The Blue Mountain (The Forbidden List Book 2)

by G R Matthews

  The gathering of lords remained silent as the Emperor climbed the steps back up to his throne and sat down. Juying remained, face down, arms outstretched on the stone floor.

  “Now, Colonel Haung, you have some thoughts on the matter beyond the wall?” the Emperor asked.

  Haung let out a shaky breath and sought the stillness, the quiet. “There is much to recommend the General of the Wall’s hypothesis, My Lord. However, I find it strange that all of the Mongol men are gone. Stranger still that we were attacked by a small party of them less than a day’s ride from the wall in an area which was previously flooded with refugees. They would know that there was no one living in those villages. We can only assume that further north and across the steppes that other villages were abandoned a time ago. The group would have passed through them and known the truth. It was not, in my opinion, a random attack. They knew we were there and sought us out. They were well armed and armoured. Their horses were fresh and there was a clear structure to the engagement. One man sat apart, in command. It was he who ordered the retreat when they could have fought on. My research, and speaking to the long serving soldiers on the wall, shows that the Mongol groups do not band together. If they war with each other it is generally a chaotic affair. They have no hierarchy, no commanders and little evidence of strategy.”

  “So?”

  “My Lord, there seemed to be a clear plan to the attack. A testing of our strengths and weaknesses. When I put that together with the nature of their weapons and that few Mongol men have passed through the walls, I can only draw the conclusion that the enemy we face is made up, at least partially, of those Mongol warriors.” Haung looked around the table and saw at least a few of the gathered men nodding.

  “But you say they fight each other constantly? Our records of the past incursions would suggest that is the case. Why now would they band together?”

  “Again, My Lord, I can only surmise that some other force has arisen, as the General of the Wall suggests, or a strong leader has taken charge of the Mongols and overcome their inherent distrust of each other,” Haung said. “It may be both.”

  “And how does this help us to decide upon our strategy?” the Emperor said and waved for Haung to continue.

  “If it is an army of Mongol warriors and if our records hold true, they will attack the gate. They have no choice if they are to ride their horses into the Empire. The mountain passes are too narrow for a cavalry based army and there is no way to get their mounts over the wall. No, my lords, the gates are the place they will attack.”

  “When?” the Emperor asked.

  “Soon,” Haung said. “Again, I can only assume that they operate like any army. They will have scouts and patrols out either side and ahead of their main force. If that is the case, then I would guess the army was only a week, maybe two, behind the group I fought at the village.”

  Again there was silence in the room.

  “Then it would seem as though we do not have long to prepare.” The Emperor sat forward on his throne. “Do the Fang-Shi have any advice or information to share?”

  “My Lord,” the man in the dark robe stood and bowed to the Emperor and assembly, “we have spent many months watching the stars and reading the signs.”

  “And what do they tell you?”

  “Their words need careful decoding. The stars speak in images and mysteries, My Lord Emperor,” the Fang-Shi said.

  “What of other methods?”

  “My Lord, we have tried to scry beyond the wall but something baffles even our greatest seers. The contingent we sent to the wall have had the same result. Distance does not seem to matter.”

  “Could the enchantments in the wall be the cause?” the Emperor asked.

  “We have taken those into consideration, My Lord. In the past, some Fang-Shi were intrigued by the life of the Mongol people and studied them.”

  “I’ve never heard of Fang-Shi going into the steppes, Lord Sa Chen Jen. I, or my predecessors, would have forbidden such a thing. We cannot, and could not, afford the Mongols to learn the secrets. Such a thing would put the wall in jeopardy.” The Emperor’s tone was sharp, but unlike the general, the master magician did not fall to his knees, only offered a small bow.

  “No Fang-Shi has left the Empire since records began. The investigations I speak of were carried out by scrying, My Lord. Even with the wall complete we have been able to cast our gaze some way out into the steppes. Now we cannot.” Sa Chen Jen gave a little shrug of confusion before continuing. “We do not know why this should be.”

  “Do you know when it changed?” Haung spoke without thinking and realising his mistake, bowed low. “Forgive me, My Lords.”

  “It is a good question, Colonel. Sa Chen Jen, do you have an answer?” the Emperor said.

  “Sadly, no, My Lord. The last record we have of a Fang-Shi being interested in the Mongols is over two centuries old,” Sa Chen Jen said.

  “Do you have anything else to add, Lord Sa Chen Jen?” asked the Emperor.

  “No, My Lord, though I will, of course, not allow the Fang-Shi to rest in this endeavour,” the Fang-Shi said.

  “Of course. And now, Jinzhou Haung, I think you have some important people to see before you return to the wall. Please pick up your letter of rank from the administrator’s offices before you go. They are prepared and ready.”

  “Thank you, Lord Emperor,” Haung said. He bowed low before leaving the room in search of his wife and child.

  Chapter 29

  “And?” Zhou prompted again.

  Xióngmāo sat opposite, a bowl of clear soup on the table in front of her from which wisps of steam rose. It had cost more than Zhou had thought possible and he had argued with the Mongol owner of the inn they had found further inside the camp. They price remained the same, but the very act of disagreeing had made him feel better. Given the price, he had carried the bowls carefully back to the table where Xióngmāo sat. Zhou had started in on his own as soon as it was cool enough not to scald the roof of his mouth. The spicing, something he was not used to, left his tongue tingling and there was a river of warmth running down his throat to his stomach. It was warming him from the inside out.

