“Dear God, lad, what is it this time?”
“Men,” said Bren, grabbing Sean’s arm and helping him up. “Monks with red sashes.”
“Red what now?” But Bren was already past him, and Sean, despite a sudden sharp pain in his right ankle, took off running too.
Bren veered toward the Black Jade River, which they had been following from Khotan, as if he might dive right in. But he pulled up short of the river, heading for what appeared to be an upturned skiff along the riverbank.
“Come on!” he said, struggling to turn the boat over by himself. Sean arrived out of breath, his ankle throbbing, and helped Bren flip the boat and push it into the water. Bren got in first.
“Who are those men?” said Sean. “What’s wrong with red sashes?”
“I’ll tell you after we’re safe,” said Bren, picking up the skiff’s two oars and handing one to Sean.
“We can’t just go around stealing boats,” Sean protested, holding his oar across his lap while Bren frantically tried to paddle with his. “This could be someone’s livelihood.”
“We just need it for a bit,” said Bren. “We’ll leave a note.”
The monks—there were three of them—came to the top of a slope overlooking the river and pointed at them. One of them raised his arm high in the air, as if he were twirling an invisible lasso, and a moment later came the sound of a heavy thunk against the side of the skiff. Bren and Sean looked to find a small, three-pointed blade buried in the wood. Another monk’s arm went into the air.
“Okay, we’ll leave a note,” said Sean, putting his oar to water and paddling hard.
The next missile hit the skiff in the stern. The two after that hit the water just behind them.
“Faster!” said Bren. “You know rowing isn’t really my strong suit.”
“If I row any harder I’ll turn us in circles,” said Sean.
Bren glanced up long enough to see the three monks running alongside the river after them, and he feared that he and Sean alone wouldn’t be able to row fast enough. But the river’s current gave them a much-needed boost, and after they turned a bend and put the monks out of sight, they steered the skiff to the far bank and got out on the other side of the river.
“Let’s find cover,” said Sean, “and then you can tell me why monks are attacking us.”
Bren already knew from their travels so far that the mountainous landscape was pocked with caves and eroded sandstone walls where they might be able to hide. And if they couldn’t find one soon, he’d just dig one himself. But after climbing up the riverbank and over a rocky ridge, they spotted salvation right away—not just one cave mouth, but dozens of them, as if this part of Asia had been colonized by giant rabbits.
“Thank the Good Lord,” said Sean. “They’ll never find us, but by dumb luck.”
“Don’t jinx us!” said Bren, running for one of the caves. “Dumb luck has helped us out a few times.”
“Aye,” said Sean, following Bren through one of the mouths. They didn’t stop until they were deep inside, in total darkness.
“Wonder how far this goes,” said Bren, trying to pick up any sense of light or moving air.
“Don’t know,” said Sean. “Don’t know as I want to find out.”
“Might be our best way out,” said Bren. “We have no idea how long those monks will be after us.”
Sean grabbed Bren by the back of his ratty tunic to keep him from walking farther into the darkness of the cave. “Speaking of that, you were going to tell me why they were chasing us in the first place. And how you knew to be afraid of them.”
Bren nodded before realizing that Sean probably couldn’t see him. “Yeah, I was coming to that.”
CHAPTER
2
THE LEOPARD’S NEST
“It was a monk at the Leopard’s Nest who warned me,” Bren began, before breaking off. These days he was prone to that, losing his train of thought, not finishing sentences. His mind was constantly taking him elsewhere.
This time it took him back to the highest place he had ever been—the Leopard’s Nest monastery in the Kunlun Mountains. Bren and Sean had been walking for a week since leaving the village of Khotan, following the Black Jade River as the old woman of the mountain had instructed. It was the safest and most direct route back to the West, she had explained. Their best chance of getting home to Britannia. They had spent a few days after the earthquake searching for Lady Barrett and Yaozu, without success. They had offered to help the ravaged village, but the locals wanted them gone. Many blamed the outsiders—Bren and Mouse, especially—for the disaster that had visited them.
