Jade Man's Skin

by Daniel Fox

  They were ready, the good general Tunghai Wang had been ready for this …

  AS OVER there, so over here. Words rising in her terror, caught by some constriction in her throat. She didn’t need to scream a warning, not to Jiao, or to any man here; they knew already. This was what they did. What they would have done themselves if they were good generals, with good troops under their command.

  As far as they could, they were organizing. Still trying to breach the rampart ahead, to uncork this bottle-trap; sending word back to the city, calling for help but not along the river roads, not to make things worse; seeking whatever shelter there was against missile weapons—precious little on that low and narrow flat between the paddy and the river, in places barely road-wide—and preparing to meet the rebels as they came down from above.

  Jiao wasn’t content to hold a place in the line, to stand and wait while doom filed down toward them. A few sharp words, and she was leading her men up onto the paddy wall and away, across this lowest terrace to the next and so up again, a series of broad flat steps until they met the rebels coming down.

  And then …

  Well, there were a great many rebels, and they would have all the advantages. More soldiers were following Jiao now, more than her own men, but even so …

  Not all Jiao’s men had gone; half a dozen were staying down on the road. Making a fine job of calling order to the other men around, posting a look-out up on the paddy wall, bemoaning the lack of archers; but they made a point of calling order to Mei Feng too, putting her tight in against that same wall “where nothing’s going to hit you, coming down; only as soon as it’s men that are coming down you get right back over by the river there, get in the river if you think you can swim for it.” She wasn’t fooled for a moment. This wasn’t their own concern. It certainly wasn’t their choice to stay down here while their mates went up high to fight. This was orders from Jiao, you stay here, look after Mei Feng, keep her safe. Whatever it costs. Your lives don’t matter to the emperor, but hers does. And to me. I care a lot about her, and not a jot about any of you, so mind you keep her safe. I’m the one you’ll answer to first, if I come back to find her dead and you not, any of you …

  Mei Feng wasn’t too proud to be kept alive. What she doubted was Jiao’s chance of coming back alive. She watched her long-legged friend stalk off; she watched a wolfish pack of men following, lean and dangerous and not enough; this close to the wall she couldn’t see the rebels coming down, but a glance across the river could estimate their numbers and measure their enthusiasm. No one could survive that, she thought: not the waiting army trapped below, and certainly not the bold few souls—they looked so few, that side of the river, compared against the weight of men above them—heading up to fight among the terraces.

  Mei Feng might have gone after Jiao, if she could only think of a reason that would outweigh all her better reasons for staying down below. Friendship was good, but not enough; stubbornness was recognizable, likely even, but stupid. In the end, it was a simple case that she could work out on her fingers. If she climbed up the terraces in pursuit, she couldn’t keep Jiao alive; if she stayed on the road, she might yet save the emperor.

  If she could find a way across the river.

  It really was as simple as that, as heart-rending and as binding.

  She stood still and watched her friend climb up and out of sight, sent a silent wish of luck after her—that kind of impossible luck that battlefield survivors brag about, that no one could work or plan for, no one could achieve or carry—and then she turned away, turned to the men about her, looked for anything she could do to help.

  No archers, but more than one of the men had a sling. Quickly, then—before they could shout at her—she scurried around gathering up stones from the road, anything small enough to be slung, loose enough to be picked out with her fingers.

  WHEN IT came—when at last it came, when she was bizarrely almost impatient for it, now that we all know you’re coming, please will you hurry so that we can have the battle done with and get on?—the first hail from above was of stones, not steel. Stones bigger than the ones she’d been rooting out for slingshot: ripped from the terrace walls, she guessed, that lifted one paddy above another. Ripped out and hurled down: too big to sling but they needed nothing more than muscle and their own weight to bring them slamming down from height.

  Mei Feng covered her head with her arms and ran for shelter, what little shelter the paddy wall afforded, less now that it was crowded with a thousand men doing the same.

