A road stretched across the vast desert, and along it, an army of cavalry could be seen marching.
Those passing resolutely through the desert where sand winds blew, those wrapping cloth around their heads to block the sand rushing into their mouths and noses.
And me, advancing at their very front.
"There it is. That is Karakoto, the stronghold of the Western Xia rebels."
Karakoto. According to Yesugei, before the Mongol invasion, it had functioned as a trade route along the Silk Road, a city that was both a massive military and commercial stronghold of Western Xia.
But now it was merely a decrepit fortress, its broken sections from the time of the invasion patched here and there.
The rebel army that had risen with swords and banners to oppose the Mongols had taken this place, reduced to such squalor, as their base.
Besides, there were two things that made the Mongols seem truly impressive.
That they had destroyed that massive and prosperous city until it became such a wreck, and that crossing the sea of the desert, they could identify a place from nothing but the outline of a tiny fortress.
"Very well. Let us go."
I, leading eight hundred Mongol cavalry at the very front, and Yesugei urgently gave our horses rein toward the city visible in the distance atop the desert dunes.
Woah, woah. Let’s go a little more carefully! I only learned how to ride two weeks ago!
----- -----
‘Mother, what do you think of reincarnation?’
I felt hands warmly enveloping my tiny ones. They were the hands that had felt warmest in my second life, where I had awakened in the body of a newborn and knew nothing but confusion.
‘Hehe, does our daughter mean the reincarnation spoken of in Buddhism?’
Another hand stroked my head. To me, dwelling in a child’s body, a hand that felt as large as a pot lid was gently stroking my head. Perhaps they found it admirable that a child not yet six was already taking interest in Buddhism, the state religion of Goryeo.
Anyway, whether it is what Buddhism speaks of or not, can you imagine what it would feel like to live with memories of a previous life? Moreover, what if you reincarnated from the twenty-first century—where living without the conveniences of civilization is unimaginable—into the medieval thirteenth century?
No smartphones, no online video platforms, no water you can use lavishly whenever you want, clean toilets existing only in imagination, and an era where you pray for people to survive through shamanic rituals instead of vaccines and antibiotics.
At first, I was honestly shocked. How was a modern person supposed to live in such a pre-modern society! But they say humans are animals of adaptation, and having lived my second life from babyhood, I adapted somehow.
Living in a house like a historical drama set, with parents who were royalty of Goryeo and Mongolia, and with the two of them lavishing devotion and love upon me, their only child—wasn’t that why?
‘I… that is not it. I was simply curious. Whether the two of you believe in reincarnation…’
I wanted to know whether they would believe my words. Whether they could understand me, who had lived in the future hundreds of years away and woken one morning as a medieval Goryeo person.
My mother in my second life, Oljei, suddenly swooped me up from my father in my second life, Chang, who had had no spare hand from stroking my head, and gently pinched my cheek as she spoke.
‘We honestly do not know. Your father and I both have no memories of a previous life, you see. If there is such a thing, there is; if not, there is not—’
Two green eyes were gazing at me. Green eyes as transparent and vivid as my own, which resembled hers—mysterious pupils inherited through her Uyghur maternal clan—were filled entirely with me.
‘If there are memories of a previous life, that must undoubtedly be a great blessing bestowed by heaven. Someone will surely be able to use that gift wisely.’
----- -----
"One who has received the great blessing bestowed by heaven has arrived!"
At a distance from the gates of Karakoto, the ruined fortress of the Western Xia people, a soldier announced my arrival with a thunderous voice.
"You Western Xia people, come out quickly and heed her—"
"Enough. That will suffice."
The soldier had gone as far as shouting loudly for the Western Xia people to hurry out and prostrate themselves before me, but that was not what I wanted.
‘Do you truly think they will do such a thing? Truly?’
‘Yesugei, even if we fail, it is no great matter, is it? No matter how foolish or obviously impossible something seems, you never know until you try, do you?’
