Black Pine and Sulphur
It had taken three days and three nights for the ceiling of the basement to stop burning, for the cherry-red glow to die away from the thick beams just like the hope of rescue had died out of her soul. Seventy-two hours of screaming, and crying, and grubbing about in the empty space for white rice peppered with black soot.
How lucky to be trapped in the storeroom.
How lucky to be alive.
How lucky to be alone.
Far from the enemy now, far from anyone. Because her village was burnt, and her family was dead, and the invaders had moved on; their destruction complete.
She had no way of knowing the time. But on the morning of the fourth day the charred wood that had shielded her crumbled like flakes of cindered paper under her weak fingertips. The glaring brightness of light leaping off snow lanced into her tiny hiding place. It sparkled on her tear-stained face, as if they were crystals born of beauty; not the ugliness of war.
Clambering out of the pit and picking through the drifts of ice and blood, she felt her heart numb and her mind switch off to the frozen carnage that stretched in all directions. She just stepped, and stepped, and stepped…the desolate ghost of the Tung Shao Pass.
Time crept onwards, ever onwards without regard for her grief; and in time her bleak eyes fell upon a splash of colour. It was the same as the colour staining everything that wasn't coal, yet its substance was something different, rougher and softer than plasma and frost. Tugging it from the snow, and the grip of its former owner, she wrapped the red cloak around her shoulders and felt her skin thaw a little.
Further away, beyond the borders of the town and the bell that tolled the tides of tragedy in every gusting wind, she found a sword standing upright in the snow. It looked sharp, and well-made. Perhaps it could protect her.
But when she gripped the cross-guard it seared her palm with cold heat.
Her hand snapped away from it reflexively and it toppled over, a broken memorial. And near the tip, peeping out from a miniature dune of snow, was something she had never expected to see again.
Her doll.
Beneath its black button eyes, snowflakes mirrored the teardrops frostbiting her cheeks. Sacking arms were held wide in a fraying embrace, black pine hair whispered in a zephyr and the familiar pink dress still scented the air with sulphur.
The crunch of moving feet made her look up suddenly.
Three men stood there.
One with a bare chest and a thick gold earring tempting the deadly touch of ice.
One with a sharp face and a broken bow.
And one with the eyes of the hawk that had stolen her doll a lifetime ago. His skin was scattered with burns and scars like firework sparks.
Shan Yu stared down at the little girl shivering in the snow. She was wrapped in the red cloak of a dead General and her blue hands clung to a tiny, battered doll. The doll that had brought him here.
The Hun warlord leaned down and picked up the sword half-buried by her feet. Although she was close enough to feel his hot breath pass her, she did not flinch.
The golden-yellow eye scrutinized her yet again.
A glove of cracked black leather reached out, palm up in a gesture of invitation.
"Come," said Shan Yu.