Daughter of Xanadu Part 16

He smiled uncertainly. But I held my ground.

That night, each company of one hundred met with its commander to receive its orders. Todogen told us that the battle would commence at first light the next morning. Although we were far outnumbered, our skills in battle were unsurpa.s.sed, and our archers the best. Even our horses were skilled in war, st.u.r.dy and brave.

We had never faced thousands of elephants, but we were not to let them intimidate us. Elephants, Todogen told us, were poor fighters and served merely to inspire fear. When we saw them advancing, we were to hold our ground and begin the battle with no dismay. The elephants' thick skin was not impervious to metal-tipped arrows. Our arrows flew farther, so we should be able to take down many of the creatures before we were within range of the Burmese archers.

We were to advance straight at the enemy. Each of us had to kill five Burmese soldiers, plus another five for every one of our comrades killed in battle.

Todogen stood tall and shouted his final command: "Remember the words of the Great Ancestor, Chinggis Khan, 'In daylight watch with the vigilance of an old wolf, at night with the eyes of a raven, and in battle fall upon the enemy like a falcon.'"

As he spoke, I could feel thrills of antic.i.p.ation up and down my back.

That night, after dinner, Marco found me sitting by a fire. "Emmajin Beki. I wish I could convince you not to go into battle tomorrow."

I laughed. "If I sat on the side, that would make a sorry legend."

Marco was serious. "I don't care about the legend. Many will die."

I nodded. "I know. Too much blood. I could be killed. But I will not." Certain that I would be protected by the valor of my ancestors, I didn't think of how many of them had been killed in battle.

Marco pulled out a blue silk scarf and handed it to me. "In Christendom, soldiers take these to battle, given by their loved ones."

I laughed. "The ladies give them to the men, though, right?" He did not smile. As I took the scarf, a strange, unsettling premonition swept over me. Would Marco find the scarf on my corpse? I quickly tamped down that thought. "This will bring me luck?"

"Yes."

"Then I will take it into battle." I wished I had brought the Tara amulet my father had given to me. I wished I had reconciled with him before leaving home.

"Emmajin. I..." I could tell that Marco wanted to embrace me, but there were too many soldiers around. We could not show any emotion.

I took his hand in mine and held it longer than I should have, wishing I could experience one more bacio bacio. "No need for words. I will see you tomorrow night."

28 The Battle of Vochan

That night, I could not sleep. I did not think it would be my last night on earth, but I knew it might. Would death be painful? I thought of my mother, my sister, my father, the Great Khan. It was possible I would never see any of them again. Mostly, though, I thought of Marco, of all the possibilities I had secretly dreamed of with him. Why had I hesitated?

Beside me, Suren lay awake, too, tossing. At one point, I reached out and put my hand on his arm. "Suren." He turned toward me. "It will be a good outcome."

He nodded.

We arose well before daybreak and donned our armor. I wrapped Marco's blue scarf around my neck but tucked it out of sight. We were each given a chunk of mutton and told to fortify ourselves, but my stomach was unsettled. A light breeze was blowing across the plain, and small high clouds glowed red in the morning sky. The rising sun etched the hilltops so clearly the rest of life seemed blurred.

We mounted and stood in formation, twelve thousand hors.e.m.e.n of the great Mongol army, in our brown leather armor. Baatar was skittish, so I patted his neck, trying to calm his nerves and mine. He had carried me from Khanbalik to the jungles of Carajan and now to the battlefield at Vochan.

We recruits were four rows back, since Nesruddin wanted his best archers and most experienced warriors in the front line. I wished I could have been in front, but it was, after all, my first battle. The strategy was to attack with a constant barrage of arrows, one unit replacing another as our arrows ran out.

My squad, under Suren's command, was near the woods at the right side of the plain. Across from us, a row of armed elephants, several hundred abreast, stretched from one side of the plain to the woods on the other. I could see, even from a distance, that the Burmese soldiers wore uniforms of red.

