The wind in Yanmen Pass smells of blood.
It's not the warm and fishy sweetness of fresh blood, but the old smell mixed with yellow sand, sweat stains and rotten flesh. It's like a rusty blunt knife, with a gritty texture when it scrapes across the cheek, and when it penetrates the nose, it stings and tightens the throat. Outside the pass, the shoal wind swept up the dust and roared against the dilapidated tower. The plaque on the tower had long been blackened by the flames of war. Only the vague outline of the three characters "Yanmen Pass" remained, and it seemed that it would collapse at any time in the strong wind.
Zhao Lie held the broken knife and knocked his knees heavily on the city bricks. There was a soft "click" sound, and the broken bricks and stones mixed with dark red blood splashed and fell next to the piled corpses at his feet. His left leg had long been trampled by the Huns' horseshoes, and now he was relying on a broken knife to support his crumbling body. His black shirt was soaked in blood and became stiff. The layers of blood were black and hardened, making his skin ache. The wound on his left arm had become numb at some point. The wound turned outwards, revealing the white bone stubble, but he didn't even have the strength to bandage it. He could only let the blood flow down his arm and condense into a dark red scab on the handle of the broken knife. Every breath pulled at the knife wound under his ribs. The pain made his eyes darken and a fishy sweetness welled up in his throat, but he swallowed it back - he didn't dare to close his eyes, even if his eyelids were as heavy as lead, he stared at the dark Huns cavalry outside the pass.
In three days, this was the seventh charge of the Huns.
