The Old Dragon's Head

by Justin Newland

  Even Gang suffered a nervous glance over his shoulder. Would the wolves spare him? He wasn’t sure. He trusted that Altan had them under his spell.

  Tung was stupefied. Poor man. He couldn’t defeat a foe immune to the point of a sabre or the thrust of a halberd. These were killing machines of the highest order. Every guard along the battlements stood frozen with fear. There was no way to fight off these furies.

  The panic spread. A terrified soldier standing in reserve behind the slaughtered unit dropped his rapier and ran. Gesticulating wildly, he raced across the Bell and Drum Square, beseeching the gods of mercy. Another from his unit followed, then another and another. As the wolves’ attack grew in ferocity, the strength and courage of the troops wavered. The men, raised with a reverence for Heavenly things, were swamped by fears as real as the blood gathering in pools around the dead soldiers. Soon, they all turned and ran, chased by the fiends from hell.

  “Archers, stop them! Get them!” Tung yelled. To a man, the archers froze, suspended by the anguish of the moment, their bows hanging useless by their sides. Did Tung mean the deserters or the wolves? Men screamed in anguish as the pack hounded the fugitives through the alleys and byways, leaving a trail of bloody spoor behind them. To Gang, the jarring cacophony of fear and confusion was like listening to the beatific music of the spheres.

  There was more to come. The men stationed on the wall stood there like straw dogs, useless, inept, a sacrifice to the demons. No one moved. No one even wanted to move, which was perfect. Having witnessed the deserters running across the square, the archers also raced down the ramp, infected by the same yellow cowardice. This precipitated a further exodus, as all ranks fled for their lives.

  To Gang, the scene was better than a comedy.

  Only the brave remained.

  “This is some dreadful sorcery,” Tung muttered, as he strode down the ramp to inspect the carnage. His words hung in the air for what seemed like an eternity, delving into each of the men’s souls and examining their fabric for any sign of weakness. Many lesions were found, but none in Gang’s mind. He followed Tung. He was enjoying the rich smell of cowardice.

  Avoiding the thick, red pools of blood, Tung examined the dead. One man’s throat had been ripped out, exposing his innards, a squeamish mess of blood and gore.

  “This man has the same eyes as the scouting party.” Tung’s voice was heavy with defeat.

  Gang stooped over the corpse and muttered, “Oh, so he has.” Trying not to sound too triumphant, he added, “The eyes are… blue.”

  That sign was ominous… for the Chinese. Altan had done it. The alchemist had done what he’d promised to do. Without fighting one battle, the Mongols had the Chinese running scared. The blue wolves were pissing on the Chinese from a great height and he loved it.

  This was his moment. If he was a painter, he’d have captured this moment on canvas – the impotent arrows of the archers and the blue wolves rampaging at the heels of the deserters. If a poet, or historian, he would have snatched the words from Heaven and described in lyrical detail the beginning of the end of a short-lived and ultimately cruel and abortive Chinese dynasty.

  He was in blue Heaven.

  CHAPTER 50

  The Elemental Altar

  Good men are a fence.

  The multitudes of people are a wall.

  We must not let the Great Wall be destroyed.

  Nor let the Prince be solitary and consumed with terrors.

  THE SHI KING (BOOK OF ODES)

  Bolin thought he heard a hoarse, rasping growl. Was that the dragon? If it was, he sounded ill, like he had a sore throat. Mind, Bolin thought if I had been cooped up for twenty years in a place of little ease, I would be grumpy, too. Then again, he was not a supernatural entity and he had to find a way out of the Jade Chamber.

  Down here in the depths, was he safe, alone with the Laolong? How could he know? What did the Laolong ‘eat’? Was he dragon food? He thought not, otherwise Wing’s body would be mutilated and it wasn’t. Even so, the chamber was cramped and the wick on the candle wouldn’t last much longer.

  There was a deep, low thud against the outer vault door. Renshu – the major must be trying to batter his way in. Over the years, they had tried many a time to break into the Jade Chamber, but the rock was as thick as the wall at the Zhendong Gate.

