The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 3 – Part 5

Bo’orchu strode forward a few paces and shouted, “I’ll kill you single-handed, and you’ll die content.” Seeing how big and powerful he was, and how his voice boomed, Jebe shouted back, “Who are you?” Bo’orchu said, “I am Bo’orchu.¹ Haven’t you heard of me?” Jebe felt a jolt, and thought, I’ve long heard that Bo’orchu is a great hero among the Mongols. So this is the man. He shot him a sidelong look and snorted.

Temüjin said, “You pride yourself on your archery, and men call you Jebe.² Match yourself against this good friend of mine.” In the Mongol tongue the word jebe means both “spear” and “master archer”. Jebe had once had another name, but his archery was so uncanny that everyone called him Jebe, and his real name was no longer known to anyone.

Jebe heard Temüjin call Bo’orchu his “good friend” and shouted, “You’re the Great Khan’s³ good friend, so I’ll kill you first.” The Mongol soldiers all roared with laughter. Everyone knew that Bo’orchu was a consummate fighter who had never met his match, and that his fame had spread through the whole desert. They had all seen how fine an archer Jebe was, but to talk of killing Bo’orchu was a man not knowing his own limits.

Years before, when Temüjin was young, he had been captured by his enemies the Tayichiud⁴ and had a wooden cangue⁵ put on his neck. The Tayichiud held a feast on the banks of the Onon River,⁶ lashing him with horsewhips as they drank, meaning to humiliate him to their hearts’ content and then kill him. Later, when the feasters were roaring drunk, Temüjin knocked his guard senseless with the end of his cangue and fled into the woods.

The Tayichiud mounted a great house-to-house search. A young man named Tchila’un⁷ braved the danger and, as honour bade him, took him in. He smashed the cangue and burned it, then concealed Temüjin inside a great cart loaded with wool. The pursuers searched Tchila’un’s home high and low. When they reached the cart and pulled out a few handfuls of wool, Temüjin’s feet were all but showing. In this desperate moment Tchila’un’s father had a flash of inspiration and said with a laugh, “In weather this hot, how could anyone hide inside wool? He would die of the heat.” It was the height of summer, and every man was drenched in sweat. The pursuers saw the sense of this and passed the cart by. Temüjin had faced countless dangers in his life, but that had been the narrowest escape of all.

Having escaped with his life, Temüjin was in a desperate plight, and he and his mother and younger brothers lived on the wild rats they could catch.

One day his eight white horses were stolen by another tribe. Temüjin set out alone in pursuit and came upon a young man milking mares. Temüjin asked about the thieves. The young man was Bo’orchu. He said, “The hardships of men are all the same. Let us be friends.” The two rode after the thieves together and pursued them for three days until they caught up with the tribe. Neither of them missed with a single arrow, and they routed several hundred of the enemy and took back the eight horses. Temüjin wanted to share the horses with him and asked how many he would have. Bo’orchu said, “When I help a good friend, I don’t want a single one.” From then on the two of them made their way together, and Temüjin always called him “good friend”, for they truly were friends who had shared hardship.

Temüjin had long known that Bo’orchu was an archer of uncanny skill. He took the bow and arrows from his own waist and handed them to him, then sprang down from his horse. “Ride my horse and use my bow and arrows, and it will be as if I shot him myself.” Bo’orchu said, “I obey!” With the bow in his left hand and the arrows in his right, he leapt on to Temüjin’s white-lipped thoroughbred. Temüjin said to Ögedei,⁸ “Lend Jebe your horse.” Ögedei said, “Lucky for him,” and jumped down, and one of the guards led the horse over to Jebe.

Jebe sprang into the saddle and said to Temüjin, “I’m surrounded by your men. Killing me would be as easy as slaughtering a sheep. Since you let me match my archery against his, I can’t be so ungrateful as to fight him on equal terms. All I want is a bow. I don’t need arrows.”

Bo’orchu said angrily, “You don’t need arrows?” Jebe said, “That’s right. I can kill you with an empty bow!”

The Mongol soldiers jeered loudly again, “This fellow can certainly talk big.” Temüjin ordered a good bow to be brought for him.