Seated straight in my familiar saddle with its silver ornaments, on the golden palomino stallion I had ridden almost every day for four years now, I kept my mouth in a firm line. Our orders were to keep still. But my mind raced. My life had been too short, too inconsequential to end on this day. If I survived, I decided, I should make my life count, do something that mattered.

The Mongol way was to begin each battle in total silence, allowing the enemy to advance first. I watched as the front line of Burmese troops moved forward, advancing toward us. At first, it seemed just a line of red; then I could hear the grinding of horses' hooves.

When the enemy was close enough to hear, our war drums broke the silence. That was the signal. All of us Mongol soldiers, as if with one voice, let out war cries meant to terrify the enemy. Shouting amidst such a host made me feel invincible.

Our front line surged forward, then the next rows, and finally mine, advancing with order and discipline. Baatar seemed eager to join the battle. So much dust was kicked up around me, I could no longer see the far end of the plain, but I could feel in my bones the roar of hooves advancing toward us.

Those first moments shimmered with pure exhilaration. We advanced across the plain in a long row of horses, just far enough behind the row in front to allow visibility. Wind whipped my cheeks, and the slanting rays of the rising sun put the horses and men around me in relief. I could smell horses and wet earth and fear and bloodl.u.s.t. I grinned at Suren, galloping next to me. He waved at me with a huge smile. Now, Suren Now, Suren, I thought, do you wish we had fled the battlefield like cowards? do you wish we had fled the battlefield like cowards?

Finally, I could see the elephants advancing straight at us. Decked in red, they bellowed like trumpets. It seemed as if a mountain had detached from the earth and was rolling in our direction, an avalanche of red boulders.

Suddenly, something went wrong. When our forces were near to the enemy and nothing remained but to begin the fight, the horses in front of us skidded to a halt. We had only seconds to slow our horses before we smashed into the row in front. Those behind plowed into us.

We riders floated astride a teaming ma.s.s of horseflesh. The horses screamed in dismay, trying to turn to the side to escape. They did not fall, as there was no room. Baatar's great head was wrenched to the side. I saw terror in his wide brown eye and could feel the lurch of pain in his body as a horse lunged into his backside. I looked desperately for a way to steer him free, but horses and riders engulfed us.

The horses in the Mongol front line had taken such fright at the sight of the elephants that they had swerved and turned back.

All was disarray. No amount of experience in warfare could prevent our horses from retreating. Our horses were caught, unable to go either forward or back. The elephants were lumbering straight at us, with only a short distance to cover before they would trample our fine Mongol steeds. Red-uniformed archers rode in the fortresses on the elephants' backs, and when they came into range, they began to shoot.

I took up my bow and shot at one of the elephant-back towers. But the archers were half hidden behind wooden walls, while we were exposed, below them. Baatar was surging beneath me, trying to get out from the ma.s.s of horses, in any direction. The elephant towers were advancing, bobbing atop the huge creatures.

It was nothing like mounted archery, in which I galloped at a steady pace past a stationary target. All my well-honed skills seemed for naught.

Arrows whizzed past my ears and over my head. One shaft came so close to my left side that I automatically swerved to the right. I heard a horrific crack and turned to see a white-feathered arrow deep in the throat of the soldier next to me. It was my commander, Todogen of the big ears. Blood spurted from the wound and he fell sideways. But the horses were too close together for him to hit the ground.

Suren, on my right side, saw it, too, and there was terror in his eyes. My chest was so tight, and the dust so thick, I could scarcely breathe. Todogen's sudden death, a few feet from me, sent a shock through my system. One arrow could do it. My armor covered only my chest and abdomen.

I pulled another shaft from my quiver and shot straight at the archers in an elephant-back fortress. Now I must kill five more enemy soldiers.

Suddenly, twenty Mongol hors.e.m.e.n rushed around the teeming ma.s.s of horses to the front line, riding bravely toward the elephants. I could see only one close-up, and he held what looked like a thick lance with a flame at the tip. He ran directly at one of the elephants and tossed the burning lance in front of its feet. Then he swerved to the side and kept going. My breath caught in my throat when I saw him hit by an arrow.

