GZ's Note:
Time for a fun fact! A few months after my high school graduation, I have been on the journey of playing Destiny on this day, September 9, 2014. I have been (and still am) a guardian in this epic game for eight years. Having awesome guardians from the clans, beating the hell out of raid bosses, fighting other players in the Crucible, and worth fighting for a big ball Traveler in the Last City kicking aliens' asses gives us the best memories of all. Destiny beta veteran, slayer of Crota and Oryx, Lord Saladin's Young Wolf, Red War survivor, and above. Enjoy reading down there!
Volume Three: Deng Wa
Chapter XLI
In the Sand
December 8, 1210
An ibex Mongol placed flesh and chopped wood blocks on the firepit, the heat underneath breathing hisses in and out with long and harsh sighs. His son Erden in a light brown deel, laid his hooves close to the fire, letting his head on the intense breeze farther to the desert hills, which left trails of specks. Winter was near for these outcasts, and they were on the hunt for rummaging water and whatever the remains to steal food from different clans — those who followed their gobi bear leader, Genghis Khan.
The outcast's leader, camel, in voluminous patches deel with a black belt with twigs of brown mane, fetched the skull bowl of soup from another pit. He beckoned his hoof to the ibex teenager, whose eyes of brown dazzled, filling his slightly confusing posture. Instead, with acceptance, Erden grasped his dinner and sipped the hot stew flavor. "Sip wisely, Erden," the camel advised him. "Do not let an empty cup snicker at your hunger."
Erden's father stretched his brows upward. "Is that the last pack of stew for me and my boy, Tarkhan?" he asked.
"Last one, Chuluun," confirmed Tarkhan. The camel wrapped his fur quiver with red fletching arrows, his other hoof carrying his carved wood bow. "This morning, we rise and hunt more food. My falcon Gerel will search Khan's tribes close."
"If there's food enough for the whole clan, we might as well flee to the south and have our refuge there," Chuluun said, receiving the skull soup from his son.
"The Great Wall does not accept outsiders, Chuluun. Those people called us barbarians, what we did to Chinese for generations," the camel's voice became blunt, dazzling his lime eyes. "Khan and his tribes may be there first when we travel now. We will not go there."
The ibex sipped his hot soup. "I hear some of our own traveled south, not Khan's tribes," Chuluun mentioned. "I have not even received any words from them after they entered."
"If our Mongols go there, who will treat us in China?" Tarkhan crooned with his grumbling tone. "Will they be doing the same thing to our people?"
"You do not know that."
"And neither do you," Tarkhan shook his head. "We will go north and ally with the wolverine's tribe. There, we will have our refuge."
Erden's father triggered his blood racing in his head but ceased by his son's query. "Are we going to be alright, sir?"
Chuluun breathed in and out with steady flows from grimacing at Tarkhan, who approached the young ibex and bent his left knee. "Fear not, little warrior," the camel stretched his grin to one side, his hoof pointing at Erden's chest. "What does your heart tell you?"
The heart described countless to his training days, though his lack of morality to the young age for the time being. The concept from elders like the camel leader spread words to each Mongol that they envisioned generations of righteousness and substantial. With one remark on top of anything being bravery, confidence filled the boy's heart, reflecting his ibex mother and children warriors. "Never give up hope," Erden expressed.
"Show me your arm," the camel rotated his hoof.
Erden pulled his right forearm, the muscle exposing its growth. Tarkhan cackled his chuckle with distinction.
"You are stronger than your father, Erden," the camel supported. "Rest easy, Chuluun. We travel in the morning."
In the tent, a chilling wind stirred its harsh whispers as tight drapes around beat the rhythm, swelling. Not as the dust storm, but the air carried the shrill. This night was slightly better than last when the speck of dust crept into their tents and almost choked most of the outsider's clan. The boy Erden was the only one who did not sleep with his father, only sitting near the fire, covering with his gray fur blanket.
This night, Erden had been closing his eyes while resting, thinking of the young days of training with his fellow mates, young ones like him, and how he and his companions performed their skills by throwing hatchets and daggers. Most and Erden were exhilarated seeing their mentors' demonstrations, teaching the young how to execute targets without hesitation: shooting arrows at close to long range, daggers and swords to engage, and axes for challenging and mighty subjects. The young ibex was good at throwing knives and weighted blades; later on, at this moment in December month, he could master his sword combat with Chuluun, including the camel Tarkhan.
