Chapter 5: We Must Always Be Ready

For two months, we rode north with the embassy of the Eastern Rouran, and the pace was not slow, for the Rouran were as the Xianbei, born to the horse and the bow and the sword, and they wished to return home to their families before the winter fell, and my escort were a thousand picked men of my father’s personal cavalry, born to the sword, the spear, the bow and the horse.

“Your father had this made for you, Princess Yuan,” Captain Wang said, gesturing, and one of my maid-servants struggled to hold up a coat of mail armor. “It is the best that we make, Princess, and now that we are nearing the borderlands, you should wear this at all times, for in this northland, an attack may come at any moment.”

“But these are the lands of Wei, and it is the lands of the Khan of the Rouran we ride into,” I said, surprised. “We travel with an embassy of the Khan, and five hundred of the Khan’s warriors, and our men number one thousand of the finest cavalry of Wei. Surely no-one will attack us.”

Captain Wang laughed, but his laughter was grim. “We are on the edge of the desert, Princess. Here, there is no ruler, neither ourselves or the Khan of the Rouran. Every man is an enemy, and the bow and the sword are the only law. From now on, we must always be ready.”

From that day forward, I wore my coat of chain mail, I wore my sword in its sheathe, my bow in its case attached to my saddle, and my arrows in my quiver at my back. Always.

The chill wind screamed down from the north, wailing and howling across the dunes, and there was a fine mist of sand that penetrated the cloth wound around my face, leaving only my eyes exposed. There was a road of sorts, and the markers were the skeletons of men, and camels, and horses, and we had been two weeks since the last oasis, and the water in the leather goatskins was brackish and foul, the flies and other insects relentless in their torment, and I had not known it would be like this.

The carts bearing the gifts to the Khan, my dowry, and carrying the hundred women who had been sent with me as my maids and servants, they bogged down in the sand again and again, and all must wait as they were dug out, and we had water for twenty days, and already fourteen had passed. The Rouran drank the blood from their horses veins every second day, as did the men of my own escort, and as a Princess of the Xianbei, I could do no less, and I followed their example without flinching, although Captain Wang must needs show me how to nick the vein and suck the blood, and I did not hesitate, and the Rouran watched, and their look was of approval.

“She is a fitting bride for the Khan’s brother,” I overheard one say, and I was discretely learning their language, though they knew it not.

The desert nights grew colder, cold and bitter, and even the furs in the carts and the bodies of my maids to either side did not warm me, and Captain Wang showed me how to heat rocks in the fire, and then lay them in the ground and sleep on a layer of them to keep warm.

“How much further,” I asked, the next morning.

Captain Wang consulted with the captain of the Rouran embassy’s guards. “Ten days to the next oasis,” he said. “And after that there is water every third day, and in two weeks further, we will be out of the desert.” He grinned through parched lips. “I have patrolled the borders of this desert, Princess, but this is further north than I have ever been, and I do not know these lands, but the Captain tells me that his Khan’s rule is strong to the north of this desert, and when we reach the grasslands, we will ride west to find the winter encampment of the Khan, and there we will remain until Spring.”

“How long will it take to reach the Khan of the Western Rouran?” I asked.

“We will ride in Spring, Princess, and the Captain says it will be autumn when we reach their lands, and then we must find the encampment of their Khan, but we will be there for the winter.” He shook his head wearily. “The Captain and I have talked, the road is long and hard, Princess. I do not think many of your women will survive the journey, those that are not Xianbei, the girls of the Han, they certainly will not, for look how many have died already, and this has not been a hard journey, not as the Rouran or we soldiers of your Guard count hard.”

“We will show no weakness,” I said, after a moment’s thought. “We will gift the Han girls to this Khan of the Eastern Rouran, and no doubt he will be pleased.” I smiled. “But it is good to know we are almost out of this desert, for I detest this sand.”

“I too, Princess Yuan,” Captain Wang said. “And we will be safer from attack in the lands under the control of the Khan, for out here, anything could happen at any moment.”

“We have not been attacked yet,” I said. “We have seen no-one.”

“They are out there,” Captain Wang said. “Watching us.”

We were attacked the next day.

They came on us fast and hard, at the first light of dawn, and I had risen in the darkness, dressed, donned my coat of chain mail, as I did every day now, fastened on my helmet, strapped my shield to my arm and I was there with my sword, running through my drills under the cold eyes of Sergeant Wen, when the warning horns sounded, and the camp boiled into life. Over a low ridge they came, kicking their small horses into a gallop, and each man rode with a bow in his hand and an arrow ready, guiding his horse with his knees.

“To the Princess,” Sergeant Wen bellowed, and my duty guards surrounded me, shields raised, and the second rank raised their bows, drew arrows, nocked them to the bow strings, and there was no panic, for my escort were all experienced soldiers who had fought raiders before in the borderlands, many times.

The raiders came in line abreast, high in the saddle, and perhaps they had taken us for merchants, fat with trade goods and light on armed guards, and in this they were sorely mistaken, for even as my own loyal guards formed ranks, running to their places, the Rouran mounted and rode out at the gallop, angling to outflank the raiders, and the arrows of my soldiers began to punch out, knocking raiders from their saddles and they did not rise often, and those that did went down again, quivering as does a pincushion, for my escort guarded a Princess of the blood royal, and they showed no mercy.

