Jade Empire

by S. J. A. Turney

  Aram stood silent, his mouth open but unable to find adequate words. He peered at the faces around him and then at the looming dark shape of the island in the evening gloom, and finally at the boats.

  ‘The people will not like it.’

  ‘Then they are welcome to stay and discuss the matter with the Sizhad’s men,’ Cinna said harshly.

  The two generals caught one another’s eye. Cinna tilted his head towards the island and Jiang nodded. ‘I will go across with the first boat,’ the stocky man said. ‘I will take half the good fighting men in as many boats as it takes. Then each boat will return, rowed by two men. I can make sure all is safe and then signal with a torch if we are secure, before the civilians begin to cross.’

  ‘You will have to be sure the torch is hidden from the west,’ Jiang noted.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘And even if things are safe there and the population agree, the journey will be slow. It will take all night to cross that many times, possibly half the morning as well. It will be a tight race.’

  ‘We’d best get started now, then. I will gather up the first trip. The rest of you need to inform the people of our plan. At least when it’s done all the boats will be across the channel and the Sizhad’s men will not be able to reach us.’

  All eyes rose once more to the island across the sparkling water and Dev shivered.

  That was it. Once they crossed that channel, the island was a dead end.

  Literally.

  Chapter 24

  Jai had watched, tension twanging like torsion artillery, as the first boats crossed. It was almost dark by the time they were halfway across that wide stretch, their location visible only as black shapes that blotted out the silvery ripples of moonlight on the waves. Eight boats had gone – just enough to ferry a small force and create a bridgehead. The watchers on the beach had lost track of the boats somewhere in that last stretch and had waited nervously, barely daring to draw breath until a tiny pinprick of light sprang up close to the far shore, waving from side to side – the signal that nothing untoward had happened to Cinna and his men.

  The crossings had begun in earnest then. The revelation that Cinna and his men had not been stripped to the bone by the vengeful dead as they disembarked had given everyone a little hope. Before even those first boats had returned to the beach, the rest were filled and launched out into the water on their own crossing.

  Despite seeing the crowds on the beach and the length of the column as they had travelled south, Jai had not previously truly comprehended just how many Inda there were in this band of refugees until he watched them pass across the channel. Large groups were moved at a time, yet the multitude on the beach barely seemed to shrink.

  He could not sleep, despite the lateness of the hour. The knowledge that the Faithful were less than four miles away and that their arrival would herald certain death for anyone left on the mainland kept him awake. Dev was the same – they all were – and so he spent most of his time either watching the endless chain of boats streaming back and forth or peering nervously west along the beach, half-expecting the enemy to heave into view at any moment. The night wore on. No one seemed to speak, beyond those words required for the task at hand. Gradually the moon slid away and the inky night began to acquire a cerulean tint in the east.

  Jai had looked around then, as the change heralded the approaching morning, and begun to truly worry. Too many people remained on the beach. They had lost precious hours when they should have been ferrying people away while he and Dev had followed a river and found an enemy. Now they would pay for the delay. He could not say how many trips remained to be made, but it seemed clear that there would be people trapped there when the Faithful came.

  His tension continued to mount until the sun put in its first appearance over the water. Dev had explained the timings of the Faithful’s devotions, and the enemy should be engaged in their first litany at that moment. His father had carried out a headcount on the beach, concluding that there were still more than eight hundred people. That meant at least three more journeys once the boats returned. They were moving faster than Jai had thought, but it would still be a close-run thing.

  The sun climbed and Jai worked through it all in his head – the Faithful finishing their devotions, swiftly dismantling their camp and mounting up and heading east – and from that moment on, he began to watch the western beach constantly, forgetting the boats.

  He jumped as a hand squeezed his shoulder, and looked round to see his father and Dev.

  ‘I want you both on the next boat,’ the old man said.

  ‘No.’ As simple as that.