At a slight interruption, the boy's father shook his shoulder. "Son. Wake up," Chuluun whispered, and the boy unlatched his eyes, unease that he woke too early with irritation and tiredness senses. Neglecting Erden's grating murmurs, Chuluun gathered his blades from cabinets and dug these into their holsters.
Erden remained his eyes shut once he towered half of his body, the gray fur blanket laying on his legs. "What is it, father?"
"Shh."
Their ears perched up, catching short rhythm pulses from the tent beating against the wind. Remaining on the bed, Erden drifted his brown eyes on throbbing structures, his hoof reaching for the blade beside his knee. They contemplated combinations of firepit hisses and harsh breezes behind the covered yurt, and near-silent thuds followed. "Do you hear anything?" Chuluun murmured.
The boy, not as experienced in catching sounds, turned to his father. "No," Erden whispered.
"The wind sings, and something is stirring. Bring your daggers. Walk with me."
The young boy removed his blanket and brought ten knives on the counter, he had practiced well, stashing around his waist belt. He wielded two weapons on his hooves, small and large ones, and Erden followed his father from the yurt's entry.
The howling wind calmed its breath across ten yurts around two ibexes, their deel fluctuating to the south. At their alarming rate, their feet crushed velvet grinds of silver and sand, their hooves fixing as Chuluun and Erden encompassed themselves, squinting at each path. Swimming his triangular head, Erden flickered his floppy ears, his cold breath flowing in his lungs. The waft went rigid, and their gifted hearing tracks lost one trail.
Closing together as the wind beyond hills blanketed its sand current to the south, two ibex warriors tiptoed near their neighbor's yurt, which the lantern stick beside the wooden door nearly died out its speck of orange ashes. At first, the puff track from the small stair trailed to its left and onward, had Chuluun gesticulated his fist to a halt. Erden's father puffed his harsh whisper.
"Baku? Baku."
No sign of his neighbor called back. Chuluun went for Baku's door and slightly opened it, the cold wind barging toward the tent's firepit. His cinnamon eyes lowered as the crumpled bed and fur blanket exposed halfway, and the fire coughed out its crimson embers. Chuluun closed the entry without a sound, turning to Erden.
"Son, go to Tarkhan's yurt and warn him. I will check Baku and warn the others," Chuluun palmed his son's cheek. "Stay alert. Don't rush."
Erden tiptoed and readied his short blades at two yurts cross, sidling behind the felt cover. He inspected both ways of three tents down, their torches mounting on ribs beside doors dimmed flickers. Unable to squint at his father beyond the following path, the boy crossed and explored the next course, where a large yurt's pole stood with a yak crown with horns hanging. The boy was five tents away from reaching the camel leader.
Three yurts later, carefully contemplating his surroundings, Erden checked the grated white specks ground; each kind left their hooves/claws/talons trails on random guides where to lead. Most entered their homes, stood beside their blood brothers and sisters, and remained vigilant on daily tasks. With the boy's gifted muzzle while Erden's heart drummed with slow thumps, their scents had him recognize Tarkhan's clan.
The boy peered at his father, who surveyed his surroundings farther on, disappearing to another path forward. Erden pressed onto the line of yurt after he gave his peek inside one of his friend's tents. A black falcon perched nicely on the crumbled sheet beside his mother, who lay beside him with her long feathers around his back. Sidling around the falcon's yurt, finding camel's close by, Erden spotted a long trail of the bear's feet, inspecting it with his hoof.
A fresh track. Is that one of us?
He tapped and loaded a small quantity of silver and dirt sand to his finger and drew his muzzle close to it. A putrefaction odor of wet carcass invaded, and Erden snapped away. "Yuu ve?" he barricaded his muzzle, his face appearing in a grimace posture. Gripping his knives at a prepping stance, the boy searched the bear's fresh track, which lay from his position to the camel's back entry.
A fast movement silenced Erden's short gasp, suppressing the boy's grunt and yell. The horse clenched Erden's mouth, whose growl was muffled, and brown eyes snapped.