Wrapped in homespun, hooded vestments to make them anonymous, Bren and Sean had set off with little food and water into a high, arid landscape of changeable moods: hot and blustery by day; at night, distant and frigid.
Their hoods gave them some relief from the sun and wind, and the river was an endless source of freshwater. But neither eased the sores on Bren’s feet or took the ache from his bones. At night their garments provided little warmth, but they were able to dig holes in the desert floor to keep from being exposed, and they collected camel dung along the way to burn instead of firewood.
They felt lucky to have the Black Jade River to guide them, and to slake their thirst, but the river attracted other travelers, and animals, until the dark ribbon of water became more like a thread of anxiety constantly being tugged at. This vast region of western China was sparsely populated by a mix of Chinese and Turkic peoples, including Mongols, and though they didn’t encounter strangers often, Bren and Sean were forced to wonder each time if they would be welcomed, ignored, or attacked.
Their worst fears were nearly realized one afternoon in a valley in the shadow of the Kunlun, when they stumbled upon a border skirmish between two small groups of men on horseback. They had seen the first group from a distance, watering their horses, when the second group came charging over a hill toward the river, shouting and brandishing scimitars and bows and arrows. Bren and Sean hid until nightfall, and when the sounds of the skirmish finally stopped, Sean suggested that they abandon the river.
“We have a rough map made by one of the villagers in Khotan,” he said. “We’ll just have to go as the crow flies, over the mountains.”
As he said it, they both turned to look at the distant Kunlun range. Despite what they had been through in China on their long march with Yaozu, the Kunlun still seemed impossibly high, even from this distance.
But Bren knew Sean was right. And so, before dawn they set off at an angle to the river, directly toward the mountains. When day broke, Bren couldn’t stop himself from turning toward the spot along the river where the fighting had taken place. A handful of men and horses lay still amid swirling motes of dust, as if merely asleep, surrounded by dreams.
“Bren, look.”
Sean called his attention away from the dead to the living, a lone horseback rider approaching from the south. Even from a great distance Bren could tell he was a man of sturdy build, and he appeared to be holding something huge with his right arm.
“Is it one of them?” said Bren. “One of the men who did that?” He nodded toward the carnage by the river.
Sean shook his head. “I don’t think so. Why would he be alone? And coming from that direction?”
The two of them just stood there while the man rode toward them. What else could they do? There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.
As the rider came closer, Bren, already nauseated by heat, hunger, and the sight of the dead bodies, imagined the man holding up a human head, the trophy of some vanquished foe, the way warriors and executioners do. He almost became sick, until he saw what it really was—a bird. An enormous dark-brown bird of prey.
“Is he a falconer?” said Bren. He knew that Queen Adeline had falconers in her court who joined her on hunts, but they were mostly ceremonial. Prey was captured with conventional weapons.
“He may be a falconer,” said Sean, “but that’s no f
alcon. That thing’s the size of an eagle.”
When at last the lone rider approached, Bren could see that Sean was right. The bird appeared to be a golden eagle, its brown body topped by golden-brown feathers on its head and along the nape of its neck. It was as tall as the man from the waist up, perched on a heavily padded sleeve, which the rider rested along his right thigh. The man stood his horse at a slight angle to Bren and Sean, the eagle’s dark-brown eyes fixed fiercely on them.
“What do we do?” said Bren, after almost a minute of silence. No one had moved, no one had said a word. The rider’s eyes were as dark and glassy as the eagle’s. Bren was sure he hadn’t blinked this entire time. He guessed he was Mongolian, or Uighur, or perhaps Tatar, based on where they were and how he was dressed, and the fact that he was on horseback. Aside from his heavily padded sleeve, he wore a brown jacket of sturdy cloth and trousers tucked into knee-length boots of soft leather. His face was a weathered stone, and on his head was a fur-trimmed red hat topped with feathers. Draped across his saddle was a string of wild hares.
