Empire of Dragons

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘Hope is always the last to die, says an ancient proverb of ours,’ replied the prince.

  ‘We have a proverb that says the same thing. But what do you think?’

  ‘Do you remember when I told you about the Flying Foxes?’

  ‘As if you’d just spoken.’

  ‘The followers of the true way indicated long ago by Master Mo still exist. They are the most tenacious adversaries of the Flying Foxes. They are warrior monks, bound to each other by an oath, capable of any feat, ready for any sacrifice. They are the men of the Red Lotus. They are the only ones who can save us from this situation.’

  He had just finished speaking when a shriek echoed through the valley, as high and grating as the cry of an eagle. Wei leaned out of the carriage and twisted repeatedly, scanning the slopes to his right and left, prey to a strange agitation.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Metellus.

  ‘A signal,’ replied Dan Qing. ‘A message to let us know that we are not alone. Perhaps you are right: Yun Shan is alive and thinking of how she can free us.’

  ‘Yun Shan means . . . Swathed in Clouds, doesn’t it?’ said Metellus, translating into Persian.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Do all of your women have such fascinating names?’

  ‘Yes, almost all of them. What was your wife’s name?’

  ‘Clelia.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It was the name of an ancient heroine. With her last breath, my wife beseeched me to take care of our son, and I don’t even know where he is . . . or if he’s still alive. And the direction of my march continues to take me away from him.’

  ‘Not forever . . .’

  Metellus was quiet for a little while. ‘I don’t know what to think of you,’ he said all at once, as if concluding a thought that had remained in his mind.

  ‘You will have to overcome your diffidence,’ replied Dan Qing. ‘If you care to, that is. In any case, if you think about it, I’m the only person you can count on, whether you like it or not.’

  Metellus fell silent again.

  ‘We must unite our forces now and try to survive,’ began Dan Qing again. ‘We’ll decide about the rest later. You’ll have the time to learn who I truly am.’

  Metellus looked back again at his men, trying to judge their mood. Had being taken prisoner again broken their resolve? They were riding along, speaking softly to each other. Perhaps they underestimated the danger, or perhaps they just didn’t want to brood on it because they knew fretting was useless.

  They set up camp towards evening at the edge of a village perched on a green hill. The prisoners were unbound and gathered into a single tent, watched over by armed guards. Dan Qing was brought to another tent, alone.

  Metellus spoke briefly to his men. ‘I know what you’re thinking: that it would have been better to wait for the spring monsoon in India and that this time we may never win back our freedom. If that’s what you’re thinking, you’re wrong. The decision we made was the best one, even if all seems lost now.’

  ‘But . . . what’s happening, Commander?’ asked Balbus.

  ‘The youth who met us at the castle gate is the man who has come to power in Dan Qing’s absence. They hate each other, implacably, but we’re no part of their duel to the death. No matter what happens between them, I think we’ll survive. I want to make one thing clear: until this affair is over with, we’re on Dan Qing’s side, even at the risk of death. We’ve given our word and will keep it.’ Antoninus shook his head, but Metellus pretended not to have seen him. ‘Stay on the alert and don’t lose heart. I’ll see to it that you get back home, even if it costs me my life.’

  THEY RESUMED their journey the next morning, crossing the valley eastward for three more days. They rode with their hands bound to the saddle pommels and their feet tied to the stirrups, closely watched over by Wei’s armed guards, fierce-looking Manchurian mercenaries who carried long curved swords. At the head of the column advanced the men in black, armed with double bows and long, heavy arrows. To attempt to escape under those circumstances would be suicide. After the first day, Dan Qing journeyed separately, tied behind Wei’s own carriage, an elaborate vehicle with a luxurious sedan at the top, decorated with bronze and lacquer ornaments.

  After four days of marching, the valley began to open into a vast rolling plain crossed by a wide, muddy river navigated by boats travelling downstream. They had big trapezoidal sails and were laden with goods of every sort. The fields all around were flooded with water for the cultivation of marsh grain, which even the prisoners ate every day, along with goose meat and eggs. The men could not help but wonder at this unusually generous treatment, which even included a fermented drink that resembled wine.

