The red dreams of Boldbator the horse Mongol were cast from his active mind by the sight of a long object against the horizon.
His keen eyes, sitting sharp in the crinkles that wind and sun had cut around them, grew steely with interest.
Here was the Great Mongol Road. No vehicle would attempt to pass it in the dead of winter, for there were few villages and no sanctuary to be found on the way.
Boldbator lashed his responsive pony around and veered toward that dim shape.
As he galloped toward it, his eyes saw it for what it was. A bus.
He trotted up to it slowly, for the windows were shattered and its painted sides were riddled with the shiny pits of bullet strikes.
The north wind carried the metallic taste of blood to Boldbator's broad nose.
Boldbator came to a halt only a few yards from the bus. It lay askew the road. There were bodies around it. Green bodies. Soldiers of Beijing.
Boldbator dismounted, and reassured his snorting pony with a firm slap.
Clutching his reins tightly, ready at an instant to remount or, if the worst happened, to slap his pony to safety, he padded forward.
The soldiers were all dead, but one. They lay in sprawled positions. No visible wounds on them. But they were dead nonetheless.
The one who groaned did have a bullet wound, Boldbator discovered. It let the blood bubble up from his heaving chest like a pot coming to a slow boil. With each exhaled breath, more bubbles appeared. A lung wound. Such wounds were invariably fatal.
Boldbator knelt beside the dying soldier.
"What did this to you, dog of Beijing?" he asked quietly.
The soldier turned glazed eyes to Boldbator and said simply, "A guaihu in the form of a man."
"By what name is this devil known?"
The soldier inhaled. His chest wound swallowed the newly formed bubbles. He gasped two words, "Finish me."
Boldbator nodded. He unsheathed his knife and with a soft caressing glance of its edge across the soldier's exposed throat, sent him into eternity.
Then Boldbator led his nervous pony around the bus. There were no other living ones-no hint off what had befallen the soldiers.
Boldbator did find tracks. Jeep tracks. They led north.
Boldbator remounted and rode after them. He did not ride hard. Who knew but that he rode toward his death, and why should a man hurry toward his appointed hour-even a brave Mongol?
Many li along, Boldbator came to an abandoned jeep. A soldier sat at the wheel, back stiff, eyes staring ahead as if waiting for the world to end.
He did not stir as Boldbator approached, and the Mongol realized he was frozen. Dismounting, he passed a hand over the man's sightless eyes. Dead. The wolves would get him. Good for the wolves, thought Boldbator.
He saw that the jeep's gas gauge was on empty, and two sets of footprints, one heavy, one very light, led north.
Boldbator stared north a very long time. What manner of men could lay waste to Chinese soldiers?
"Mongol men!" he cried in answer. Grinning fiercely, he leapt atop his mount and charged in the direction the footprints led him.
He knew not how many li he would have to ride, but it mattered not. He was a man among men. So, too, would these two be.
In his wild heart, Boldbator rejoiced at the thought of encountering them.
Night had fallen and the moon was high and full, a lighter blue than the afternoon sky, but blue nonetheless. It was a good moon. Strong, giving much light.
The wind from the north chopped at Boldbator's weathered bronze face and padded sheepskin del. He had pulled his earflaps under his chin to protect his ears. In this wind, they might freeze and have to be cut off. It was a terrible thing to have to cut a man's frozen ears off to save the rest of the man, for Boldbator had done this once, years ago. A worse thing still, to cut off one's own ear.
Boldbator rode on. Clouds came. They swallowed the strong moon with a darkening power beyond appeal.
Enough silver-blue light bled through to show Boldbator his horse's shaggy mane, but that was all.
He lost the footprints in the darkness, which he cursed.
The smell of a cooking fire came from the west. Boldbator rode toward that. He must find hospitality, for if he lay down on the steppe with his horse, the wolves would get them both.
Boldbator had seen a single steppe wolf bring down a fully grown horse. The whinnying was terrible, even to a Mongol.
There were four circular gers, their painted-wood doors facing south, where the bitter north wind could not insinuate itself into the felt-covered Mongol tents.
Food smells mingled with the dung-smoke aroma like a warm welcome.
Boldbator rode up to the ger from which smoke rose from a slim black stovepipe. He nudged his horse to give a warning whinny so that the inhabitant of the circular tent would not be startled by his approach.
"Sain Baina!" Boldbator called out.
A man pushed open the door and eyed him stolidly. His face was unseeable, for the strong light behind threw it into darkness.
"Sain Baino," he rumbled, adding grumpily, "Another visitor. And on such a night. Why come you here, man?"
"I am Boldbator, son of Gongonching," Boldbator said, dismounting. "I seek two great warriors who slew Chinese soldiers like true Mongols. I smell by your smoke that you eat late."
"We do have visitors, loud one. But warriors they are not."
Boldbator tethered his horse to a rack and carried his wooden saddle into the ger.
Gathered around the black stove were an old woman and three Mongol sons. And with them a scrawny shivering Chinese youth and a very old man in a sheepskin cloak who looked more Mongol than Chinese, but seemed to be neither.
"I am Boldbator," he proclaimed loudly. "Mongol among Mongols."
To his surprise, the old one returned his greeting in perfect Khalkha Mongol.
"I am but a traveler from a distant land," he said, "sojourning in the Land of Eternal Blue."
"And this shivering one?" Boldbator asked.