Yuan emerged from the portal in the midst of pandemonium. All around him were people moving in one direction and he had little choice but to follow them, swept along by the mass of bodies. From looking up he realised that he was inside the walls of an ancient city. The streets were littered with detritus and animal waste and there was a general stench of uncleanliness that overwhelmed all other smells. A huge crowd was surging through an open gate, pouring into the city like water through a break in a dam. Panic filled the air. Amidst the cries and shouting Yuan made out one word that was on the lips of every man, woman and child. Genghis. His name was spoken fearfully, every syllable sending a skitter of panic through the crowd. They surged forward and Yuan looked for a way to get clear from the ruckus before he was crushed.

He clambered on top of an upturned cart and used his vantage point to survey the scene from up high. A wide street ran from the gatehouse up the middle of the city towards a citadel that sat behind a series of high walls. Up on the gatehouse, a team of guards was trying to turn a winch to shut the gate, but the pressure of the crowd was too great and the gates remained firmly open. The crowd sprawled up the street towards the citadel. Their garb and suntanned features identified them as peasants from the surrounding countryside, fleeing their homes for the safety of the city walls. All the houses along the street were boarded up, but from the second story windows perfumed faces wrapped in fine silk peered down at scene unfolding below. The city dwellers looked aghast at the crowd of peasants, unable to distinguish their fellow countrymen from the Mongol horde.

A bugle sounded from the citadel and the crowd surged forward shouting the praises of the Shah. But it was not a note of salvation. From out of the citadel gates poured forth a troop of cavalry, their helmets brilliantly plumed with red feathers, their sabres drawn and thirsty for blood. The crowd hesitated. The front ranks paused their forwards momentum, but word travelled slowly through the writhing mass of bodies and the back ranks still pushed forward. The crowd contracted and bulged, building up pressure. Men were lifted wholesale off their feet. Children were crushed. Women feinted through a lack of air.

The bugle sounded again. A short, sharp, ominous note. The cavalry changed pace from a trot to a canter, speeding down the wide street. The city dwellers cheered from their windows. The front ranks of the crowd tried to turn and flee but there was nowhere for them to go. Within seconds the street turned into a charnel house. Sabres snickered beneath the sun. Blood flowed like wine. The dying shrieked. A lucky few scattered up side streets, finding safety in the nooks and crannies where the rats made their nests. Slowly but surely the crowd was pushed back, inch by bloody inch. Eventually the space around the gatehouse was clear. The guards were able to shut the gates. As they closed, they acted like giant brooms, sweeping away the corpses in their path. They cracked shut, snapping in half the bones caught between their teeth.

The bugle sounded once more and the cavalry retreated back to the citadel, leaving behind the wounded and the dead. No one came to clear the street. As the shock faded, Yuan realised that he was the only person left on the street still standing upright. The carnage had passed him by and somehow he had survived unscathed. But what now? He was still wearing the same clothes that he had worn to the museum. His polo shirt and shorts seemed strange and otherworldly compared to the smocks worn by the dead peasants and the silks worn by the gawping city dwellers. Standing on top of the upturned cart he must have struck anyone who noticed him as out of place.

He felt the press of cold steel against the back of his neck. Very slowly Yuan turned around. A group of guards had crowded around his cart. One of them had a spear pointed at him. They motioned for him to step down and once on the ground they bound his hands and led him up the street towards the citadel. As they passed a side street, Yuan saw a flurry of motion in the shadows. He thought he saw the barrel of a gun briefly point in his direction only to be withdrawn. He caught a glimpse of a face with Chinese features. The AIU must have followed him through the portal and hidden during the slaughter. But he didn't care about them or their mad plan, all he wanted to do was find Yue and take him home. A possibility that was looking less and less likely with each passing minute.

The citadels walls loomed up in front of him, dotted with burning braziers and spikes. If an afternoon spent in the museum had taught him one thing, it was that he didn't want to be anywhere near the citadel when the Mongols arrived. Instead of using the main gate, he was taken through a smaller door at the base of one of the towers, a hidden entrance screened from view by a sty and a few scrubby bushes. Once inside the tower, Yuan was prodded down the stairs. They spiralled downwards for a dozen or so steps and emerged into a barely lit dungeon. Rats scurried about in the darkness. The damp smell of death clung to the moisture slick walls. Chains hung from the ceiling and there was a rack of grizzly looking instruments that looked recently used.

The guards bound him to a chain dangling from the centre of the room, then they left him. After their footsteps had retreated up the stairs the only sound was the squeaking of vermin. There was movement in the darkness. A figure materialised beneath the candlelight. His eyes were bloodshot and his beard tatty and unkempt. He started to speak at Yuan in a low rambling manner. He paused, then another voice drifted from out of the darkness. Its annunciation slow and clear.

"So, you are the man they sent to kill me."