For a moment they just stood. The next, she was pinned against the tent wall with General Ouyang’s studded leather wristguard crushing her throat. She choked and kicked. Despite his small size, she might as well have tried to free herself from a statue’s grip. The scratchy tent fabric bowed outwards under their combined weight. He leaned in and whispered in her ear, “Wasn’t losing one hand enough?”
He let go. As she crashed down she instinctively caught herself—with a hand that wasn’t there. The world flashed red as she smashed down chin-first with a strangled scream. After that she could only writhe and gasp. In the way in which pain renders everything else unimportant, she was vaguely aware of General Ouyang standing over her. The tip of his sword pricked her cheek.
“Take what you like,” she ground out. “It takes more than that to destroy me.”
He crouched by her head with a creak of armor. “I’ll admit to some surprise that you’re still around. Your men must be pitiful indeed, to follow a cripple into battle.” There was something else under his viciousness. Envy. Zhu remembered the whips, and the cruel ease with which he had squandered his conscripts. His men despised him, and he hated them; he had probably always led through fear, because he had to.
He took the lip of her helmet and lifted her head up so they were eye to eye. Even in her pain she marveled at the dark sweep of his lashes, and the fine brushstroke of his brows. As if he had some idea of her thoughts, he mused, “Apparently being as ugly as a cockroach makes you as resilient as one, too. But there are certain things nobody comes back from. Shall we try them, one by one?”
Zhu said between pants, “And not even hear my offer first? Surely you’re curious as to why I came.”
“What can you have that I could possibly want? Especially since you’ve already given me the opportunity to kill you.”
An opportunity for an opportunity. A more specific agony radiated up her right arm—the pain of her phantom hand still cutting itself to the bone around his blade. She wondered if she would ever be able to let go. “You haven’t attacked yet because you’re waiting for reinforcements to arrive. But since you let Bianliang fall in the first place, your reinforcements are for some purpose other than taking it.” She glanced over his shoulder at the crowding ghosts. They were still watching, but the sight of them no longer provoked fear. They filled the tent, pressed close like a murmuring audience before the start of a play. He didn’t know they were there, but at the same time he did know—the knowledge of it was in the very fabric of his being, because everything he did was for them. He was a man in his own invisible prison, walled in by the dead. She said, “A purpose that has nothing to do with the Red Turbans at all.”
He turned as if compelled to follow her gaze, and laughed in horror as his eyes met emptiness. “What do you see there, that tells you about me?” He released her helmet and sank back on his heels with an incredulous expression. “It’s true, though. I do have reinforcements on the way. They’ll be here tomorrow morning. And while they’re not for you, they’ll do against you very well. Since you and your pitiful little army turned up just in time to be in my way.”
“What if I told you our goals are compatible? Help me get the Prime Minister and the Prince of Radiance out of the city, and I’ll take my army and leave you to do whatever you’re planning, without interruption.”
He regarded her. “I presume you realize how much I dislike you. Wasn’t the part where I said I wanted to kill you clear enough?”
“But there’s something more important to you than anything you feel about me. Isn’t there?” Zhu got up with a stifled grunt of pain, took the pigeon message from her armor and proffered it to him. When he made no move to take it, she said, “Can you read it? It’s written in characters.”
“Of course I can read characters,” he said, as insulted as a wet cat.
“I’m not sure you’ll be able to hold a scroll open and keep your sword on me at the same time,” Zhu observed. “Trust me on things that are hard to do one-handed.”
He glared at her as he rose, sheathed his sword, and took the message.
“It’s from our Chancellor of State, Chen Youliang,” Zhu explained. “If I can get this message to the Prime Minister, he’ll know Chen Youliang intends to betray him. Then he’ll come to me out of Bianliang of his own accord. As soon as I have him and the Prince of Radiance, I’ll withdraw from the field. You won’t have to waste any men or effort fighting me.”
“And if your Prime Minister gets the letter but decides to handle the matter himself? Once my reinforcements arrive, my hands will be tied. Whether or not you get what you want—if you don’t withdraw, I’ll be forced to attack.”
“That’s a risk I’ll take.”
“How lucky your Prime Minister is to command such loyalty.” His beautiful face was sour.
“Loyalty?” Zhu held his eyes and smiled. “Hardly, General.”
After a moment his mouth turned down with bitterness. “I see. Well, I have no loyalty either. And on the scale of bargains I’ve made lately, this is nothing.” He gestured for her to get up. “If you want to send that message to Liu Futong, I know a way. You may not like it.”
“I’ll hear it.”
“That point you see above the city’s walls is the top of the Astronomical Tower. The past three mornings running, your Prime Minister has gone up there to survey my camp. Have him ascend the tower tomorrow morning to find an arrow waiting for him with Chen’s letter. Will that not serve?”
Zhu regarded him. “So someone needs to shoot an arrow into the upper level of the Astronomical Tower. In the dark. From outside the city. I only have one letter.”
“Trust that I’m Mongol enough to do it,” General Ouyang said sardonically.