  He was drawn by the objects on the altar. Hah! Look, a clod of earth, a bottle – for air, a candle – for fire and an empty bowl – for water. Of course, the water had evaporated. What would happen if he completed the four elements again? There was one way to find out.

  Where to find water? Easy. His clothes were drenched from the crossing in the rowing boat. Lifting his sleeve above the bowl, he squeezed out a few drops. The salt in the water made it holy enough and able to hold the currents of ch’i.

  He lit the candle on the altar, flame kissing yellow flame. He waited and watched. With his yin-yang senses, he listened – ah, he heard a soft, long, exhalation. The dragon’s sigh?

  What next – an utterance, the words of a spell? He didn’t know any spells, so that wasn’t going to work. Still, he had a vague idea something was missing. He had earth, air, fire and water, but there was a fifth element in Taoist cosmology – metal. No, it wasn’t that, because the bowls were gold and silver. What about the container in the centre? It was designed to hold a small round ball – the Dragon Pearl. Where could he find that?

  The smell of Wing’s cadaver smacked against his nostrils. He couldn’t leave him lying on a half-open carpet. He decided to roll it up and keep Wing like that until he could bring him to the surface. As he bent down to pick up the edge of the carpet, he inadvertently brushed his hand against Wing’s neck, tilting his head to one side. Wing’s mouth jerked open and a round object fell out of it. He raised the candle to take a closer look. It was a small, lustrous, milky-white marble. No, it wasn’t. It was a… pearl.

  Ai yi yi! The Dragon Pearl!

  What had Wing said in his letter? ‘Find the Pearl of Wisdom, which waits for you in the place where words are made.’ In his mouth, of course. In retrospect, the riddle was simple, like most things in life. If he had not been such a practiced dunderhead, he would have worked it out much quicker.

  He placed the Dragon Pearl in the centre of the circle of elements on the altar. The dragon’s reaction was a soft thrumming, like the patter of light rain on glass. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to help the dragon. But he hoped and prayed that the Laolong had been at least partially released from some long confinement.

  This dragon stuff was easy.

  He felt a draught on the back of his neck. He glanced around at the back wall of the chamber. There was a door and it was open. It had been integral to the wall, like the one through which he’d entered and he hadn’t seen it when he looked earlier. It must have opened when he placed the pearl on the Elemental Altar. It was a way out and a huge relief.

  He peered out of the door. There were some steps leading up to the surface, which he guessed opened onto the Laolongtou. Candle in hand, he ascended the steps. He reached a trap door and yes, that was where it opened. At the sea end, a group of soldiers were leaning over the battlements, holding ropes and shouting down to their comrades.

  He was determined to remove Wing from this awful tomb and bring him and the truth of his death into the light of day. Returning to the Jade Chamber, he collected the horseshoes. From the folds of his robe, he retrieved a large piece of silken white fabric. He tore in it two and used one half to wrap the horseshoes, depositing all eight of them outside the chamber.

  The other half of the white silk cloth, he draped over the carpet and Wing’s corpse. That way, he hoped the guards would recognise and respect the fact that he was carrying a corpse.

  At that moment, Bolin heard a deep, satisfied purring. That was the Laolong. Pleased he had managed to ease the dragon’s plight, he murmur
ed, “Glad to be of assistance.”

  At one time, he would have thought himself delirious to have spoken to thin air. Not anymore. The Laolong was as real as his hand. He had to admit, he was beginning to enjoy this Dragon Master business. He feared it meant he had accepted who he was, but he hadn’t time to think on it.

  The carpet was not as heavy as he’d feared, he guessed because Wing’s body had dried out. He hauled the long carpet up the narrow steps, emerging into the brisk morning air.

  On the Laolongtou, his sudden appearance through the trap door took the soldiers by surprise. The old duty officer came bundling over to him and shouted, “Stop. Who are you? Where did you come from?”

  Puffing and panting from the climb, Bolin pointed to the trap door. The officer glanced at it and back at him. Unimpressed, he unsheathed his sword and waved it under Bolin’s nose.

