Somewhere between Zhāng and Yīng Kingdoms

The battle between the two armies

Sounds of clashing metal and shouts of glory amid screams of pain followed Yǒng Ming and Yáng Ning into the forest. Yǒng Ming grunted in agony as Yáng Ning found a giant boulder to hide behind.

The guard lowered his prince as gently as possible to the ground and looked to the battle to be sure they hadn’t been followed.

“By the heavens!” groaned Yǒng Ming, his right leg laying in a crooked position before him.

Yáng Ning quickly knelt down and began to remove the blood-soaked and tattered material from around the wound.

“You’re not going anywhere like this,” he ominously declared. “It’s shattered and I don’t even think the bottom is connected to the top anymore.”

“Rrrggh!” Yǒng Ming grunted.

He did his best to remain quiet so no one would find them, but the pain was excruciating.

“Where are the scouts?” he asked in an agonized voice.

“The last I saw them, they were at the far corner of the battle closest to our camp. I don’t know where they are now.”

“And my brother?” Yǒng Ming asked in an urgent moan.

He was squeezing his hand around the top of his leg in a feeble attempt to numb the pain. He pressed his other shaky hand against his eyes to keep the tears of agony at bay.

“He led a battalion of our soldiers through the forest on the other side of the battlefield,” Yáng Ning answered as he poured fresh water over the blood-soaked flesh. “The Wáng Píng tribe has taken advantage of our recent battle with the Yīng soldiers and is attacking us all.”

“Clever bastards,” Yǒng Ming muttered. “We can’t keep going like this. There has to be an end to this war so we can focus our efforts on that tribe. We have to find a way to get to them now, today, or there won’t be many of us left to fight them after we’re done fighting the Yīng troops.”

“We can think of all that once we’re back at camp,” Yáng Ning replied. “There has to be a way to get you there.”

As Yáng Ning looked around for an answer, Yǒng Ming took a shaky breath and grabbed his arm.

“Yáng, there are no scouts and we’re too far away for me to ever make it back. Even if I somehow managed to move with this leg, we’ll be captured either by the Yīng soldiers or the Wáng Píng.

Go. Save yourself and watch over my brother. You know that brat will need all the help he can get when he takes my place as crown prince.”

Yáng Ning briskly shook his head and was about to object when they heard a rustle through the nearby trees.

Branches snapped beneath the sound of rushing feet, and both men drew their swords in preparation for a final stand. The last person either of them thought they’d see there on the outskirts of a bloody battle was the young girl who appeared in the broken sunlight.

Standing before them dressed in a blood-stained white robe, a beam of light shimmering off of her black hair and worried eyes, she appeared as some mystical messenger from the heavens. Even as she rushed to their side, they stared as though she were a figment of both their imaginations.

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Mîn Jíng as she fell to her knees beside them.

As she began pulling things from a box, the two men came to their senses.

“Are you in need of help, Miss?” asked Yáng Ning, confused about what she was doing as rolls of material were pulled from the box.

“I should say he’s the one who needs help,” she scoffed at the suggestion.

“Who are you and why are you on a battleground?” Yáng Ning pressed on.

“I’m here to help,” she insisted with an impatient huff.

Without another word, she examined Yǒng Ming’s leg and shook her head. She briefly looked over minor stab wounds, cuts, and abrasions but focused her efforts on his leg.

She pulled medicine bottles and jars from her box and a pouch hung from her belt.

“It’s broken and dislocated,” she explained.

After handing Yǒng Ming a water skin from which to drink, she took his hand and looked intently into his eyes.

“I’m going to help you but you must do everything I say. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Yǒng Ming quickly replied and met Yáng Ning’s look of concern. “How can it get any worse?” he answered the expression of doubt.

They watched her remove a knife from the box and cut away the rest of the trouser leg. She washed it all again to get a better visual of the injury and looked back up at Yǒng Ming.

“Are you married?” she asked. “Do you have children?”

“Um … Y-yes, I do, and I love them very much,” he replied to the odd question. “I want to see them again, but I don’t think they will ever happen.”

Mîn Jíng watched as he blinked furiously at tears before they fell and held his hand again. She looked directly into his eyes as she responded rather forcefully.

“Your family is all that matters right now,” she seemed to order. “You’ll not think of the battle nor kings or kingdoms. Only your family that needs you safely home. You are only to think of them now and saving this leg so you can live and walk again. Never think of anything else and never think about dying.

You,” she addressed Yáng Ning, “hold him. He isn’t to move a muscle.”

She quickly shoved a thick stick horizontally between Yǒng Ming’s teeth and made him bite down. She moved around until his foot was between her legs and a large tree root was at her backside. Grabbing a hold of his leg, she took a deep breath to prepare for what she was about to do.