  The brave ones, the ones with slings and nerve enough to step out beneath that fall of rocks, tried their luck with a stone or two in reply. Or a succession of stones, in fact, as many and as fast as they could spin and hurl them.

  If they had any joy, Mei Feng couldn’t tell. All she knew was the other thing, joy for the rebels, as one by one the slingers fell: not to the stones, which must have been tossed more or less at random, but to aimed and lethal arrows.

  There were archers up and down the line, if none in Jiao’s squad. They replied as best they could, but it would always be harder ducking out of cover and having to shoot high above them, while the rebels were set and ready and shooting down.

  Sounds of fighting came down with the arrows; Mei Feng drew some comfort from that. And men were still running to join in, scrambling over the wall despite the arrows, preferring the risk to the wait.

  There was no comfort to be had across the water. There she could see what must be happening on this bank too, played out for her instruction: the steady descent of the rebels, one terrace after another; the thin streams of imperial troops running up to face them; the line of contact, where those who survived that far skirmished and fought and died.

  Died, mostly. In places they broke the line and surged forward, but there were always more rebels coming down. Mei Feng could see isolated pockets of soldiers still fighting, entirely engulfed by the rebel horde; she couldn’t see any hope for them.

  Nor for these, the men she stood among. Over yonder, the men waiting on the road were dying individually, unhurriedly, picked off from above. Sooner or later the rebel advance would arrive there, and drive them all into the river. Which they would not survive today, because nobody could.

  The men on either side of her were ready.

  So was she.

  When they decided there was no point standing and waiting to die—orders or no orders—so did she. She couldn’t swim the river, there were no boats and no bridges now, she couldn’t fly. She had no way to reach the emperor, no way to send him a message. Sooner or later—if he survived—word would reach him of what she had done, and there was perhaps a message in that; and if she was lucky, if she was careful, if she didn’t let them drive her into the river, perhaps her body would be found and there was most certainly a message in that if he could only read it.

  When they leaped up onto the paddy wall to face whatever was coming, blade in hand, so did she.

  She was only a beat behind them because she couldn’t leap a wall so high, she had to climb it. Blade in her teeth to free her hands: she could have laughed at herself if only she’d had the time, the courage, someone to tell the emperor what she’d done.

  She scrambled up the bank of mud and stone, peering for handholds and for any man above who might reach down to help or else to knock her back.

  Because her head was tilted back, she could see a lot of sky.

  Because of that, perhaps, she saw the dragon.

  IT WAS only a glimpse, but Mei Feng knew what she was seeing: the impossibility of it, the great appalling body that flew without wings, without law.

  Today she flew on the wings of a storm, it seemed. As though she dragged cloud like a curtain behind her, great banks of it in sick and heavy colors, yellow and green and gray, as thick as congee. Perhaps the sky was protesting at last, massing up in refusal of a power that would always be alien, never familiar however often the dragon flew.

  As Mei Feng watched, tha
t bad sky swallowed the dragon whole.

  In the last moment before she was gone, Mei Feng saw that she carried something gripped in her front claws, like an eagle with a fish.

  OR AN EEL, more like, a clawed eel: a monstrous clawed eel with a monstrous great …

  A great hand reached down and scooped Mei Feng under her armpit, lifted her up onto the top of the retaining wall and shook her, shook what she had seen almost out of her head, almost.

  She took the long knife out of her mouth and drew breath to tell it anyway, before someone else could; and he shook her again and said, “What are you doing, Mei Feng? Didn’t you hear Jiao? Stay below, I will leave some men with you …”

  “Who will be no more inclined to stay below than you are,” she said, “or me either. I can fight,” waving the blade in her hand to prove it, driving him one step backward, don’t you shake me. “You cut off their heads, I’ll cut off their kneecaps. Or, no, better: the other way around. We’ll wait at that wall,” the next step up, the terrace wall to a higher paddy, “where you can cut them off at the kneecap because that’s as high as you’ll be able to reach when they’re standing on the wall; and then they’ll fall right at our feet, and I can cut off their heads.”

