by G R Matthews
The three men raced along the line, stopping where needed to pass on the information they had to the officers. Each time they were met with a disbelieving look, but Haung refused to listen to their other theories. He ordered them to try and when it succeeded they passed the knowledge on.
Enlai, commanding his section, had both swords drawn and was weaving, with incredible speed and grace, through the Jiangshi that attacked him. His blades cut and severed their limbs, causing the dead warriors to stumble. Soldiers rushed in, axes held high, to hack them apart as the Taiji moved on to the next.
“Grab torches,” Haung shouted, “set them on fire. Cut off their heads.”
The empire line wavered as the information spread and then steadied. Haung joined the lines, his own sword slicing out at the Jiangshi, slowing and distracting them enough for the soldiers to swarm them. One of the soldiers rushed in with a fiercely burning torch and jabbed it into the chest of an approaching Jiangshi. The flame flared and the Mongol’s fur-lined smouldered, but did not catch. With a sweeping arm the dead Mongol smashed the soldier in the side of the head. Even above the noise of battle, the crunch and crack of bone was clear.
“They’re too wet,” Enlai said, dropping back from the line for a moment. “They’re the dead from earlier, the ones that were floating in the lake Gongliang made.”
“Then we take their heads,” Haung said. “I will not lose the city to these things.”
Time passed in a blur of fire, death, screams and shadows, but Haung’s army and the militia made progress. First, those Jiangshi that made it through the lines were rounded up and dealt with. The city, beyond the lines was safe again, and then the difficult job of clearing the wall began.
The dead Mongols were still climbing the wall, adding more Jiangshi to the battle. Now the narrow confines of the stairs and the battlements reduced the ability of the soldiers to overcome the Jiangshi with sheer numbers. Liu joined the battle alongside Gang, the two masters leading the way, axes hooking arms and legs, hammer smashing them to the floor or crushing heads in a single blow. Blood covered step by slippery step to the top where the forces split, fighting their way through to meet up with other troops who had climbed other stairs. Every piece of ground regained came at a cost, soldiers injured, men killed. Martial skill was still vital to success, but it was a war of attrition.
From the troops behind Haung a wail of despair rose, to be joined by one from the front. The Mongol Jiangshi were no longer fighting alone, new allies had entered the battle. The Empire soldiers, those killed on the wall in the initial assault began to rise. Their movements were slow and jerky at first, but as they struggled upright those movements became smoother and stronger.
Here, now, the empire soldiers were faced with friends, with men dressed in their uniform. People they had fought, slept, eaten and drunk alongside on the Wall and in the city. These troops wore the wounds of their deaths, great gashes in stomachs from which tubes and blood still poured, missing limbs, shards of bone sticking through flesh, red faces, hollow eye sockets. They were a new horror, made worse as soldiers were asked to hack apart, to decapitate, to set fire to creatures that wore the countenance and visage of their friends.
Haung’s sword deflected the arm of a Jiangshi, pushing it high and wide, and, on the return stroke, severed the hamstring of the dead warrior. It toppled forward, onto one knee, still trying to move forward. A twist of his wrist and Haung’s blade cut across the warrior’s throat, opening the neck to the bone. Blood, black in the torchlight, flowed in some vestigial reflex the Jiangshi raised a hand to the wound as Haung span the sword around in a flat arc, the quiet guiding his hand, and the sharp edge passed between two neck vertebrae, completing the decapitation.
Haung stepped forward and faced the next one, an empire soldier by the uniform. He looked up, into the face of his attacker, and was thankful the quiet numbed his feelings. Gongliang’s face stared back at him. All sign of emotion, of thought, of recognition, and of personality was absent from his friend’s eyes. The broken shards of bone, dark with blood, flesh and gristle hanging from each smashed rib, stuck through the man’s chest and uniform. The evidence of the blow that had taken his life.
Sword leading, Haung leaped forward, parrying Gongliang’s arms and crashing into the man, Jiangshi, he corrected, and knocking it backwards. The former officer, stumbled a pace or two and, righting itself, moved forward again, both arms reaching for Haung.