  “Put that away,” a voice boomed out. It was Master Wen accompanied by some new conscripts.

  “You’d better answer his question though!” Wen said. The rest of the soldiers stared at Bolin like he was some weird apparition.

  For once, Bolin used his wit and said, “You see the white shroud of mourning,” he pointed to the fabric draped across the carpet, “There’s a body wrapped in its folds. It’s Dragon Master Wing’s.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Wen asked, a look of surprise and awe on his face. “He’s been missing some twenty years. So you’d better show us.”

  With the utmost care, Bolin unfolded the rolls of the carpet. On the final roll, the guards and Master Wen let out a collective gasp of amazement.

  “His face, his body; it’s a miracle!” Wen stammered.

  In the clear light of day, Bolin could see Wing’s cadaver close up. Although the dead man’s face showed some decomposition, the effect of the Jade Chamber had preserved many of his features and a wistful smile played on his pale lips. Wing still wore the trappings of a Dragon Master, a long multi-coloured cloak replete with cosmological symbols girdled by a belt of yellow silk.

  “To be so well preserved, he must have led a righteous life,” Wen said.

  The old officer kow-towed and the apprentices followed suit. Master Wen led them all in a solemn prayer of thanksgiving. Carefully, they placed the carpet on a small hand-drawn cart.

  Some distance away, the drums of the Bell and Drum Tower throbbed with alarm. The raucous clash of battle beat out from the fortress. Bolin glanced up to see the world in upheaval. Across the neck of the pass, five or six li from where he stood, he could see the advance of the Mongol van. Beyond the fortress, the temple fire was still ablaze, shrouding the distant mountains in clouds of smoke and blackened fumes.

  “What are you going to do with him?” Master Wen asked.

  “The commandant must be informed that Wing has been found,” Bolin said, sounding mature beyond his years. “In the midst of a brutal assault, Tung will be unable to come and see him here. So, I will take Wing’s body to him.”

  “We will go together,” Wen said.

  CHAPTER 51

  Rosemary and Thyme

  Heaven has conferred on man a divine nature.

  True accordance with this nature is called the path of duty.

  The regulation of this path is called instruction.

  THE DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN

  Luli had seen Cui right. He was sitting up, smoking his pipe and regaling her with stories of his time in Karakorum, the Mongol capital. That was when he and General Tiande had put the city of wooden huts and circular tents to the torch. What a sight that had been! They had captured a herd of Mongol war ponies, sturdy little things, as hardy as thistles – and with no saddles, just as prickly to ride. The Khan’s horse was long dead, but many of its horseshoes had been salvaged. The rumour was that they were kept for some obscure supernatural purpose, though no one knew exactly what. Finally, Cui told her how he had clutched their war lance – which had attached to it either a white pelt for peace or black pelt for war.

  Dawn had broken. From the grotto opening, Luli looked down on the chaos unfolding around the Zhendong Gate. She had to enter the fortress and get to the punishment yard, which was where they would take her son, despite the Mongol assault. Today was the day of Ru’s punishment and she had to be with him. She would not let him suffer. What mattered was that Ru was saved from the clutches of that devil Gang and pardoned for the crime he never committed.

  Now her Po Office was gone, she was close to bitterness. What remained amidst the burnt embers of her life was her trust in Heaven. If that broke, then she would too.

  These thoughts buzzed around her head as she set off down the hillside, the huge square fortress straddling the neck of the pass before her. On the wall itself, she could still discern the profile of faces, beautiful in the early spring light. They still faced the same direction, showing the flow of ch’i from the high Tibetan mountains in the west to the Bohai Sea in the east.

  She felt sad as she hurried passed the temple grounds. The few surviving monks were scrambling around the rubble trying to salvage anything of value – a holy artefact, a noble sculpture, a rare manuscript or a silk gown, an incense burner or a precious bequest, even a wooden stool or flint. To witness the sorrow on their smoke-stained faces was harrowing.