A rumble whirs from the rasping air thundered and split the horse's back of his head, cracking open to the Mongol's puff choke. A friend of Chuluun, a gray hawk in a vest brown deel, beckoned his head to Erden before the boy rushed into Tarkhhan's yurt. Giving a sway from the entry's drape, the young ibex dragged his cold breath under his throat and spotted the black bear in dark scathes armor and violet fire chest plate who knelt above the camel's head, her claw lifting her gold dragon dagger.
Erden gasped. "TARKHAN!"
The camel reacted to a brief puzzlement and snapped at the invader. The bear unleashed her hail as Tarkhan swayed his whole body, dodging her knife. The Mongol reeled his cabinet when Mingling deafened her sharp roar, and she crashed against the tent's sheet. The camel darted his way out with the boy after he grabbed his spear, sprinting.
"OTOLT!" Tarkhan hollered near local groups. When several yurts summoned his people, the angry hills of sand had strengthened war cries.
More than eighty of Genghis Khan's fellow Mongols rose and started dashing. Tarkhan's yurt burst its flaming ashes, unveiling the black bear from the entry as she cast her ax.
"Erden, grab your sword and fight! GO!" Tarkhan ordered the ibex and engaged the black bear with his lance. Mingling reeled her sidesteps as she fended off his piercing blade.
The boy managed to sweep through the gaps as Tarkhan's Mongols drew their weapons out and engaged Khan's soldiers. "DOOSHOO!" the hawk swept his wing, and archers released their arrows, the black fletchings pitching their shrieks. Five were down once Erden skidded his feet and slid, slicing Chow Chow's ankles. Lacerating the dog's back, which made the bandit wince his howl, Erden fled to the following line of yurts, and a group of two Mongols clashed with their metal edges.
Erden cut through one's yurt from entering the clash, seeking a gazelle, the same age as the boy, who seized her daggers from the cabinet counter before she departed with Erden, picking on isolated targets outside.
"Erden!" his father called beyond the next yurt, and Chuluun and his marmot neighbor Baku picked on multiple targets of four, who rotated around them before Tarkhan's archers landed their arrows at their heads. Erden swam through the subsequent encounter with the gazelle, seeking their way as they searched for the camel, who remained in his hold fast from Mingling swinging her ax. More than ten of Khan's warriors interfered, giving the boy hurl his small knives. Two felled* before the next as the girl hauled her saber, parrying the horse's lance. Archers, sworders, and bandits swarmed to a splash, the middle crashing Erden.
Shouts and metal clangs intensified, unable the boy to hear his father's hail. Maintaining across random guides from getting stomped or bumped against any warriors, Erden diverted most of Khan's Mongols, plunging their legs and ribcages he provided Tarkhan's people. After slaughtering two bandits with assists by two hawks slithering their throats, he broke free toward the path; Mingling's ax hammered Tarkhan's lance before she sidestepped toward the middle, her feet shoving his belly.
Tarkhan fastened his stance as his whole back flooded with warm and intense breaths stinging. He heaved his weapon against the ax's arm, troubling his feet as if Mingling pressed her tense strength, driving him close to the fire. His tail caught fire, and Tarkhan roared after the bear's sinister smile.
A dagger flung and disarmed Mingling's grip, which had her grimacing stare at the boy, whose hoof sheathed another for more, giving his best opportunity to land a headshot to her head. Erden drove his way onward with his pride roar—
A swift maneuver from one's weapon grip toward the boy's left side pounded him unconscious.
"Stay down, imp!" a harsh voice deafened.
During his disorientation, dizziness flooded in Erden, whose eyes mixed with dye orange and muffled shrouds, his ears registering soft throbs of ringing. There was no Mongol who whipped his head as he writhed his grimacing pain, becoming slightly useless. He eyed Tarkhan, who disarmed Mingling's ax with his weapon spinning away from her. Blinking several times by metal clangs that whirred around him, Erden heaved his forearms and crept, but his weight crashed once more, letting him witness this warrior of black armor who engaged Tarkhan's people in single combat, one by one.