  “The Mongols are not the primitives that we tend to take them for. They follow and guide their herds of horse and cattle across the steppes and we, in our cities, cannot imagine living in such a manner. We like our permanence in the landscape, our homes that don’t move, our wealth and the peasants who farm the land and produce our food. We think that we have reached the pinnacle of existence and we look upon other people, like the Mongols, as less than us. But we haven’t changed, not for a thousand years or more. The astronomers argue about the nature of the heavens and the world just like they used to. For all their words, experiments and claims they have not reached a new conclusion for a hundred years. They just trot out the same ones with different words.”

  “What does this have to do with anything?”

  “Everything and, maybe, nothing.” She took a spoonful of her soup, wincing at the heat and spice. “It is a mistake to think of them as less advanced. They have just taken a different route to perfect their culture. Their tents, for instance, are an amazing technology. It is simple, effective and portable. It is not too much of a stretch to compare their tents with some of our homes. They have their own medicines that are at least as effective as ours, their surgery may even be more advanced.”

  “Why?”

  “They are at war more than us. They fight and they get hurt, but life is still precious to them. They try new techniques, sometimes out of desperation, and they learn. But that is not all. They have magic too.”

  “They have Fang-Shi?”

  “No, not Fang-Shi as you know them nor Wu, but they have power. Each tribe has one or more and they are venerated as much as feared. It is they who guide the chief and sit with him to dispense justice. Each one chooses an apprentice and trains them over many years.”

  “Xióngmāo, I am not sure why this is im
portant,” Zhou said.

  “Because I don’t think there are any of their magicians in the city.”

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “I asked the woman and she has not seen or heard of one. Secondly, any Mongol sorcerer would be protected by the others and would be in control of the gathered refugees. Lastly, a Mongol sorcerer would be picked up by the Fang-Shi if they could get past the protection on the wall.”

  “The wall is protected?”

  Xióngmāo regarded him for a moment. “Is the wall no longer studied in the schools and administrative colleges?”

  “Of course it is,” he replied. “I know when and why it was built. I know about the mistakes made, the over spend and the cost of its upkeep. I am also aware that there have been attempts, in the past, to have the tax that each province pays for the wall’s maintenance and the troop levies to be reduced. I have read the official judgements and know that each time the cuts have been proposed they have been turned down.”

  “And you know how many men died during the construction? How many women and children in the camps fell victim to the plagues and illnesses? How many people died of the cold during the winters?” she asked, real anger in her voice. “What about the villages that were emptied of all their men? Of the young boys forced to march north and work in the construction gangs whilst their mothers stayed at home and tried to bring in the harvest on their own.” Zhou stayed silent and watched her face. She was not looking at him, her eyes were focused on somewhere else. The past, he guessed. “Zhou, you know all about the financial cost of the wall, but the human cost was so much higher.”

  “Was it worth it?” he asked.

  “The raids stopped. There were a few half-hearted battles with the local tribes, but they knew that the Empire had mobilised and that the wall was going to be built. Over the years, I suppose, the wall has protected the population and saved lives, but the wall has killed a lot of our own people. Those it did not kill still paid a high price.” Xióngmāo stopped speaking and looked at her soup, sighed and pushed it away.

  “The wall is protected from magic?” Zhou gave her some time before asking.

  She looked up at him and offered a small smile of apology. “Yes. The wall had several guiding principles and one of them was to prevent the Mongol magicians from passing through or doing much harm to it.”

  “So they could not get through?”

  “If a magician, not a Fang-Shi, comes close the wall an alarm is sounded in the barracks,” she said.

  “An alarm? Is that it?”

  “The wall was built to keep the Mongols from gathering together and raiding the Empire. They never came in great numbers and we always beat them back. The wall is more a symbol to a nomadic culture. It says we are here to stay. This is our land and we are blocking your path. Do not come near us again.” She looked around at the other patrons, mostly Mongols and the odd Empire soldier here and there. “But the builders knew that, at some time, the wall would be tested. The forts and barracks are there to prevent a physical threat to the wall. The Fang-Shi are there to maintain the wall’s magic and deal with any sorcerous attempts to bypass the wall. It has more defences than the alarm.”

  “What defences?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I was never allowed close enough to find out. And no one would tell me either. The Empire sorcerers are a closed bunch of old, absent minded fools. At least they used to be. I think, over time, their knowledge has declined but their power grown.”

  It was another reminder that she was much older than she appeared. He debated the next question. She had seen much more of the world than he. Had lived more lives. Seen more sorrow but, as far as he knew, had never been married. Never had a family or children. Never had to experience that loss. An absence that stabbed his flesh with a sharp blade, hooked into his heart and tried to pull it from his chest. At the moment of sleep, the second he awoke, when he was gazing at the clouds. And here, amongst the women and children. Zhou closed his eyes, concentrating on pushing the feeling away, encasing his heart in steel and reforming the prison in his mind where the memory languished.