He ducked beneath them and span on the ball of his foot out of the way, Jian blade rising, cutting into the tendons on the back of Gongliang’s elbows. The Jiangshi’s arms flexed, rising and curling up as the strong muscles of the upper arm were slow to react to the wound. Continuing to spin, drawing energy from the arc of the sword, Haung cut down at the back of Gongliang’s legs.
The Jiangshi fell forward, unable to balance on severed leg tendons and muscle, prevented from using its arms by similar cuts. The empire soldier that followed Haung raised his axe, ready to bring it down upon the undead’s skull.
“Hold,” Haung shouted.
The soldier paused, even as the Jiangshi at his feet continued to try and move forward, to crawl, and attack. Haung stepped quickly over the creature that had been his second-in-command, blocking others from attacking. The battle flowed around him, soldiers pushing past on either side to engage more of the Jiangshi.
“Get some rope,” Haung ordered.
“You can’t save him,” Enlai said as he joined Haung. “He died earlier tonight. This is not him.”
The Taiji sheathed his second sword, a blade of green and gold with a flowing script rising from the hilt towards the tip in two rows. Enlai kept his other sword in his hand, a more practical blade of silver steel, free of adornment.
“He might be able to tell us something we can use,” Haung said, backing up as the creature moved towards him.
“He is dead,” Enlai stated. “The kindest thing, the best thing, we can do now is kill the creature that has taken him over. You’ve been trained as Jiin-Wei, you know the basics about the realms. You’ve met a few Wu as well. Both you and they draw your powers from some realm or other. Well, the Mongol magic is the same, but judging from the effects, they use the realm of the dead. This creature is not Gongliang, it is something else. Kill it.”
Haung looked out across the lake between city wall and the remnants of the Mongol camp on his side of the river. Torches still burned and though it was too far and too dark to make much out, he was sure that people still moved in amongst those tents.
He looked down at the creature, at the animated body of Gongliang, at his feet. “I can’t kill it.”
“I can,” Enlai said and without a pause slashed down with his sword. The blade parted flesh, bone and muscle without effort. The creature stopped moving, a last sigh of air escaping lungs as all tension left its frame. “We did him a favour.”
“Maybe,” Haung admitted. “See if you can find Gang and his friend, bring them here. I am going to find our Master Yu. I want an end to this.”
“How?”
“Magic relies on the magician,” Haung said, pointing at the tents. “Kill the magician, kill the magic.”
The search was over quickly. Gang and Gan Ji had been battling not far away and Master Yu had taken up position on one of the high towers, his arrows hampering and hindering the Jiangshi whenever possible. Haung gathered everyone on that tower.
“Gan Ji, can you hit those tents with a ball of fire or something?”
The thin magician peered through the darkness and then shook his head.
“Master Yu, can you?”
The small archer did not even turn to look. “Too far.”
“What if you work together? Can you bind something to the arrow? Use the arrow’s energy to push the spell further? Do something to disrupt whatever is going on in those tents?”
Master Yu shrugged. Gan Ji moved his head in rapid, short, little jerks looking from wall to tent and back again.
“Wave,” he said.
“Sorry?” Haung said.
“Wave,” the magician said again and made a motion with his hands like a snake undulating over the ground.
“Of water?” Gang interrupted.
Gan Ji smiled and nodded, appearing happy that someone understood.
“A wave, is that it?” Haung asked.
“Let him do it.” Gang puffed his cheeks and gave a big sigh. “He seems to be able do a lot more than he can say, and he thinks strangely.”
“It can’t hurt,” Liu said, the man’s axes hanging from his hands.
“Right.” Haung shook his head. “Gan Ji, do what you can.”
The thin, strange, and incomprehensible magician dragged the archer to the wall and with a series of gestures indicated what he wanted the man to do. In turn, Master Yu looked confused, perplexed and then resigned. Gan Ji nodded at him throughout his instructions.