  ‘Jai—’

  ‘No.’ He glanced across at Dev and could see the same defiance in his brother’s eyes. ‘No. There are few men here who can truly fight. The Faithful are coming and we can make a difference.’

  ‘I cannot let you sacrifice yourself.’

  Jai squared up to his father. ‘Are these not the values you and Grandfather espoused back in Initpur in our youth? That a rajah is beholden to his people. He rules, but he is a servant of the realm, not a despot. It is the duty of those who can save lives to do so.’

  He drew his sword and ran a thumb carefully along the edge, testing it.

  Their father marshalled a dozen arguments over the next quarter of an hour, each of which was dismantled or swept aside by the brothers. It was understandable that their father wished them to be safe, yet when they turned the same arguments on him and suggested that he leave the beach, he had simply refused.

  The sun continued to climb. The boats arrived and took another two hundred.

  The western beach remained empty.

  Jai’s nerves were twanging constantly now. Had the Faithful gone inland? Had they decided on a day of rest? Had they turned around? Where were they?

  The boats reached the isle across the water and began to disembark.

  Jai suddenly felt a shiver run through him for no clear reason and turned, instinctively, to the west. A single horseman had rounded the treeline and stopped.

  ‘Father, General – look.’

  Aram and Jiang hurried over, Dev beside them.

  ‘A scout. The others will be close behind. We are out of time.’

  They turned to see the boats coming back slowly across the water. A mile was a long distance to row, and it took some time. General Jiang was the first to move.

  ‘The Faithful are here,’ he shouted in all three languages. ‘All civilians down to the water line. Prepare to move with the next flotilla. All armed men to me.’ He turned to Aram. ‘Go.’

  ‘No,’ Aram said defiantly.

  ‘I am not saying this out of deference or sentimentality, Aram,’ Jiang hissed forcefully. ‘When those boats are beached there will be panic, chaos and violence. There is not enough space for everyone, and all will want a place, even those who argued and told you they would not go. Only someone with authority and a calm head will prevent disaster. I will hold the beach as long as I can. Go.’

  Aram dithered desperately, but the sound of an argument broke out at the water’s edge behind him, and somehow the rajah in his soul took over. He nodded grimly and turned, hurrying along the beach. Almost two hundred men were converging on them from the west, and Jai felt fear grip him. Five-to-one odds were insane, but then the general knew they could not win. All they could do was hope to buy time with their deaths so that as many of the Inda as possible could escape.

  ‘What can we do, General?’ Jai asked.

  ‘Our priority is to slow them down and stop them getting to the boats. Roughly a third of the men here are armed with some sort of polearm. We retreat towards the boats a little so that we have a shorter perimeter, then set up four feet apart so there is not enough room for a horse to ride between us. Every four feet a man with a spear will brace to defend against cavalry, each accompanied by two men with other weapons to defend him from attacks. Remember, we cannot fight to win – only to delay. Make no mistake. None of us a
re leaving this beach, but every heartbeat we endure saves lives. Stay up as long as you can and let none past.’

  The grimness of that appraisal sank into every heart and Jai could see what it meant to the men of Inda blood. There would be no one to burn the bodies or say the rites. They were condemning themselves not only to death, but to an eternity of unrest, haunting this beach.

  It came as no surprise then when a third of the men threw down their weapons and ran, making for the crowd awaiting the boats. Jiang said nothing, just watched them go. Those left were mainly of the Crimson Guard, with a few of Cinna’s soldiers among them. They were stone-faced and steady.

  The Faithful rounded the edge of the trees and started to pound towards them, perhaps half a mile away, whooping and ululating as they came. Jai once more felt his heart leap into his throat at the sight. Death was coming for them… death in a white turban with a gleaming sword point. Jai cast a prayer up to the gods, hoping that one day, when this was over, someone would find his body and free his spirit from it with the sacred fire.

