Chapter 2: Dogs and Masters
"Let go of me!" yelled Ping as two Huns struggled to retie him to the horse. 'I'm not going down without a fight' thought Mulan to herself. 'If I get out I'll kill every last one!'
"Huff." Snorted Shan-Yu loudly, "If you children are done playing we really do have a schedule to keep. Let me try something…" his voice trailed of as he saw his horses whip in its side satchel. "Here we go." He sneered unwinding the painful device. "Now are you going to behave or am I going to have to get a little rough, Small One?"
"Let me go!" he screamed again, "Let me go!" he struggled again against the Huns and this time managed to break free.
"Oh, no, you don't!" raged Shan-Yu and he cocked the whip back and aimed it directly as the escaping soldier. The whip made a loud crack and wrapped itself around Mulan's left leg. It tripped her up sending her into the snow. Fortunately for her the snow muffled her girlish scream that had accidentally escaped.
'I can't let that happen' she thought. 'I would be in even more trouble then.' Then she felt being dragged across the snow on her stomach. The pain in her leg was immense but she never showed any signs of it. She was roughly picked up by the Huns and lifted off the ground so that she was eye-level with Shan-Yu.
"Seems I'll need to keep a tighter leash on you." He sneered before placing a lasso shaped rope over her neck. So who's the dog now!" he laughed. Then on a more serious note, "Bind his hands until they bleed, but… keep the bonds on his feet fairly lose so that he will be able to walk because as you know dogs follow their masters on foot beside them. And be sure that his leash is tied securely to my horse's saddle. I don't want him running off." And with that he left the Huns to carry out the work. 'That Small One has a lot of spirit. I can't stand spirit. I really will enjoy making him suffer.'
He came back to see the Chinese soldiers tied in bundles on top of the horses (about 4 soldiers to one horse and there being only eight soldiers just caused two Huns to have to double with another). "Good, good, good. No problems I assume?" questioned Shan-Yu.
"No, sir!" answered Shien. "They all obeyed quickly after they saw what happened to Small One over there." He scoffed. "I don't think we'll have any problems with this lot. This really was a good idea, sir."
"Yes, and speaking of Small One here he comes now." Mulan came limping but more or so dragged up to Shan-Yu. Her hands were a bloody mess and her neck was rubbed raw from struggling against the Huns. "Seems you need some obedience training, Small One, maybe a good gallop along my steed will show you a lesson." Then Huns yelled their agreement and Mulan was dragged over to Shan-Yu's horse and had her 'leash' tied to the saddle.
"Hope you can keep up, Small One, I wouldn't want to have to lose one of my main attractions." He laughed. "Are you ready?"
Ping's friends looked on with disgust as Shan-Yu started up his horse at a walk and Ping was about to lose his balance due to his hands behind his back and feet still bound like ankle cuffs. Then Shan-Yu started to trot and the rope around Ping's neck tightened and made him choke. His leg was still hurt from the whipping incident and now bled freely into the snow. Finally Shan-Yu went into a full gallop and Ping slipped but didn't choke because he had caught the leash in his teeth and was biting for dear life until Shan-Yu slowed down to a stop.
Ping collapsed to the ground with a huff. "That or worse will happen to anyone who tries to defy me!" Shan-Yu spat at the others and pointed to Ping. "You don't have to worry about being killed that would be the easy way out of this one." Then he swept Ping off the ground and lifted him with one hand so that he was eye level with himself. "Now, Small One, I believe you've had enough torment for today and if you would like to end it you will be a good dog and follow me." With that he threw Ping to the ground and readied his horse. "We'll ride until we reach a village at the bottom of the mountain and then the fun will begin."
'Where's Chi-Fu?' thought Yao who was smashed together between Ling and Chien-Po on a horse, Shang was in the front but Yao was right in the middle. 'Probably ran off crying like a baby, I just hope he was smart enough to run to the emperor'
"It's over?" said Chi-Fu to himself. "Well good riddance. I hate those barbaric rascals. They'll meet their end soon enough…" and then it occurred to him that the Huns had won and were racing of to defeat the Emperor. 'Oh, no, I really don't want to have to walk the whole way down the mountain, but if the Emperor is killed I'll be out of a job!' So with that in mind Chi-Fu started his slow descent down the mountain.
"So, Small One, are you enjoying the view?" Shan-Yu asked as he purposely sped up and almost caused Mulan to trip. She did not answer him; she merely looked up at him and glared. Seeing that he was not getting any response he took out his whip he used to speed up his horse and smacked her on the back. She grunted and strained to keep her balance. Feeling satisfied he kept the whip out just incase.