At last, when both men seemed satisfied, Master Yu handed Gan Ji a single arrow. The magician drew forth paper, brush and ink. In a flurry of activity, the Fang-Shi wet the ink, scribed a series of letters and words upon the paper, wrapped it around the arrow and then spat on it. The paper, soaked by moisture, clung onto the arrow, just above the sharp arrowhead.
Gan Ji did a little dance with his feet and pointed at the water. Master Yu nodded, drew the arrow to the bow, bent his arms and let the missile fly. Not at the tents. Not high into the sky, but on a shallow trajectory towards the lake below.
Leaning over the battlements, Haung saw the effects. The arrow trailed bright red and orange sparks as it flew, marking its passage. It struck the water not as an arrow might, with a small splash and float back to the surface to bob upon the ripples it had created. It struck as if a castle had fallen into it. It entered the water at an acute angle creating a fountain of water that rose as high as the city wall and that rained down upon the lake like hailstones.
In front of its impact, a great wave rose. The water did not ripple, it folded and crashed down upon itself, gathering height and energy as it raced towards the Mongol tents which rested on the only bar of land that still stood proud of the rising water.
The wave tore through them as if they were toys. Wood, fabric, leather and skins were shredded by the power of the water. The few torches and fires that had lit the camp went out and darkness obscured Haung’s vision. He could hear the snapping and rending, the screams and the shouts of alarm and fear, the panicked neighs and whiney of horses, and the sound of the wave collapsing in on itself.
“Haung, the wall,” Liu said in hushed tones.
Haung looked down to the base of the city wall. A few ripples, the backwash from the impact, rose against it. They were too little to do any damage and he returned his gaze to Liu, who pointed along their own battlements.
Everywhere he looked, the empire soldiers were lowering their weapons. The battle no longer raged. Undead no longer attacked the troops. The Jiangshi were gone, only the truly dead remained.
“A new standing order,” Haung said. “From now on, we cremate the dead as soon as possible.”
Chapter 19
“They are still there,” Zhou said.
“The light is failing, it will be dark soon,” Xióngmāo said in reply.
“Do you think that will stop them?”
“Not now they have seen us.” She turned in her saddle to look back the way they had come. “Their blood will be up and they’ll push on to close the distance.”
Zhou could see the moving smudge of their pursuers on the horizon as they descended one of low hills. The hint of pursuit had first appeared just after the midday stop and in the hours since, they had closed the distance bit by bit. There was no place to hide and nowhere to escape. The flat steppe held no advantages. The low hills had shrunk even lower until they were mere wrinkles in the green sheet of grass.
“Is there anywhere better than this to hide or fight?” he asked.
“The grass plains are just what you see here,” she said. “We will have to camp in the open and tonight, when it is full dark, it will be time for you to go hunting.”
“Hunting?”
“To hunt them.” She got her horse moving again, setting a slow pace not willing to waste the horse’s energy. “See if you can dissuade them a little. Mongols are a superstitious people. Their magicians rule with power, fear and stories. If you can scare them, make them think again, we might get a little further before the others arrive.”
“How?”
“Use your imagination, Zhou.”
They continued on for another hour before the lack of light, grey clouds covering the sky and blocking out the moon and stars, made it too dangerous to risk the horses legs. A stumble down a hole or over a hummock of grass could lame one of the animals and after that the journey would be much more arduous.
They choose a spot to camp. It looked no different than any other area of the steppes except, maybe, it had a few more lumps and bumps. Between those, Zhou and Xióngmāo could sleep and their shapes would be broken by the terrain. It would make them a little less easier to spot. However, the horses would still be large lumps in the landscape.
“I thought horses sleep standing up?”
“They do, sometimes, but when they have been ridden or travelled a long way they need proper sleep. Ours need that kind of sleep if they are going to be fresh for tomorrow and if they don’t want to, we will have to make them. There is not a lot of cover out here, so we need to lower our profiles as much as we can.” She moved to the packs, selecting a little food for her horse to supplement the grass it was munching on and then some for herself. “Eat and drink, get some life back into your legs, then head out and see what you can do.”
