by Zoe Marriott
Above the noises of Pei Yen pleading uselessly as he was dragged away, I heard the musical ringing note of a sword leaving its scabbard.
I was going to die now. I knew it in my aching bones, in my bruises, in the blood that dripped from my nose and pooled, iron-thick, in the back of my throat. I was worthless to the Leopard, and he would rid himself of me with one or two quick chops of his blade.
It was a better death, a quicker, less degrading one than I had feared.
But I didn’t want it.
There was no fight left in me, but I still wanted to fight. Despite all those dreams of death, I still wanted to live.
I forced my eyes open. Feet – bare feet, dirty, wrapped in rags. The slave who had fallen with me. Spatters of my own blood, red-black against the rough stone floor. A deep gouge in that same stone, in the shape of a cross. This was all, everything I had left. I must see every detail, absorb it all – live, live, live, in these few vital instants before he took my life away.
I imagined I could sense the air parting around the blade as it swung up, the point rising to its apex above me.
I am Hua Zhi. I am Zhou’s daughter and his son, I am Jia Mei’s eldest child, I am Da Xiong and Xiao Xia’s sibling. I am a soldier, I am a banner-breaker. I am Yang Jie’s friend. I am, I am, am am am—
The ground rocked beneath me. For an instant all the air seemed to have been sucked away. Then a hollow BOOM attacked my ears and the Leopard’s heavy foot was suddenly gone from my back.
A great wind swept across my body, hot and stinging as though full of needles – and a wave of blackness followed, choking, billowing blackness. It burned my eyes. I squeezed them closed again.
Is this death?
A new pair of hands caught hold of me, and I tensed, crying out – I felt the cry leave my chest, though I could not hear it through the low featureless hum in my ears. But these hands did not seek to injure. They turned me deftly and cradled my face, brushing over the lines of my eyebrows and lips. One finger tapped on the tip of my nose – once, twice, three times, telling me: It’s all right.
As I began to relax, the hands closed around my forearms and assisted me to my feet. My legs had no strength. They tried to go out from under me. I was clasped firmly against a shoulder that reached no higher than my own. Soft hair tickled my nose. I hid my face in it.
Coughing and gasping, I staggered forward blindly, following my faceless, silent saviour. There was heat at my back now, growing heat. When I dared to slit my eyes open, I saw flames lashing angrily behind a dark, distinctive shape. The smelting tower. It had blown up.
I sensed a new space ahead. A tunnel or another cave. Fresher air, respite from the throbbing and thundering in my ears. I felt one of my rescuer’s hands squeeze gently around my shoulder – encouraging me. And so I struggled on. I didn’t know where we were going, but I knew wherever it was, it was away from the Leopard, and that was where I wanted to be.
There was some fight left in me after all.
Hours or perhaps days later, I opened my eyes. I could hear water lapping lazily near by, and above me there were stars. But no stars that I knew. They clustered thickly against an opaque black sky, glowing with a blue-green light.
“Ah, you’re awake. How do you feel? Can you move your arms and legs?”
If I’d had the energy or strength, I would have jumped to my feet. Instead, I rolled my head sideways on a surprisingly soft pillow, towards the whispering voice. I did not know it, but yet … it was familiar.
“Who—” I gasped the word. My ordeal had left my throat raw and my voice even more wrecked than normal. I wondered if I would ever need to use the tincture again.
A shape moved against the glow of the stars, and a woman knelt beside me. In the dim light I couldn’t make out much. She was wearing armour. Some deep colour, maybe red, I thought, as my eyes travelled slowly over her, focusing with an effort. It was intricately lacquered, although the designs were a blur to me. The plates on the arms and stomach were diamond-shaped, like the ones in favour more than a century ago. Thick waves of hair cascaded wildly around a small, delicate face with … with a scar … that stretched from below one eye to the corner of her lip…
Helplessly, I began to laugh. The sound was harsh and broken, like the cawing of a crow. “You – you’re my damsel in distress!”
The stars winked out. My laughter froze in my throat. What in the world…?
“Hush. The glow-worms like the quiet,” she whispered.
Not a sky. A cave roof. Not stars, but worms. Not a trembling, frightened girl, but a warrior woman, a saviour.
“You were never a slave, were you?” I whispered. “You never needed my help at all. Who are you?”
“Some call me Dou Xianniang. And I was a slave, once. But not when you met me, no. Although your help was still much appreciated.”
Gradually, the green-and-blue lights were beginning to glow again, filling the cave with their unearthly light, and bringing my saviour’s face back into view. “Dou Xianniang,” I breathed, squinting up at her. “You’re real.” One of my hands lifted to brush the scales on her forearm. The legendary scarlet armour of the lady warrior.
“She had eyes like a wild creature…” Sigong had said, laughing, yet still, underneath, serious. “Like a tigress at bay.”
I had compared her eyes to those of a kitten, that night. By the Celestial Animals, I was a fool.
“As real as anyone can be,” the lady warrior replied, a shade of amusement in her voice. “Now answer my questions. You’ve been through a lot – can you move your arms and legs? Does it hurt to breathe? I don’t think anything’s broken, but I’m not a surgeon.”
Still dazed, I tried. My shoulder crunched and my ribs and back ached and my head throbbed and my left knee was hot and painful, but everything worked, even if it hurt like a dog bite to do it. “I think I’m all right. Why are you helping me? Where is this?”
“We’re still underground, but this is a cave that the Leopard doesn’t know about. We should be safe for now. And I’m here – helping you – because I do not allow myself to be beholden to men. You offered me assistance and kindness, and I was unable to repay you at the time. So I followed you, and took my chance to make us even when it came. I … did not realize you were a woman until it was too late to turn back. But now I am glad.”
