by Clare Smith
Normally there would be guards at the main intersections and full brothers patrolling the streets close to the compound, but this night there was no one to be seen. It seemed strange to him that the Ban Long’s master should be so careless of his own life and the lives of those who lived under his protection. If he ever became a master, he would always have guards out on the streets, even if his daughter did want to go to the temple, except, of course, if he was baiting a trap.
That thought made him slow and finally stop in a dark corner between two buildings where he could watch for danger without being seen. What if it was a trap, and he was blindly walking into a situation where the enemy would be waiting for him? With his knives strapped to his body, he would only have his hands with which to defend himself, and whilst they were deadly weapons in single combat, a larger group would be able to take him before he had time to swallow the poison he carried.
The thought of what they would do to him made him break out in a cold sweat. That didn’t make sense though. Why would his master order him into an enemy trap where he would surely die after spending a small fortune on his training? No, he refused to believe it was a trap, but they could be using him as bait. He was just a small part of a bigger plan, so who better to sacrifice than the youngest and least experienced brother?
That left him in a quandary. He’d given a vow of obedience to his master, so it would be dishonourable of him not to proceed with his assignment, but then again, what honour was there to die at the enemy’s hands? For a moment he felt betrayed and turned away, keeping to the shadows and slowly making his way back the way he had come, but then stopped again, as another thought struck him.
Perhaps he’d been sent there to create a diversion, so that his more experienced brothers could slip through the Ban Long’s defences and carry out the assassination whilst the enemy were dealing with him. That is why he’d been given such precise details of how and where to enter the enemy’s compound. The problem was that if he provided the kind of diversion his master had in mind, he would be killed, and if he didn’t, his brothers would be detected and slain.
Neither was a happy prospect and both, ultimately, would leave him dead. He could, of course, run and hide or join the Emperor’s army, but the Emperor threw men away in his battles like worthless grains of rice, and in any case, he was certain that his own brotherhood wouldn’t let him escape that easily. No, there was only one thing for it, for his own honour he would have to fulfil his role as a diversion, but instead of blindly going to his death he could, perhaps, improve his chances of coming out alive.
He went through the detailed instructions he’d been given in his head, and came to the conclusion that a diversion would not really be needed until his brothers were already inside the enemy compound and close to the Master’s pagoda. If he could position himself so that he could distract the guards, but still have a chance to escape in the confusion, then he might avoid being captured. It was a long shot and unlikely to work, but it was the best he could come up with.
Cheum had told him to approach the compound from the Red Bee district, as the wall there would be unguarded. It was the district where the government buildings were, and as there was very little there which would interest a thief, he didn’t know it as well as some other parts of the city. He had, however, seen a plan of the Ban Long’s compound, and it seemed to him that by entering where he’d been told, he would have to cross a lot of open space between the wall and the Master’s dwelling.
As a boy he’d travelled from one district to another when things had become too hot for him to stay in one place, and from his recollections there would be better places for him to enter the Ban Long compound. If he climbed the wall from the Silk District, there would be warehouses to shelter him from inquisitive eyes, and a rope could be left dangling to aid a quick escape. The downside was that he’d no idea of how heavily the wall was likely to be guarded at that point, but if the worst came to the worst, he could lie flat across its top and take his chance when it came.
With his mind made up he set off at a fast pace, slipping from shadow to shadow without making a sound. His journey through the Red Bee district was easy and it was simple for him to evade the few guards who patrolled the intersections. The Silk District was a different matter though, and he had to move cautiously to avoid the guards hired by the rich merchants to protect their mansions. He moved as quickly as he could away from there, and into where the warehouses stood. There were dark alleyways here and he felt much more at home.
The warehouses here held the silk from whence the merchant’s wealth came. There were guards here too, but they never saw him pass by. When he reached the warehouse that stood closest to the section of wall he wanted to climb, he pulled the long, thin blade from the sheath at his wrist and began working on the lock. The Master of the Blade in the Dark had taught him how to use the blade to kill leaving an almost invisible wound, but it was a thief with just one eye who had taught him to pick a lock.
Unfortunately the man was dead now having lost his head to the Emperor’s executioner, but he still remembered him and his quick hands. He just wished he was here now as he was having more difficulty with the lock than he’d anticipated. Impatiently he twisted the knife inside the lock, grating the metal together, and then froze at the sound of someone creeping up behind him. With the slightest of movements, he slid the knife from the lock and swung around ready to thrust it into his enemy’s throat, but held back the killing blow at the last second.
In front of him a small boy with large, terrified eyes gave a squeak of alarm and scuttled backwards. Before he could grab the boy he was on his feet and had darted off like a rat down a hole. He cursed himself for a fool knowing that he should have silenced the boy, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it. The boy had been thin and ragged with bare feet and scared eyes, and had reminded him of himself before his master had given him a new life. The city was full of boys like that, and very few of them made it through to manhood.
