Daughter of Xanadu - Dori Jones Yang [79]
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. 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.
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 bloody 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 mass 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, 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.