If only Grandfather could have seen how Yesugei’s face twisted when he heard my intention to persuade the Western Xia people to lay down their arms peacefully.
Why? Suppressing a rebellion does not necessarily require bloodshed, does it? Making them lay down their arms through persuasion is still suppressing a rebellion, is it not?
A rebellious desire to act contrary to Grandfather, who had openly ordered me to go to the battlefield and fight, and perhaps the last tether of a modern person who did not want to see blood.
Thinking that perhaps, like the diplomats of ancient tales who had forged peace treaties with silver tongues, I too could resolve this well, I took only about ten cavalry and slowly advanced toward the gate.
"I am Jadaran Solangtani, granddaughter of the Mongol Great Khan, one who has come here to speak with you! I only wish that you would lower your bows and talk!"
Cold gazes, frigid reactions—an atmosphere so clearly hostile that even the most obtuse person could perceive it.
Just as I was thinking that I had clearly misbuttoned things from the very first step of my self-introduction, one wearing armor far more ornate and decorated than the soldiers appeared atop the fortress wall.
"How can we believe those words! Show proof of what you say!"
Proof? Would this do? The sword Grandfather had given me, and the golden plaque he had given with it. That very thing which, wherever I showed it, made others comply obediently even with reluctant expressions.
When I raised high the sword tied at my waist and the golden plaque hanging at its end and displayed them toward the wall, the one in ornate armor disappeared beyond the wall, perhaps finally reacting to something.
And shortly after, with the grinding sound of stone hinges, the gate opened.
----- -----
Fearing the Western Xia people might feel threatened, I had left behind only six of the ten-some cavalry and pulled the rest far back; now only seven or eight of us remained by my side, including Yesugei.
And when the gate opened, the Western Xia people who emerged—at least several dozen strong—poured out and formed a long wall before us.
As if to say, ‘If we wished, we could easily subdue the likes of you.’
Among them, the one in ornate armor seen earlier atop the wall was a man closer to quite advanced age than middle-aged. To live to that age in this era, he must have been one who had survived long indeed.
"…For what matter have you come here, granddaughter of the Great Khan?"
At the naked voice that seemed to have cast aside even minimal courtesy, one of our soldiers moved to place his right hand on the hilt of his saber, but I stopped him with my hand and stepped forward.
"I have come here simply to speak with you. So that you may peacefully lay down your arms."
"Lay down our arms? Have I misheard?"
Eyes narrowed thinly swept over me, and he snickered while muttering behind him in Mongolian, loudly enough for me to hear, ‘A brat talking all kinds of nonsense without knowing anything,’ before asking back.
"It seems the mighty Khan of the Sea of Sand is fond of such jests? Sending a mere child to tell us to lay down our arms."
"My maternal grandfather said he entrusted me with the rebel suppression, but left how to handle it entirely to my discretion. Thus I have come to you."
It was the truth. Yesugei had read the order aloud to me, who cannot read Uyghur script, and it contained only the phrase, ‘By whatever means, suppress the Western Xia rebel army and stabilize the region where the rebellion has occurred.’ There was no mention that we must necessarily crush the enemy. So could it not be finished without bloodshed?
"Therefore?"
As the Western Xia general treated me with increasing contempt, Yesugei’s beard twitched, but I desperately pretended not to see.
"Please stop this rebellion. If you do, according to the authority of the edict personally bestowed by the Khan, I will erase your crimes. If we can end this situation peacefully, I am willing to—"
"You know nothing."
With thudding footsteps, the general’s armor rattled. The sound of armor plates clashing, the sound of desert sand under leather boots continued, then stopped roughly midway between where the Western Xia people stood and where I stood.
"You speak thus because you do not know what the Mongol bastards did to us."
"…I have heard of what happened when the Mongols invaded Western Xia—"
"That is a story told by one who has not experienced it. As the Khan’s granddaughter, you must have heard that all those conquests and campaigns were beautiful tales unfolding for glory and victory."