If he failed, the arrow would fall somewhere else in the city. It would be found and reported to Chen, who would know whose side Zhu had chosen. But Zhu wouldn’t know that Chen knew. She would be waiting on the battlefield opposite General Ouyang, and the Prime Minister would never come, and then he would kill her. She would be risking all the potential the white light signified, for the chance to fulfil it completely. Everything or nothing in this one chance to defeat Chen.
She was no longer afraid of nothing, as she had been, but neither was it something she wanted to run towards. Anticipation made her break out in chicken-skin. “Do it.”
“I already knew you were foolhardy. But you’ll really gamble your life on the one who nearly killed you?”
“You didn’t nearly kill me,” Zhu corrected. “You freed me.” She stepped closer, forcing him to see her. Despite all the pain he had caused her, she didn’t hate him. She didn’t pity him, either; she simply understood him. “At our last meeting you said I set you on your path towards your fate, and you promised to deliver me to mine. But just as you know your fate, I know mine. You didn’t give it to me then, because that wasn’t the moment for it. This is the moment. So do it.”
Fate. His face contorted as though the word had struck him. Zhu had always thought that whatever his fate was, he didn’t want it. But now, startled, she saw the truth: as desperately as he didn’t want his fate, and he feared and hated the idea of it—he wanted it just as much.
Zhu thought of the original Zhu Chongba, motionless in bed with the quick of life gone out of him. He hadn’t wanted his fate, either. He had given it up. Her eyes slid over General Ouyang’s shoulder and met the stares of his ghosts. She had wondered, before, what bound them to him. But it was the opposite: he bound himself to them. That was his tragedy. Not being born to a terrible fate, but not being able to let it go.
And just for that moment, she did pity him.
As if aware of her sentiment, he jerked his face away. He went to the rectangular cases and selected a bow. A single arrow. As he left he said, blisteringly dry, “If you want your fate, then stay here.”
He was gone a long time. Time enough for him to have gone to the Prince of Henan and shown him Chen’s message, or done anything else
. Perhaps he had never intended to try to make that shot. The more Zhu thought about it, the more impossible it seemed. The watch called, and despite herself she felt her stomach sink.
Then the doorflap swung inwards, making her jump. “It’s done,” General Ouyang said shortly. The murderous look he gave her said he still held her partly responsible for his fate and whatever personal horrors it contained. “I’ll give you until midday tomorrow to take your men and leave, with or without your Prime Minister. If you’re still here after that, all bets are off. Now get the hell out of my ger.”
* * *
Zhu sat on her horse at the head of her waiting army. For the sake of appearances she was wearing the saber, which even after diligent practice she could still barely draw from its sheath in one clean motion. It’s like I’m a hapless monk all over again. She wondered if her captains realized how truly incapable she was. Everything about this encounter was appearances. Just as the Mandate itself was only appearances. The Prince of Radiance’s Mandate of Heaven could rouse an army to follow it, but that was because it was fused with the belief that he would usher in a new era. Her own Mandate, unbacked by any such beliefs, was nothing more than a light.
Yet.
For it to be more than that, she would have to make it through this encounter. And for all that this encounter was appearances—at the same time it was as real as life and death.
Mist swirled over the plain. As it shifted she could make out geometric shapes far above, like a glimpse of the Jade Emperor’s realm in the sky. The straight edge of ramparts; the tops of Bianliang’s famous Iron Pagoda and Astronomical Tower. Both that upper world and the one below were completely silent.
A breeze came up off the Yellow River. The mist moved and thinned. Zhu looked at the pale, determined faces of her captains, staring eastwards through the mist in the direction of the Yuan camp. So much of this moment depended on their trust in Zhu. And her own trust lay in a perilous stack of unknowns. On General Ouyang actually having done what he’d said. On him having made that impossible shot. On the Prime Minister having found the letter, and his response.
I just need their trust for this little bit longer.
There was a hoarse, muffled cry. “Commander Zhu—!”
The mists had lifted enough for them to see their surroundings. To the east there was the expected sight of the Yuan camp, swirling with activity. To the west—
At first glance one could have mistaken the prickle of vertical lines for a winter forest. But not a forest of trees. A forest of masts. In the middle of the night a navy had sailed up the Yellow River, and even now was disembarking an army.
“Yes,” Zhu said. “The Yuan called the Zhang family of Yangzhou to their aid.”
She watched the dismay dawn on their faces. They knew what it meant: they were pinned between the eunuch general to the east, and the Zhang forces to the west. They knew Chen would never send troops out now. He and the Prime Minister would hunker down and hope to withstand the siege until summer. They would leave Zhu outside to be slaughtered.
She thought urgently: Trust me.
Just then there was a mechanical spasm in the Yuan camp, and a projectile splashed against the eastern wall. After a moment they heard a low boom like distant thunder, and a thick column of black smoke rose from the wall. It hadn’t been a rock—it was a bomb. A second trebuchet released, then a third. Their lashing arms inscribed arcs across the sky like the spinning stars. Zhu could feel each explosion deep inside her gut. She tried to imagine what was happening in the city between Chen and the Prime Minister. Who would end up betraying whom, now that everything had changed?
