“Avarga.”
Avarga. That barren place bounded by two rivers. He had seen it once. A dull and isolated patch of land where little grew except the stalwart grasses. Nothing moved. Nothing existed to break the land’s utter flatness.
“What will you do there?”
She turned to him and kissed his neck. “Live,” she said simply. “Make a home far from the fields of war. There is pasture there. Much, much pasture. And magic, too, in the water. Strong spirits. I feel that strength when I am there. It is safe. I feel that too. It is meant to be my home, where I can rule the tribe in your absence. Avarga,” she said. “I want to go to Avarga.”
He would not deny her. “You shall have it.”
The above passage taken from my novel entitled “Hooves of Thunder, Hearts of Silk: The Love Story of Borte and Genghis Khan,” and soon to be published by Heart Ally Books, marks a major turning point in the saga of Borte and Temujin’s story. Temujin has returned home from war with the news he has been named as Wang Khan’s sole heir. The significance of this event has profound effects on both his family and world history. But Borte uses this moment as an opportunity to break her own bit of news to her husband.
By this time in the story, the couple had been married for about eighteen years. Although the unification of the steppe tribes that would create the Mongol nation was still far from certain, Temujin’s growing power and influence on steppe politics was undeniable. Borte had recently returned from a visit to her home ordu. It was on this return visit she encountered Avarga and decided to make it her base of tribal operations. As the story would prove, much remained to be done before Temujin’s power was cemented and the people chose him as their leader.
As a historical site, Avarga, also known as Khodoe (Khuduu) Aral, is located at the confluence of the Kherlen and Tsenker Rivers, approximately 150 miles to the southeast of Mongolia’s capital city, Ulaanbaatar. Avarga became the capital and winter base camp for the empire until a few years before Genghis Khan’s death, when a new capital, Karakorum was founded. However, even after this, Avarga was used as a supply station, and Borte and Temujn’s son, Tolui, declared Avarga a sacred shrine to his father.
For more information about Avarga, visit my article on World Anvil, linked below:
Okay, I'm kind of dumb about this stuff. Is Temujin another name of Genghis Kahn? He has like ten different names. I loved the excerpt from the book. I can't wait for it to be published!