The lamp on the table had burned almost down to the base.
Batu noticed it as he finished another supply tally. He'd been working since the second watch and hadn't bothered lighting a replacement. The weak gray light pushing through the felt walls was enough now. Dawn was coming.
Khulgen arrived before the horse lines began their first morning allocation.
He entered without ceremony, sat across from Batu without waiting to be invited, and placed a folded piece of felt on the table.
"Suuqai," Batu said.
"He can ride before midday."
The answer came too quickly to be improvised. Khulgen had decided before entering the tent. That usually meant he'd already tested it for weaknesses.
"The Mersek detail moves to Chaidu's rotation," Khulgen said. "Three of Suuqai's own men keep the perimeter count."
"He takes two northeast," Batu said. "His choice which two. No Jochid markings."
Khulgen nodded once.
"The trading kit is the problem. If the merchant is running grain circuits, a rider arriving with nothing to sell will stand out before he reaches the gate."
"Suuqai will handle it."
Batu set the tally aside.
The grain merchant had moved silver through the Kerait post before the attempt on Batu's tent. More important, he'd known how to hide the transfer inside an ordinary camp delivery.
That kind of caution came from experience. A man didn't learn it on a single route.
Which left two likely answers. Either the merchant had stayed at the post after the failed attempt, judging that movement would draw more attention than stillness, or he'd already vanished and left men behind who knew his contacts and methods.
Both possibilities had value. The second would take longer to untangle.
"The Sartat rider," Batu said.
Khulgen had already thought through that as well.
"He's crossed several western camps already. The false account is dead."
Batu sat quietly for a moment.
The correction had traveled in the Sartat's own voice through the same camps that had first heard the lie. Every headman receiving it would weigh the correction against the original story and judge how Batu's camp handled agreements when challenged.
But the important part was simpler.
The correction had spread without a single Jochid rider carrying it.
That meant the story could move on its own now.
"Good," Batu said. "Anything else?"
"Nothing urgent."
Khulgen rose and left.
Batu folded the supply tally, added it to the records stack, then went to find Torghul.
The eastern flat was beginning to catch the early light when he reached it.
Two grooms moved along the outer fence from south to north, distributing morning fodder with the steady rhythm of men repeating a task they'd performed too many times to think about anymore.
The training elements hadn't assembled yet. That gave Batu a clearer view of the ground.
Torghul stood at the northern edge of the flat in the place he preferred when observing instead of directing.
He heard Batu approach but didn't turn.
"Chaidu's element," Batu said.
"The new riders are learning the screen protocols."
Torghul kept his attention on the distance. Batu couldn't tell whether he was watching one of the grooms or studying the light stretched across the dirt.
"Another week," Torghul said, "and they're functioning properly."
Batu stopped beside him.
"Sarat," he said. "The crest line. You held past the signal."
Torghul didn't move.
"The read was correct," Batu continued. "Their front rank was in range, but the full mass hadn't committed yet. If you'd broken at the signal, the slope would've stalled the charge before it crossed the ridge."
He paused, running through the sequence again.
"The plan required them over the top. The signal came early because the estimate assumed full commitment at that distance. Their advance slowed before the final push."
"I wasn't certain you'd see it that way," Torghul said.
"I saw it afterward."
That distinction mattered. Batu kept it in mind.
He looked over the empty flat where the training elements would soon form ranks.
"The protocol had a flaw," he said at last. "The flaw came from the design, not the execution."
Torghul said nothing.
"When the situation requires breaking protocol, break it. Then explain it to me afterward."
Torghul gave a single nod. His eyes returned to the field.
"About Kirsa's riders," he said. "A hundred and sixty men who've operated independently across that territory won't fit cleanly into Penk's structure. The screen protocols assume a kind of formation discipline they don't use."
"Their value isn't formation discipline."
"Then Penk's system needs another layer built around the patterns they already follow. Separate or integrated, that's the review."
Batu agreed immediately.
Kirsa's riders mattered because of what they knew, not how they formed ranks. Their knowledge of the upper crossing territory couldn't be replaced through doctrine or drills.
Protocols existed to support function. If the function required something outside the protocol, then the protocol changed.
"Review it before week's end," Batu said. "Penk should be part of it."
Torghul's expression suggested he'd already reached the same conclusion.
Batu left him there and headed back toward the command quarter.
Orel waited at the outer entrance.
A young rider stood behind him with the rigid stillness of someone who had been waiting too long without complaint. He looked composed, but Batu could see the effort underneath it.
"Yellow banner," Orel said. "He arrived during the second watch change."
Batu accepted the felt message and read through it carefully.
The headman acknowledged the losses at Sarat.
He offered the standard tribute alongside a levy of fifty horses. The wording presented the number as negotiable, but the quality of the rider's mounts suggested otherwise.
The headman had sent a messenger instead of appearing personally. Men did that when they wanted distance from the final agreement.
Batu read the offer once more, weighing what stood behind it.
The fifty horses were not an opening position.
They were the limit.
"The tribute is accepted," Batu said to Orel.
"The levy becomes sixty horses selected by us. He carries the terms back today."
The young rider absorbed the change without visible reaction.
Good discipline. He'd expected worse terms than the ones he'd received.
Beside him, Orel had already begun writing the response.
Batu found Suuqai at the eastern perimeter fence watching a guard change complete its final rotation.
Suuqai didn't turn immediately. He waited until the exchange finished cleanly before facing Batu.
"Mersek," Batu said.
"He walks the fence in the mornings," Suuqai replied. "Eats with the supply men. Sleeps before evening watch."
Suuqai glanced briefly back toward the perimeter, checking something in the last stage of the rotation, then returned his attention.
"He's stopped asking questions."
That narrowed the possibilities.
A confined man who stopped asking questions had either finished his calculations or found another way to continue them quietly.
For Mersek, either answer justified continued confinement.
Batu let the matter rest.
"You're riding northeast," he said. "Kerait trading post."
Suuqai waited.
"There's a grain merchant moving between the post and the western camps. Before the attempt on my tent, he transferred silver through a supply rider there."
Batu watched for a reaction and found none.
"I need to know whether he's still at the post. Name, routes, trade patterns. Find out what he's actually moving. Bring back whatever the market gives you."
Suuqai said nothing. With him, silence meant attention.
"If the merchant notices the question coming," Batu said.
"I won't let him."
"If he's already gone?"
Batu considered that for a moment.
"Then find who remembers him. And when they last saw him."
"Two men?" Suuqai asked.
"Your choice."
Suuqai was already turning toward the horse lines before the conversation had fully ended.
Batu stood at the northeastern gate when Suuqai and his two riders finally departed.
They moved at the steady pace of men with a clear objective and no need to announce it. Batu watched them ride across the steppe until distance flattened them into the pale grass and the grass swallowed them entirely.
Behind him, the camp continued its midday rhythm.
Cook fires burned near the central ground. Somewhere along the horse lines a handler shouted a count.
The ordinary sound of several thousand men moving through a normal day.
Kirsa would arrive in two days. Suuqai was already riding northeast.
Once both lines returned, Batu would finally have enough information to judge the true size of Guyuk's operation on the western steppe.
Until then, the channel was still operating blind.
He turned and walked back toward the command quarter.