[ WP ] `` What does n't kill me has made a tactical error . ''

When Genghis Khan razed my hamlet, I was the only one left living. `` Crawl to your king,'' he said, as I lay there beaten and bloodied. `` Tell of the glory of Khan!'' Dust filled my eyes as two thousand cavalry archers trampled the ground around me. Somehow I was saved from the hammer of their hooves. When they were nothing more than a dark slick on the grasslands beyond, I groaned and started crawling. 
 
 `` Impossible,'' said the king, gnawing at his fingers right up to the knuckles. `` I sent a hundred vassals to block the pass! Khan should never have got through!'' 
 
 `` I tell you what I saw with the eyes of my blood, sir.'' And then, exhausted, I collapsed. 
 
 I woke up in the castle inn. There was a great hubbub, men running back and forward, knocking over beds. Some of them were scrambling to get out of their robes and into their armor. Others, more practical, were scrambling to get out of their armor, get into their wives' dresses, disguise themselves as women and hide in some hole. Only one word could be distinguished from the chaos: `` Khan!'' 
 
 I dragged myself onto the balcony. From here I had a good view of the castle walls, the inn's balcony set at an elevation just above the lowest rung of archers. With a little panic in my heart I observed that the archers were hardly at their posts. They were running back and forward, one would crash into another and send a whole barrel of arrow-shafts spilling into the courtyard, they were no better than the tenants in the inn. Outside, the blare of Genghis's trumpets. 
 
 Suddenly, white flags were raised! I could n't believe it. `` Tell me it's a mistake,'' I said, grabbing a nearby knight and shaking him by the collar. He looked at the flags and shook his head. The king does not make mistakes. It was all out, balls to the walls, surrender. 
 
 `` No!'' I shouted, down into the courtyard. `` You've got ta fight him! He killed my family, he killed everyone!'' But I might as well have been shouting into the belly of a draegon. Men were hurling themselves off the walls now, preferring death to a life of Mongol servitude. 
 
 I went back inside, picked a kitchen knife off a table. Hobbled onto the balcony and threw myself down onto the lower parapets, so quickly being abandoned by the archers. I landed heavy, and screamed; I think I must have broke my spine, I could n't move my legs. 
 
 With gritted teeth, I dragged myself with my elbows, clinging to that greasy knife. Archers paid me no heed, a few of them tripping over my legs in their fright. Inch by inch, I dragged myself closer to the gate. The gate was opening now, some witless knights flew out of it, a frantic bid to flee the kingdom but of course we were surrounded. Mongol horsemen were spilling in now, laughing sadistically, whipping at naked barons purely for fun and laughter. Black arrows pierced the white flag, they would not take our surrender peacefully. 
 
 Then I saw him. The great Genghis, on that triple-breasted warhorse. I cringed remembering what he did to my parents, what he did to my precious little sister in front of me. With the last of my strength, I rolled off the wall, and tumbled down upon him. Piercing his Mongol throat with that filthy kitchen utensil. We collapsed together, godless Mongols howling and yollering around us. `` You!'' choked the Khan, through a torrent of his own lifeblood.
