Author's Note:

Dear all, thank you for reading and reviewing - Lynn12, Wilddragonfire, A.Lee, Saddam (!!), emeral-sea, jodelyn, Greeneyes7, Black C, ! *Grin* Does Shang cavort with young boys? ;-p I should hope not!

Hints of Mulan's past in this chapter. All to be revealed a while later. But first, we hear of what Shang has been up to. And yesfor those who wonder about her identitywe'll find out how it all becomes inadvertently revealed! Not here thoughbut very very soon.

Well, as for writing longer chaptersunfortunately this is all I can manage right now, and Times that Taint is actually something 'new' in the story-telling front for me, since I wanted to try out something with somewhat scanter descriptions and lighter prose than what I normally write. So only the most important happenings and dialogues will be written in order to advance the plot, even at the risk of making this whole novella contrived sounding! (Historical fillers are given as an endnote though, so I hope it makes it easier to imagine) This is a very short story, written deliberately in a 'skeletal' manner, truly, nothing lengthy at all or drawn out.

Comments/reviews? Do drop me a note sometime!
vesania@gmx.net

Chapter 6: The Capture

The faint glimmer of fading sunlight and the early spring wind had cooled the air considerably, and Mulan watched the dancing swirls of her exhalation disappearing as they restored themselves into the atmosphere.

Two horses showed no sign of slowing despite the inexorable nightfall; distance needed to be gained as far as the last slit of daylight allowed them.

"I wonder if Yang Di had committed a grave error when he chose to drive the Monguls from the northern terrain," Shang sighed. "It is a well-known fact that the emperor before Yang Di had was of mixed northern blood descent."

Her eyes widened, but it was an answer that she found within; Shang had merely voiced her inclinations.

"The Sui Dynasty was built on the support of the northern tribes, in that year the south was unified. Had you not known?" He asked, baffled, seeing her open expression that told him of her lack of knowledge on the Sui history.

She was astonished at his revelation; never had she expected a more intricate twining of blood and bloodshed yet urged him to continue, absorbing his tale with a thirst that she had not quenched in the years she stepped foot away from Chinese soil.

The rebuilding of their companionship however, was the laboured equivalent of the reconstruction of towns that had been razed to the ground, an act that took an infinitesimal proportion of the time it had taken to grow. Words were at first, forced and few between them, yet with each passing night and with each scanty meal, each caught fragmented glimpses of the polarity of the type of lives that they had led in the gap of 5 years. But she still guarded her secrets jealously, her identity and gender above all, knowing that the knowledge she carried could be the very same weapon of her execution under the Marshal's weighty hand, one that once given up, effectively effused another with total power over her.

"Wen Di ascended the throne with the approval of the northern nomads - in return for their peace and their territory," Shang nodded ruefully, "And now his son tries to drive them out, wanting to reclaim his space. The acts of the last generation had apparently meant nothing to him."

"Had not Yang Di ascended the throne under suspicious circumstances?" She questioned and he again nodded.

"Yang Di was forced to be a dutiful son, conforming to his father's frugal standards as long as it needed. After his father's death, he had acted in defiance of his father's legacy, pursuing a projects and expansions that Wen Di would not have approved of, even taking for his own his father's concubine."

She realised that he was angry; it was obvious in his stiff posture and ragged breathing, sickened by the surrounding maladies.

"Now the Turks and Monguls invade the borders again; perhaps Shan Yu leads them," He shrugged helplessly. "Imagine, Ping. Peace unravels with a wrong move. How much more then," he questioned rhetorically, "would a simple but so misguided command lead to unnecessary death and waste?"

Shang halted his horse, dismounting in a glade in which he told her they would spend the last night before arriving in the border regions. Thankfully, he had always chosen the places for their sojourns well - heavily wooded areas with streams or stagnant ponds, his only request that one kept watch while the other bathed, a request to which she had been more than happy to accede to.

Mulan had been long accustomed to mobility and the carrying of her scant provisions on horseback, and the distance that their horses took them was a indeed a regressive, exhilarated plunge into the times she spent with Feiyan and Ushahin, their heathen folk melodies branded into her vocal chords that suddenly demanded they be given sound once more. The long years had passed without her thinking of her family and the small village that they had resided in; she wondered wretchedly if they were alive, or if they had already died in bitterness and anticipation for her return that had never materialised.

