Zhang Jiyuan anxiously looked for his favorite, the one he called Snow White, fearing that a white horse would be especially visible, and therefore more vulnerable, in the enshrouding darkness. As two more bolts of lightning lit up the sky, Zhang saw a pair of stud horses fighting with teeth and hooves to protect a white foal from an attack by three wolves. The foal stuck to its father like glue, and even dredged up the courage to kick out at its attackers. The pack’s greatest asset was speed; the instant they saw that it had failed them, they retreated into the black night to seek out another hapless foal. The stud horses called out to the mothers in the herd, for they were the only other animals who had the courage and the composure to protect their offspring, which they did with all the weapons available to them as they made their way toward their mates, their foals alongside. The fiercest stud horses and the most courageous females and foals warded off the first assault by the lightning above and the wolves below, forming mutually protective clusters of families.
The greater part of herd unity, however, had collapsed. The battle-tested wolves threw themselves into the fight, like lethal bombs, sending waves outward like ripples on a lake. No vestige of protection remained for the herders, and within half an hour, they had nearly lost contact with each other.
Batu, on the verge of being completely unnerved, signaled with his flashlight and shouted, “Forget the southeast! Concentrate on driving the horses to the northwest! Don’t let them head to the border!” This snapped the herders out of their confusion and, to a man, they galloped toward the northwest.
The first taste of victory had increased the wolves’ wills and their appetites. Not content with killing the slow-moving foals that had been separated from their mothers, they went for the panic-stricken two- and three-year-olds. After starting one-on-one, the wolves began to attack in groups of two and three, bringing down several young horses in succession, their tendons and arteries bitten through, sending blood flying and throwing such a fright into the rest of the herd that the surviving members cared about nothing but running for their lives.
With the thunder and lightning gone from the skies, the herders’ shouts and flashlights had regained their effectiveness; the fleeing horses began to return to their families following the whinnying of the stud horses. The herd was heading south, picking up equine soldiers along the way. Thirty or forty powerful stud horses formed a line in front of the herd and bore down on the wolves, who turned and ran. That was the sign for weak, young, and injured horses to rejoin the herd, the source of their salvation, while many of the stud horses brought their reduced families back into the fold, where there were calls for family members to come together.
The wolf pack retreated in orderly fashion, apparently in no hurry to return to the downed animals and begin the feast, choosing instead to go after stragglers before the herders and stud horses brought them back into the herds. Batu and some of the senior herders rode up to the front to count the number of stud horses, and discovered that a third were unaccounted for. This chilling development sent Batu to the rear of the herd, where he told four herders to split up into pairs and expand the roundup area to the east and to the west. The other herders were told to drive their animals ahead. Finally he sent Zhang Jiyuan to the southeast to drive the wolves out of the area.
Wolves in the northwest raced to link up with those in the southeast, who were in a killing frenzy; some of the horse families had lost all their foals. After joining forces, the wolves went after the sick and crippled adult horses. Shouts and whinnies from the northwest drew nearer, but the wolves concentrated on the killing, leaving the eating for later. Seeing that one man was powerless to drive the wolves away, Zhang decided to go back and help with the herds. The wolves, with their intimate knowledge of grassland weather, seemed to be waiting for the right moment to make their big move.
The herders had driven the horses to within three or four li of the sandy hill when hordes of mosquitoes from the marshland rose like a dense cloud to envelop the herd. The most vicious mosquitoes of the year immediately buried their needles in horseflesh. After surviving the dual attacks from lightning and wolves, the horses erupted into uncontrolled madness.
The punishment almost immediately fell on the hide of the protectors of the herd, the stud horses. The powerful animals, with their smooth, almost hairless hides and taut muscles, had suffered for days, their tails sticky with blood, until their ability to sweep away the mosquitoes had fallen to zero. The greatest concentration of insects focused their attention on the stud horses’ eyelids and genitals, which drove them crazy, robbing them of their reason and their sense of responsibility. At that moment, the mosquitoes’ enemy, the wind, died down and pointed out the direction the herd needed to take to create some wind. The stud horses, bitten nearly blind and half mad, abandoned their mates and offspring and ran like the wind into the wind.
The herders had come out from the sandy hill, where there were few mosquitoes, and were not wearing masks. Their faces, necks, and hands were immediately bitten mercilessly by the blood-sucking insects. Their eyelids were swollen, their eyes mere slits; their faces were “fat,” as if burned. Their lips were so puffy that they twitched painfully, their fingers thickened until they could barely hold their lasso poles. Mounts ignored their riders’ commands, rearing and prancing crazily. One minute they’d lower their heads and stretch their necks to relieve the itching; the next they’d take off running again, barely able to keep from rolling on the ground, with no thoughts for their riders.
The fight had been taken out of men and horses as they sank into a sea of mosquitoes. Most of the herd animals were running pell-mell into the wind; the stragglers took their lead, racing to the northwest.
Crazed stinging, crazed running, crazed killing-mosquitoes, horses, and wolves. A convergence of plagues-thunder and lightning, winds, mosquitoes, and wolves-fell onto the Olonbulag horse herds, and Zhang Jiyuan once again sensed with his entire being the difficulty of life on the grassland; he doubted that any other race of people could possibly survive in such a cruel environment. Ashen-faced Batu whipped his horse frantically, even on the animal’s head to make it forget the stings of mosquitoes. Zhang Jiyuan, impressed by this bold display, confidently and courageously turned and charged.
“Force the herd west!” Batu shouted. “There’s sand there! Move! Move! Make sure they don’t head for the border.”
“Hey! Hey!” the herders shouted in response.
A scream caught Zhang Jiyuan’s attention; he saw a horse stumble and throw its rider to the ground. No one came to help; they were too focused on charging ahead.
But how could horses burdened with riders be expected to catch up with riderless horses being harassed by mosquitoes and wolves? The herders’ inability to drive the horses westward shattered their last hope. And still, Batu and the other men shouted at the top of their lungs and kept the chase going.
Suddenly, beams of light split the darkness from a distant mountain. “The brigade has sent a rescue team!” Batu shouted. The herders shouted excitedly as they flicked on their flashlights to show the newcomers where the herd was. Robust shouts emerged from the riders behind the mountain as they stormed up a ridge and swept the area ahead with their flashlights, as if setting up a blockade to keep the horses from running off. All this resulted in getting the herd rounded up and turned around. As the horses were forced to huddle together, they crushed mosquitoes between their bodies.