by G R Matthews
“My apprentices are working on the morning assault enchantment, they will be ready,” Fang-shi Long spoke in his deep confident voice.
“I appreciate that, Master Long, and I don’t want to disturb them at all. I've ordered the troops, such as we can command at the moment, to pull down houses, where needed, to create fire breaks. I don't want the city to burn to the ground. Not just yet.” Weyl shook his head. “The hours after a successful battle are never pleasant. The soldiers must be allowed to get it out of their systems. However, fire is an unpredictable beast and we need certain documents and personages found and brought to us safely. Likely, many are in the duke’s quarters but we must be sure.”
“Sir, what do you need me to do?” Haung asked.
“A simple task, Haung. I want you to find Hsin, if he lives, and bring him to us. I’d much prefer him alive, if possible, and we need him before the assault on the duke's quarter begins. Failing that, any high ranking officer or noble you come across. We need the information they hold about the final enchantment that the Wubei have placed on their interior walls if Master Long is to devise a counter to it.” Weyl looked into Haung’s eyes, “Do your best, Jiin-Wei.”
Haung bowed in response, turned and walked off into the darkness, past the line of elite soldiers who guarded the perimeter of the commander’s camp.
“Be careful out there, Captain, the men aren’t being too choosy,” one guard warned him.
“Thank you, Corporal,” Haung nodded. “I’ll be careful.”
Outside the camp, the city streets closed around him. Tall wooden buildings looked down on his foreign presence and he felt their hatred. Amongst the smell of burning wood and choking smoke, the sounds of fighting and the screams of the dying. He carried his sheathed sword in one hand as he walked the streets. At every corner he paused to listen carefully before he turned it. He followed the sound of fighting, seeking a live Wubei soldier who could be persuaded to give him the information he needed to find Hsin.
The cobbles were covered in the city people’s belongings. Smashed pottery, sheets of loose paper dancing in the wind kicked up by the fire, clothes strewn on the floor like puddles after a rain storm, pieces of furniture, whole and broken, houses turned inside out. Doors hung from bent hinges, kicked in or bashed down by rampaging soldiers. The dark shadows of the interior were the open maw of a monster and Haung could smell the iron tang of fresh blood on the air.
He stopped again, tilting his head to one side, listening for sounds of life. From the inside of one building he could hear something, indistinct but, perhaps, a sign of life. Haung took a small piece of paper from a belt pouch, traced a symbol on it with a charcoal smeared fingertip and spoke a quiet, enticing, melody of words. The smudged symbol began to glow and a small ball of light formed above it, the paper dissolving as the light brightened. Haung, with a small gesture, sent the ball of light past the door and into the dark house. There was a scream from inside.
Drawing his sword, Haung crept up to the door and slid inside, merging with the shadows. The source of the scream was illuminated by the conjured light-ball in the centre of the room. Haung took in the scene and felt all strength flee from muscles. His arms fell limp by his side and the tip of his sword struck the tiled floor with a bright clink.
From the rafters, two small bodies hung, rope tight round their necks, blackened tongues swelling from their mouths and sightless eyes staring into the void. Below the bodies of the two children, a naked woman, bruised body and bloody face sat staring at him. Blood pooled from between her knees and it was clear to Haung what had happened to her, and to her young children. She screamed again and again. Her eyes were desperate and disbelieving. Her claw fingered hands tore at her cheeks again and again. Ragged lines of blood dripped down her face, tears of madness and grief. Haung stared at her, unable to move.
Finally, conscious control of his muscles returned to him, “I won’t hurt you, I won’t hurt you,” he repeated to her in a calm voice as he sheathed his sword. Taking two steps into the light and lifting his empty hands in front of him, he said, “Let me help you.”
The woman shuffled backwards, screaming all the time, her eyes wild. He stepped forward again, and she moved backwards. Her back hit a dresser and she froze, nowhere left to go to.
“Let me help you,” Haung said and stepped forward again.