Light from the explosions washed over her captains’ faces. “Wait,” she commanded. It was like holding back restive horses. She could feel her control of them slipping. If even one of them broke and ran, the others would follow—
There were no shadows under that flat sky. The morning mists burned off as General Ouyang’s army emerged from their camp and began assembling at the far end of the plain. Mounted units rotated into position on the wings. I’ll give you until midday, he’d said. It was nearing midday, and still nothing had come out of Bianliang. Helplessly, Zhu watched the parts of his army flowing together into a seamless, motionless block. Waiting. Only the flame-blue banners moved overhead. In the awful stretched moment that followed, Zhu thought she could hear the drop of the water clock. A dripping that came ever slower, until the last drop came and there was only a terrible suspended silence.
Into that silence fell a single beat. One drum, beating like a heart. Then another picked up the rhythm, and another. From the west, an answering cadence. The Yuan and Zhang armies speaking to each other. Readying themselves.
Xu Da rode over to Zhu. The other captains’ heads swiveled to watch. Jiao’s head turned the quickest. Showing him the Mandate had convinced him to follow her—then. But that had been in the safety of Anfeng. Now she remembered how he had abandoned them at Yao River—how, in practical matters of life and death, he placed his trust in leadership and the numerical advantage. She could feel his faith in her hanging by a thread.
Xu Da said, low and urgent, “It’s already midday. We have to go.” And with a blow of pain that hit her directly in the heart, she saw he doubted too.
She looked past him to that distant Mongol army. It was too far away for her to pick out individuals. Was that shining speck in the middle of the front line General Ouyang?
And still there was nothing from Bianliang.
The cadence of the drums grew frenetic. Their ever-quickening beat generated a pressure that set their teeth on edge; at any moment it would burst and spill two armies on Zhu. They would be her annihilation. But Zhu had felt annihilation before. She had feared it her whole life, until she had been nothing and come back from it.
She looked back at Xu Da and forced a smile. “Have faith in my fate, big brother. How can I die here, before anyone knows my name? I’m not afraid.”
But he was afraid. She saw the burden she was placing on his love and trust to ask him to stay when it must seem that all was lost. Despite their shared childhood and years of friendship, she realized she didn’t know what he would choose. The cords in his neck stood out, and her heart fluttered. Then, after an interminable moment, he said quietly, “It’s too much to ask for an ordinary man to put all his faith in fate. But I have faith in you.”
He followed her as she rode the length of her lines. As her men turned their pale faces to her, she looked each in the eye. She let them see her confidence—her shining, unshakable belief in herself and her fate and the brilliance of her future. And as she spoke she saw that confidence touch them and take hold, until they became what she needed. What she wanted.
She said, “Hold. Hold.”
* * *
The roar of the drums was continuous now, unbearable. And then it happened. Movement. Two converging armies: infantry leading in the west, cavalry in the east. At the sight Zhu felt a peculiar stillness descend upon her. It was a wall built of nothing more than belief, and deep down she knew it was taking every scrap of her strength to keep it there between herself and that approaching horror. General Ouyang’s cavalry formations were spreading as they advanced until it seemed that men were riding abreast towards them across the entire width of the horizon. Under a field of rippling banners their spears and swords glittered: they were a wave endlessly renewed from behind until they formed a dark ocean surging towards them. Even across that distance its voice reached them: a swelling roar of human and animal sound overlaid on the beat of the drums.
Zhu shut her eyes and listened. In that instant she didn’t just hear the world, but felt it: the vibrations of every invisible strand that connected one thing to another, and drew each of them to their fates. The fates they had been given and accepted—or had chosen for themselves, out of desire.
And she heard the moment the sound of the world changed.
Her eyes flicked open. The drums in the east beat a new pattern, a
nd the west responded. The Zhang army wheeled around in a great curve like swallows changing direction. They left the trajectory that would have taken them into collision with Zhu, and went to Bianliang’s western wall, and were sucked through an opening with the swiftness of smoke up a chimney.
And there—a single figure on horseback floating across the plain towards them, from a gate that had opened on the city’s south side. Her captains shouted in surprise, and a pinprick of emotion bored through Zhu’s detachment. Tiny, but painful because its very nature admitted the possibility of failure:
Hope.
Even as the figure from Bianliang approached, General Ouyang’s army was still bearing down on them. Across the shrinking distance Zhu could just make out the rider on the black horse in the center of the front line, a shining pearl in the dark ocean. The flat light blazed from his mirrored armor. Zhu could imagine his braids flying beneath his helmet, and the naked steel in his hand.
She couldn’t tell who would reach them first. She had lost her detachment without realizing it, and now she was nothing more than a thrumming speck of anticipation. The rider from Bianliang seemed to inch forwards, and she couldn’t remember the last time she had breathed. And then, finally, he was close enough that they could see who he was. Who they were. Zhu had known, and yet all the breath came out of her in an explosive burst of relief.
Xu Da urged his horse forwards in a gallop, coming around beside the Prime Minister’s lathered horse and scooping the Prince of Radiance off his pommel. Zhu heard him shouting to the Prime Minister, “I’m just behind you! Keep going—run!”
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