The tribes muttered among themselves while they waited to hear why they had been brought so far from their own lands. Each dawn found one or two bodies of those who had tried to settle an old score or grudge. In the evenings, there were many fights between the young men, despite the prohibition. Insults imaginary and real were exchanged as all felt the pressure of living too close to warriors they did not know. None there had seen such a host before, and it was easy to feel hemmed in by the numbers. Though Genghis guaranteed the peace, tension and suspicion grew each day. Each dawn saw them driven away to the river and good grazing before returning to the gers. Beyond those, herds of ponies, goats, sheep, and yaks stripped the ground of grass in their constant hunger. Ger tents speckled the landscape as far as the eye could see, and around them thousands of cooking fires lit the ground. In the summer dusk, the encampment of the Mongols stretched for miles in every direction, the great gathering still dwarfed by the plain in the shadow of the black mountain.
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