Daughter of Xanadu - Dori Jones Yang [83]
It was raining, and I could not help thinking about that wooden coffin rotting in the wet soil, far from home. It seemed wrong to leave his body there. I wore the dragon’s tooth on its thong under my del, next to my heart. It felt heavy and burned my skin.
When we returned to camp, we had to walk between two fires, to drive evil spirits away and prevent further misfortunes. The fires sizzled in the rain, and men worked hard to keep them going.
The other dead soldiers were too numerous to be buried. And we could not follow our nomadic Mongol custom of “casting out” the bodies in remote, dry areas for the wild dogs and vultures. Their bodies had to be burned, to allow their spirits to rise directly to Heaven. A group of men took pains to lay out the bodies of the Khan’s soldiers in close, neat rows, heads pointing north, in preparation for cremation when the rain stopped. It was much quicker to kill hundreds of men than to care for their corpses.
I was glad not to be assigned the hideous task of collecting and burning the bodies. Instead, I was directed to help care for the wounded. I knew nothing of such work, but others had been doing it throughout the night and taught me how. I dipped cloths in water and cleaned superficial wounds. I wiped cool cloths over the faces of the feverish. I tightened tourniquets around arms and legs to minimize blood loss. Some of the soldiers had burns or limbs missing from the explosions of the fire medicine. Overnight, half the wounded had died, and more died during the day. We could do little to save them. Their moans and screams lacerated my heart.
During the day, I saw Marco several times, in the tents of the wounded. He brought out the precious medicines he had bought in the market of Carajan and explained how to use them. He had traded almost all the goods his father had retained for those medicines, and now he was offering them to help save our soldiers.
Seeing Marco doing such important work calmed me. But there was no opportunity for us to be alone. Part of me was glad of that, because I did not trust myself.
My feelings had shifted. Losing Suren and nearly losing Marco had made me rethink what was important to me. Before I had met Marco, all that had mattered was my ambition to join the Khan’s army and to achieve glory in battle. Now I had achieved those goals, but they were empty vessels. Glory on the battlefield had come with a price too high to bear. Without Suren at my side, even the grandest of victory parades would mean nothing.
“Water!” A Mongol soldier waved his bandaged stump to get my attention. I dipped a bowl into a bucket of water and brought it to him.
With the clarity of a lightning strike, I realized that I could never fight in a battle again. After all my bravado in front of the Great Khan, I would have to go back before him and ask to be released from the army. The thought made me shiver.
If I did not continue as a soldier, what would I do? Who would I be?
My heart in turmoil and confusion, I sank into despair.
* * *
A few days later, we left Vochan and began the five-day ride through the mountains back to Nesruddin’s palace in Da-li. Of the twelve thousand Mongol army soldiers who had set out, eight thousand had survived. Of the thirty young recruits who had left Khanbalik in Tenth Moon with Abaji, just sixteen remained. Todogen was dead, and only one of the three sergeants was left. The empty spaces between us hung heavily.
During the journey to Da-li, the soldiers kept talking of the battle, each telling what he had seen. They mourned lost friends but were jubilant about the victory. The farther we traveled from Vochan, the more epic the proportions the tale took on. The number of enemies killed increased daily, but the horror and bloodshed disappeared behind such words as “the battle raged furiously with sword and mace” and “right fiercely did the two hosts rush together, and deadly were the blows exchanged.”
The tales began to sound more like the familiar words of Old Master and less like the battle I had