Batukhan
Harrow International Hong Kong, Matthew Leslie, Fiction: Group 3
T
hose eyes. Those terrible eyes. Each of them carved to hatch weakness inside resilient
hearts; the excruciating pain etched infinitely on their faces. Brows crumpled in agony,
mouths torn apart, their tantalising scream for help staring right at him.
Batukhan surveyed the plains like a tentative child: head poking through the
crenellations, his brown mop flopping over a misted eye. Barely an adult was of a tender age in
this town, but he was tall, which compensated for it. He had inherited a prominently angular jaw
from his father, and dark, quizzical eyebrows was something he shared with his brother.
Now merely a head amongst others, spiked no more than 20 feet away from the town gate,
the sand billowing about them. Caught helplessly out in the open, cut down effortlessly by the
demons on horseback, their heads to serve as mocking clock, counting the days before their fate,
too, was sealed.
There was something else in the air that day as Batukhan dragged himself through the streets.
Something unfamiliar; a foreigner in their midst.
The Udirdag had called a town gathering just outside the monastery, and people had flooded
towards the steps of the temple in a mix of emotions, some boiling with rage, some shuffled with
anxiety, and others looked into the middle distance, rendered inconsolable by the family they
had lost.
And now Batukhan saw it. A foreigner settling in.
The fear in their eyes. Fervent, like a plague it grew. The fear of death, the fear of each other,
the fear of the unknown: it had all been conceived inside them. And as the Udirdag emerged from
inside the monastery, each pair of pleading eyes hoped for the same thing – a solution.
“We only begin to imagine the horrors that our friends and family faced out amongst the
dunes. But although we cannot share their suffering, it is only honourable and righteous that we
mourn them properly, together.”
Someone gave a loud stifled sob in the crowd, but no one turned round. They were caught up
in their own thoughts.
“The cursed riders, the Mongols, presented the heads of our loved ones because they thought it
could scare us!”
An audible cry came from the same person, an old woman. High-pitched and wailing like a
baby’s. The Udirdag tried to continue, but was constantly interrupted by the waves of shrieks.
Eventually someone, presumably her son, ushered her away to try to calm her down.
Batukhan looked back at the crowd, expecting them to be shaken by the scene, but instead he
saw them staring ahead, their eyes fixated on the Udirdag in front of them.
“…but the worst of the threat is over! We have sent some men out to search, but found nothing!
During the search, the men did in fact find a certain journal written by one of the soldiers…”
The murmuring continued, but most waited with bated breath.
“It reads: ‘Nothing here. Tolui’s been given orders to push south, so we’re just moving on
yet again.’”
A cheer emerged from the people, and following the sighs of relief, everyone began to filter back
down the streets, realising they could sleep tonight knowing their wives and children would be safe.