Managing to wield her weapon, Mingling parried and severed the hawk's body from his upper neck, engaging the next target with another slice on the marmot's head. Tiny sprints streamed ahead of Erden once a group of archers lined one yurt in front of Mingling, drawing their arrows; a white fox mounted on her and sprang in the breezing air with his fellow red foxes who mounted on tents and surrounded, throwing a volley of blades on sharpshooters. The alpha snow fox Fengxian darted his vast combination of feet and paws, landing on Saiga antelope's neck and ribcages, his black dagger plunging into one's throat.
"Gadni khun!"
Another Saiga antelope in a flowing light brown deel cast two sabers and commenced into dual toward Mingling, whose left silver hook grasped her weapon grip with her claw. Parrying the female's two swords, Mingling shoved her sides with brute strength in each stir, her force delivering the antelope's tension and weariness. Cutting the saber and the other from her wrists, Mingling bellowed her might, her hook plunging into the antelope's chest. She hurled the Mongol toward the hawk's yurt.
Mingling began to face the third antelope with a gray saber who darted close to the fire. And among the fragments of red and orange embers, a fast leap catapulted nearby Mingling.
The feline in covered wraps carried out her spins in the air, yanking the antelope in the harsh air from his dark antlers. The wind directed the black bear's muzzle as Mingling diverted onager's curved saber, her persistence allowing her to kick his ribcage. Who is here? Once distancing her aggressor, the feline's scent of sweat curved, bringing the bear to sniff at an unfamiliar backer.
The backer, swinging with acrobatic leaps, retreated toward two yurts down, one's blade slicing the gazelle's throat. Mingling released her sigh of deliberation, partaking to give this scent close to the feline-like warrior while trudging. One's eyes of yellow lightened, meeting the bear's face after the figure finished mauling the hawk's chest, silencing his pain. Multiple scents of sweat and sand wafted, had Mingling's sight rotated her right side to the rim.
On the hill shouted Tarkhan, who gestured at the bear with his threatening posture.
"There you are," the black bear spread her lips wide, grimacing as she started sprinting.
Clenching his wounded forehead, Erden raised his left knee, grabbing the antelope's saber beside him. Giving his short glimpse at the bear chasing Tarkhan and sinking toward the other side of the hills, Erden started his run.
"Erden!" Chuluun shouted again, but the boy, briefly disoriented, quivered his head and advanced toward the boundary. Sharp sand dissipated as he reached for the top and slid on the hill, observing Tarkhan and Mingling at three hills front to catch up on them. Thanking that the calming storm had stopped whispering with a speck of sand, the boy could hear metal clangs, the screams, and his father's shout lessening. Little by little, inclining on the hill ridges rather than mounting with his hooves, Erden drew his saber, and the camel's outcry amplified.
Tarkhan continued thrusting his long lance, diverting Mingling's weapon. "I stay serving with my leader, even in his death, you gichii!"
The black bear grinned, her ax hammering against Tarkhan's lance with her potential strength. "That is such a nice word to describe a fierce lady, Tarkhan," she grinned. "You are likely a coward fleeing from your people. Why will you not fight and die with honor with them?"
The boy deafened his cry before Mingling glimpsed at him. Erden skated on the hill before he flung one of his small knives. Shoving Tarkhan with her might shoulder after deflection, Mingling forced her sidesteps from the boy after dodging the second throwing knife. She repeated her scenario with such mockery at Erden by the time the bear attempted to seize his left wrist with her hook.
Mingling thrust her back slap, tumbling the boy away. "Stay down," Mingling crooned, combining a soft snarl under her throat.
"Get your claw off of him!" Tarkhan shouted, exuding rage.
Minging pushed on further against her opponent, driving him to incline upward toward the next ridge. Tarkhan maintained his stance, drawing back while plunging his lance forward and both sides. He angled his waist by diverging the bear's mighty blow edges, whose strength impacted his arms, tiring from parrying. Mingling angled her ax hammering above left and right twice, and before her third attempt, the camel dashed his jump to the left and slashed her right shoulder.
A gashing streak poured out her splotches, and Mingling glowered her red eyes with soothing hums; with immediate trigger, she jarred her ax on Tarkhan's halberd blade arm, and he staggered his stance backward toward the apex. With his right foot making his whole crotch crash on the ground, Mingling rounded her body with her fierce screech, her weapon disarming his, fragmenting the halberd along the waves of chilling sand.
