. Behind him, Targul-Arystan stood frozen at the doorway, watching him go - each step steady, heavy, certain, as if the rugs and corpses behind were already past.
He stood there for several heartbeats, then ran his hand across his face - as if to wipe away what he'd seen. The curtain quivered as he stepped outside. The wind struck cold, carrying the tang of smoke.
Targul straightened and shouted:
- Yurt under word! Guards - spears down! The gray ones to the threshold! Judgment - after the circle, by the tails!
His voice didn't rise above the general noise, but it hit the nearest men, and they passed it on. The command spread from tent to tent, like dry grass catching fire.
Heads turned. The nearest warriors, not yet knowing the truth, already sensed the storm.
The call of the gray ones meant one thing: the matter had reached its root.
The - gray - were the elder warriors - men who had seen blood before the great storms, called not for shouting, but for memory. When the gray came to the threshold, even the youngest fell silent. For what followed was not dispute, but the judgment of the steppe.
Those who stood with Targul knew: the blood from the yurt would return. The elders would ask whose guilt, whose hand.
If Tukal stood the circle, the trial of strength would only be the beginning. Victory would grant him the right to decide - whose blood was worth a price, whose memory, whose seat by the fire. Then he himself would have to restore balance: pay the houses of the dead, take hostages from his own line, return clean men to their kin, and swear that order stood above revenge.
Only then would the circle name him khan. If he stayed silent - the steppe would honor only fear.
And if he fell - there'd be no need for judgment. The dead are not judged.