  The pagoda was like a crumbling chimney, a pyre of heat and hot ash, billowing black cloud into the morning air. The main temple was but a few shards of wood, blackened by a man with a beleaguered heart. But there were small mercies amidst this maelstrom – Dong had saved the scroll of the Consecration Ceremony, the homecoming song of the Laolong. When the time came, they would use it to invite the dragon back to his home in the Great Wall.

  Until then, there was chaos ahead as she approached the north gate. The garrison’s troops were billeted in the north quadrant. This morning they were nowhere near their beds, nor on duty on the wall road. No, they were streaming out of the north gate, encumbered not by a back pack and weapons, but by eyes tortured by terrible visions. What on earth had they seen? Many cast furtive glances back over their shoulders, like they were being chased by the hounds of Yama. The crowds prevented her from reaching the gate, so she grabbed a fugitive by the arm to ask what had happened. The man pulled away from her. His face was a dark mirror pitted by inconsolable fear.

  Finally, a bedraggled soldier stopped in his flight, “Miss, follow us. Don’t go in there.”

  She winced. His breath stank of rice wine. “What are the soldiers running from?” she asked.

  “The blue wolves,” he whispered, as if speaking too loudly would summon the dread creatures. “There’s a ghostly pack chasing us. Can’t you see them?” He didn’t wait for her answer.

  Peering through her yin-yang eyes, she saw clouds of dirty violet, dark reds and mucky purples, hanging in sheets of ch’i above the fortress, those shades and hues a sure sign of death and frenetic destruction. She spotted a few stragglers – spectral blue wolves. But then she noticed that one had a tail missing, a second had no legs and a third was just a dismembered head. Their spectral shapes were fragmenting, appearing and then reappearing. It made her think that whoever was responsible for creating them was running out of the mental ch’i to sustain them.

  Then there was hope for an end to the carnage.

  There was nothing she could do to persuade the soldiers to return to their duty, so she squeezed through the north gate and scampered past the main barracks. At this time of day, early to mid-morning, this would normally be a hive of activity, of off-duty soldiers cleaning their kit, to street vendors selling melon seeds or touting vodka and Jinhua wine.

  Not today. It was as deserted as the Gobi.

  She was determined to catch Ru before he was taken from the cells. She wanted to accompany him to the punishment yard, hold his hand for the last time – before it was dismembered. The thought of it brought tears to her eyes and she welled up. She could not
let him see her like that. She had to be strong.

  She found the back way to the cells, a narrow alley that ran between the prison and the magistrate’s chambers. Before she arrived there, she noticed a donkey cart and a couple of men. They paused on the corner, glanced suspiciously to left and right and trundled off down the alley. They had not spotted her but she had seen them, all right. One was Big Qiang, the other Sheng.

  Peering around the corner, she watched them park the cart in front of a wooden shed and then disappear inside. Moments later, they came out carrying a large crate bearing military insignia, which they loaded onto the cart. Soon, they had moved seven or eight of these crates onto the back of the cart.

  A steady beat of drums resounded from the direction of the Bell and Drum Tower. This was no ordinary roll, it spelled military alarm. The beating was frantic and the sound amplified as the drummers smashed the drums with heavy bamboo sticks. The Mongol attack was imminent. When she glanced again down the alley, the mules were very upset by the percussive blasts and were not shy in letting their owners know about it.

  When the drums stopped, she could just hear Big Qiang telling the donkeys, “Rosemary. Thyme. Will you stop that, please?”

  Rosemary was not listening. She snorted and her pretty little nostrils flared in evident disgust. Thyme preferred the more destructive back leg kick, not conducive to anyone seeking a long, healthy life. Sheng dived out of the way of a potential broken limb.

  Qiang threw his hands up and yelled some more at Rosemary and Thyme. It made not the slightest difference. He and Sheng should have consulted the almanacs before deciding this was a day for moving heavy loads. Qiang planted his hands on his hips and after a moment of inspiration, rummaged in the cart and pulled out the elixir for mules. Carrots.

  While the mules chewed on their meal, Luli noticed six burly men approach from the far end of the alley. She’d seen them hanging around earlier on, rough-looking types, wearing old trousers, coloured waistcoats. The leader wore a tatty black turban.