Suddenly, she screamed again and flew at him. Hands diving at his face, ragged and split fingernails raked at his face and he was forced to throw out a straight arm knocking her backwards.
“Stop. I don’t want to hurt you,” he spoke calmly, but she attacked again, screaming all the time.
He caught her wrists and, using his greater strength, pinned her arms behind her back. She continued to scream.
“Need any help, Captain?” A sly voice said from behind, followed by a few throaty chuckles, “We could do with a bit more fun tonight.”
Haung swung himself and screaming woman round to face the door. Three Yaart soldiers had come entered, attracted by the screaming.
“You did this already?” Haung asked, a vague but leading question, begging them to interpret it themselves.
“Not yet, Captain, but the night is young, eh?” More chuckling.
Haung spoke a quiet word and the ball of light flew like a javelin across the room to stop just inches from the spokesman’s face, “You will leave,” Haung let his voice deepen and growl, “and you will leave now. This one is mine, alone. Do you understand me or do I burn it into your eyeballs?”
The soldiers’ faces paled in aura of bright light and they fled.
Haung recalled the light to the centre of the room, illuminating the woman and her murdered children. With another word, he sent the burning ball up to the rafters where it burnt through the ropes holding the tiny bodies aloft. They fell to the floor in a loose heap of limbs. The woman sobbed and struggled to get free.
Haung released her and she gathered up her children in a mother’s embrace, crying with unleashed grief. Haung stood still for a few moments, watching the woman cradle her love and life in her arms. Any husband was likely to have been killed in the day's battle. What did she have left to live for, he wondered.
“I am so sorry,” he said softly, as he knelt down beside her.
She looked up, into his eyes. There was pain and loneliness in that look. A tormented soul that could no longer comprehend the world.
“I am so sorry,” he said in an honest voice. He reached out a tender hand and put it around her bare shoulder.
“There is nothing I can say to make this better for you,” he said with empathy in his words. He pulled her slowly in close as he slid the thin assassin blade through the skin on her back and into her heart in one graceful move. She gasped, and then folded over her lost children, “but I can bring an end to your pain. Forgive me.”
Chapter 19
Zhou staggered through the smoke clouded streets, ash clinging to every inch of exposed skin. Somewhere, sometime, during the day he had lost his helmet and a crust of dried blood ran down from his forehead and across his cheek. There were missing metal plates on his armour and his short staff had been replaced with an unfamiliar sword picked up during one of the running skirmishes through the streets.
The streets, the whole city, was lost. Once the walls had been breached and breasted, the Wubei army, if the hodgepodge of men dragooned into service could truly be called that, had been in a fighting retreat all day. The Yaart soldiers paid a high price for every street corner or intersection they took control of but there were simply too many.
Zhou stopped and lent against a nearby wall. He took a dirty handkerchief out of the space between his armour and under-shirt. Folding it in half to form a large triangle, he tied it around his face, covering his mouth and nose. It pulled and squashed the fleshy end of his nose but it kept the worst of the ash off of his tongue and out of his lungs. He pushed off the wall and resumed his journey, stepping over the litter of bodies of lives lost to war
.
Yaart troops ran past him, barely sparing him a glance. It was difficult enough to see let alone breathe, on the night fallen, smoke laden streets and without his helmet he looked like any other wounded soldier staggering around. Zhou gave a nod of acknowledgement to the Yaart troops as they went, playing the role they expected. He was not foolish though, he kept to the shadows as much as possible and had to hide from the bigger organised patrols which were gathering up wayward soldiers.
He turned a corner, recognising the streets close to his home, and saw one of those large troops heading down the road towards him. He ducked, without looking, through the broken doorway of a house and into the gloom inside. There was no lantern or candle to light the room, a perfect place to hide and wait for the patrol to pass. Putting his hands out as a guide, he slid his feet across the floor, heading for where he guessed the corner of the room to be. The stone floor was slippery underfoot. Probably a cracked jar of wine or oil, he thought. He stopped, bent down and touched a fingertip to the floor to confirm his suspicions, walking through a room filled with flammable oil was not a good idea. Rubbing the liquid between his fingers, it was thicker than water and slippery. He sniffed it, but the smoke had eroded his sense of smell. Oil then, he guessed before he touched his finger to his lips. If it was oil then he would have to be very careful not to cause a spark. The liquid tasted salty on his tongue and there was the hint of a metallic after taste. He spat it out, none the wiser but sure, at least sure it was not a flammable oil.