  ‘The commander is right,’ said Quadratus. ‘We’re not part of their internal conflicts. Perhaps Wei wants us to serve in his army and doesn’t want us to become debilitated.’

  ‘That’s possible,’ replied Antoninus, the highest in rank after the two centurions. ‘I think you’re right about that, for sure.’

  Their complete uncertainty about their future made them want to believe the most reassuring hypotheses. Metellus, on the contrary, had a bad premonition, but he kept his feelings to himself.

  They advanced for three more days and the landscape continued to change. They saw endless rows of trees with big dark green leaves on which small yellow or red berries, which looked much like brambles, grew. It seemed strange to all of them that there would be such extensive orchards of plants that produced only tiny berries, but they ascribed it to yet another of the many oddities that made this boundless land so different from their own.

  As they proceeded, the villages became more numerous and more populous and their paved roads were teeming with people. After every day’s leg, there was a rest station where they changed their horses, which offered hot food and lodging for wayfarers. The convoy would set up camp in a separate clearing which was always ready to accommodate important guests. Metellus was sure that they were headed for the capital. A name kept coming up: Luoyang.

  And Luoyang appeared before them one evening towards dusk after many days of journeying from the place where they had been taken prisoner. It was, for these people, what Rome was to them, and Metellus could not help but admire the large city surrounded by imposing walls and mighty towers made of huge blocks of stone cut with exceptional skill. Grandiose buildings of a different style rose inside the walls as well: temples, perhaps, or aristocratic palaces. Great leafy-boughed trees loomed up everywhere, lit by the last rays of the setting sun. The sky had been overcast and the sun was veiled but, nonetheless, that enormous disc descending at their backs behind the crests of distant mountains spread a sanguine glow over towers, palaces, spires and pinnacles, igniting continually changing reflections in the painted wood, in the bronze, in the multi-coloured ceramic.

  Metellus and his men, despite the worries gnawing at them, were awe-struck, realizing that they were probably the only ones from their world ever to have seen such wonders. But the thought immediately occurred to them that they might never have the chance to tell anyone about them. Their isolation was compounded by a lack of information. Separated even from Dan Qing, the only person who could help them interpret events or decipher signals that meant nothing to them, they felt totally at the mercy of chance. On the other hand, the passing of the days and the long hours of their forced march, during which nothing ever happened, had given them a sense of tranquillity and normality that in the end had inspired a certain unconscious optimism.

  Before entering the city, the column stopped and Metellus noticed a brief scuffle near Wei’s carriage. Soon after he saw a hooded horseman come forward between two armed men. It must be Dan Qing. They had covered his head in a black cloth bag so he wouldn’t be recognized.

  The column set off again and continued at a steady pace until they found themselves before the western gate of Luoyang. It was still open, and guarded by an armed military unit. A dispat
ch rider must have advised the guards about Wei’s arrival, because an imperial cavalry squadron appeared immediately in a cloud of dust to escort the carriage of the young eunuch into the city. This seemed strange to Metellus: the new emperor’s power in the capital must not yet be consolidated if he needed an escort of that size.

  At least fifty soldiers on horseback lined up on both sides of the carriage with swords in their hands, while others lit torches to illuminate the darkening roads of the city. The prisoners remained at the end, along with the rearguard.

  Plump-cheeked children hung out of the windows overlooking the street to admire that impressive parade, but the voices of their parents calling them back in sounded worried. Rare passersby hurried along, and an unreal silence seemed to have fallen on the city. Metellus exchanged an uneasy look with his centurions and they passed the word on to the men: ‘Be careful. Anything could happen at any moment.’

  ‘I’ve managed to loosen my bonds,’ replied Antoninus. ‘If I can get free, I’ll help the others.’

  ‘Good,’ replied Quadratus, ‘but don’t take any initiative without the commander’s orders.’