He sighed at that unhappy thought and turned his attention back to the lock taking his time with it now until it clicked open. Carefully he eased the door open just wide enough for him to slip inside and closed it behind him. The Warehouse was darker than the night and was thick with the dust of the coarse linen which was wrapped around the bales of silk to protect them.
That meant the consignment was new, and with any luck there would still be piles of linen and bindings lying around waiting to be taken away and used elsewhere. The trick was going to be finding them in the pitch black. Cautiously he moved along the outer wall using all the skills that the brothers had taught him to avoid obstacles in his path. A table blocked his way but he skirted it without disturbing the contents on its surface. There was a lamp there which was still warm from being used, but he dare not light it and ruin his night vision.
Further on there was a stack of boxes which he edged around following the smell of the untreated linen as it became stronger. He took another dozen paces where he found what he was looking for, and reached out to locate the pile of binding twine which should have been there. Instead he touched something warm and sleek which moved under his hand. The creature screeched its fear, attacked his hand with needle-like claws and was gone before he could suck at the blood it had drawn.
He hissed at the sudden shock and pain, and then silently cursed himself for his weakness and allowing any sound to escape his lips. If there were others in the warehouse he would have given his presence away, but as he strained his ears to catch any sound of movement, all he could hear was the pounding of his own heart. He relaxed slightly and looked down at the wound which he couldn’t see clearly in the dark.
It was small and had already stopped bleeding, which meant that the sleeping creature he’d disturbed was either a small cat or a rat. Hopefully it was the former, as rats carried any number of unpleasant and fatal fevers. If he had a light he could inspect the wound and see if it was a scratch or a bite, but he didn’t have
time for that now as he was way behind schedule. For all he knew his brothers could already be in the Ban Long compound waiting for him to act.
Ignoring the possibility that there might be other rats amongst the pile of linen, he rummaged around until he found what he was looking for. The ball of twine was as large as a melon, and whilst a single strand would not take the weight of a man, when plaited together it would be stronger than the rope which the Brotherhood used to execute one of their own. He tucked it under his arm and retraced his steps back to the warehouse door, taking a moment to use the long thin blade to lock it behind him.
Whoever owned the warehouse would not miss the ball of twine, but an open door which should have been locked would cause all sorts of commotion, which wouldn’t be helpful if he wanted to escape back this way. Slowly he walked along the foot of the wall, running his hands over the stonework, until he found what he was looking for. Most of the surface was smooth, but here some of the stones had shifted as a result of the last time the ground had shaken.
The wall had been repaired but the mortar was new, so he used his thin knife to ease it away. His blade wasn’t made for such work and snapped at the hilt, but it had given him enough finger holds to reach just above his head. He cursed his bad luck, threw the broken knife into the shadows and scuffed the fallen mortar aside so it wouldn’t be too obvious to anyone passing by.
Quickly he attached a length of twine from the ball to his belt so both his hands would be free, took a step back and pressed his shoulders firmly against the warehouse wall. The sort of leap he was intending to do needed a longer run up than he had, but that was all the room there was so it would have to do. He pushed himself hard into the wall and then sprang forwards, taking three bounds and springing upwards.
His fingertips were short of the wall’s top but his toes found the highest of the finger holds he’d made and squeezed into the small gaps. For a second or two he just hung there, flattened against the wall by the force of his own momentum, but waiting for that moment when the rebound would give him enough energy to move again. When it came he launched himself upwards and grasped the rough stone which topped the wall, hung there by his finger tips, and then heaved himself up until he lay flat along the wall’s surface.
Several minutes passed whilst he watched and listened for someone to come and investigate the noise he’d made, but everything remained quiet. When he was certain that he hadn’t been discovered, he pulled up the ball of twine and began plaiting it into a rope, only pausing when two sets of guards passed close beneath the place where he lay on top of the wall. Neither looked up, so he carried on with his work until the rope was strong enough to take his weight and he could use it if he had to make a hasty retreat.
The time it took wasn’t wasted, as it gave him the chance to listen to the noises in the compound which seemed no different than those that could be heard in his own compound at night. Certainly there was no indication that the place had been infiltrated by assassins, which puzzled him. If he was there to distract the guards, there should have been some sign that his brothers were close by waiting for him to make his move, but so far there was nothing.
His instincts, which had never let him down before, were telling him to turn around and go back, but his master had given him this assignment and he wasn’t going to let him down. He looked up at the sky and estimated that it was at least an hour before the first light of dawn. It was a good time to move when the guards would be tired from their night’s watch and the sky was at its darkest.
Quickly he jammed the ball of twine into the crevice the crack in the wall had made and let the plaited end dangle down. The twine was the colour of stone, and in the darkness it wouldn’t be spotted unless someone knew it was there. Without making a sound he slipped over the wall, dropped to the grounded and crouched there listening for any sound of alarm.