“Why me?”
“Zhou, you’re the cat, the hunter. I am the Panda. You know what Panda’s eat?”
“Bamboo shoots,” he answered.
“And did you ever see bamboo shoot hide, run away or fight back? No. Cats are hunters, so use your spirit and go hunt. Once you’ve eaten.” She threw a rice cake at him, which he caught.
“Do you have answer for everything?”
“I’ve lived a long time, learned a lot of things. So, yes. Yes, I do.” He saw the small flash of white as she grinned at him. “Satisfied?”
Zhou grunted and bit into his rice cake. It crumbled and sucked the moisture from his mouth, he had to work his jaws to bring more forth and make the cake palatable.
# # #
It was happy. He could feel the pleasure rumbling through its frame in one long purr. In truth, it was hard to separate his joy from the panther’s. The leap along the blue thread, the inviting of the panther’s spirit to the physical world, the energy and power seeping into his bones, muscles, it made him complete. He was whole again.
The only downside, and one he could ignore, was the sodden nature of his Ku, the loose trousers he wore, and his leather shoes. The tall grass was wet and seemed happy to share this with him. The panther part of him relished the feeling whereas city-born Zhou was less than excited by it.
It had taken around three hours, by his reckoning, to cover the distance between his camp and that of the Mongols. The spirit had flooded his body with energy and he had used it to cover the ground as fast as a horse might run, the eyes of the panther seeing better in the dark than his own. His augmented vision, that of the spirit, saw the world around him differently. Gone were shades of grey and black that night provided. In its place should have been the subtle hues of blue, but instead there was red overlaying it all. The red plain stretched forever into the distance, and there, back along the path they had come, on the horizon, was the red flame.
At his feet, the red was held back by a resurgence of blue and green. The two realms of spirit and of life shielding him from the red realm of fire. He was a moving island within the sea of crimson and ahead were the Mongols.
Zhou stayed low to the ground and watched for a while, counting, inspecting and thinking. There were twenty-seven, nin
e humans and eighteen horses. The beasts were either munching on the grass or had already fallen asleep, lying down. The Mongols were clustered around a fire, away from their horses, and they were eating. A small pot hung from a frame over the fire and the men were dipping spoons into it, retrieving whatever was inside and putting it in bowls of their own. A few had already finished and appeared to be asleep.
Downwind, he sniffed the air. The scent of horse was strong, as was that of the men, unwashed and sweaty. The aroma of the cooking pot mingled amongst those and his stomach threatened to rumble at the waft of meat that flickered across his nose and tongue. Underlying it all was the scent of the land, the grass and mud.
The fire would rob the men of their night-vision. The bright flames, the rising sparks and the grey smoke floating up towards the sky, the pools of dark shadow dancing across the ground and the aura of yellow light that spread from the fire would confuse them, create visions where there was nothing. It would hide his presence, even if he moved in closer. They did not expect to be attacked. They were the attackers, the chasers, the hunters. This was a situation they felt in control of. The tension and excitement was cut through with an odour of confidence and relaxation, of safety. It was misplaced.
Zhou tracked left, around the fire, staying out of the glow, careful not to let the horses catch his scent, inspecting each man in turn. None of them were magicians or anything other than Mongol warriors. In the centre of their bodies, their spark shone out. Even if it were pitch black, he would still see those sparks. They were blue shot through with taints and tendrils of red, followers of the flame, of Yángwū and his crusade, but still just men.
Now he needed to scare them, to break their circle of safety and make them worried. Xióngmāo had directed him to use his imagination, but how?
Zhou watched them a little longer, thinking. Chasing off the horses was a possibility, but in doing so he would expose himself to the Mongols. Killing a warrior was an idea that appealed, but the same problem arose. If he rushed in to kill and then fled, they would know a man had done it. It was the fear of the unknown, the fright that the imagination could conjure up that held the most power and that is what, he decided, he needed to use. So he waited.