“I have no idea,” said Sean. “I don’t imagine we speak a common tongue. I would suggest not provoking that bird, though.”
As if it could tell they were talking about it, the eagle adjusted its grip slightly, its massive talons large enough to crush the man’s arm.
And then his arm came up.
Sean flinched. Bren jumped back as the eagle spread its wings, ducked its head, and launched itself straight at them, its feet grazing Bren’s head as he dove to the ground.
He cowered there, covering his face, expecting to be ripped apart, when he felt something grab him. Not the eagle, but Sean, helping him to his feet. Again.
“Look at that,” said Sean, pointing skyward to where the eagle had already reached soaring altitude. Then he turned to the man on horseback. “He really comes back to you?”
The man didn’t answer, of course. But he pointed after the eagle and looked at Bren and Sean. When they didn’t appear to understand, he climbed down from his horse and kneeled in the dirt. He drew three figures, two on foot, one on horseback. He sketched a wiggly line that Bren assumed to be the river, and then he drew mountains. Finally he drew the eagle, then pointed from the two men on foot to the eagle and back.
“He wants us to follow it!” said Bren.
He tried to mime what he was saying to the man, and though he did it badly, the man nodded, pointing after the eagle again.
Bren looked at Sean. “Do we have a better option?”
“Aye, no,” said Sean. “But we were headed toward the mountains anyway.”
“No, I think he means for us to follow the eagle to a specific place. Look.”
Bren knelt beside the man’s drawing of the mountains and hovered his index finger left and right, until the man understood. He bent over and drew a line from the eagle to a point in the mountains—the highest point, if his drawing were at all to scale.
And that is how Bren and Sean came to find the Leopard’s Nest monastery, a small religious fortress tucked away in the crown on the Kunlun range. It took them a week to reach it, and Bren was convinced they never would have found it without the eagle’s guidance. Whenever the path they were on forked, or seemed to end, the eagle would appear in the sky like a lodestar, then vanish when they were on the right track again. It was the first time he admitted to Sean that he believed, or wanted to believe, that Mouse might’ve found a way to help him.
The yellow-robed monks of the Leopard’s Nest welcomed them and fed them, and let them sleep in one of their houses, a gold-roofed building that sat like a hat atop a steep mountain peak. It was as if they were used to hosting guests and strangers, which seemed unlikely given how remote their location was.
There were no words exchanged, and not just because of the language barrier. The monks didn’t appear to speak to one another unless absolutely necessary. But one monk surprised Bren with an unusual form of communication. Two monks separated Bren and Sean, and Bren’s host took him to a remote pavilion and knelt opposite him on a bamboo mat with a low table between them. He produced a small bottle of sand and scattered it on the table, and with a small stylus drew a picture that looked like a cannon.
“I know we came through China,” Bren tried to explain, “but I never learned the writing.”
The monk erased the cannon, spread the sand again, and drew a rectangle. He added a pole next to it—a flag.
Bren just shook his head.
The monk drew a third image beneath the flag—a ship.
Suddenly Bren knew. “Navy signals!”
The monk nodded, understanding Bren’s enthusiasm. He drew two more flags of different shapes. Bren knew the combination immediately: a warning to approaching ships.
“I’m in danger? From whom?”
The monk drew a stick figure—a man, then another.
“There’s a whole gang after me?” muttered Bren. “Who are these men?”
The monk stood up. He grabbed the yellow sash around his waist and cinched it tighter.
“Monks? Like you?”
The monk pricked his finger, letting a bright-red drop blossom on the tip. He pointed to his sash again.
“Monks with red sashes,” said Bren. “What did I do? How can I stop them?”
