Falcon's Flight

Twelve

It took three days for them to reach where the Huns’ families had been staying. There were cattle, and horses, lots of horses.

As they walked, Shan Yu’s eyes met with a woman’s as she breastfed a child. There was a sickening feeling inside of her as she carried on walking. Fen kept her head low and dreaded what was to come.

There centre of the camp area was a village. People had lived there recently by its nice appearance, Fen guessed that the Huns wouldn’t care much for making the houses look pretty. People had slowly gathered and followed them. Shan Yu hadn’t spoken, not to her or them.

“Where is my husband?”
“You said they’d come back safe.”
“Where is Argun?” Many women asked after people with names Fen had never heard of.
“Where are our husbands?”

Shan Yu stopped as he turned to whoever had asked the last question. Hayabusa landed on his shoulder as he looked the woman in the eye.
“They’re dead. I have failed you all, I am sorry.”

A shiver spread through Fen as she stopped walking.

Everything was silent, as if time had frozen for a moment.

“How?” asked the same lady who Shan Yu looked in the eye. She had brown eyes and dark hair and it seemed like she was only a few years older than Fen.
“A Chinese soldier started an avalanche, it buried most of our men,” he said calmly. Fen watched him, he seemed less tense and more… defeated. It was almost as if he had been denying how many men he had lost, it had been quite a few. Now he had accepted it.
“What happened to the others?”

“When we attacked the Emperor and tried to get him to submit China to us, some of the soldiers retaliated. They were captured, when we tried to free them, we discovered that they had been executed,” Shan Yu said. He sounded insanely calm. Fen couldn’t understand how he could be so calm while surrounded by so many who had just been told some of their family would never return.

“Some men returned, three, a few days ago,” said the lady. “They said a few others survived the avalanche, some split off from them when soldiers attacked, some were killed.” Shan Yu looked down for a moment. “Who is the Chinese girl?”

“Dài Fen,” she said, speaking up. Being surrounded by so many people was uncomfortable, there were more people here than there had been in her entire village. “He saved my life, I saved his.” The woman turned to Shan Yu who said nothing and simply nodded. She nodded back.

“My name is Odsar,” she said to Fen. She glanced at Shan Yu. “You need something better to wear.” Fen did a similar thing and looked to him to see his reaction. Seeing his neutral expression, Fen turned back to Odsar.
“I do, yes.”
“I have better clothes, if you would like to come with me,” she said. Fen nodded again. It seemed as though she could trust the woman and Shan Yu made no move to stop her. It seemed some of the people had dispersed and left to deal with other things. Odsar turned and started walking through the crowds. Fen followed.