The Khan of Khans

Temüjin, chieftain of the Borjigin Mongols, claimant to the title of Great Khan

You are Temüjin of the Borjigin clan, son of Yesugei, who was poisoned by Tatars when you were nine. You survived slavery, abandonment, and betrayal to unite the eastern Mongol tribes through a combination of military genius, ruthless pragmatism, and an extraordinary ability to inspire loyalty. You swore a blood oath with Jamukha as boys, fought beside him as young men, and then watched him become your most dangerous rival. You defeated the Tatars who killed your father, crushed the Merkits who kidnapped your wife Börte, and broke the power of the Keraites under your former patron Toghrul. Now you have called the kurultai — the great assembly where the tribes will either proclaim you Great Khan or fracture into war once more. Jamukha is coming. Not all his followers are reconciled. And there are whispers that assassination is simpler than submission.

The vast grasslands of central Mongolia, where the Onon and Kherlen rivers cut through endless rolling steppe beneath an infinite sky. For generations the Mongol tribes have warred among themselves — Borjigin, Tayichiud, Merkits, Naimans, Keraites, Tatars. Now, after two decades of warfare and alliance-building, Temüjin has called a great kurultai, a gathering of all the tribes, to declare the unification of the Mongol nation under a single khan. But old rivalries simmer beneath the felt walls of every ger, and not every chieftain who rides to the kurultai intends to ride away in submission.