A thunderous explosion in front of the elephant rocked me. The elephant stopped so suddenly that several archers were thrown off its back. Its eye widened in fright. The creature hesitated, then turned and ran toward the woods.

Beyond it, I heard another huge explosion, then another. The hors.e.m.e.n had hurled burning bamboo stalks in front of elephants. I remembered the fire rats we had seen in the village. The same explosions were happening across the front lines. The blasts scared men, horses, and elephants, Mongol and Burmese alike.

But most of all, the noise terrified the elephants, who a moment earlier had seemed invincible. Their trumpeting noises switched to high-pitched shrieks, horrible, ear-piercing sounds. Panicking, they turned and ran in many directions. Most ran off the battlefield and into the protection of the forest. No driver could control them.

Baatar surged against his reins and struggled to get away from the terrible noise. Our Mongol troops scattered, and I headed for the woods. There, several Mongol soldiers had jumped off their mounts and were tying their horses to the trees.

"Tie up your horses!" Suren shouted. "Aim at the elephants' flanks!"

The order made no sense. Leave my horse and go on foot in the midst of battle, when the enemy troops were advancing on elephants? We would surely be trampled. But I obeyed. All Mongol soldiers seemed to have the same orders, since they were streaming to the side, toward the woods. Our horses were too panicked to be of use.

Shooting from the edge of the woods, we sent scores of arrows high up into the flanks of the elephants rushing past us. It was easier to aim on foot than on a frightened, bucking horse. My confidence returned with each shaft I shot. Several hit the mark.

We plied our bows stoutly, shooting so many shafts at the panicking elephants that the closer ones had arrows sticking out their sides like needles on a pine branch. Burmese soldiers were falling off the elephants like red autumn leaves.

"Aim at their vulnerable parts," Suren shouted.

My next arrow hit true, on a bull elephant's hanging parts. The creature fell to one knee and the tower on his back tipped, throwing off several archers. With its tower tilting crazily, the beast regained its footing with a loud bellow.

Then the creature turned and headed for the woods, stomping on soldiers in its path. It headed straight toward me. Out of arrows, I had just enough time to slip behind a tree, but it trampled over several of my comrades as it plunged madly into the forest. I feared for Baatar, tied up a few trees behind me, unable to run.

Other elephants followed, clomping with a tremendous uproar. I grabbed the trunk of the tree and held on tightly. The ground beneath me was shaking, and the noise so deafening that I could not let go.

The elephants rushed blindly wherever they could, dashing their wooden fortresses against the trees, bursting their harnesses, and smashing everything that was on them. The Burmese soldiers inside fell screaming to the ground. I pulled out my sword and slashed one that fell near me. The blood spurted up and covered my leg and I could see the look of horror in his face. I felt a rush of disgust I had not felt when killing with arrows.

These soldiers were small brown-skinned men, shorter and slighter than Mongols. Some looked like Little Li, who, fortunately, was far from this mayhem, back in his village. On the ground, one on one, the Burmese were not frightening. In fact, they looked like our friends in the village of dragon hunters.

29 The Battle Rages

When the explosions stopped, the battlefield was in confusion, with elephants retreating or rushing into the woods. Many Mongol soldiers were still on horseback, clearly no longer certain what to do.

"To horse!" someone shouted in Mongolian. Suren repeated it from somewhere behind me. I found Baatar alive but panicked. Relieved, I put my hand on his flank to calm him, then mounted. Those of us who had not lost our steeds emerged from the woods on horseback.

I could see, across the field, that the Burmese cavalry was regrouping to my right. The remaining Mongol hors.e.m.e.n were regrouping to my left. The elephants were no longer a fighting force. It was time for the more traditional battle to begin.

We regained our formation and charged the enemy. Those with arrows left took the front line. They mowed down the first rows of Burmese hors.e.m.e.n with far-reaching Mongolian arrows. I was several rows back, feeling vulnerable with an empty quiver.

