159 Exhaustion

 The ropes held. The first of the Hammers went over, sinking to their necks. Water swirled around them as the undertow got hold of their legs and tried to pull them under. The prisoners watched in horror as the soldiers fought to stay upright, clutching the ropes, holding each other up.  They watched as one of the men slipped, disappearing under the water, was swallowed by the currents. His comrades grabbed after him but couldn't keep themselves safe and reach him as he was tossed and pulled further downstream.

"I can swim!' he yelled back, "I'll do my best to find the bank. Keep going! If I make it, I'll find you." That was the last thing he said before he was pulled further and further downstream. He was last seen turning onto his front, starting to swim with all his might towards the banks.

"Keep going men we have to secure the lines and these are flimsy at best!"

The men, adrenalin pumping through their whole beings, pulled themselves to the other shore. They collapsed on the bank, chests heaving, pulling in fresh air as fast as they could. One coughed and spluttered as he brought up water from his chest. Each looked at each other, glad to be alive, not mentioning their friend who had probably lost the fight.

 Once recovered, they set about securing the ropes to the trees on the bank. "Sir," they shouted back, "I'm not sure we'll get the carts across, that undertow is really strong, even for the fittest of the horses and after their journey so far, they'll not make it."

Decisions had to be made. Hard decisions. The soldiers looked at the prisoners. The prisoners looked at the river.  Panic rose amongst them as they realised they would have to fight for their lives.

"No, no, no, please, I'd rather die here." One man who had originally been nothing but trouble was now pleading with the Hammers. "I don't want to go back. Let me stay here. Let me go back to Zhang Province. Let me go home." 

"We're taking you home!"

"No, no, I can't swim. You can't make me. Please." With that he collapsed onto his knees, kow-towing to the officer in front of him. Others followed, until nearly half the prisoners were prostrate in front of their captors. 

The Hammers looked at one another. "What do we do? We have to cross and this side of the Chen border it's closest to the Mu border. "

The men on the other side of the river suddenly stopped what they were doing, turned to face away, and , giving the sign to be silent, they dropped down, watching. 

Someone or something was approaching.

The prisoners whimpered. 

"Quiet!" one of the Hammers growled.

It was then they saw it. Clouds of dust flying behind something which was approaching at speed. The sound of rhythmical pounding grew louder; a horse approached and it was in a hurry.

A man swung down off its back, the horse barely coming to a halt. Steam rose into the air from them both; they had been riding hard for some time. He had dropped down so as to hide himself from the water's edge. The Hammers quietly stalked him.

Grabbing him by the throat, the man was brought upright in an instant. "Who are you? What business do you have here?" 

The knife at his throat pressed harder, causing a small rivulet of blood to trickle, hot and wet, down his neck. "Sir, Sir, please, I beg you. I bring a missive from the General. He has asked you not to proceed towards Tanguin, its a live battlefield. It is not safe for the prisoners to cross this area."

In a trembling hand, he held out a document pouch which he was attempting to thrust into the soldiers hand.

Throwing the man to one side, The Hammer took the pouch and read its contents. It was clear they didn't know Second Master was no longer with them as it was addressed, personally to him.

He showed the pouch to the governing officer who was still on the other side of the river. He gestured to open it.

It read;

Commander Chen 

I am delighted to report we have handed over the dead, dying and injured prisoners outside one of the forts on the Mu border. I am uncertain if they came and claimed their men, but that is not my concern. 

My intelligence informed me you have brought the bulk of the prisoners across the river north of Shuān Hé, and anticipate crossing the river once more at the border between Shipao Province and Chen Province. Be advised, Tanguin is hostile with more Mu troops arriving from their easterly fortress. 

If this information arrives after you have made that final crossing, be advised to make camp and proceed no further. I have sent the physicians and the apothicaries who have accompanied us up until now, to seek refuge with you. They will be arriving in a small convoy of wagons probably tomorrow or the next day. Please keep them safe.

We will be engaging with this incursion at Tanguin. We have sent runners towards Chenxi in the hopes we will be able to persuade some of the men who have come down from northern Shipao to join us in this fight.

General Lui Xian.

 

The Hammer read the message out loud, shouting, so it could be heard on the other bank. The waters stole his voice many times, having to repeat and repeat until the Hammers on the far side understood. The prisoners, too, heard the information and none looked happy. Turning, the Hammers looked at the prisoners. 

At the moment, they were contained and docile. They still had the wagons, the food rations, what was left of them, the weopens, the small stoves they had so carefully protected up until this moment and a degree of security. If they crossed, that might not be the case.

"What do we do?" one of the Hammers remarked.

Then something odd happened. 

There was a murmuring amongst the prisoners, a quiet discussion which had obviously been going on for a while. One of the prisoners shuffled forward, still on his knees, both hands held in front of him, showing complete subservience.

"Sirs, can we speak freely?"

The Officer in charge spun round, looking straight ahead, then down for the source of the voice. "Go ahead."

"Sir, we have been in your company for several months. You have treated us fairly, shared your rations, treated our wounds. When we stepped out of line, you punished us in accordance with your policies. We noted, those policies apply to your men too." He stopped and lowered his head. " I know I was difficult in the beginning and was duely punished. Now I want to thank you for that punishment because it made me and many of the men here realise, punishment does not result in continued cruelty. Once dealt, it is finished, the page is turned. We carry on. We are not used to this. We have only known tyranny. We fought out of fear we did not fight for honour." He paused and looked around. There were many men nodding. "We do not want to go back, Sir. We would rather work alongside you and take our chances. I know we are Mu but we did not sign up for this, it was conscription at the end of a pike. If we did not sign out families would be eliminated." Mumblings of agreement went round the nearest of the men who could hear. "So Sir, we would rather be seen as dead than be made to return and face what awaits us. We have been your prisoners. They will not take kindly to us. It is more likely we die at their hands, as traitors in front of our families. Better we are treated as war dead and forgotten. If we go back, once we are seen as traitors, our families will be slaughtered as our blood soaks into the ground."

