My favorite historical figure isn't what you might call "Admirable," but it's the best bit of history you'll ever read... Tamerlane, the Mongol general who built an empire larger than Genghis Khan all by himself. Absolutely brutal to his enemies, beloved by his men, genius in his tactics, effective in strategy. He never lost a battle, and died enroute to China where he meant to re-establish the Golden Khanate (having subjugated and/or slaughtered civilizations in his wake). He was buried with the words "Who ever opens my tomb, shall unleash an invader more terrible than I." A Soviet archaeologist exhumed him in 1941, on the exact same day that Adolf Hitler commenced his invasion into Russia. 

I wrote a kickass story about his victory at Delhi, but can't find it just now :/

edit: found it

[hider=tamerlane]Northern India, 1398

I saw him only once, before the battle. My family had just been claimed by Mirzha Raheem, and we were yet in the grips of terror. The prince would snarl, and shake his scimitar, and we cowered with every dark word. His tongue was foreign and I did not know the words that fell from it, but when he set his eyes upon my mother, I knew that meaning well enough. There my courage found me, and it should have been a most wretched end, had he not arrived.
The Mirzha was the last to see him approach. All around us, men put up their swords. My shepherd’s crook fell to the ground – I would not doom my family by raising a weapon against Timur himself. When I bowed, the Mirzha turned, and shouted in protest. I knew from his anger that we were safe. The general had no time for us, no time for the futile struggle I had made. He pointed to me and spoke a word, and let the rest of my family go. Then he was gone. He had been brusque, but kind, and I understood at once that this was not a mercy. I would earn my family’s lives.

I was taken by a man who spoke Tamil, who acknowledged my fortunes and spoke to me plainly. “God is with you, camel herder,” he said. “The Mirzha is cruel.”

“And Timur?” I asked. He threw up a hand, as if to say, ‘Who knows?’ We had heard storied of Timur the Lame for months, but none agreed on his mood or his appearance – all I knew for certain was that he was the mightiest warrior in all the world. “What must I do?” I asked the Tamil.

“You will be with us for a while,” he said, “And then you may return. Your camels, tch!” he raised his hand again in the same manner. I understood. “Dead men never come home. You must be brave now and do as you’re told. Only this will save you.”

Such was my service to the great Timur. I was told when and how to worship his god, and so I did. I was told when to wake, and where to walk, and I was not too proud to obey. I suppose I was a slave, but there were no chains, no whips. There were many like me, and while I would not call any ‘friend,’ we were comrades for a short time. Some, who had been in service long, seemed to love their master. ‘Timur is the sword of God,’ said one. Said another, ‘Never mind his god, Timur is the greatest man I have seen.’ Others bore him nothing but hatred. Once we crossed a pillar of white smoke, and a boy fell to his knees in tears. He screamed that it was his home that was burning. We had no comfort for him; the next morning, when we broke camp, the boy’s head was on a pike. They said he was trying to escape; I think he was trying to die.

Much happened in those weeks, and most of it supremely boring. I will not trouble to tell you how many tents I raised, nor how much dung I cleaned. Only know that we never stopped. The soldiers, the animals, the princes, all these must be rested. But I required no rest. Before the sun rose, we broke down any tent that was empty. While the army roused and ate, we took their barracks and beds. We marched ahead of them, and stopped when we were told to set up camp again. There was no time for the soldiers to abuse us. In fact we barely saw them. Once I pulled down the canvas on a tent to find a soldier naked inside, fast asleep, his cheeks in the air. We were too afraid to wake him, so we ran away, leaving butt and bits exposed for all to see. This was my experience with war.

After so many days we woke and were given rice instead of orders. I did not understand at first. The others tried to explain the strategy of it, as though they knew any better than I. After all our guesses were exhausted, we could only agree that we would wait here a while, and a battle was coming soon. I was afraid that Timur would make us fight, but they only laughed. “Timur has men,” said one, “he has no need for shepherd boys.” The waiting was simpler work for us, but without moving, the camp became uneasy. Once I saw the Mirzha and his men beating some servants with sticks. I hid my face and scurried off, certain that he had seen me, and that I would be next. It was foolish. “One Tamil looks just like another,” said one. “He will not remember you.”

We did our best to stay out of the soldiers’ way. The simple fact was that there remained very little for us to do. We ran out of stories after two days, and after that we were mostly silent, morose. When work finally came we counted ourselves lucky for it – anything to break up the monotony. Our task, it seemed, was as pointless as the waiting – but it didn't matter, so long as we kept busy. Each morning, we walked to an empty field, an hour from camp, with a handful of armed men. We ate, and then we dug. We were told to dig long, deep, wide trenches. “How deep shall I dig, sir?” I asked one of the soldiers. “As deep as you can,” was his reply. “How wide shall I dig, sir?” He shrugged and sauntered off. I still had questions. We worked at it for three days without understanding the purpose. We were well into the fourth day when it finally happened.

I was digging my mystery trench when a stranger fell in beside me. He pulled me down, not roughly, but not gentle either, and held a finger over his mouth. I cannot tell you what I was thinking at that moment – my mind was blank. The stranger would peek out to the south, and duck back in with me, wordless. I didn't know what to say, so I said nothing, and simply observed his strange behavior. He seemed to be counting. Whenever I tried to move he would pull me back down. Of course I understand now that he was simply trying to hide me from the enemy’s scouts, but at the time I couldn't make sense of anything. He put a hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Wait here, don’t move.” Then he was gone.

