The wind at Yanmen Pass carries the stench of blood.
Not the warm, sweet tang of fresh blood, but the stale reek of mingled yellow sand, sweat, and rotting flesh. Like a rusty, blunt knife, it scrapes the cheeks with gritty roughness and stings the throat as it enters the nose. The bitter wind from beyond the pass whips up clouds of dust and crashes against the battered watchtower. Its plaque has long been blackened by the flames of war. The three characters “Yanmen Pass” are now only a blurred outline, seeming ready to crumble at any moment in the gale.
Zhao Lie leans on his broken saber, his knee slamming hard against the bricks with a soft crack. Shattered brick fragments and dark-red drops of blood scatter beside the heaps of corpses at his feet. The Xiongnu have long since trampled his left leg under their horses’ hooves. Now he can only prop up his tottering body with the broken saber. His dark battle robe has stiffened with blood, and layer upon layer of bloodstains have blackened and crusted over, chafing his skin raw. The wound on his left arm has gone numb. The flesh gapes open, exposing jagged white bone, but he has not even the strength to bandage it. He can only let the blood run down his arm and crust dark red around the saber’s hilt. Every breath tugs at the knife wound beneath his ribs, pain darkening his vision. A sweet, metallic taste rises in his throat, but he forces it back down. He dares not close his eyes. Even with his eyelids as heavy as lead, he keeps his gaze fixed on the massed ranks of Xiongnu cavalry beyond the pass.
It has been three days. This is the Xiongnu’s seventh charge.