  The column had arrived at a point where the road narrowed under an archway which rested on thick stone pillars. The horsemen had to regroup into a single file, since the passage was not wide enough for two men to ride through side by side. Just when Wei’s carriage was proceeding under the archway, several men wearing red armbands, dressed in grey tunics and trousers, dropped swiftly from the top, sliding down silk ropes. They landed on the roof of the carriage and tried to slash it open with swords and axes. Fierce fighting broke out between the escort and the aggressors as Wei’s men climbed on to the top of the carriage to fend off the attack.

  Metellus and his men were forced to remain at a distance, closely guarded by a group of mercenaries of the rearguard with their weapons drawn. They must have received strict orders indeed regarding the prisoners, because they didn’t take their eyes off them for a moment, as if nothing were happening just a few short steps away; as if the very survival of their leader were not at stake.

  The assailants moved with deadly speed: their weapons flashed like lightning bolts, their sudden movements were imperceptible and unforeseeable, until the moment they struck.

  Metellus saw Prince Dan Qing writhing violently at the heart of the clanging and fighting, his head still covered by the black hood. It was as though the fury of the battle that raged around him had invaded him as well, but the knots that held him only dug deeper into his skin. Metellus also caught a glimpse of Wei, stock still inside his carriage, paralysed by fear, possibly, or seized by a sudden desire to die. Or perhaps he was merely totally unmoved, his mind far away from the scuffle.

  Everything happened in a few moments that seemed to stretch on infinitely. The group at the head of the escort, which had already passed under the arch, spun back around. When their horses reached the archway, they catapulted from their saddles, vaulting over the suspended span and landing firmly on the carriage roof.

  Flying Foxes.

  The first defenders, mostly Manchurian mercenaries, had already been killed or driven away, but the battle was on even terms now. The exchange of blows became so fast and so flawless that Metellus and his men nearly forgot that they were prisoners, becoming completely absorbed in the spectacle of a struggle that seemed more like the clash of demons animated by infernal energy than of human beings.

  The men with the red armbands abandoned the roof of the carriage, springing to the ground so they could fight more freely, but in no time the numerical superiority of the Flying Foxes had won the upper hand. One of the assailants fell dead, then a second and a third: the first run through from front to back, another neatly decapitated, their comrade hurled against the wall with such force that his skull shattered. A fourth was taken alive and disarmed before he could manage to kill himself.

  Only then did Wei leave the carriage and look around. The surviving Manchurian mercenaries approached with their lit torches and the scene of the massacre appeared in all its gruesome reality. The warrior who seemed to be the leader of the Flying Foxes approached the prisoner they’d taken alive and ripped the kerchief from his face, revealing a boy of perhaps twenty. ‘You’ll be sorry you didn’t die when I get to work on you,’ he snarled.

  ‘Who are those men, Commander?’ asked Publius.

  Metellus tried to read meaning into the scene he saw before him, cut by deep shadows and bloody light. ‘Wei was attacked by a group who must be against him taking power, but he won out in the end. You’ve seen for yourselves: the Flying Foxes are invincible.’

  ‘We beat them,’ replied Rufus.

  ‘Well, we did, thanks to Severus’s shields, and also because they weren’t prepared for our style of fighting, but . . .’

  Metellus’s words were interrupted by a yell and a loud chorus of cursing: the captured rebel had been struck in the middle of his forehead by an arrow loosed from above, and he crumpled to the ground. All around the arrow shaft blood gushed copiously, covering the youth’s body, which cramped up in violent spasms, as if he were refusing to surrender to the death that had already taken him.

  Metellus turned in the direction from which the arrow had come and distinctly saw, on the rooftop of the house opposite him, a dark figure holding a bow. Two more arrows flew in rapid succession and two of the eunuch’s guards dropped dead.

  Only then was Wei’s apparent impassivity perturbed. He shouted, ‘Seize that man, damn you! Get him!’

  Another arrow whistled by, missing Wei by a hair’s breadth and sinking instead into the leg of one of his Manchurian mercenaries. The man fell to the ground, twisting and moaning in pain. The archer then took off, springing from one rooftop to another with incredible leaps.