He stopped and kow-towing once more, other prisoners followed suit. The Hammers looked at one another in shock. "Now what?"

It seemed liked months, but on reality it was more like ten days. We had followed the trail of bent leaves, as it meandered along the mountain's edge, seeing places where she'd slipped down the slope, and blood, where she'd caught herself on outcrops of rock, unseen in the dense pine needles. 

I reached out and touched Hao's arm. The air had changed. The sounds of the forest had quietened. Then I heard it, a gentle, tuneless humming coming from a little further ahead.

Placing my index finger to my lips, I gestured to move forward slowly. I was thankful we had changed to silent hunting boots.

As we approached I gave a gentle mew, like that of a kitten to its mother. I felt a jarring in the atmosphere as if it held its breath, then it came. The reply. A tentative mother cat, calling her kitten home.

I called again and the reply, stronger now, came back more quickly.

We smiled at each other and walked toward the sound.

Yiran sat in a small clearing, under a shrub which she had hollowed out, just enough to sit in and rest. A very small fire burned in front of her, and her kettle gently boiled. The Yiran I remembered was no longer there. Instead, a hollow version of her stared at me with flat, lifeless eyes. She moved listlessly and wounds she would normally tend, were left, becoming infected. Ants were working their way to her legs and feeding off dried blood. She seemed oblivious.

"Is he alive?"

I nodded and with that, Yiran dissolved into deep, heart wrenching tears. She took a gulp of air and looked at us, "the children aren't. They were hacked to death before I was captured." 

I reached out and grabbed her, pulling her into my arms, letting her sob all the pent up emotions she had quite clearly bottled up.

I looked toward Hao. "Go hunting. Bring fresh wood and bedding for us. We can't move her like this."

He nodded and putting his bundle down by my side, took off up the slope. 

I turned my attention to Yiran. If Second Master saw her like this...... I couldn't continue the thought. No. I had to get her well, fitter and deal with her wounds. The kettle had some water,  so, letting her weep on her own, I set about retrieving my emergency salves, a few bandages and some herbs to repel ants. 'Ants!' I shuddered. 'Still not over that night.'

"Yiran, let me look at you." I lifted her up and took a look at her arms and legs. "Okay, you stand there, I'm going to clean and then salve these wounds, after all when your husband returns.."

"Will he be back soon?"

"I really can't say. I haven't seen him since I left Shipao and that was months ago. He was escorting prisoners last I heard." She seemed comforted by that and allowed me to clean up the wounds. She showed me her back. She'd obviously slipped at some point and scrapped herself red raw. Poor love. I wanted to cry, but it wouldn't have helped.

"That's the wounds dealt with, next is food. When did you last eat?"

"I really can't remember."

"Alright. Hao has gone hunting, so we'll wait for him to return, but in the meantime I have some tea in my bundle. Shall I make some?"

That was the brightest I'd seen her face since we'd found her. I made tea and we talked. 

Well she talked. It all started pouring out of her like a river down a mountain, as she opened up into the locked pain of the past months.

"I made it to your home in the forest and we settled there. Everything was alright until the men came." Her face went white as she recalled images indelibly imprinted on her mind.

"They heard the children playing, and before I knew what was happening, they had grabbed Frai by her neck and were laughing at her struggles." She paused for a moment, then continued. "I tried to grab her, but they wouldn't let me. Lulu ran out of the house, she was only six, and they grabbed her too. Frai started screaming as one of the men roughly handled her. She was eleven you know, almost ready to come of age, but they played with her. Held her down and took it in turns until she bled." I looked at her but didn't say anything. She was in a nightmare only a mother could know. "She passed out through shock, pain and loss of blood. They turned to Lulu. Lulu was fiesty and fought them hard, so they hogtied her ready for sale at the slave markets. I was kept apart from her. I watched them take her away, screaming my name as she went." She looked at me then, the eyes haunted by memories she never wanted to live again but needed to. "They killed Frai. She wasn't any use anyway. They threw her down the crevasse. I wanted to find her but they kept me at the house."

I could imagine what for. She had seen her daughter go through it and now it was her turn.

"They made me cook for them, look after them. They hobbled me. We used a lot of your stores. I'm sorry. I will replace them...." I touched her arm, "it's alright, I can do it for us later."

She continued, almost on autopilot but things got jumbled up.

" I got free before the cage came. They thought I'd be alright. I was hobbled. I'd given them no trouble. There was a caravan leaving. I saw it go, so I ran once the caravan had left the town. I walked with them until I could get back to find Frai."

She looked down at her hands. I could only imagine what she had been through.

"I climbed up to the house again but stayed down stream. I looked everywhere Niao, but I couldn't find her."

Again, I touched her arm and smiled, softly. " The animals will have taken her and she will be in their children. Frai will forever live in the forest. She will be forever free." It was all I could say. I didn't know if it brought comfort or distress, but Yiran seemed calm.

"I'm sorry, but I wandered, I didn't know what to do. I remembered the leaves though."

She looked at me with the expression of a child wanting to be told she had done it right. She'd been a good girl.

"It was your leaf folding that lead us to you. Another tea? This one is very good, full of herbs to calm the soul and relax the mind."

"Please. I don't want to think any more."