Just as they thought she was about to do something, she quickly looked up and from side to side.

“Did you hear that?” she asked in a fearful whisper.

As both men looked around for the enemy, she pulled with all of her strength until his knee popped back into place.

Yǒng Ming’s scream was muffled by the stick into which his teeth became embedded from the force of biting down.

The expression that washed over him was such a varying extreme, Yáng Ning became worried. He stared in awe at the strange girl who appeared from nowhere before Yǒng Ming spit out the stick and took a sudden, deep gasp of air.

“Ho – holy g – go – gods!” he exclaimed in gasps.

“Your Hi… Lieutenant, are you all right?” Yáng Ning quickly asked, correcting himself before he addressed him as the crown prince.

Yǒng Ming nodded and stared at first his leg and then at the girl, who was grinning from ear to ear as she continued to work on the rest of his leg.

Using more water from another water bottle, she cleaned out the open wound with the protruding bone. After drying it, she poured powder over it. The initial burning caused him to grit his teeth, but everywhere the powder touched went numb.

Mîn Jíng dressed the wound with folded strips of fabric and looked around at the forest floor.

“Find the straightest and smoothest sticks while I set the bone,” she ordered Yáng Ning.

As he rushed to do as instructed, she sutured the gash closed and poured another powder, which stopped most of the bleeding.

“Where did you learn all of this?” Yǒng Ming asked as he watched her impressive skills.

Careful not to speak too much of her upbringing, she simply answered, “I was raised by a wonderful physician.”

Yáng Ning returned with a small bundle of the sticks she needed.

“Here,” he said.

“Help me,” she ordered.

Together, they lined the sticks around the leg to keep it straight. Yáng Ning held them in place as she wrapped strong strips of fabric around Yǒng Ming’s entire leg.

Mîn Jíng breathed an exhausted sigh when she was finally done and looked up at her patient.

“Keep it as clean as you can and don’t use it!” she ordered. “It should stay in its bindings for at least two months. After that, you must still be gentle with it. Bend your knee as soon as you can to work out the stiffness, but don’t stand on it. After a while, you’ll know when you can move around more, but go slow.

If you do everything I say, you should be all right,” she continued as she put away her supplies. “If anyone tells you to do anything other than my own instructions, cut off his head! I’m not risking my life and wasting my supplies to have my efforts ruined by an amateur physician, who thinks he’s an expert just because he’s a man.

Oh!” she continued as she grabbed up her box and stood. “If I ever find out you can’t walk, I will hunt you down, dislocate that knee again, and give your wife another husband!”

Yǒng Ming and Yáng Ning stared at her for a moment over her boldness until Yǒng Ming laughed out right. Yáng Ning grinned but the ambiguity of their situation was still ever present.

“I thank you for what you’ve done, but we can’t return to our camp,” he told her dismally. “Our scouts are elsewhere, and I’m afraid by the time they find us, either the Yīng soldiers would have cut us down or the Wáng Píng will have us and do their worst.”

Mîn Jíng looked around and back at the two men. She wouldn’t let her father’s soldiers hurt those she had just healed, and she wouldn’t leave them as sacrifices to the horrific tribe trying to kill them all.

“Wait here,” she said and hurried away.

After a short while of waiting and fearing she had been captured or killed, she appeared again with five men from their scouting party.

As the men helped their lieutenant up, he watched her pull a small blue pouch from her bag. She filled it with leaves, dirt, a flower, and a piece of bandage. After tying it shut, she handed it to him. He admired the lovely embroidery of a dragon flying around a snow covered mountain as she spoke.

“This is to remind you of the moment your family almost lost you. It was your will and determination to return to them that kept you alive.”

As she turned to leave, Yáng Ning grabbed her by the arm.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to help others,” she replied and pulled away.

“Come with us,” he offered. “It isn’t safe out there.”

“He’s right,” agreed Yǒng Ming, leaning against his men for support. “You’ll be safe at our camp. None of the men will bother you. You can stay in my tent and make certain I obey your orders.”

She smiled at his grin but shook her head.

“I’m grateful for your offer and your concern, but I’ll be all right. Goodbye.”

Without another word, she left them, disappearing through the same line of trees from which she’d appeared.

“Sir?” asked one of the scouts.

Yǒng Ming merely shook his head in wonder.

“We’ll discuss it when we’re safely back at camp,” advised Yáng Ning.

For the rest of the evening and long into the night, the men could speak of nothing more than the strange girl dressed in white who healed more than their crown prince.

Jié Qiáng listened intently through his gratitude of this brave girl’s efforts to save not only their men but Yīng soldiers, as well, as news from the battle front had claimed. The more he heard of her compassion and heroism, the more he thought of the girl he met at the village.

He had to see her again. No matter what he had to do to end this latest battle, he would make it home to see her.