The Rouran took them in the flank at full gallop, and there was not a man amongst them, nor amongst my own escort, who could not put an arrow through the eye of a flying bird whilst riding at the gallop, and my soldiers were armored and shielded, whilst these raiders wore only their deels, or tunics made of leather and furs, and it was a massacre. Shaft after shaft impaled them, driving them from their saddles, cutting off their war cries, sending them spinning to the ground, and the Rouran had cut off their escape.

A group of these raiders burst through a gap in our lines. I saw two of my soldiers go down, arrows through their eyes, and Sergeant Wen ordered half my guard forward at the run, sealing the gap, but more raiders had broken through now, in desperation, or perhaps they knew not the fate of those behind them. A dozen saw my maidservants huddled in a group and rode towards them, whooping, cutting down half a dozen soldiers on foot who sought to bar their way with sword and shield.

“Follow me,” I cried, and I ran towards them, my guards behind me, and I hammered my blade into a rider’s thigh as he rode past me, blood splattering my face as that rider screamed and tugged wildly at his reins, catapulting over his horse’s head as it dug it’s forehooves in and slid to a halt, and one of my guards ran him through with his lance as another of those steppe raiders bore down on me, sword already swinging at my head.

There was no time to defend myself, and I dropped flat to the ground. Sergeant Wen was there, stepping over me, cursing, his sword chopping down again and again, a limp and bloody body falling on me, and I was on my feet, seizing the reins of that fallen rider’s horse, mounting, my sword in my hand, and Sergeant Wen was cursing even more furiously as two more raiders rode at us.

“Go right,” Sergeant Wen screamed, and I did, instantly, my blade’s tip finding the neck of one rider as Sergeant Wen cut at the other, almost taking his head off. My guards had run to protect me, not my maidservants, and I could not fault them, for it was their duty to protect me above all else, but there were half a dozen of the raiders left, and they were galloping out of the camp, and as I watched, two were pulled from their horses and knifed on the ground as they writhed, screaming, and I saw two kicking legs clad in white before one rider.

“Mount,” I cried. “Mount. They have one of my women.”

Without thought, for I knew my guards would follow me, I spurred my horse to a gallop, and Sergeant Wen was there with me, at my shoulder, roaring over his shoulder, and behind me a long tail of horsemen trailed, more and more of them, but my horse was strong, and I was light, and I outdistanced them all, and there was a bow in its case, hanging from the saddle together with a quiver of arrows, and now I sheathed my sword, and discarded my shield.

It was a man’s bow, made for a man’s strength, but those raiders were only a little ahead of me, and I took arrow to string, aiming, drawing with all my strength, releasing, and my first shot was a lucky one, for it took a rider in the shoulder, and he reeled, and the others looked around, and now I wove my horse, for they were turning in their saddles and shooting at me as I rode, and I was shooting back, but these shots were not so lucky as my first, and they drew away from me a little.

Sergeant Wen at last caught up with me, and he was beating his captured horse onwards, and other guards too caught up, and out to one flank were riders of the Rouran, and the raiders must have known they could not escape us for they turned and stood, and they used their horses as shields, and my maid was still alive, for I heard her screams as they tore her clothes from her and one flung her down over a horse and began to rape her, even as we rode towards them, and beside me a guard went down, an arrow through his chest.

“Hold, Princess,” Sergeant Wen bellowed. “This is our job, not yours.”

“She is mine,” I screamed back, catapulting myself from my horse into the midst of those raiders, and I took the one facing me with one cut, my sword cutting his in half as he blocked, slicing on down through his skull to the jaw and jerking outwards as I freed my blade from the bone, and Sergeant Wen was there, and the other guards, hacking and slashing and cutting in a mad frenzy, and the raider who had been in the act of raping my maid as we attacked cut her throat a second before I removed his head, and I held her in my arms as she choked on her own blood and died, and I wept, for I had failed in my duty, and it was long before I would release her from my arms.

The Ambassador of the Rouran eyed me as we ride into camp, splattered with blood, sword in my hand, mounted on a captured horse, the body of my maid across the saddle of a captured horse whose reins were held by one of my guards, and he bowed low.

“Indeed, Princess Yuan, you are a bride fit for the Khan of the Western Rouran,” was all he said, before he turned to his men, just as Captain Wang was inspecting my escort, and thirty men dead and as many wounded we lost in that attack, together with one maid-servant, and it would not be the last attack, and it would not be the last men or women we lost, before we entered the lands firmly under the rule of the Khan of the Eastern Rouran.

We rode into the encampment of the Khan of the Eastern Rouran three hundred men and twenty women less than we had left Luoyang with, and the Khan greeted us with pleasure, for the carts carried many gifts such that the Rouran desired from us in return for a year’s peace. His pleasure when I gifted him my forty five remaining Han maid-servants knew no bounds, for I had dressed them in clothes of my own, fit for a Princess, and I had bestowed upon them titles, and in return for this and for the armor and weapons of my dead soldiers, I negotiated a further year’s peace, and of this I sent word back to my father by a letter to be carried by a merchant from Wei who had dared to travel this far north, and who was now returning.