  Now he was moving into position. He was denied even the close presence of a friend at the end, for the general had placed Dev at the water’s edge, Jai at the far end and himself in the centre, spaced out among the men to give them heart and encouragement. The blue and white and the red now worked together almost instinctively – a brotherhood born of necessity in the jungle. The enemy came like a wave of whitecaps rolling across the beach. There was no organisation to this attack; it was not intended as a cavalry charge to knock them aside or drive a wedge through the line. This was every white-clad bastard aiming on taking a head for his sun god, unfettered and insane.

  Jai tensed as the riders bore down on them. A man never appreciates how swift a horse can be until he is braced with a spear and waiting for one. The heartbeats ticked away, each one bringing that nearest horseman a little closer, making the shape of looming death a tiny bit larger.

  The man holding the spear beside Jai braced tighter and tighter, wide, staring eyes on the bay gelding racing straight for him, the man on its back whirling a curved sword above his head and howling like an enraged beast. The rider would die. That, Jai vowed. They might all fall to the next horseman who came along, but that first rider at least would pay for everything.

  Jai prepared. The other man by his side hefted a cleaver, grunting through his red demon face plate as the spear man began to pray to his western gods.

  There was a sound like a mountain shattering under the hammer of the gods, and the world erupted into utter annihilation. One moment the white-clad horseman was racing towards them, whooping and snarling, whirling a sword in the thunder of hooves. The next moment he was gone in an eruption of gold and red. Jai felt himself thrown back bodily into the sand, the spear man landing on top of him before rolling off to one side. Jai’s face felt as though it were on fire. His whole body in fact felt like it was burning, but as he struggled in the sand, the feeling in his face faded to be replaced by a stinging salty sea breeze.

  He pulled himself up to his elbows, wondering oddly where his sword had gone. All he could hear was an oddly muffled roaring noise as though he were underwater, listening to the rough waves of the channel above. His skin felt raw.

  Ahead, where moments before there had been an army of white horsemen bearing down on them, was now a conflagration of epic proportions. The beach was on fire from the water’s edge almost to the treeline. Even the sand was ablaze, which suggested something like pitch at the heart of the fire. Black roiling smoke poured up into the air, stinking of tar and burned meat. As Jai’s dancing eyes began to right themselves, he started to pick out shapes in the dreadful blaze. Men and horses alike existed only as living torches, burning on the black beach amid the huge explosion of billowing orange and black. The roar in his ears gradually resolved into the rumble of blazing fire and a mass chorus of agonised screams.

  The Faithful were gone.

  And there was another sound on the edge of hearing, almost suppressed beneath the roaring. A song. A dirge. The rites being sung for the burning bodies – a parody of the Inda funeral?

  Slowly, baffled and stunned, Jai rose to his feet. Wild-eyed, he scanned the sand for his sword and quickly retrieved it. Then, grabbed by a thought, he spun. The returning boats had begun to reach the sand now, but the crowd at the landing had broken off their struggles and were all staring in shock along the beach.

  ‘To the boats,’ a voice bellowed over the din, and Jai recognised the tones of his general. In response, perhaps half the braced warriors turned and ran for the water, while the others, perhaps too stunned to react, perhaps too deafened to hear, simply stood and stared at the blazing army.

  Jai only became aware of the general’s proximity when Jiang spoke beside him.

  ‘They were range markers. And well-placed too, for whoever did this, they utterly destroyed the Faithful.’

  Jai nodded, still stunned, unable to adequately form words, trying to pick out the threads of the rites being sung somewhere above the blaze. The two men stood side by side for a while watching the forms of the burning Faithful writhing, then lying still and finally finding release from their agony.

  ‘That,’ Jai noted, ‘is a terrible way to die.’ But at least they would not haunt the beach.

  ‘There is no good way to die in combat,’ the general replied. ‘A lifetime of war teaches that lesson harshly.’