Having finished speaking, the Western Xia general suddenly removed his helmet and turned his face to fully reveal a long scar running from his head to his cheek.
"On the day this wound was made, my wife and three children all died. Whose doing do you think that was? Those behind me are all the same. People who have lost family, relatives, and friends to your army’s soldiers!"
"That is precisely why I wish you would sheathe your swords. I too know well. Having lost my parents, I know what it is to lose—"
"Ha!"
Perhaps because the memories of pain that could never be erased were seeping through the contorted expression each time his scar twitched, I stepped back without realizing it.
"The day your maternal grandfather led his army here, when our walls were ablaze, when our sons and daughters were bound like beasts and dragged away, when children became rotting corpses rolling about from blades! I knelt before their spirit tablets and swore."
That I would surely return the same suffering upon them.
"Therefore, if you wish to resolve this peacefully, assist us. If you are in our hands, the handle of negotiation will also be in ours."
When the general’s voice returned to the same cold, frigid atmosphere as when we first met rather than the heated anger from before, a sound splitting the wind was heard.
A moment too late.
An arrow embedded in the forehead of the soldier standing to my left, and without even a cry, he toppled backward like a puppet with cut strings.
----- -----
Four. That was the number of soldiers sacrificed by the time I was seized by Yesugei’s hands and fled, loaded onto a horse like baggage.
To buy time for me to escape, four had to become corpses, and even that seemed futile as the Western Xia people pursued us on horseback even now.
"…Commander! My Lord Commander!"
Yesugei, unable to even properly grasp the reins while fleeing from the approaching Western Xia cavalry in the distance, nevertheless managed to pull me upright onto the saddle.
"Yesugei. What in the world—"
"My Lord Commander."
A resolute voice cut me off. A gesture meaning I should listen quietly and think carefully.
"Do you understand now?"
He was the one who had persistently dissuaded me, saying that no words would reach their ears, that it was a waste of time and would only endanger me instead.
"This is reality."
Reality—who said it? Reality is what remains in its place even when you close your eyes. Even when my mother and father passed away before my eyes and I could not bear to believe it, wanting to deny it, every time I recalled myself left alone in the empty inner palace, I had to realize that it was reality.
And I had to realize that this, too, was reality that had befallen me.
The reality that trying to resolve things without bloodshed, as if I had learned in a morality class far in the future, was mere delusion.
"There may be a world where things can be resolved peacefully as you wished, My Lord Commander, but at least not here."
The sound of approaching hooves. The sound of cavalry whipping their horses and urging them on across the desert sand was growing louder even now.
"Capture her! Capture that wench and avenge our families!"
The shouts of the Western Xia soldiers told us the gap between them and us had narrowed significantly. As Yesugei had once translated, if caught, I would surely not meet a good end.
"So please make your decision."
According to the second plan you established.
Speaking thus, Yesugei held out to me one arrow and one bow with its string strung taut.
A bow that could be drawn even with weak and feeble arms, and an arrow that would fly true even if shot by me.
As if entranced, I raised the bow, nocked the arrow to the string, and aimed at the heads of the Western Xia cavalry pursuing us—
—but aimed far above them. As if firing in an arc.
‘I believe you will use the great blessing you received wisely.’
I’m sorry. I suppose I was wrong after all. Because I am not a wise person like Mother expected, so in the end, it had to come to this.
I released the fletching just like that, and the arrow began to fly toward somewhere in the distant sky, propelled by its spring.
Peeeeeeeew-!
Instead of the sound of a solid arrowhead and fletching slicing through wind, the arrow—crafted with a hole to produce a peculiar sound while flying—began to fulfill its role.
Rumble-rumble-
What sound is that? Very simple. It is a signal.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-
If the Western Xia rebel army commits troops to pursue me for whatever reason, as they are doing now—
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
—it is the signal for the ambush troops to spring out.