Chapter 13: The Blindness of the Mountain
The world slowed down. The sounds of the
battlefield—the clashing steel, the dying horses, the screams of the Mongol warriors faded into a dull hum. For Ulfat, there was only one sound: the ragged, wet breathing of Uktai Khan.
As the Khan lay in the dirt, the arrow jutting from his chest, his yellow eyes locked onto Ulfat. In that moment, the mask of the Loyal Scholar slipped
. The cold, polite exterior melted away, revealing the 13-year-old slave who had spent every night for years staring at the Khan's tent with a heart full of poison.
The Khan saw it. He recognized that look. It was the same fury he had seen years ago in the eyes of a starving boy in chains.
"Tell me... my occupied slave," the Khan wheezed, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "What is the difference between then and now? You kill my family ,now it is your turn?"
Ulfat didn't blink. He stood like a pillar of ice.
Behind them, the nightmare reached its peak. The "Small Conflict" had turned into a slaughterhouse. The Samurai, hidden in the treeline like forest demons,
rained down black-feathered arrows. One by one, the elite Mongol Keshiks the men who had burned villages and conquered cities
were pinned to the earth like insects.
Uktai Khan realized it all in a flash of terrifying clarity. He saw the betrayal. He saw the hand that had planted the seeds of the Ottoman plot. He saw the boy who had killed Oba.
He saw the monster who had piled up the firewood for this massive execution.
The Khan, the Mountain of the East, tried to crawl backward. His fingers dug into the mud, his royal robes tearing on the jagged stones. But as he moved, the air hissed again.
THWIP.
A Samurai arrow slammed into the Khan's foot, pinning him to the dirt. He shrieked, a sound that was less like a King and more like a dying animal.
"Why?" the Khan gasped, his face pale with shock. "Was it the torture? Was it because I slaughtered your parents in front of you? Is that why you burned my world?"
Ulfat stepped forward.
His shadow fell over the Khan, eclipsing the sun. He leaned down, his voice a low, vibrating hum that made the very air feel heavy.
"No," Ulfat whispered. "Because... I am Fear."
An awkward, heavy silence followed. The wind stopped blowing. For a second, the universe seemed to hold its breath.
Ulfat reached into his pocket. "I won't kill you yet, Khan.
You are a library of secrets. You will tell us everything you are hiding about the Silk Road, about the Ottoman gold, and about the Samurai treaties. You cannot run. You cannot hide.
You are a prisoner in your own kingdom."
The Khan looked at the arrows pointed at him from every direction. He looked at his dying army. He knew there was no escape. But as the despair took over, something snapped in his mind. The Khan began to laugh a high, shrill, crazy sound that echoed off the rocks.
"You want information, Ulfat? Let me remind you of a story instead," the Khan sneered, his eyes dancing with a sick light. "Let's talk about the day your parents died. Your father... a pathetic man.
He loved his psychological books, didn't he? He thought words could stop a sword. And your mother, she was nothing. She couldn't even lace up your father's boots before we dragged her into the street."
Ulfat's jaw tightened. He tried to stay logical. He tried to keep his IQ in control. He stepped forward to begin the torture, to force the Khan into silence.
But as he moved, a blue silk scarf fell from his pocket his mother's scarf. Along with it, a small, jagged stone tumbled into the mud. It was the same stone the Khan had knocked out of Ulfat's hand years ago when the boy had tried to kill him as a slave.
Suddenly, a voice echoed in Ulfat's mind. It was his father's voice, calm and steady: "The Mongols are a mountain, Ulfat.
But even mountains crumble. They can't break us as long as we keep our faith. We are safe."
Then, the images came.
He saw his mother's face, blurred by memory but filled with love. He saw the stolen faces of his friends. And then, he saw the blood. He experienced the exact moment the Mongol blades had ended his world. The smell of the smoke, the sound of the steel, the coldness of the dirt.
Ulfat stopped. His hand began to shake.
For years, his mind had been a machine of logic and strategy. But for the first time since the chains were put on him, his soul conquered his brain.
The Scholar died in that moment. Only the Monster remained.
He didn't reach for his sword. He didn't reach for a dagger.
He reached down and grabbed the jagged stone.
"My father was wrong," Ulfat whispered, his eyes flickering with a dark, unnatural light.
"Faith doesn't keep us safe. Darkness does."
He stepped forward. The Khan's laughter turned into a gurgle of terror. Ulfat didn't aim for the heart.
He didn't aim for the throat. He looked at those yellow eyes the eyes that had watched his parents die and he raised the stone.
The scream that followed was the loudest thing in the valley.
When Ulfat stood up, the stone was red, and the Khan's yellow eyes were gone. The Mountain was finally,blind.