Another week passed before Mulan felt strong enough to ride. Even then, Mushu fussed over her so much Mulan finally threatened to strap him to the biggest cannon she could find and light it if he didn't shut up.
(He didn't actually think she'd do it, but he did shut up.)
The Chinese army had a solid head start on Mulan; still, it wasn't hard to track them by the swath they carved through the snow. Mulan spent long days on horseback, seemingly tireless in her crusade. Mushu and Khan grew weary, but they dared not complain or face Mulan's wrath.
As they made their way through the pass, the altitude dropped, and the snow went from knee-deep to patchy at best. They lost the trail in places. Mulan led them up a ridge to get a better vantage point, Khan picking his way carefully over the rocky crags and boulders. His hooves slipped on patches of snow, but he kept his footing as befitting the proud warhorse he was as they trudged higher, until Mulan was gasping for breath in the thin mountain air. The ridge afforded her a clearer view of the route the army had taken. But that wasn't the only thing that caught her eye.
Mulan saw great plumes of black smoke rising over the crest of the pass. "Where there's smoke, there's fire," she murmured, almost to herself. "This way."
In the distance: a sharp, keening cry. An echoing response.
Two people looked up from opposite sides of the pass.
"Was that what I think it was?" Mushu asked.
"If you think it was Shan Yu's falcon, then yes," Mulan replied. "We've got to keep moving. If the Huns find us . . ." She let that thought go unvoiced. They had no chance if the falcon tracked them.
"Maybe we should just keep going," Mushu hissed.
But Mulan shook her head. "We need supplies. It's worth the risk."
Mushu gulped and said nothing.
The closer they got, they picked up the smell of burning wood and flesh. It stung Mulan's nostrils. Even Mushu wrinkled his nose. Another village, destroyed by the Huns. Burned to the ground along with everyone in it. Monsters.
This only confirmed her suspicions: the Huns were not as dead as they had originally presumed. Mulan's spine tingled like she was being watched. She glanced around, one hand on the hilt of her sword, but no one was there. She shrugged off the feeling and pressed on.
There were no Imperial helmets this time – these people had been slaughtered like livestock, with no one to defend them and unable to defend themselves. The buildings still smoldered, many of their occupants along with them. Her eyes lingered on a blackened corpse, its skeletal arms wrapped around a child. Both had been reduced to nothing more than cinders and bone. Mulan looked away.
Mulan picked her way through the wreckage, looking for supplies to salvage, but there was nothing left for her here. There was nothing left for anyone.
She saw movement from the corner of her eye and stopped dead. Mushu, who wasn't paying attention, walked right into her.
"What – oh," Mushu trailed off as he followed her gaze.
A mottled corpse dangled from a spindly tree whose roots clung to the side of the mountain like the talons of a raptor. The cold had slowed its decay enough that Mulan could still recognize the man as a recruit from her unit, though she didn't know his name. A charred plank, salvaged from the village, bore a crudely written message in what appeared to be the dead man's own dried blood.
"By the emperor's polka-dotted underwear, that's –" But even Mushu's smooth tongue failed him. Mulan wasn't sure any words could adequately describe this.
"'We are all monsters,'" Mulan read aloud. The body swayed in the wind.
The wind swelled, sweeping through the village. Mulan's loose hair whipped across her face. The fetid odor of her decomposing comrade made bile rise in her throat. Her side barely twinged at all as she climbed the steep rock face and cut down the body. It dropped into the snow with a damp thud. Mulan pushed off the craggy rock face and landed on her feet.
Birds had pecked out the corpse's eyes, leaving gaping black holes in his face. It left Mulan distinctly unsettled, as if the dead man were staring into her soul with eyes unseeing. She was afraid of what he might find.
This war, Shang's betrayal, what she'd been forced to become to survive – maybe the Huns were right. They were all monsters.
Mulan worked for hours, until the sun had set in earnest, scraping at the ground until her fingertips were numb and bleeding and her sword was dull and dirty. Sweat trickled down and froze on her neck and between her breasts. Mushu helped without a word, carrying rocks from where they'd tumbled off the cliff face. Mulan erected a makeshift cairn in the fallen soldier's honor. He deserved so much more than that, but it was all she could give. It was more than she would have received, had Shang carried out his duty.
As she worked, Mulan felt her rage boiling just under the surface. Rage at Shang, at Shan Yu and the Huns, at the powerlessness she felt in the face of it all. It threatened to consume her. Even this man's death felt like a slight. His fate was as unjust as hers had been – but she still lived. She could change her fate yet.
When she had finished, she stood before the grave with Mushu to pay her respects.
"They won't get away with this," she said.
"They?"
"All of them," Mulan said, her voice cold. "Everyone who ever underestimated me. The matchmaker. Shang. Shan Yu. Those who took this man's life without honor."
"What's gotten into you?" Mushu asked. His voice was hushed, as though he wasn't sure he truly wanted an answer. "This isn't you! The Mulan I know wouldn't throw away everything on some pointless quest for revenge!"
"Then you never knew me at all," Mulan said.
"But . . . this isn't honor; this is insane! Okay, I know what you're thinking, and you're right. Maybe I don't know much about honor, considering I lied to just about everyone to get you into this war. So if I say something's wrong, something must be really wrong."