As we drew closer, Burmese shafts whizzed past my ears. One hit me full in the breast, but I pulled it out, thanking the weaver who had made the special silk. Had the arrow landed a few inches higher, at my neck, I would have died. Tossing that arrow aside gave me a feeling of invincibility, and watching the Mongol soldiers around me aroused what bravery I had left. Retreat was not possible, anyway.

Our front line of horses. .h.i.t their front line. For a short time, I managed to stay on horseback, although many men were knocked off and fell to fighting on foot. In the confusion, I didn't even know which way to look for the enemy.

I felt a hard thud on my right arm and realized that a mounted Burmese soldier had hit me broadside with his sword. With my left hand, I reached for my mace and swung with all my strength. The spiked ball whacked the enemy on the face and knocked him off his horse. My right arm stung, bruised, but I could still use it.

Suren maneuvered his horse close to mine and wildly swung his mace at the enemy. One Burmese soldier charged at Suren, holding his sword straight ahead. I raised my sword and struck his down so that it only grazed Suren's horse. Suren shot me a grateful, frightened glance and tried to move his horse to shield me.

In that moment of distraction, another enemy came at me with his sword and knocked me clean off my horse. Baatar bolted toward the woods, and I was left to fight on my feet, sword in right hand, mace in left, a small dagger still at my waist. Many soldiers lay wounded on the ground, and the horses trampled them.

Even as I continued to fight, I saw arms and hands and legs and heads that had been hewn off or blown off by explosions. One enemy came straight at me with his sword. I used mine to hack off his right arm. It took great strength. Bright red blood gushed from the wound like a waterfall.

I had no time to wipe my sword before turning to another enemy, clearly enraged by what I had done to his comrade. I hit him on the neck and he fell. The din from the swords and horses and shouts was so loud that, as Marco would have put it, G.o.d might have thundered and no man would have heard it.

Suddenly, I noticed that I was surrounded, not by enemy troops, but by Suren and three men from our squad of ten. How they had found me I knew not. They all had their backs toward me and were fighting furiously with sword and mace. For a moment, I stood still, too far from any enemies to reach them. Suren, whose soft side I knew so well, was wielding his sword with skill and fury.

I saw it coming before Suren did. An enemy soldier, still mounted, charged him from the left, aiming straight at his neck.

"Suren! Look out!" I cried.

Suren quickly turned his head, just in time to see the sword coming, but he could not raise his sword quickly enough to parry. The tip of the heavy broad sword penetrated his throat.

I screamed.

I charged at that Burmese soldier with full force and fury, landing a blow from my mace on his leg so that he flew off his horse. The horse kept going, and Suren's attacker lay floundering on the ground. I raised my sword and hit him hard on the side of his head, stunning him. Then I pointed my sword straight down at him and thrust it into that same vulnerable spot in his throat. A gush of blood spurted up. I took my mace and smashed him in the face for good measure. The hatred pounded in my ears and killing him felt good. It was battlefield justice. One less foreigner to fight! One less foreigner to fight! I thought. I thought.

I turned to Suren. It was too late. He was lying on his back, eyes open to the sky, blood gushing from his neck. My treasured cousin, who had taken so seriously his task of keeping me alive and safe, was dead.

Blood rage overtook me. Fueled with fury, I became a mindless killer. I swung my mace and sword at all men in red, knocking them off their horses, slicing off arms, hacking at necks, smashing faces, slaying mercilessly. I hated them all. They had invaded our country, attacked our great army, and killed my cousin.

I felt satisfaction, elation each time I killed. The red of their blood was brighter than the red of their uniforms. I wanted the whole plain to be covered in their blood. The coppery smell of it lifted me, and my arms amazed me with strength I didn't know I possessed. I swung and slashed, mowing down all who moved. I felt stronger, taller, better than I had ever felt in my life.

I had no sense of time and lost track of how many enemy soldiers I killed. They say we continued fighting until midday. Finally, the Burmese king's troops turned and fled. We gave chase. I ran after them, still swinging my mace, hitting them from behind.