  ‘We are not alone,’ Dev said, staggering through the sand towards them and rubbing an ear. They looked across at him and at the twenty or so Crimson Guard gathering on their position. Dev was pointing up the beach. They turned again towards the treeline to see a score of figures making their way from the jungle out onto the sand, their mouths moving, forming the sacred chants that would free the souls of the blazing Inda, regardless of the path they had chosen. They wore billowing trousers of yellow and jackets of red, with long decorative orange robes, their heads shaved and turban-free. Jai became aware of the general looking at him, a question in his glance.

  ‘Monks,’ explained Jai. ‘Possibly even those very monks from our monastery.’

  ‘Monks,’ the general nodded, ‘who can aim and discharge artillery too, I would wager.’

  Jai blinked, but the statement made sense. Who else could have done it? No one on the beach, and the island was a mile away.

  ‘Sir,’ one of the Crimson Guard shouted, drawing their attention back. Figures were approaching from another direction, along the beach, a dozen paces out in the water, skirting the still-burning mass. Perhaps a dozen figures in white, though their pristine clothes were now smoke-blackened and ruined. Similarly, black faces and singed skin were evident. Some were limping. Jai suddenly realised that he probably looked similar. The blast had been enough to sear his face and throw him backwards, after all.

  ‘Go,’ Jiang said, waving at Jai and Dev.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Go to your father. We are no longer in danger. I will finish this.’

  ‘No, you won’t,’ Dev replied, grabbing a discarded curved knife from the sand by his feet.

  ‘Dev—’

  ‘No. I know this man. I will finish it.’

  Jai threw an odd, questioning glance at Dev.

  ‘It’s him,’ Dev noted, pointing at the crowd. Jai squinted into the group of charred figures, unhorsed and staggering through the water with blades bared. One of them, and only one, bore a yellow turban rather than white.

  ‘He came for us himself? Why?’

  ‘He came for me,’ replied Dev, as he turned and started stamping off through the soft sand towards that small group of survivors. Jai looked around at the general, who nodded, and a moment later the two of them, accompanied by the Crimson Guard, were hurrying after Dev.

  The Faithful, such as they were, passed onto the sand and stopped there, waves crashing mere feet behind them. Their weapons were still brandished, but their approach bore more resemblance to a parley than a fight as Jai and the others closed with
them.

  ‘You should have let us flee,’ Dev shouted at the Sizhad as he staggered towards them.

  The yellow-turbaned figure, his face and arms flensed and charred by fire, his white robes soot-grey, stepped forward from the others.

  ‘No,’ the Sizhad said. ‘It was important that you understood. There is still time for you. Still hope.’

  ‘Hope is gone,’ Dev shouted angrily. ‘Men like Bassianus and the Jade Emperor have taken hope from the world and torn it apart. And you. You took what was left and burned that in the glare of your precious sun.’

  Jai frowned at the exchange. Dev had met the Sizhad, he suddenly realised. His brother had been curiously evasive about the fanatic every time the subject was raised, releasing what detail was required but always holding something back. And though he had never once admitted to having been face to face with the man, clearly that was the case. There was such familiarity between the two – more like old friends than new enemies.

  ‘But coming into these lands has proved me right, Dev.’

  Dev? Jai frowned. Too much familiarity.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Your ghosts and spirits and superstitions – the devils we all worshipped so long ago – they are false and powerless in the face of the true faith. I defied them. Many of my people would not come past the markers, their old fears still driving them. But a true believer can see the falseness of it all. Tricks and ghost stories. Such will fade in the new world. But that new world will need men of vision. Men like you. Come with us.’

  Dev was shaking his head. ‘Never. Your new world will put the Inda in chains again, but this time to a god, not a man. But you made a mistake coming here, Sizhad. You should have stayed at Jalnapur and left us to our peace. Because now you will never return from these lands. And those men you left behind? Their superstition and reluctance will only grow. Their beloved Sizhad went past the markers and never came back. Think on it. Even their beloved, invincible Sizhad fell to the spirits. They will never turn south again. By coming here you have guaranteed our safety for generations. And your cult has lost its great leader.’