Bo’orchu had seen what Jebe could do on the battlefield and knew how formidable an archer he was, and ordinarily he would not have dared to take him lightly. But now the man had a bow and no arrows, and however great his skill, how could he use it? He reckoned Jebe must mean to catch the arrows shot at him and use those. He pressed with his knees, and the white-lipped thoroughbred under him went galloping off with a drumming of hooves. The horse was swift and battle-hardened. On the field of war, the slightest pressure of its rider’s legs was enough to make it advance or retreat as he wished. Temüjin had always been exceedingly fond of it.

Seeing that his opponent’s horse was fast, Jebe reined round and rode the other way. Bo’orchu bent his bow, set an arrow to the string, and with a whizz shot it at Jebe’s neck. Jebe twisted aside and, quick of eye and hand, caught the arrow by its tail. Bo’orchu thought, Good! and loosed another. Jebe heard from its sound how fast and hard it came, too hard to catch by hand, so he ducked down flat on the saddle and the arrow skimmed over his head. He wheeled his horse round and sat up straight again, little knowing that Bo’orchu had the marvellous skill of shooting arrows in a string. Two arrows hissed in after it from either side, fast as the wind and dead on target. Jebe had never imagined his opponent was so formidable. He slid suddenly out of the saddle with his right foot hooked in the stirrup and his body almost touching the ground, and his galloping horse dragged him along like a paper kite skimming the earth. With a twist of his waist, before his body had turned halfway, he had set the arrow he had caught to his bowstring and shot it at Bo’orchu’s belly, and then he swung himself back into the saddle.

Bo’orchu cried, “Good!” He took aim at the oncoming arrow and shot one of his own. The two arrowheads met in mid-air, and with their force still unspent they glanced off sideways and stuck in the sand side by side. Temüjin and all the onlookers cheered.

Bo’orchu drew his bow without loosing, and as Jebe dodged to the right, he suddenly shot to the right. Jebe flicked the arrow aside with the bow in his left hand and it dropped to the ground. Bo’orchu shot three more in a row, and Jebe dodged them all. Then Jebe galloped hard, leaned down to pick the three arrows off the ground, set one to his bow and turned to shoot it back.

Bo’orchu wanted to show what he could do. He sprang up to stand on his horse’s back with his left foot on the saddle, and as the arrow came at him like a shooting star, he kicked it away with his right foot. Then, from his height, he shot a fierce arrow down at Jebe. Jebe swerved his horse aside and shot one back, and with a crack it split the shaft of the oncoming arrow in two.

Bo’orchu thought, I have arrows and he has none, and still it’s even. How am I to avenge the Great Khan? Growing impatient, he shot arrows in a string, whizz, whizz, whizz, one after another without a pause, until the onlookers’ eyes were dazzled. Jebe had no time to catch them and could only dodge this way and that, but they came so thick and fast that suddenly, with a thud, one struck him in the left shoulder. Everyone cheered.

Bo’orchu was overjoyed. He was about to shoot a few more and finish him off when he reached into the quiver and found nothing there. That rapid burst of linked shots had used up every arrow Temüjin had given him. He always went into battle with a great many arrows, two quivers at his waist and six on his horse, eight quivers in all. This time he was using the Great Khan’s own bow and arrows, but in the heat of the fight he had shot from habit and forgotten how few he had. Realising with a start that they were gone, he hastily turned his horse and leaned down to pick arrows up off the ground.

Jebe saw it clearly. Whizz went an arrow, and before the sound had died away it had struck Bo’orchu full in the back. The onlookers cried out, sure that Bo’orchu was a dead man. But strangely, though the arrow struck with tremendous force and a loud thump, and sent a stab of pain through Bo’orchu’s back, it did not go in, and slid off to the ground. Bo’orchu picked it up, and when he looked at it he saw that Jebe had broken off the arrowhead. He had held his hand. Bo’orchu vaulted back into the saddle and cried, “I fight to avenge the Great Khan. I do not accept your mercy!”

Jebe said, “Jebe has never spared an enemy! That arrow just now was a life for a life!”

When Temüjin saw Bo’orchu hit in the back, he felt such a stab of grief that he almost wailed aloud, and when he saw that Bo’orchu was not dead after all, he was beside himself with joy. If he had been asked at that moment to give every one of the tens of thousands of cattle, sheep and horses in his tribe for Bo’orchu’s life, he would not have hesitated. Hearing Jebe’s words, he called out at once, “Good, enough, the contest is over. His life for yours.”

