The wind swept up yellow sand, tearing through the stillness of the wasteland. The sun hung overhead like a blazing dish, baking the sky into a pale white. Li Song lay beside a jagged rock, lips cracked and bleeding, his skin burnt dark under the fierce sun. He slowly opened his eyes. All that remained between heaven and earth was heat, wind, and pain.
This was the second time he had awoken.
The first was last night. He had tried to flee but was caught like a gazelle by hawks—foreign horsemen with painted faces and curved whips. A blow had struck him hard, and he lost consciousness. Now, his limbs were bound with coarse rope, his body smeared with dried blood and fragments of shattered armor.
"You're awake," came a deep voice, thickly accented, yet unmistakably in Chinese.
Li Song struggled to lift his head. An elder stood not far away, clad in white robes, head wrapped in a cloth. His beard was a cascade of gray, and though gaunt, he stood tall. His gaze was cold as a blade. Behind him stood a line of silent riders, all cloaked in deep green, curved blades at their waists. Camels and horses stood quietly among them, yellow sand drifting around their hooves like a silent oath.
"What is your name?" the elder asked.
"Li... Li Song," he managed to say, nearly biting his tongue.
"You are Han?" The old man nodded slightly and turned to speak in Arabic to the men beside him, the words flowing like wind through horns, their tone impossible to read.
Li Song couldn't understand the language, but he sensed it was a discussion. He'd never heard a tongue like this before—guttural and winding, like the dunes and sun. It struck him then: he was far from home, deep in an unknown land.
He had once been a border soldier stationed in Ganzhou City, in the Hexi Corridor.
---
That night of snow was the coldest he could remember.
Beyond the walls, a Xiqiang tribe had raided the outer post. Under firelight and beating war drums, he and over a hundred soldiers defended the pass from midnight until the third watch. Three comrades fell beside him—one disemboweled, one calling for his mother as he died. The blood on Li Song's face wasn't his own. It burned hot, freezing instantly on the snow.
He raised a broken shield, his eyes red from smoke. When his spear pierced the enemy's chest, he felt no glory—only stench and exhaustion. At dawn, reinforcements finally arrived. They held the line, but only fifteen men remained. There was no time to gather the dead.
When the battle report was written, his name was omitted.
He bore no grudge. In fact, he felt relieved.
---
"Why are you here?" the elder asked again—his name was Khalid, as Li Song would later learn. His gaze was sharp.
Li Song shook himself back to the present. "Captured... border soldier… don't know where."
Khalid gave a low grunt.