When she stopped tumbling, Lian lay in a heap. She didn’t know if she had broken any bones in the fall, but it didn’t matter. She had failed. Even if she could stand, she was too bruised to run. Her right hand pawed at her face, a motion she couldn’t understand the genesis of, and there was a strange keening noise coming from her throat.
Hooves thundered past her head, and she felt the impact of a heavy weight against the ground nearby. “Lian!” Gansukh tried to put his arms around her, and her right hand—still wriggling like an agitated snake—vainly pushed him away. “It’s me.” He tried to pin her arm, and finding some unknown reserve of strength, she fought him all the harder.
Somehow she extricated herself from his embrace, even though she didn’t think she had the strength to stand. She could crawl, though, and on bloodied knees, she tottered away from him. Her hair was twisted and matted against her face, and she spat out a mouthful.
She meant to scream at him, but her voice died in her throat.
A line of strange soldiers stood in front of her. They wore haphazard armor, some more complete than others, and the scattered markings on their shoulders and chests were Chinese. Several of the soldiers carried spears, and having spotted both Gansukh and Lian, they lowered their spears.
Gansukh had grabbed her ankle, and he hissed at her as she struggled, but she ignored him. Chinese! A new opportunity had presented itself to her, a sudden and unexpected path to freedom.
“I am a prisoner,” she said in Chinese. She raised her hands, showing them her scraped and bloody palms. “Please don’t kill me.”
“What are you saying?” Gansukh hissed in her ear.
She jerked her leg free of his grip and crawled closer to the line of soldiers. Several of the Chinese soldiers lowered their spears slightly, but their general apprehension did not lessen.
“Please,” she whined, making eye contact with the nearest man. “I am captive of the Khagan. I beg you to free me.”
Two of the soldiers exchanged glances, chattering to one another too quickly for her to follow. The one on the left wanted to continue their mission; the one on the right was considering her request. Prisoners were always useful, he argued.
“Is this man your master?” asked the curious one. His helmet had a plume of dark feathers, and there was a precision to his words that spoke of formal education.
She nodded, letting a small sob escape from her throat.
The soldiers surged forward, their spears focusing now on Gansukh, who muttered an oath under his breath. Lian glanced over her shoulder and tried to catch Gansukh’s eye, but he was too focused on the spears to notice her effort.
A hand grabbed her arm, jerking her forward, and she gasped as the Chinese leader dragged her forward. Gansukh edged forward and then stopped, eyeing the threatening spears. She knew that look in his eye, the same sort of frantic stare a cornered animal has, one that knows what comes next but is powerless to stop it.
“Wait!”
The Chinese man wound a hand in her hair and jerked her back. She struggled in his grip, winding herself toward him, while trying to keep the soldiers from thrusting their spears into Gansukh. “He’s...he’s a special advisor to the Khagan,” she cried to the man holding her hair. “He has value.”
The first Chinese man, the one concerned about his mission, grunted and spat. “He doesn’t look like much.” He nodded his head toward the camp. “We don’t have time.”
“No, wait,” Lian said, frantically thinking how to convince these Chinese men without revealing too much. “They don’t look like much,” she said hurriedly, adopting a more haughty tone. “These steppe warriors are all barely one bath away from being animals, but this one is...special.”
“We don’t have time for hostages,” the first man repeated.
The man who held her hair wound his hand another revolution, pulling her closely to him. “Go,” he said to his companion. “A hostage could be useful...” He scratched his chin thoughtfully for a moment and then barked a command at his men: “Tie him up.”
“They want to take you—” Lian started to explain to Gansukh in Mongolian, but the Chinese man jerked her head back, and she cried out in pain.
Gansukh surged forward. The Chinese spears came up, and Gansukh stopped just short of the points. One of the soldiers jabbered at him to back away, lightly flicking his spear point at Gansukh’s chest to make his command clear. Glowering at the man who held Lian’s hair, Gansukh took a step back. His hand remained on the hilt of his sword.
“What were you saying to him?” Lian’s captor demanded.
“I was trying to tell him to not fight,” she insisted, trying to lessen the tension on her hair. “He is a proud man. He will not just lay down his sword because you ask him to.”
Another boom of thunder rolled across the camp, and Lian realized the sound was too slight to be real thunder. It was the concussive sound of Chinese explosives, and she swallowed the lump of fear that had risen in her throat. Fire arrows and explosives, she wondered. What sort of attack is this?
The first man made a cutting motion with his hand. “We did not come for hostages,” he said, and he called to the spearmen. Half of the circle surrounding Gansukh pulled back their spears and made to follow their squad commander. “Kill them both” was his final assessment. His men falling in behind him, he ran toward the tents of the Mongol camp.
Lian’s captor hesitated as Gansukh shrewdly eyed the soldiers still holding their spears on him. He remained still, but Lian could read the subtle change in his breathing. He thought they were going to kill him, and he was readying himself.
“Tell him to lie down,” Lian’s captor hissed in her ear. “Tell him to do it quickly, or my men will kill him.” She heard the sound of a knife being drawn from a sheath, and then the cold touch of blade eased against her throat. “And then I’ll kill you.”
She nodded, trying not to pull away from the man or the knife. “Lie down,” she said to Gansukh in Mongolian. “They want to take you prisoner.”
“Why?” he growled. His face was like a mask—only his eyes moved, tracking back and forth between the soldiers threatening him.