Conqueror: Bones Of The Hills
Conn Iggulden's Story of the Life of Genghis Khan Continues!
Sep 28, 2008
The opening chapter of Bones Of The Hills sets the tone perfectly for what follows. An army of ten thousand Mongol warriors led by a charismatic leader who burns with ambitions of power clash with a force of Russian Knights. The Russians outnumber them and the Mongols seem certain to break like waves against their outsized horses and impregnable armour.
But this does not happen. Instead the Mongols use their foes confidence against them. They draw them into a trap and soon, the Russians are falling in their hundreds as arrows fall like torrential rain. The Mongols rush forward and sweep their proud enemies before them, their ferocious leader driving them on every step of their way. This is a very familiar scene and a near repetition of what has occurred in the previous books, but the Mongol leader this time is not Genghis Khan but his son, Jochi.
History, characters and story
Bones Of The Hills picks up several years after the previous installment Lords Of The Bow. The Mongol horde has swept into China, carving out a vast empire in the process. When a new challenge arises in the West, Genghis is quick to meet it. Soon he is leading his people to face a new enemy in the lands that will one day become Iran, Iraq and India.
In lesser hands it is easy to imagine the story of Genghis becoming somewhat dull by this stage. After all, it follows the same pattern that its predecessor did - an over confident enemy underestimates the Mongols and violent slaughter ensues - but Iggulden knows that the strength in historical fiction lies not in repeating dates and facts, but crafting a story along with it.
This might be a book about sieges, conquest and bloodshed but at its heart is a moving tale of Genghis, Jochi and the General Tsubodai. The Great Khan is an outlandish figure but underneath the strutting tyrant it is still possible to detect the angry little boy who watched his own tribe walk out on him and there is a keen sense of tragedy that by leading his people to greatness, he has become all the more distant to his immediate family.
Jochi and Tsubodai meanwhile stand out among a large cast of supporting characters, one being the unloved and unwanted son, the other a surrogate father torn between loyalty and love. It is a rare thing indeed to find a novel about merciless, blood thirsty men that can actually bring a tear to the eye, but Iggulden has done it. That being said, there is one other thing that draws fans of historical fiction back to books like these.
Battles, lots of battles
Here it delivers by the bucket load. Iggulden was clearly on a mission to outdo the incredible brawl with the Chinese army last time around and barely a page goes by without bloodletting of some kind. There is a breathtaking clash with an eighty thousand strong Arab army, a tense battle up a mountain into a hidden fortress of Assassins and then there's the bit where Jochi's mouth runs away with him and he winds up fighting a Tiger.
Conn Iggulden established his reputation with the Emperor series before this but he has developed as a master story teller and Bones Of The Hills is perhaps his best yet. Like all good historical fiction, it breathes life into long-dead people and tells their stories with both humanity and nailbiting tension. If he continues to improve like this then Bernard Cornwell is going to find himself facing some major competition.
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