Jebe said, “Not for my life.” Temüjin said, “What?” Jebe pointed at Guo Jing, who was standing in the doorway of the hut. “For his life! I beg the Great Khan not to make trouble for this child. As for me,” he raised his eyebrows, “I shot the Great Khan and I deserve what I get. Bo’orchu, come on!” He pulled the arrow out of his shoulder and set it, dripping with blood, to his bow.

By now Bo’orchu’s men had brought forward six pouches of arrows. Bo’orchu said, “Good, we’ll fight again!” Whizz, whizz, whizz, whizz, came a rapid string of arrows, each so close behind the last that in the air they seemed linked into a chain.

Seeing how fast they came, Jebe hid himself along the stirrup and slipped under his horse’s belly. Taking aim out of the corner of his eye, he shot an arrow at Bo’orchu’s leg. The white-lipped steed saw the arrow coming and swerved left before its master could touch the reins. But Jebe’s arrow flew faster than any ordinary shot, and with a thud it sank into the horse’s head. The horse rolled over on the ground.

Sprawled on the ground, and afraid Jebe would press his attack, Bo’orchu twisted round and shot an arrow that split the stave of Jebe’s stout bow in two. With his weapon gone, Jebe had no way to strike back. He groaned inwardly and could only gallop this way and that to dodge. The Mongol soldiers roared their support for Bo’orchu. Bo’orchu thought, This man is truly a brave man! He felt the regard that one hero has for another and did not wish to take his life. He set an arrow to his bow, aimed at the middle of Jebe’s back, put all his strength into the draw and let fly.

Truly the general’s arrows were uncanny and never missed. The arrow struck Jebe square in the back of the neck. Jebe swayed and fell from his horse, and the arrow dropped beside him. Its head too had been broken off. Bo’orchu set another arrow to his bow and aimed it at Jebe, then turned to Temüjin and said, “Great Khan, I beg you show mercy. Spare him!”

By now Temüjin had long since come to prize Jebe’s extraordinary courage. He called out, “Won’t you surrender now?” Gazing at Temüjin’s commanding, awe-inspiring bearing, Jebe was won over completely. He ran over and fell to his knees. Temüjin laughed heartily. “Good, good. From now on you shall serve me.”

The Mongols like to express their feelings in song. Prostrate on the ground, Jebe sang out loud, “The Great Khan has spared my life. Through boiling water and blazing fire, from now on I will go. I will cut across black waters and smash rocks to dust to serve the Great Khan. I will march against foreign foes and tear out their hearts! Send me wherever you will, and I will go. To charge and break the enemy’s line for the Great Khan, to gallop ten thousand li⁹ without rest, day or night!”

Temüjin was delighted. He took out two pieces of gold and gave one to Bo’orchu and one to Jebe. Jebe gave thanks and said, “Great Khan, may I give this to the child?” Temüjin laughed. “My gold, I give to whom I will. Your gold, you give to whom you will!” Jebe offered the gold to Guo Jing, but Guo Jing still shook his head. “Mama says I must help guests, not take things from them.”

Ever since he had seen the boy stand up to Jochi¹⁰ and refuse to give in, Temüjin had liked his spirit, and these words pleased him still more. “Good boy!” he said approvingly. To Jebe he said, “Bring this child to me later.” Then he led his troops back the way they had come. Several attendant soldiers laid the carcass of the white-lipped thoroughbred across two horses and followed behind.

Footnotes

1. 博尔朮 — Bó’ěrshù. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

2. 哲别 — Zhébié. Literally spear and divine archer, in Mongolian. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

3. 大汗 — dàhán. Literally great khan. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

4. 泰亦赤兀部 — Tàiyìchìwù Bù. The Tayichiud, a Mongol tribe of the steppe. ↩

5. 木枷 — mù jiā. Literally wooden cangue. A heavy wooden board locked about the neck as a punishment, pinning the head and arms. ↩

6. 斡难河 — Wònán Hé. The Onon, a river of the Mongolian steppe. See Wikipedia. ↩

7. 赤老温 — Chìlǎowēn. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

8. 窝阔台 — Wōkuòtái. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩

9. 里 — lǐ. A traditional unit of distance, about 500 metres or one-third of a mile. ↩

10. 朮赤 — Shùchì. See Wuxia Wiki. ↩