The bear plunged her ax beside her foot as a sandy ridge streamed down her feet and Tarkhan's voluminous deel. "Your late leader crossed Genghis, Tarkhan. You might as well join him."
Tarkhan stood quickly and engaged her with his clenching hooves.
Mingling swayed her counter limbs once she gained her way against his fist defenses, nearly keeping his distance from her. He propelled his head back from her curved hook, which tried to slash his throat as Tarkhan stepped away with rapid movements. Around the flat height, as he snapped at her, who was more prominent on the high ground, Tarkhan drew his one-throwing knife, and the bear charged full force.
Mingling staggered with her feet sliding, her claw and the side of her hook battering the camel's shoulders and head. Headbutting Tarkhan twice, Mingling clenched his deel chest and threw his whole weight in the air. The ground, Tarkhan crashed his feet on flooded his waist height with a hard splash. Cold dirt and wet sand fastened his whole legs underneath, with a slow and steady surface sinking him.
"No!"
Mingling streamed her cold breaths into her lungs, widening her crimson eyes. "Auh! Not expected where I wanted you there, but that will let me enjoy seeing you drown in the sand than hanging by a tree," she let out her wicked laugh. "Now there is your fate, commander of Genghis Khan's blood-brother."
Reaching the top of the last hill with haste, Erden observed the scene of Mingling and Tarkhan where he was beside the dead tree earlier. Knowing that a small stream was beside Tarkhan about fifteen steps away, he discovered a saturated soil layered with the dry sand surface.
NO! Erden broadened his cinnamon eyes, and a sudden growl from behind tackled him.
Rolling down with thuds, which Mingling neglected while strolling forward with satisfaction, Erden faced the canine in red armor with soft gold tribals, whose brown fur bristled with flowing sand. The dog's paw clenched Erden's front cloth, heaving and pinning him to the dirt as the boy's hooves hammered his shoulders.
"Let me go!" Erden snapped.
Chow-chow dominated his snarl near the ibex's muzzle. "Stop fighting," Fang growled. "Saving Tarkhan is not worth it."
Too feeble to wrestle Fang's strength, Erden reached for his deel pocket and drew his last dagger, roaring back in defiance. Fang clenched his wrist and hammered down, disarming the weapon with his paw.
"You're too weak to fight with your dagger, boy. I have no reason to kill you," Fang gritted his teeth, but Erden kept hammering his fist against the dog's jaw. "Stop resisting!"
"Force that boy to watch, Fang," Mingling commanded.
"No! GET OFF ME!" Erden snapped, and Fang heaved him, fastening his wrists behind.
The camel clawed near the edge, his arms repeating to front crawl. The sand surged on his upper chest, dragging his weight slowly. As his strength drained quickly, Tarkhan's neck heaved toward the soggy mud as he bellowed.
"Tarkhan!" the boy screamed.
"Stay strong, Erden!"
Mingling knelt close to the edge and craned her head close to him. "Oh, the boy will. You are no longer his father figure," Mingling chuckled, her claw rummaging his black feather beads with a jawbone necklace when Tarkhan's limbs refused to pull out with his strain.
With a slight grunt, Mingling hauled his neck string. "That child will ally beside the Great Khan and be his shaman. And Erden will be no coward. Have a nice bath with your late companion."
Wrestling the dog's firm grip around his whole body, Erden could not break free from Fang. Chuluun's son watched the camel bawling, whose arms raised with hefty mixtures of wet sand and dirt.
The mud drank and silenced Tarkhan's cry, and Erden wept.
A/N:
— For the word felled, I know many of you detected a grammar there, but it's a reference to most of the Souls games, which I am also into one game that I like other than Destiny. During your fight with any bosses, who always kill you off before you learn their mechanics and defeat them later, any description after the defeat pops up "Great Enemy Felled." I still play part-time with one recent game, which caught me on all edges, but I did earn well in fighting bosses, alright!
— Chuluun: Stone or he is strong as a stone.
— Gadni khun: (Outsider)
— Gichii (You don't want to know what that means. I recommend you not to study Tarkhan's curse word.)
— Erden: Treasure
— Tarkhan: he who is skillful (not anymore!). Until next time!