Kim sat outside his tent, listening as a singer performed in a language he didn’t understand. Still, the song stirred him. A man did not need to understand the words to know what was being said. Music, like violence, crossed all languages. These were the oldest and most complete ways of communicating that people possessed.
Kim was waiting for the boy. He credited the youth named Hans for devising a means to pass their messages back and forth, and also felt gratitude and admiration for the courageous youths who came to him every few days to inquire of his progress, to pass on information, and to take his own messages back.
He always knew a messenger; the same phrase was used, and Hans sent only boys who spoke the Mongol tongue. Hans was a most discerning and clever lad, wiser than Kim had initially given him credit for.
He raised a cup of water to his lips and drank, taking a mental tally of those they’d managed to bring into the fold since the last time he’d sent a message. When he lowered it, a dark-haired youth stood before him. He smiled nervously.
“Do you enjoy the shade?” the boy asked.
Kim smiled. “Even on gray days it is a relief, like the branches of a tree.”
The youth took a breath and asked, “Have you found any flowers today?” The boy’s grasp of Mongol speech was not exceptional but would not arouse suspicion.
Kim reached for a small wrapped bundle of cloth beside him and unwrapped it, revealing four blossoms. He put them in the boy’s hand. “Four, this time. Next time, there will be more.” He hoped.
The boy smiled. “I will take them back, thank you.” He turned to go, and Kim moved his attention back to the empty cloth in his hand. There had been no breeze, which reflected his own sense of stagnation, even as events began to move forward.
But then he felt the first stirrings in the air. Looking to the grass beyond the edge of his tent, he saw that the blades were bending back and forth as the first cool breath of wind whispered through the camp. Above came a distant groan and then a roar of thunder.
The storm was finally coming. As he rose and turned to enter his tent, the first drops of rain began to fall.
31
Freedom Lost
SHE WAS FREE.
She clenched the horse’s mane tightly, her fingers aching from the strain of holding on. She had no memory of getting on the horse: one moment she had been crouched among the panicked horses tied to the picket line, her breath fluttering in her throat; then she had been flying, her feet lightly skipping off the ground as she let the horse drag her away from Gansukh.
Part of her wept at leaving him behind, but she had had no choice. If she was going to escape from the Khagan’s camp, this was her only chance. She couldn’t be afraid of the ambushers—they couldn’t be worse than the Mongols. They might even be her own countrymen, and while Lian didn’t hold any illusions that men bold enough to attack the Khagan’s caravan would be any less cruel than the Khagan himself, she was still heartened by the fact that there were still people who fought back against Mongol tyranny.
She bent over her horse’s back, trying to make as small a target as possible. The white blur of tents rushed by as the horse ran. She didn’t try to guide the animal; she let it find its own way, urging it on by beating her heels against its ribs. Run, she pleaded, run as fast as you can.
“Lian!”
She glanced back and spotted another horse and rider pursuing her. Her hair whipped around her face, and she risked letting go to rake her hair out of her eyes. Gansukh. Why couldn’t he let her go?
Or was he coming with her?
Her horse veered to the right, and she grabbed on with both hands, tightening her legs around the horse. She lashed out with her heels, driving the horse faster. Don’t be a fool, she thought. He’s trying to stop you.
Distantly, she heard a rumble of thunder, and she glanced up at the sky. Behind her, the smoke from the burning tents was making the stars blink like fireflies, but up ahead, the sky was filled with a constant sea of stars. Where was the storm? she wondered, looking for some patch of darkness that would indicate clouds. Rain would slow her down, but it would obscure her trail.
On her right, she heard men shouting, and her heart quickened at the voices. They were speaking Chinese! Her horse blew air noisily from its nose and veered away from the voices, panicked enough that it wanted to shy away from any living creature.
Gansukh shouted her name again, and when she looked, he was closer. His horse was bigger and stronger—he was gaining on her.
Her horse stumbled, grunting deep in its chest. Lian tensed her body, clinging tightly to its mane. When the horse stumbled a second time, her heart skipped a beat. It twisted its head to the side, and she saw foam and blood on its mouth, and then it collapsed. For a brief second, she had time to stare at the thin shaft of the arrow jutting from the horse’s neck—if it had been a little higher, it would have struck her instead—and then she was flying again. The sensation was not the same, though, as she clawed and flailed at the air in an effort to grab onto anything.
She hit the ground shoulder first, and she cried out as her momentum flipped her over the point of impact and slammed her hard on her back. She slid and tumbled, and every rock on the ground hit her like a fist—in the small of her back, on the arms and legs, on the cheek. She tried to curl up into a ball—the same way she had when the Mongol soldiers had first beaten her when they had taken her captive—but her arms and legs wouldn’t work.
Her horse screamed nearby, having broken a leg as it had fallen, and the sound was made worse by the bubbling wetness of its pierced throat.