Children of Tengri

The morning broke not with light but with a dense fog that clung to the ground like smoke after a battle. The sky above the new camp was a dull grey, veiling the sun. Yet beneath the mist, life stirred early as always. No command was given. No bells were rung. The rhythm of nomadic life had always been older than memory — inherited in breath, not instruction.

Altai rose with a start, as he always did now. The strike two moons past had wired something taut in him that no sleep could undo. He stepped outside the ger barefoot and let the icy earth jolt his body fully awake. Their temporary campsite was quiet, save for the distant snorts of horses and murmurs of men readying for the day's herding.

Somewhere to his right, Jijigee emerged silently from another ger, his thick fur-lined deel barely rustling. The big man nodded once, and Altai returned it. Jijigee never wasted words. He hadn't, even before the strike. But since losing his entire family, silence seemed to coat him like armor.

He had always been called "Jijigee" — "Little One" — a teasing title from a boyhood long gone. At thirty-three, he towered over most men, his shoulders wide like a Shagai Steed, his fists able to break ribs through armor. And yet, around Grandma Odwal, he remained the quiet boy who obediently sat beside the hearth.

Altai's thoughts flickered to the training field. That would be his destination soon, but first, the herds.

The camp was already in motion. Young men — most of them teenagers — were guiding shaggy horses, horned cattle, and long-haired goats from their corrals. The animals, still heavy with sleep, snorted and shuffled through the mist.

Altai joined the herders. It was hard, dirty work. You had to know the animals by gait, by sound, by scent. One stubborn steer broke from the group, but a boy named Khulan chased it down expertly, laughing as he hooked it back with a crooked staff.

Nearby, the women had already gathered by the milking stations. Older women worked in practiced rhythm, filling clay-bonded metal buckets with goat milk. Younger girls carried buckets to the fermentation tent, where horse milk would be turned into arkhi — the white alcohol they sipped in evenings or offered to the spirits.

To milk the female horses, they needed to be induced by their foals. This was where the test of strength came. Boys would race after the spirited young foals — strong, wild things with fire in their limbs. If you couldn't catch a foal, you weren't ready for anything. Altai had passed that test years ago. Now it was his brotherly duty to shout encouragement and jeers at those still trying.

By midday, the thick, fatty scent of boiling milk filled the air. It was summer, and that meant the meat was cut down to the bare minimum. Instead, the people relied on dairy — to cleanse the gut, cool the body, and balance what winter had hardened in them.

But winter would return. It always did. And in the far north, where the icy mountains of the edgeworld watched without blinking, temperatures would drop to -45°C. That's when the fires inside their bodies would need the fire of meat again.

By afternoon, Altai wandered toward the outer gers, where their engineers and artisans had set up the testing area.

He found Enkhbayar standing beside a humming metal structure, his single eye squinting. The device was meant to reinforce the visual illusions projected by their mobile gers — to better mimic terrain irregularities. The engineers had been trying to refine the illusion to resist multispectrum scans, heat sweeps, and ultrasonic pulses.

"We added mirrored fractal layers," Old Baiyal said, stroking his silver-braided hair, "but the Zhongyan scanners pierced it still."

Enkhbayar grunted, adjusting a dial.

Altai could sense their frustration. The strike hadn't been a failure of tradition. It had been a failure of science. Their camouflage had once fooled the eyes of empires. Now it faltered.

Still, the progress wasn't nothing. The latest tests showed that their newer model could delay a scanner lock-on by nearly five seconds — precious moments in a skirmish. The gear worn by scouts now included climate mimickers — compact generators that blurred their heat signatures during night patrols.

"It's not enough," Baiyal sighed. "But it is a path."

"And the empires are machines now," Enkhbayar muttered. "But we are not. We still adapt."

They were right. Nomad technology was not as brute-force advanced as the Empire's. But it was elegant, interwoven with necessity and movement. They built for survival — not domination.

Altai respected them deeply. In the tribe, artisans were second only to elders. Without them, yurts didn't breathe. Herds weren't tagged. Steeds weren't born.

As dusk painted the steppe in shades of ochre and rose, Altai returned to his family ger. Grandma Odwal had already begun preparing the evening meal.

"Don't just stand there," she barked, without turning. "Get the salted mutton from the northern pack."

He obeyed. Saruul was already inside, poking the fire with a stick. Her injury from the strike had healed — mostly. But Altai could see the occasional wince when she moved too fast.

"Smells like you cooked for the spirits," Jijigee said as he entered, ducking his massive frame under the ger flap.

"No," Odwal snapped. "Spirits deserve better food."

Everyone chuckled.

The pot was filled with meat, curd, root vegetables, and white broth — simple but nourishing. They ate in silence for a while, the crackle of the fire loud in its comfort.

Odwal eventually spoke. "Jijigee, you still sleep alone?"

He nodded.

"Then you still eat here," she declared.

He didn't argue.

Saruul leaned back. "The camp feels settled now. But not quiet."

Altai nodded. "Quiet wouldn't feel right."

His gaze lingered on the firelight dancing across the wooden ceiling ribs. Somewhere outside, the wind passed through the grass with its eternal song.

He thought about the artisans and their mirrors. The boys and their milk trials. The way life persisted after being nearly shattered.

He didn't have the blood of ancient kings. No sacred sword sang for him. But he had this: his people, their way, and the quiet resolve to endure.

Tomorrow, he would train again. He would ride with Jijigee. He would sit by the engineers and ask questions he barely understood.

Because someday, he might need to know.