Mulan mounted Khan and stared down at Mushu. "If you're not with me, you're against me. Now, are we in this together or not?"
Mushu gulped. "Yeah, I'm with you."
"It ends in the Forbidden City," Mulan said. The reins twitched in her hands, and Khan turned towards the capitol. "This way."
Mulan led Khan out of the village, Mushu trailing behind. They were still many days' journey from the capitol. They couldn't afford to waste time.
However, they also couldn't go long without sleep. Mulan made camp against the cliff face, using boughs salvaged from nearby trees to construct a makeshift shelter. She fell asleep almost immediately and woke suddenly before dawn. Gone were the days of being late for chores, or Mushu dragging her out of her tent before Shang noticed she'd overslept. She didn't move or make a sound, listening for what had woken her.
A searing cry sounded overhead, and Mulan jumped to her feet, kicking snow over the smoldering fire and gathering up her few belongings.
"Mushu!" she hissed. "Mushu, we've been found! Get up! Get up!"
Mushu snorted and rolled over, mumbling in his sleep. She jabbed her toe into the ground, sending a spray of snow over the sleeping dragon.
"Mushu! Khan! Get up!"
Mulan turned around, and there he was. The Hun leader, back from the dead. She should have known better than to assume an avalanche could bury someone as tenacious as he. Her breath caught in her throat.
"The soldier from the mountains," Shan Yu said. He jabbed his finger at her. "You stole my victory!"
He came at her with an enraged roar. Mulan leapt to one side, tucking and rolling, as Shan Yu's momentum carried him forward to where she had been a moment ago. She could hear Mushu's strangled shriek as he battled a foe of his own. The falcon was intent on pecking out his eyes.
Mulan had only bought herself a few seconds, but it was just enough. She reached at her hip for her sword, only to realize it wasn't there. She glanced back at Khan, the blade still slung uselessly over his saddle. She had only her wits to protect her now. She widened her feet into a battle stance and raised her hands, palms open, ready to strike Shan Yu or shield her face as necessary.
Mulan sidestepped the Hun's next clumsy advance, backtracking with the surefootedness of one who had spent most of her childhood ducking a bamboo switch for neglecting her chores. Her back bumped against the rough face of the ridge. She glanced to each side, but Shan Yu was advancing on her too quickly. Mulan felt the first tendrils of fear unfurling in her gut.
Mulan was only vaguely aware of a frenzied chirping as Cri-Kee springboarded off her shoulder at the Hun. Shan Yu halted, flailing his arms as he attempted in vain to catch the cricket, who was hopping between his broad shoulders and the top of his head, still chirping furiously.
"What's this?" Shan Yu said lazily, catching the cricket's antennae between his thumb and forefinger. The Hun chuckled. "For luck, I suppose. You Chinamen are so superstitious."
He closed his fist with a wet crunch. Mulan gasped.
"Cri-Kee!" Mushu cried.
Shan Yu opened his palm. His falcon landed on his shoulder and scooped up the broken shell in its beak, swallowing Cri-Kee whole.
Mulan remembered how it started: with her grandmother's wink. Cri-Kee soaking in the matchmaker's tea. Cri-Kee and his chirping laugh at Mushu's antics. Cri-Kee leaving spidery ink stains all down Mulan's arm after forging a letter from the general. And now Cri-Kee was gone, his life as fleeting as the memories he left behind. Her luck had run out.
Mulan's hands were shaking with anger. She curled them into fists. A cricket couldn't make her lucky, any more than an apple could grant her serenity or beads of jade could make her beautiful.
Mushu lunged at Shan Yu, but Khan caught the dragon's tail between his teeth so Mushu was effectively walking in place, carving furrows in the ground with his claws.
Shan Yu pointed at him. "Your lizard friend is next."
"How many times do I have to – I'm a dragon. Draaaag-uuunnn."
"You leave him alone," Mulan said.
Shan Yu grinned, and it was terrifying. "Or what?"
Mulan bolted to the left. An arm thick as a tree branch shot out.
Shan Yu grabbed her by her hair and dragged her down into the snow. She cried out as his bulk fell on top of her, pinning her to the ground. She wriggled her shoulders, but her arms were clamped to her sides. A sour dread tingled in the back of her throat that had little to do with being outmatched in a fight and everything to do with being a woman at the mercy of a man – something she had sworn to never be again.
Her hand closed around the hilt of the knife at his belt. His face loomed over hers. She cracked her forehead into his nose. He reared back, and she took the opening to squirm free. She stood at the ready a few paces away, brandishing the knife. Shan Yu took a step towards her – his mistake. Mulan lashed out at him. A thin red line marred his cheek. When he made no move to retaliate, glowering at her, she stuck the blade into her belt.
"Don't take me for a fool," she warned. "I should kill you, but you're a worthy opponent. My quarrel is not with you."
His lip twisted. He growled at her, a feral sound low in his throat. "Chinese bitch," he spat. "My men will take your land and force your men to work it like the beasts they are, fill your women with our superior seed and burn everything your people have built until it is ashes in your mouth. You are a fool to let me live."
Mulan spat at his feet.
"Let China burn," she said. "It does not matter to me."