Fortunately there were no hidden traps here as there had been when he’d climbed over the wall into the Emperor’s gardens, so he was able to run fast and low across the open grass and squeeze in amongst the bushes beyond. In the daytime they would have been covered in flowers with delicate petals which would have fallen and given away his position, but for now they were closed into tight buds which just rattled slightly when he disturbed them. The downside though, was that from where he crouched, he couldn’t see anything beyond the end of his fingertips.
He thought the Master’s pagoda had to be somewhere in front of him, with the Ban Long’s halls and training yard just behind. There would be gardens in front of the pagoda and a stream or lake with an ornamental bridge, but the problem was he had no idea how far away they were and what lay in between. Unlike the grounds around the Emperor’s palace, no one had been inside the Ban Long compound and lived to describe the layout of the gardens where the Master walked.
That meant he could either stay where he was until it was light enough to see where he was going, or he could take a chance and hope he didn’t blunder into something or someone. As a thief he’d worked mainly in the darkest hours where he depended on his senses and his instinct to keep him out of trouble, and they had never let him down. Since then his training had enhanced those to a higher level, so he decided on the latter course of action and darted forwards, crouching as low as he could.
Ahead of him he could hear the sound of water bubbling across stones, but when he found the stream it was wider than he’d hoped. As he didn’t have time to search for the bridge across, he removed his soft-soled boots and waded across, wincing every time his foot slipped off the round stones which made up the stream’s bed. When he reached the other side he replaced his boots, waited a moment whilst he took his bearings, and then moved cautiously forwards.
The grass muffled his footsteps and it was too dark for anyone to see where it had been disturbed by his passing. It was a good thing too as he’d only taken twenty or so paces when he heard someone approaching. They were too close to miss him despite the darkness, but ahead of him he could just make out a dark shape in which he might be able to hide.
He slipped through the darkness, moving away from the approaching figure and heading towards what he hoped would be part of the Master’s pagoda. If he was wrong and it was the halls where the brothers slept, he would really be putting his head in the dragon’s mouth. When he reached the building he was surprised to find that it stood by itself and wasn’t attached to either the pagoda or the halls, which was unusual.
He knew he should leave it undisturbed, but as it had a couple of sturdy bolts on the door, his curiosity overcame his better sense. As it stood by itself he thought it might be a cell of some sort, but when he pulled the bolts back and stepped inside, he immediately realised that it was something very different. He’d been inside a building like this before when he’d been a seeker for a gang of thieves and remembered it well.
Not knowing what the black stuff was that had been stored inside, he’d taken a sample back to the gang leader and had received a thwack around his ear for his trouble. At the time he’d felt badly treated until the leader had shown him what the black powder could do if you set a spark to it. There had only been a thumbnail’s worth of powder but the explosion had still been impressive and he’d never forgotten the noise and the heat it had produced.
Here, by the smell of it, he had a whole shed load of the stuff. If he wanted to create an alternative diversion from showing himself to the Ban Long guards, then this was a gift from the gods but the only problem was doing something with it which wasn’t going to blow him to bits. Carefully he felt along the wall until he found a smooth panel of precious glass which he removed and placed on the floor. Behind that was a deep alcove with a single candle and a tinder box.
This was going to be the difficult part. If there was dust in the air or if a stray spark jumped from the tinder onto the floor then the whole place would go up in flame and him with it. Nervously he turned the serrated wheel inside the tinder box and breathed a sigh of relief when the tinder caught sufficie
ntly for him to light the candle first time. He put the candle back on the shelf and replaced the glass so the flame was safely out of the way.
That reduced the light somewhat but not enough so that he couldn’t see what he was doing. All the same he had to be quick in case someone saw the light beneath the door and came to investigate. Fortunately there was a leather strip attached to the bottom of the door to reduce the draft, but he knew it would only take a small amount of light to escape for him to be in trouble.
The isolated shed contained four large, clay pots full of the black powder, a weighing scale and several small funnels which came as no surprise. However, close to them and stacked up in neat piles tied together with different coloured ribbons, were hundreds of tubes of different thicknesses. Some of the tubes were small and delicate and made from parchment, whilst others were made of hollow reeds or bamboo and were as thick as his arm.
The larger ones were sharpened to a point at one end and sealed with wax at the other, but he’d no idea what they were used for. Curious to find out he opened one and emptied out the contents and was surprised to find it was full of black powder mixed with tiny pieces of grit. He guessed that the grit was there to prevent the black powder burning so quickly, and that gave him an idea.
Using the tubes which were made of hollow reeds, he removed the waxed ends and laid them in a line until they reached the pots of black powder. At the other end he placed a bundle of tubes made from parchment against the last of the reed tubes, retrieved the candle and propped it up against them. It was hard to estimate how long it would take the candle to burn down and set the parchment tubes alight but he hoped it was long enough for him to be well away from the place when it caught fire.