  He stared for a moment, and then he laughed; and he was still laughing as he died, as the arrow slammed into his neck and knocked him back onto the road like a broken puppet, loose-limbed in the wrong way, no control.

  For a moment she stood there staring, and a second arrow could have taken her too. Then she saw that he’d dropped his tao, and stooped to retrieve it. If there was a second arrow, it went over her head. A third would never have found her, because she’d already jumped down into the paddy.

  Water to her knees and the soft mud beneath, where the rice was rooted; she had always hated this at planting time, when all the village turned out to help. She could be wet all day and all night at sea and never worry, but clinging ooze between her toes was vile.

  There were bodies, too, half floating, half buried in the mud. Stray hands grasped at her, stray eyes watched her with the lost passion of ghosts. She plunged blindly on till she came hard up against mud and stone, the next terrace rising above her.

  She stalled there, hearing men fight overhead, lacking either the courage or the folly to scramble up between their legs; but one man fell down, dead or dead enough, and another jumped down after him.

  WHICH OUGHT to make that man a rebel because an imperial soldier should be fighting his way upslope, not coming down.

  That was all the thinking time she had before the man caught his balance in the water, looked around, saw her.

  Saw her and raised his tao in an instant, snarling his contempt, seeing her perhaps as a boy or perhaps as a woman but barely worth the slaying either way, although he would.

  Only he wouldn’t, because her blade was swifter and her wrist was stronger or else she was just more ready. She knocked his tao ringingly aside and took his throat on the backswing, and he fell down to bleed out into the paddy.

  And then—not wanting to linger now, not wanting his ghost-glare in her eyes or on her mind—she was apparently bold or foolish after all, because she did haul herself up to the next level. Men were fighting on the wall and on the paths, all through the paddy. It was hard to tell which were imperial troops and which were rebels, in all the mud and the noise and the confusion. Mostly, she hoped the imperial troops would know her.

  Perhaps all battles were like this, trust and hope?

  There was a storm coming; here was the rain, first fall of it, warm heavy drops as thick and hot as blood. It wouldn’t stop this man coming at her now, trying to kill her; it wouldn’t stop her either. Nor would he.

  Always run to meet trouble. His arm was high, his blade was swinging down, he was a fool expecting her to shriek or cower or back away.

  She hopped nimbly forward, inside the reach of his arm and lunging. Never mind where his blade went, so long as hers struck home …

  Which it did, through leather armor and skin and belly, and when had it become so easy to kill a man?

  In and out. She pulled her blade free and watched him fall and looked around, saw a man she was sure of, one of Jiao’s in trouble, and went to help.

  Two to one, and that was easy too, so the two of them went on together. And found another that this man would vouch for, and then they were a threesome.

  The rain was coming hard now, making everything harder. Footing was treacherous even on the paths; the grip on her tao was slippery. Sighting men was still easy, there were so many, but telling one side from the other …

  Most were in the water, churning up the paddy, ruining the crop. A blade lashed out, trying for one of her companions—cut him off at the knees—but hers came down first, steel grating on steel, skewing that thrust aside. Her other man hacked down, half split the rebel’s skull for him. If he was a rebel. She thought so, probably …

  And this one too, heaving himself up at her, trying to knock her off her feet, off the path. His shoulder caught her knee, and it was only storm-trained muscles that let her take that, let her catch her balance and keep her feet in the mud. And then he was sprawled across the path and only something to be stepped over. A nod of thanks to the man who had killed him; there should have been more acknowledgment, but breath was short and precious where most of what her mouth could catch was water.

  Here came wind too, snatching at what little air she had, trying itself to blast her from the path. She was doubly glad to come to the next terrace wall, glad just to cling to it, to feel her two companions drawing in on either side and clinging too.