  “If the Mongol magicians cannot get near the wall why are we worried?” Zhou said.

  “We are concerned,” she corrected, “because we do not know what happened to them? Any magician is a powerful force. One not to be wasted, if you can help it. Either Mongol magic has been lost to the world or the enemy that attacked us on the Blue Mountain has found a way to utilise their skills.”

  “What can we do?” Zhou pushed his empty bowl away.

  “Nothing.” Xióngmāo placed her hands flat on the table and took a deep breath before speaking. “Zhou, are you determined to carry onwards. You have so much to learn and, if you learn well, many more years of life. Almost forever if you chose.”

  “No, I need to go on. The red flame lies north of the wall and that is where I am heading.”

  “That is revenge speaking, Zhou,” she said. Her hands reached across the table and took hold of his, her soft skin against his. “It won’t bring them back.”

  Zhou felt the prison tremble and his anger rose. The blue thread in his mind pulsed. He wrenched his hands back, away from her and stood abruptly. The chair tipped over backwards. There was fire in his throat, a roiling chamber of magma in his stomach. Hot words formed on his tongue. His mouth ready to spew forth the lava of his loss and rage. Zhou snatched up the greenwood staff and took a deep breath to speak.

  It flowed up his arm. A cool river of sap, of life, rose from fingers through wrist and arms and into his chest. It fell like a waterfall onto the rising magma, cooling it and the steam cleansing him. The restaurant that had lost its colour came back into focus and his anger fell away, a cooled stone of granite that shattered on the floor and turned to dust. He could taste it on his tongue, gritty and bitter. The taste of shame.

  “You have to let it out,” Xióngmāo said. She had not moved from the table and was looking up at him with sympathy clear in her beautiful eyes. To him, at that moment, sympathy was too close to pity and it added to his shame. “If you don’t, it will always control you. You cannot let it. You need to be in control. This is the way of the Wu. We speak to our nature, to our spirit, but we control it.”

  Zhou had lost the words he wanted to say. The dust clogged his mouth. He raised a hand, let it fall, turned and walked from the restaurant. The waiter approaching the table took one look at Zhou’s face and stepped, wisely, aside.

  Chapter 30

  “Well?” Gang looked at him. The question on the air reflected in his eyes.

  “Well, what?” Haung said.

  “Haung, you lack the years to be funny. What did the Emperor decide?” Liu’s soft voice came from the comfortable chair in the corner of the officers’ bar.

  “He made me a Colonel.” Haung waved the letter of rank towards her.

  “Rank doesn’t stop an arrow.” Gang’s rough voice came from the other chair. “So take that silly grin off your face.”

  Haung sighed. “Thanks.”

  He waved at the server, a corporal, to bring a fresh drink over and moved to sit in the third chair.

  “What did he decide?” Liu prompted.

  “Nothing much, if I am honest,” Haung said as the server put a glass of choujiu down on the table. “Why do you drink this stuff?”

  “Puts hairs on your chest,” Gang laughed picking up his own glass and drinking it all down in one go.

  “Has it worked yet?” Liu asked.

  “Not that I’ve noticed, but I’ve only been drinking it for ten years,” Gang said.

  Haung picked up his own glass of thick milky-white rice wine and drank a little. It was an effort not to spit it straight back out and he had to force himself to swallow.

  “It is like drinking the dregs from the rice pot,” he said. The glass went back on to the table where he had every intention of leaving it.

  “The Emperor?” Liu tried again.

  “There was so
me disagreement in the council,” Haung began and both masters nodded, “but essentially, it boils down to a difference of opinion based on little evidence for either conclusion.”

  “But he doesn’t think the threat is from beyond the Mongol lands?” Liu said, sipping his own drink.

  “I cannot honestly say,” Haung admitted. “He is a hard one to read.”

  “Is he sending more troops?”

  Haung’s answer was interrupted by the appearance of Corporal Enlai.

  “Begging your pardon.” He bowed to them whilst simultaneously waving the serving man, who had come to intercept him, away. “Colonel, the general has requested your presence in the war room.”

  Haung shared a look with the other two and stood from his chair.

  “I’ll finish your drink for you,” Gang said with a smile on his face.

  “Kind of you,” Haung said, scratching his arm. “Back less than an hour and I’ve been bitten already.”

  “They do seem to like the taste of your blood.” Enlai bowed, but not before Haung saw the smile on his face.

  “Let’s go then,” Haung said.

  * * *

  “Well?” the general said.

  “I relayed your insights to the Emperor, Lord General,” Haung said.

  “Did you, Captain,” the general’s smile lacked warmth, “forgive me, Colonel? And what was the Emperor’s decision?”

  “He has instructed the Fang-Shi to investigate,” Haung said.

  “Magicians.” The General of the Wall waved the word away. “They promise so much, but deliver nothing.”

  Haung stood still and waited. Around him the tables were busy with aides, administrators and officers of the army’s intelligence gathering contingent. All were shuffling papers back and forth, reading reports and making notes on their own bits of paper. He let his gaze wander from group to group while the general turned to talk to an officer who had brought him a sheaf of papers.