She began to hum, the soft tune of Beyish Namesi* which wafted like the pungent smoke of prayer incense, brought to an abrupt halt when she heard Shang's faint footsteps tapping across the wooded glade. He emerged with his body still wet, only wearing his pants and his coat flung casually over his shoulder, motioning for her to go while he prepared the fire.

She returned and found him staring blankly into the fire.

"You have been quiet these days, Ping," He remarked, tossing twigs into the cackling flames.

"I was just thinking."

She gave him an assessing glance, wondering if he would tell her more of his experience with the Sui army.

He sighed.

"We are possibly a thousand li from the nearest village. Do you truly believe that military rank holds importance and weight in these plains? Even so, there is after all, little meaning in law and order. The absurdity of ranks, if you have not yet noticed, is a desperate move of the government, or what is left of a ruling body, to restore a semblance of order," Shang told her quietly. "You may speak freely, Ping, and have no fear that you will offend me."

But she chose instead to draw out more from him than she was willing to let flow out of her, asking him in a series of questions of the years that he spent after the avalanche. She wanted him to speak freely instead, wanting to see him vulnerable first.

And he obliged her and told her all, his tale tearing one part of the wall that lay between them, her gaze growing more compassionate. He spoke of his return home after the long period of relative peace after the ill-fated Hun battle with her; he remembered the docile wife that his mother had chosen for him and her death while breech-birthing a premature child, his subsequent enlistment to fight the Kingdom of Koguryo, a disastrous war effort in which he had barely survived. The men with whom he had retreated had been barely able to haul themselves out of the sludge and the blood, amid the victorious screams of the Koguryo army, many collapsing on Chinese soil dead, smiles plastered on their faces, knowing that they died in their own land.

"Heavens, Ping," He passed a hand over his eyes, fatigued again, as though the mere spinning of his compelling, tragic tale wore his very joints down. "I could not do much to save myself, much less anyone who stumbled past in me carrying their horrendous injuries"

That he had been one of the rare survivors was enough reason for YangDi to bestow royal honours upon his shoulder and his meteoric rise through the ranks; he felt again the disgust at the ease at which survivors easily became heroes in the eyes of the people, simply because there seemed no other to crown.

The silence which followed his recounting was long, stretched out - both felt drained of words, but the time for further reflection was prematurely severed by the sudden gallop of horses and the terrible cries of the convoluted nuances of the Mongolian tongue.

The Turkic tribes!

They scrambled to their feet, only to be hauled upwards roughly by the brawny strength of the herd of passing riders who slanted themselves sideways to knock them unconscious with the hard blows of clubs. The reins on their horses had been cut, joining the ranks of even more advancing riders who again disappeared into the darkness.

But their limp frames had not fully crumpled to the ground when they were carelessly dragged by their collars, flung onto the fearsome Turkic horses, the lonely, fragile fire that now burned into embers the only trace of their presence.

**********
*Beyish Namasi - Melody of Paradise, which I pilfered from YoYo Ma's album in which he plays the music of the Silk Road.

**For the sake of remembrance:
The Sui Dynasty lasted from 589-618 A.D (38 years), and the pre-Sui years were filled with conflict with the northern tribes and warlords who tried to assert their authority over each other. Finally, in 589 A.D, a man of mixed northern blood called Yang Jian became the first Sui Emperor, also known as Wen Di, only by making peace with several warlords and the northern tribes for a unified China.

His death was a suspected murder believed to have been engineered by his own son, who came to be known as Yang Di. Yang Di reversed policies made by his father, undoing the short peace when he drove the northern tribes out of the border regions. He was not a true black villain but at most, an ambivalent character that many historians still try to figure out.

***The Battle of the Kingdom of Koguryo (Korea)
The Sui Dynasty had launched several, frequent attacks on Koguryo. In the last battle effort, Yang Di had sent 2 million soldiers to invade the Kingdom, but Koguryo, under the great Korean strategist Ulchi Mundok, had expelled the Chinese troops with this unified army and the Korean population.

General Mundok, in the famous Battle of Salsu (612 A.D), had employed the 'ChongYa' ('Scorched earth' tactic), evacuating the civilians southwards, leaving a ' field of nothing'. He had built iron-clad bastion around the river Ryoha, blocking enemy lines which led to Pyongyang and lured the Sui army to the Salsu River 30 miles north of Pyongyang. The Koguryo army had retreated several times, giving the Sui army the illusion of victory, until they found themselves trapped between the Salsu river and the heavily guarded Pyongyang fortress.

Only less than 2700 Sui soldiers out of the 2 million managed to retreat.