I did as I was told, of course. I didn't move a muscle. I could feel insects on my skin, but I didn't swat them. The sun was hot and the shade was cool, and since only half of my body was in the shade, I was most uncomfortable – but I didn't move, for what felt like hours. Finally, hearing noises above, I dared to look up and down the trench. I was alone. There were dozens of us earlier, but everyone – my comrades, our escorts, even the flies had disappeared. My first thought was that I had done something wrong. I was told to do many things, but never was I told to be alone. I must have made a mistake. My second though came soon after – that the Mirzha would punish me for my error, whatever that error was. I didn't have time to think again. There was a sound from outside like a horn, and for reasons I can’t explain, I peered over the lip of my trench to see what was happening.

It was no horn. Arrayed to the south, across the field, was an army of incomprehensible size. Timur’s camp seemed a paltry dozen by contrast. At the front stood mighty elephants, covered in armor, their tusks wrapped in spikes. I feel stupid now, of course, knowing that two hundred war elephants snuck up on me as I sunned myself, but truthfully, I had heard nothing, and had no idea what stood waiting for me outside of my hole. Timur’s arrival was not so quiet. His men came up shouting, drumming, banging weapons. I heard many familiar sounds – the hooves of camels, the footsteps of the whole host, sounds I had heard every night when they made camp. Never had I heard them by myself. I felt at that time smaller than you can imagine – a tiny grain, caught between two giants. I prayed to every god I knew, and hid myself at the bottom of my hole.

I did not look up again until the clamor reached a fever pitch. The armies had spent some time positioning themselves, I suppose, or they were simply waiting for one or the other to make the first move. When it happened there was such a shout from all around that I could feel my courage crawling back into me. If I stood on my toes I could just see over the lip of the trench, and thus I observed the greatest spectacle that any man has ever seen. The elephants came first, trembling the earth, a great grey wave of iron and poison and flesh.

“Fire!” cried a terrible voice. “Fire, fire!!” When I turned my head, I saw Timur a second time, dressed for battle, astride a fierce dark camel. The dread figure whirled his great sword overhead, and bellowed with such authority that all around him began to echo the cry, “Fire!!” Then, when all were shouting, he leaped down from his creature’s back. Not for nothing is he called Timur the Lame; his leg gave him trouble, but he took no help. All his cavalry climbed down at once. Timur himself was the first to carry out his own order. With a bodyguard’s torch, he set his saddle aflame, and struck his camel with the sharp edge of his sword. It cried out in pain, and hurdled forwards, leaping the trench with an alien agility that only herders like myself could understand. All around him, Timur’s men did the same, setting fire to their camels and jabbing at them with spears and rods and swords, prodding them towards the enemy, shrieking with fatal pain.

Imagine, if you can, the sight of it! A thousand shrieking, burning creatures, bolting towards an unstoppable wall of death! All around me, man and beast were shouting at the top of their lungs, a terrible cry of war! And then, all at once, the cry turned to exultation. The elephants fled! So fearful was the sight, that the great gray beasts threw their riders and turned, rather than face it. The fury of their charge was thrown back completely. Wild with fear, the beasts began to trample their own army. I knew, the men knew, everybody knew at that moment, the battle was already won. His closest men already congratulated Timur. The army chanted his name as they surged forwards, crossing the trench that I and my comrades had dug for them. The few who noticed me saw a frightened and utterly confused Indian boy, and moved on without pausing. Only when I had watched them all go did I finally feel the fear leave me – that I had faced death again, armed this time with a shovel, and for a second time, Timur had saved me.

When the infantry was passed, I climbed out to the north and made my way back towards camp. I did not want to be nearby when the captives were counted, for my dark savior certainly would not rescue me thrice. The camp, when I found it, was mostly empty, and I decided to keep going. No one tried to stop me. If they had, I don’t know what I would have told them. I simply walked away, free, without a thought, without a word.

It was easy to find my way north, and much simpler to walk by myself without having to carry an army on my shoulders – and strange as it may sound, that is how I felt at that moment. That I had been more a conqueror than a slave, that the victory was mine, if not in whole then certainly in part. The feeling did not last. I slept alone beneath the stars, and woke in the night, shaking and crying. The rest of my journey was sad and quiet, and I didn't know why. Perhaps I still don’t know why.

I came home only a little more than a month after I was swept away to war – few are so lucky as that. To my father, I apologized that I could not bring back a camel, which made him smile. To my mother and my sisters I said only ‘Hello.’ As much as I had felt alone in their absence, they had been incomplete without me, and, reunited, we all fell to pieces. I suppose we were happy after that, but we all felt a lingering sadness as well, perhaps myself most of all. I have lived a good life. Violence never found me again, but I will always carry with me the things I have seen. In my heart, I know that I would never have lived those few weeks, but for the cruel mercies of the man they now call Tamerlane.




[i]Timur the Lame, also called Tamerlane, the self-styled Sword of Islam, was an inexorable conqueror. His men were ferociously loyal, and his enemies shook with fear. At the end of the 14th century, he sacked the Indian capital of Delhi. There is no estimation of the dead. After his victory in the field over the sultans, Timur plundered the city, and it fell into bloody chaos. Decades would pass before they had finally recovered from the slaughter. This is but one of the countless conquests of the Timurid Empire. Tamerlane met his end in snow and ice while marching on Ming China. His tomb is said to read, “When I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble.”[/i][/hider]