Of course, the monk hadn’t been able to understand him, other than the tone of panic in Bren’s voice, but that’s when he left the pavilion and came back with a set of folded clothes, the brown trousers and robe-front tunic Bren was now wearing. Perhaps it’s some cloak of protection, Bren had thought idly as the monk helped him into his new clothes. Both Bren and Sean were also given furs, for which they were grateful, with the changing season and the higher elevations they were passing through.
“Where did your monk take you that morning?” said Bren. “I never thought to ask.”
“All I got was a silent tour of the monastery’s yak farm,” said Sean. “For some reason he thought I’d be interested in milking a yak. I grew up on a farm in Eire, and I wanted to tell him I ran away to the sea when I was barely twelve because I didn’t want to grab another cow’s teat for the rest of my life.”
Bren laughed. “Well, you haven’t. It was a yak’s teat.”
Sean laughed, too, and it was if a layer of skin fell from them, making them feel cleaner . . . lighter. That’s when they heard voices.
“Where are they coming from?” said Sean.
Bren keened an ear in one direction, then another. The cave tunnel was like an echo chamber. He couldn’t tell exactly where any sound was coming from. He had no choice but to guess. “Let’s go this way.”
They ran deeper into the cave, mostly on blind faith that if the monks with red sashes were pursuing them, they would be coming from behind. The tunnel narrowed and wound deeper into darkness, and to Bren’s relief the voices faded. But where were they?
“Over here,” said Sean, who was running toward a faint light in the distance. Bren ran after him, blindly guiding himself by slapping at the tunnel walls with his hands, when suddenly he turned a bend and pulled up short, almost running Sean over.
The light was from a small fire, tended by a man who most definitely was not wearing a red sash. But standing in the mouth of the cave opposite them were the three monks who had been chasing them. One of the three monks shouted something; the other two drew daggers from their robes.
“What do we do?” said Bren.
The man tending the fire stood up and turned to Bren. He spoke in English. “I suggest you run or fight.”
CHAPTER
3
THE LEAGUE OF BLOOD
Hearing the man speak their language caught both Bren and Sean off guard, which is when the armed monks attacked. One slashed at Bren, who turned in time to avoid a direct hit. The other monk came for Bren too, thrusting his blade at Bren’s stomach but missing when Sean knocked his arm aside with a piece of firewood.
The third monk—the leader, Bren assumed—started toward him, pl
unging his hands into his robe and drawing out small curved blades in each hand. What did I do? Bren wondered, as it was becoming apparent to him that he alone was the target. Sean was just in the way—literally. He stepped in front of the leader, holding the piece of firewood like a club. The leader stopped until the other two were ready to strike again. Bren reached into his trouser pockets, but he had nothing. The folding knife Mr. Tybert had given him was long gone. But then he felt the stone. . . .
It all happened in a flash. Bren remembered how the muggers in Map had attacked him and how his mother’s stone had saved him. How it had saved everyone on the Albatross when they had been ambushed by Iberian warships. Could it save him again?
Sean was outmanned and outarmed. Bren did the only thing he could do—jump in front of his friend as all three monks attacked.
He heard Sean scream. Or maybe it was his own screams, he couldn’t tell. He felt the burning sensation as three blades entered his body, setting his insides on fire. He coughed up blood.
He had never heard anyone describe to him what it was like to die. How could they? But as Bren fell to the ground, all he could feel was a sense of relief. The pain subsided, replaced by numbness. It was as if he were drowning in a warm bath. No one came to his aid. All Bren could do was close his eyes and wonder, before it all slipped away, why his mother hadn’t saved his life this time.
He woke up in total darkness. The air was cold and dry, which he took as a good sign, until he smelled the acrid odor of smoldering fire. Or was that brimstone? Demons were poking at his sides; the pain was unbearable.
“Be still, lad,” said one. “He’s trying to save you.”
“Sean?” said Bren, still unable to see.
“Aye, it’s me. It’s dark out, and we had to snuff the fire in case any more of those bloody monks are looking for us.”
The Sea of the Dead Page 2