Sliding his feet again, he edged further towards the corner. Something dangling from the ceiling batted against his face and he gasped in fear. He backed up a step and raised the sword in the darkness. He stayed there, unmoving, for a minute and then two but nothing further happened and his heart slowed back to its regular rhythm. He sheathed the sword, fingers guiding the tip into scabbard, and conducted a quick inspection. Reaching out with a cautious touch, he ran his hands along the thing that had hit him in the face. It was rough and thin, a rope or cord. The kind of thing a home owner or chef would hang a pheasant by, or a ham, he supposed.
The sound of soldiers’ feet on the stone road outside, sounded louder and louder as they came closer. Standing stock still against the wall, Zhou watched the doorway carefully. A flaming torch preceded the head of a Yaart soldier. The light spread across the floor, as the soldier gave the interior a cursory glancing check. Then the torch was removed and darkness returned.
Zhou let out a nervous sigh, his jaw trembling as the air escaped. Then he turned around and retched. The torch light had revealed the nature of the liquid stain across the floor. It had been a large lake of dark brownish red and the river that fed it had its source in the twisted bodies of two small children and their mother. From the position of the bodies, it looked as though she had died defending them, crouched over them in a protective shell. It had not been enough, the stab wound in her back was the damning evidence of her failure.
Zhou, moving forward on shaking legs, peeked out of the door way and with a last backward glance stumbled on down the road towards his own home. Three more times he encountered small groups of Yaart’s soldiers who were burning, looting and raping the city and its women with feral abandon. There was nothing he could do to stop them, but it was a painful kick to his stomach each time he had to move on and leave someone to Yaart twisted sense of blood fuelled enjoyment. Under his handkerchief, he chanted a single word over and over. Please, please, please. The closer he got to his home, the faster the chant.
At the corner of his street, Zhou stopped. His free hand grabbed onto the wall and it was a battle of will to force his legs to carry him around the corner. He drew the stolen sword and stepped forward. The flickering flames and charred remains of his house stole away his breath and his mind. He ran towards the fires, screaming. The sword fell from his hands as he made the last few steps to the place where his door had been. The wooden frame was blackened, fractured and incomplete. The outer wall was groaning under its own weight and inside there was nothing to be seen but the devouring flames and evil glow of embers. The roof had collapsed and as the smoke rose, Zhou’s heart tore apart.
He collapsed in the doorway, heat battering his face, the fires mocking his fate. Zhou's mind was yelling at him to run. Run to the very edge of the world and keep on going, dive over the edge and fall into oblivion, anything to get away from the sight of his family's grave.
His heart tugged at him, dive into the burning fires and search for them, there was still a chance. Tears fell and they sizzled as they splashed onto ash beneath his knees. The pain in his body, the scrapes, cuts and the burning skin on his legs, knees and face were nothing to the real pain of loss. Pain, brought anger, anger brought rage, aimless rage, self-directed rage. An avalanche of ‘if onlys’ and a torrent of ‘what ifs’ assaulted his mind. Images and thoughts to torture and torment him, should he ever attempt to sleep again, seared and burnt into his brain by the heat of the ruined house. Scars to last a lifetime, however long that was.
“You!” The threatening call came from behind and when he did not react, “I’m talking to you. Answer me if you want to live.”
Zhou turned his head around. Three Yaart soldiers stood in a lose semi-circle about seven or eight feet away.
“Hey, Wubei scum, if you want to live another day, stand up and answer me. We are looking for your leader, Hsin, he has a house round here we were told. Where is it?”