  In the confusion that followed the assault, Dan Qing, still hooded, had been forced back and was now only a few steps away from the Roman prisoners. Metellus whispered just loud enough to make himself heard: ‘Prince, we’re here.’

  ‘Is that you, Xiong Ying? What has happened?’ asked Dan Qing. ‘What was all that uproar? Are you all right? Is anyone hurt?’

  ‘We’re fine. The men who launched the attack were after Wei, not us.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘They were defeated. Three of them are dead. A couple of them got away. A survivor was taken prisoner but killed by one of his comrades posted up on the rooftops. The Flying Foxes are after him now. They’ve got their bows drawn . . .’

  The heavy arrows that the Flying Foxes had nocked into their bows were more like harpoons, with silk ropes at their tails. Their purpose became clear to Metellus: they were shot into the beams under the eaves, where they stuck fast. The archers swiftly hoisted themselves up on the ropes and took off after the fugitive.

  ‘He has a red lace on his arm, like the others did,’ continued Metellus. ‘He’s moving fast, but Wei’s men are close behind. It looks like they’re flying! Gods, what is this place?’

  ‘The Red Lotus,’ murmured Dan Qing. ‘Not all hope is lost, then. Can you see anything else?’

  Metellus glimpsed the fugitive as he dropped behind the edge of a rooftop, reappeared briefly inside a terrace and then vanished entirely.

  Wei was giving insistent orders to his guard, and half a dozen men shot off at a gallop in different directions. He then signalled to the escort, who regrouped in a compact formation. The corpses were gathered and loaded on to a wagon, then Wei re-entered his carriage and the convoy started up again.

  Antoninus turned towards Metellus. ‘What’s going to happen now, Commander?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Metellus. ‘But you try to stay alive. Whatever happens, try to stay alive.’

  25

  THE FULL MOON HAD RISEN behind the mountains, illuminating the rooftops of Luoyang, glittering with the evening dew. Dark shapes ran as light and fast as shadows after another figure who jumped from one terrace to another, climbed nimbly up steep pinnacles, leapt
on to the branches of the great trees waving their foliage over hidden gardens, and then scurried like a squirrel towards the top of another building.

  The Flying Foxes gave the fugitive no respite. They hunted him down from the left and from the right, trying to drive him towards a point where the city’s houses sloped down towards the walls. But the runaway appeared and disappeared continually, taking cover whenever possible and then darting off in another direction as soon as his pursuers had passed. At a certain point, he managed to get enough of a lead to shin up a tower and establish his stalkers’ bearings, unseen by them. As soon as he saw one of them sailing from one rooftop to another, he drew his bow and ran him through in mid-leap. The lifeless body plummeted to the road below. The resulting confusion allowed the archer to disappear under a hatch and to descend a staircase to the atrium, from where he reached the street. A dark archway offered the fugitive refuge for long enough to allow the Flying Foxes to scatter in the distance, like a pack of bewildered bloodhounds who had lost the scent of their prey.

  When all was calm, the mysterious figure removed the kerchief that covered his face, revealing a delicate, feminine oval shape and jet-black eyes that sparkled for an instant in the light of the moon like a young tiger’s. She opened the door at her back with a light touch of her hand and found herself in an inner courtyard where a horse waited, its reins tied to an iron ring.

  She loosened them and glanced back outside. She strained to hear, until she made out a slight buzz at the end of the street: a place with a lot of people, she hoped, where she could blend in unnoticed . . . She walked at a fast pace in that direction, leading the horse by its reins, heading towards the dim light she could see at the road’s end. She soon found herself at the edge of a little square bounded on the opposite side by a caravanserai. A confused babble emerged from the vast enclosure: people’s voices joined with the loud snorting of Bactrian camels, the huge beasts that accompanied caravans for immense distances, bringing goods from one side of the world to the other. The girl was about to step out into the open when a cavalry squad passed by at a gallop with their unsheathed swords pointed forward. She drew back into the darkness and waited until their furious galloping faded into the distance. She checked that no one else was coming and crossed the square, facing the courtyard of the big caravanserai.