In 1162, on a steppe of warring tribes, the khan of the Wolves welcomes a son marked at birth for greatness. Twelve years later, young Temujin risks a deadly climb on the cliffs above the camp to win his father's pride.

Sent to live among his mother's people, Temujin is left to earn his place as an outsider, and to win Borte, the fierce girl promised to him. On the ride home, his father Yesugei accepts a stranger's hospitality and falls into a trap.

Temujin races home with his dying father, but the poison killing him works faster than the horses. As the khan fades, Eeluk, his first warrior, gathers the men around him, and the family's place among the Wolves begins to slip away.

The abandoned family claws at survival, Hoelun breaking her wedding keepsakes into fishhooks to keep them alive. When the domineering Bekter hoards food while the others go hungry, Temüjin makes a cold and final choice. The act keeps them alive and nearly costs him his mother's love, and it revea...

Four years in the wilderness have made the brothers hard, and Temujin begins to think of Borte and of the debt Eeluk still owes him. But word of their survival reaches the Wolves, and the khan sends his cruelest warrior to finish what the winter did not.

Dragged back to his father's camp and thrown into a pit, Temujin is kept alive as a lesson to the Wolves. But an oath sworn to the dead khan still holds one man, and what he offers will cost them both everything if it fails.