For Suren! I said to myself each time I hit one. I said to myself each time I hit one. For Suren! For Suren! It was as if each Burmese soldier was responsible for killing my beloved cousin. Killing five enemy soldiers for each of ours seemed like it was not enough. I wanted to kill them all. It was as if each Burmese soldier was responsible for killing my beloved cousin. Killing five enemy soldiers for each of ours seemed like it was not enough. I wanted to kill them all.

Finally, a Mongol soldier grabbed me to prevent me from pursuing any further. "Stop!" he said. "We have won."

I turned, my heart still full of hatred, and swung my mace, nearly hitting him. Suddenly, I realized that he and I had run much farther than any of the other Mongol troops, who had stopped fighting. The Burmese soldiers were retreating in disarray.

The battle was over. We were victorious. Flush with triumph, I thrust my b.l.o.o.d.y sword into the air. The soldier smiled. When I sheathed my sword, I noticed that my hand was trembling. We headed back toward our troops. Now I had to find Suren.

The scene revolted me. Soldiers in black and red scattered across the battlefield, wounded or dead, many trampled by horses or elephants. Squashed faces, flattened bodies. Legs and arms and heads blown off from corpses. Dead or thrashing horses. Elephants lying on their sides in huge pools of blood, squealing. Moans and screams from piteously wounded men. The smells of blood and horses and filthy bodies and excrement. The sharp, acrid taste of despair.

I saw the head of a Mongol soldier I had met during our five-day journey from Carajan, his eyes staring at the sky. Eerie screams came from a quivering ma.s.s of wrinkled elephant. I looked for Baatar and saw a horse the same golden color lying on his side, his guts spilling out. But it was not Baatar.

The stench of death caused bile to rise in my throat. I vomited, heaving again and again. I wiped my mouth, covered my nose, and plunged into the writhing bodies. I had no idea where Suren might be but kept searching.

"Regroup at the tents!" someone commanded. I did not obey this order.

I wandered far longer than I should have, looking into the faces of the dead and wounded Mongol soldiers, who were broken and bleeding. The vomiting made me light-headed and I stumbled. I saw one man pull an arrow out of his ear and grab his head in pain. I glimpsed a young Mongol soldier, still alive, holding his hands over a bleeding gash in his abdomen. Each of these soldiers had a family who loved him, somewhere.

Again I vomited, though there was nothing left in my stomach.

I pushed on, still searching. One Burmese soldier tried to grab my foot. When I pulled it away, I looked into his eyes and saw a haunting, pleading look. His leg had been nearly hacked off. He was begging for help using words I didn't understand. Perhaps I had cut off his leg. I could not tolerate his anguish. I tore my eyes away and stumbled on.

"Emmajin Beki. Come," someone said. But I refused. Where was Suren?

Finally, I found his body, with its deep throat wound. His spirit had already fled. He was lying in a pool of blood. A drop of that blood was mine, given freely to my anda anda, my blood brother.

I had to get his body out of there. I tried to pick him up, but he was too heavy. So I dragged him. My hands were so weak I kept losing my grip.

A Mongol soldier confronted me. "Leave him. We cannot help them all."

"This is the Khan's eldest grandson, son of the crown prince Chimkin," I said.

He looked at me in surprise, hearing my woman's voice. Then he picked up the body and heaved it onto his broad shoulders. "Come," he said. "Are you injured?"

Now that I was not swinging my sword, I could feel the deep soreness in my upper arm, and my whole body trembled. "No," I said. But I was spent. I followed him back to camp, trudging through the mayhem.

On our way, we pa.s.sed a company of Mongol soldiers heading toward the woods. They told us they had been ordered to capture as many of the elephants as possible. The Khan would be pleased.

One side of the camp had been set up to treat the injured. We headed for the other side, where the survivors were meeting and regrouping, exchanging news of who was lost and who had fought valiantly. The mood was jubilant.