"Tao and Melin go ahead and look for a village come back and report which way to go." Shan-Yu ordered. The two took off. Taking advantage of the break Mulan sat down next to the horse and waited for the scouts to report back. She was in no rush to see the destruction of a village, but before she could even take a deep breath someone kicked her in her side and she fell sideways into a pile of horse dung. More humiliated than angry she pushed herself out of the pile and balanced on her feet to stand up because she was still bound by the wrist and her leash kept her from leaning too far. She looked up into the eyes of Shien, Shan-Yu's second in command.
She spat and glared at him wanting very much to kick the living day lights out of him, but before she could do anything further he kicked her below the belt, girl or boy that still hurts. She recoiled in pain and they all started laughing, quite a group had surrounded the two, Shan-Yu was off somewhere in the woods taking care of something. "So this is bravest of China's army reduced to a mere dog in the sight of Shan-Yu! HAHAHA!"
Mulan was still buckled over but she had enough energy to look up at the Hun and yell, "You will never defeat China!"
Now this greatly anger Shien and in his rage he untied Mulan from the horse and lead her to a nearby tree. He cut the bonds on her wrists but only to be retied and thrown over a tree branch. He pulled her off the ground and tied the slack around the base of the tree. "Yes, we'll see who'll never defeat China! Take that!" CRACK! The whip broke hard on her back, but she had prepared herself and did not let out a single scream.
"Oh, was that too soft for you?" CRACK! CRACK! CRACK! He lashed her so many times she almost went unconscious with pain, but still never let out a peep. The whole time her comrades looked on with horror as Shien showed no sign of mercy. Then finally Shan-Yu emerged from the woods.
"What is going on here, Shien? Has, Small One, here disgraced you in any way?" asked Shan-Yu.
"Sir, this, this dog, was defying against you. I thought only to teach him a lesson," exasperated Shien. "Saying that we would never be able to defeat China and what not. I couldn't stand for it!"
"Shien, it's fine I do not question your liability or your actions. Just untie him and tie him back to the horse. I wonder what's taking those two such a long time…" Shan-Yu was obviously in some other trail of thought.
Shien cut the rope holding her to the tree and she fell with a thud on her bottom. He kicked her forward on her stomach and roughly bound her wrists again, much tighter than they had been before. He picked her up off the ground by the leash, choking her and led her back to the horse. Mulan was in terrible pain, her sides, back, head, feet and hands were injured and mentally she was down, knowing that there was nothing she could do to stop the Huns, nothing at all. She avoided eye contact with Shang and the others as she passed them. 'Why are the Huns picking on me and not them? What's going to happen next?'
Shien tied her back to the horse and whispered where no one could hear, "You better watch your back, Small One, I can torture you much worse than a piece of rope ever will!" and with that he left her staring back. Finally able to breathe deeply she felt blood pouring out all over her body and pain beyond belief entered every nerve in her body.
'I think Shan-Yu was right, dieing would be the easy way out.' Just then the two Hun scouts came galloping up to Shan-Yu excitedly and started pointing.
Shan-Yu nodded and said "Men were heading northeast to the town of Tien-Zao; it should take about an hour or so. So let's get a move on." Then on a quieter note, "Try to keep up, Small One, I won't be stopping." She glared and stood up ready to run even though it was hurting just to put pressure on her left foot.
Eventually they reached the town of Tien-Zao. It was so peaceful and quiet completely unaware of what was about to happen. "Tie the prisoners to those trees over there I want them to have front seat to this." Ordered Shan-Yu and with a sneer added, "Make sure that, Small One is high enough to see!" The soldiers knew what this meant and went to work removing the soldiers from the horses and binding them to the trees. Shien took special care to make sure Ping was very uncomfortable above everyone else hanging by his wrists from a tree branch like before while everyone else was earthbound.
"Comfy, Small One?" toyed Shien. "Hope so because you're going to be here for a while!" and he went to the front to join Shan-Yu for there extermination of a peaceful village.
"They'll all go to Hades." Whispered Ping to the others who all nodded in agreement.
"Ping?" Asked Shang who was closest to him.
"Yes, Captain?" answered Ping.
"Why are you doing this, this unnecessary punishment? They're going to kill us anyways why do you want to suffer along with that?" questioned Shang, he had been wondering the whole time.
"Because I am not going to stand for this…arh… We're soldiers we're supposed to…ah… die to make sure that these people don't die…humm…. I'm going to do something rather than nothing" answered Ping who was obviously having a hard time breathing.
Seeing this Shang quickly shut-up not wanting to harm him anymore 'He's been through enough today…' But his thoughts were interrupted with a high pitched scream coming from the village.
