After all, their old one was dead, and so were his sons. And as Temujin had said, "All dogs want a strong master." He wanted to move on the homelands of the Kereit immediately but it was not yet time. As of this moment, most of his warriors were Kereits. He needed to bind them to him, and there was nothing like a small war to do that. Give them some bloodletting and some plunder and they would soon fall into line, even if it meant fighting members of their own clans and tribes. Indeed he had a respectable-sized force at his command now. Men who were fit for the ride numbered nearly four thousand of his own and a few hundred less than six thousand of the Kereit – nearly ten thousand warriors. Many empires had begun with much less. To all he cried out, "Rest this day. Bind your wounds, for on the morrow we ride--" He was about to say "...to the lands of the Chin." But a signal from Casca stopped him. He therefore said only, "We go for glory and plunder.