Zhou, basking in the heat of fire and rage, went cold. The sudden, painful chill of jumping naked into an icy river. Hsin. This was his fault. He had made the treaty. Hadn't he, Zhou, argued against it? Warned him. Warned them all that it was a Yaart trick but Hsin hadn't believed him. Hsin had killed his wife. Hsin had killed his son. Hsin was the one to blame. It was all his fault. The clarity of thought brought silence to his soul and ease to his heart. With no family, he had no purpose. Now he did.
Zhou stood, carefully, all pain erased from his legs and body. He turned to face the three soldiers and took a deep breath, the ash and smoke tasting like fine rice wine. He took a step towards them.
“You are looking for Hsin?” He said in a voice pitched low and calm, “His house is not here, but I know where it is?”
“Then you will take us to it.” The soldier in charge stepped toward Zhou, “If you don’t, I will take a burning stake and boil the eyes in your head. And I'll make sure it’s done slowly. Whilst you twist and scream you'll tell me what I want to know.”
“You don’t have him then?” Zhou took his own step forward.
“Obviously not or we wouldn’t be looking for him.” The soldier pointed his sword at Zhou, “Now, get a move on.”
“Manchu,” one of the other soldiers said in warning, as Zhou took another step towards the sword and smiled.
“I will take you to him, do not be concerned.” Zhou saw the world in black and white, the only colours were splashes of red on the bodies of the soldiers. The red drew him forward another step.
“Stay there,” Manchu ordered, “Keep ahead of us and guide us. Come any closer and I will kill you.”
“I will take you to him,” Zhou cocked his head to one side, intrigued by the way the red swarmed and slithered across their bodies like a stampede of snakes, “In fact, you will be there to meet him.”
Zhou launched himself forward, palming aside the outstretched sword, faster and further than a sane man could jump. The dagger took Manchu under the chin, driving up through the soft underside of his mouth and into his brain. There was no time to scream. As Manchu fell, Zhou stole the sword out of his dead man's limp grip. Zhou switched the sword to his favoured hand and clutched the dagger in his other hand.
The two other soldiers raised their own swords and charged forward. White figures against the black of city fires, red snakes meandering around their torso and neck. Zhou ducked under the first slash, pushing it over his head with the sword, whilst the dagger, guided by cold rage, sought the soldier’s heart and tore it apar
t with a savage twist. Red snakes poured from the gaping wound over Zhou’s arm and he marvelled as his skin soaked them up like a parched sponge. The corpse collapsed over Zhou’s shoulder and he stood, shrugging it off like a winter coat. The second soldier darted in with a sword jab and Zhou simply swayed a little to one side whilst his stolen sword swept out in an arc, slicing through the enemy's neck. The red snakes flew outward in elegant arc as the soldier fell forward, sword clattering on the stone.
“Hsin,” Zhou hissed. Black and white crystallised into purpose as he stalked off, down the street, towards Hsin’s house.
# # #
Unlike his own home, Hsin’s house stood unharmed by the fire. The door, a blank white rectangle in his vision, burst open as he struck it with the full force of his legs. Muscles protested as tendons and ligaments fought to hold his joints together, he ignored the pain and demanded more strength from them.
The lines of black and white inside the house made little sense to him, but the red serpents swam across the floor and up the stairs from where scuffling and thumping noises came. He followed their lead, the stairs creaking under his weight. At the top they turned right, down the corridor, and under the door at the end. He marched down the corridor, sword and dagger held by his side and, with another rage fuelled kick, splintered the door, smashing it from its hinges.
The white figure inside, bending over and struggling with something, intensified their actions.
“Hsin,” Zhou spat, “you killed them.”
“What?” The red snakes leapt towards Hsin even as his own sibilant words wormed into Zhou’s ears, “Don’t come any closer. I will use this.”
The confusing morass of black and white in Hsin’s hands coalesced into a crossbow shape which was pointed directly at Zhou.
“Use it then, I don’t care.” Zhou stepped forward, the red snakes inched their way up Hsin’s body, crawling up his legs and groin. “I will kill you. It is all I have left.”