  It couldn’t be this dark, this time of day; the rain must be knocking the light out of the sky, washing it away …

  A glance up showed her worse clouds than the dragon had brought, black thunderheads from horizon to horizon, tossing lightning-flares between them. No hint, no hope of sun. Except around the margins, where bright day still shone, north and south …

  “Typhoon!” a voice shrieked in her ear, and what could she do but nod?

  She’d never been at sea in a typhoon, Grandfather was just too wise a sailor. She’d never been anywhere but in their little house, hugging whatever came to hand—a puppy, a cushion, a coat: it just felt better, something soft and warm to hold on to—while the wind hurled the rain against the walls and the roof creaked and tried to lift away, tried to lift the whole house away but that Grandfather had built it too tight and too heavy, too well fixed in the earth. Nothing came in, not the least whisper of water, not a stir of the air: only the sounds of the storm, that her child-mind used to picture as monsters stomping and grabbing, spitting and slobbering and utterly denied.

  Now the wind could have her, if it wanted her. The rain had drenched her already, and had hopes of drowning her. She thought she’d rather the dragon came to swallow her quickly; or just a rebel, any rebel, there were enough of those around. One quick stab, surely better than this slow pounding to death, or the wind lifting her up and taking her away, set her to fly against the dragon who must still be up there somewhere, still causing this …

  The wind made a vicious lash of the rain, and every stroke of it stung her to tears, but she could look.

  She saw men doubled over in the paddy, she saw them blown over entirely and struggling to rise, struggling not to drown in that little churn of muddy water. Some would make it to their feet, she thought, some not.

  What she didn’t see, she didn’t see anyone fighting now. Who could? Who could conceive of it, even, in this?

  She gripped the arms of her two companions, pulled them close and bellowed in her best imitation of Grandfather’s fog-voice: “We need to go back! Back to the city!” There could be no war in this, no victory for either side, only destruction for both. And this was only the fringe, first breath of the typhoon; there would be worse and far worse to come.

  She didn’t tell them that. Two tough men and her own unexpected whip-strength to back them, perhaps they
could hold to each other and walk, just about, through this. If they could reach solid shelter before its strength grew, before the waters rose, they might be safe. Perhaps …

  four

  In a boat he could not sail, Han flew—miles above the ground, dreadful impossible miles!—in the grip of a creature he could not trust.

  It was a nonsense, an absurd thing. He ought to be dreaming; he ought to wake up. When he clenched his hands this terribly hard on the boat’s frame, when a stray splinter from where her claws had pierced the hull drove deep into the ball of his thumb, his only thumb: surely then he ought to wake up?

  Except, of course, that he was not asleep nor dreaming, and had never imagined that he was. She was all too monstrously real, and always had been. How could anyone hope to sleep, with a dragon in his head?

  It was still absurd to be here, sailing the sky in the grip of a dragon’s claws, with no better guarantee than her promise.

  As absurd as a man, a boy making bargains with a dragon, say …

  BRING ME a boat, he had said, and she had done so.

  Get in, she had said; and then lifted it, carried him across the strait. She might have dropped him, it and him together, at any time, although she gave her word; she might have let them fall and swooped down and swallowed him, swallowed it and him together if he clung. They were both of them agreed, that would be an end of his chains and her troubles, both at once. An end of him, of course, that too.

  That did not trouble her.

  But she kept her word, for whatever reasons might have been her own. At least, she had kept it so far. Safely across the water, she had brought him; and now—

  NOW THEY hung over the land, too high to look down except he had to; and what he saw was a typhoon from on top, a pocket-typhoon that filled the river valley and ignored the world beyond. It looked like a turbulent fog, from above: an ink-fog, dark and stirred up, swirling. Nothing at all like water, rain. The wind of it was evident in that wild, twisting stillness, like a top so caught in motion that it hung unmoving, humming, all power contained; here the power was contained within the valley walls, and he knew exactly, he knew just what it must be like beneath, and here on top was the only place to be, and still he said, Take me down.