I swallowed dryly. “I am not a woman.” The words hovered in the air, stark, nonsensical – and true. It was the first time I had ever said them to anyone. I couldn’t believe I’d dared.
But I’d almost died today. Maybe I still would. Now at least I’d said it, said it aloud where some other creature than myself could hear.
There was a long pause. “Then what are you? A man after all?”
Cautiously, I answered, “Not entirely. I’m still – figuring it out. It’s complicated.”
There was a sound like a sigh. “There is nothing simple in the world that the world cannot make impossibly complicated.”
Something in the response – perhaps the melancholy resignation in her voice – reminded me suddenly, unbearably, of Yang Jie. I turned my face away, jaw clamping as I breathed in sharply through my nose, blinking hard.
I should have told this to him. He told me he was sorry – sorry! For what? I was the coward! I should have said sorry back. Why didn’t I say it back? Why didn’t I tell him—
“Your name is Hua Zhi, is it not?” she asked me, either unaware of or politely ignoring my agitation.
“Yes.” My voice was a dull monotone. I tried to force more animation into it. “Lady Dou. You’ve come halfway across the province, infiltrated the Leopard’s lair and – I think – blown up his smelting tower. And you must have carried me most of the way here—”
“I’m stronger than I look,” she interrupted dryly.
Yang Jie had been stronger than he looked. As strong and supple as a willow. Misery cramped my insides. The words wobbled as I said, “After all this trouble on my behalf, surely I
am now beholden to you?”
I saw the scar move before I realized her dark-stained lips had curved up into a smile. “I have my own reasons for wishing the Leopard ill. So say only that you owe me a favour, Corporal. Perhaps I will choose to call it in one day. Perhaps not. But I shall regard you as my ally, either way. Misfits like us must take care of one another, if we can. No one else will.”
She squeezed my shoulder, as Yang Jie sometimes had. Her hand was ungloved, and my robe was in tatters. The sensation of her warm, callused palm seemed to flare against my bare skin, brighter than the glow-worms above us. It was … comfort. Human connection. I craved it, more of it, suddenly, as a dying man would crave one last word from his beloved, one last look at the sun, one last breath. My misery disappeared beneath that desperation as she leaned closer, the smile slowly fading from her face. The dark wells of her eyes stared into mine – searching, searching. Tingles of nerves and excitement rippled up and down my spine.
A long coil of hair fell forward to brush my cheek. It didn’t smell of perfume, but of the black, burning smoke of the smelting fire. I stared into those mysterious cat’s eyes, rapt.
“Dou Xianniang…”
She stiffened, sitting up abruptly. Her hand fell away from my shoulder and she cleared her throat. “We mustn’t linger here. The Leopard will have launched a search for you by now – and there’s no telling if someone might eventually stumble across the entrance to this place.”
Though my shoulder felt chilled without the weight of her touch, I nodded, struggling to sit up. Struggling through the despair as it rose again. “Where are we, then?”
“Directly beneath the Stone Forest,” she said, voice tinged with irony or humour. Some private joke, perhaps. It seemed best not to ask – not now, after that strange moment.
She made no attempt to assist me as I rolled away from her and got my knees under me. I found that my bed had been a standard army bedroll, and my pillow a folded cloak of warm cloth. Across from me, a large pool of water, black and green in the eerie cave-light, lapped at a shore of pale sand. It was beautiful. It felt wrong, awful, that something so beautiful was hidden in this place of suffering and death.
“Are you listening?” she asked, severe, and I realized only then that she had been talking to me.
My entire body ached fiercely, from the top of my skull to the soles of my feet, but I was mobile, and time was of the essence. “Sorry.”
“I said, there’s a passage there” – she indicated a bulge in the rock – “that leads up to the place where the Stone Forest meets the bamboo one. If you follow the road, you can return to the city in less than a week on horseback.”
“Horseback?” I questioned, startled. I turned my head to look at her – and froze in shock as her small hands cupped my face again, as they had in the black smoke and chaos of the smelter explosion. “What are you—”
Her red lips pressed firmly against mine. They were dry, with a faint, faint taste of sweet citrus, and for a dizzying instant I could feel her breath in my mouth. Then she drew back.
“There are supplies at the entrance of the passage. Make use of them, and don’t tarry.”
She released me and stood in a quick, supple movement.
I gaped up at her. “But – where are you going?”
“I have business of my own to complete. Goodbye, Corporal.”
She turned away. Without thinking, I cried out, “No, wait!”
Like a snuffed candle, the glow-worms winked out.
I shut my mouth, shivering, listening to the quiet that enveloped me as completely as the shadows did. When the light of the worms slowly filled the stone chamber again, I already knew what I would see. I was alone there. Dou Xianniang was gone.
I touched my lips … and realized for the first time that I had forgotten about my mask. She had seen my bare face.
And I didn’t mind.
My saviour had not mentioned the length of the passage that would carry me to the surface, or how steep and rough the climb would be. By the time I found the narrow slit in the rock that gave on to the upper world, the real world, I was in such discomfort and so exhausted that I was ready to curse her for it, however little sense that made.
But then… Light, real light, daylight, on my face. It dazzled me.
I could hear birdsong and wind moving among leaves.
I could breathe real, cold, fresh air.
Dropping the bedroll and cloak, I craned my neck back, staring up as the grey-dappled sky slowly swam into view, stretching my hands out to let the fine drizzle bathe them. It felt like being born again.
“I’m alive, Yang Jie…” I whispered. “I’m alive.”
There was a shrill whinny and a decided thump. I whirled around, steadying myself with one hand on the outcropping of rocks behind me. Among tall green bamboo trees, I saw a campsite – what must have been Dou Xianniang’s campsite – with a tamped-out fire, saddlebags and a saddle piled next to it. Tied to a tree on the other side of the ashes… Yulong.
I let out a shriek. Yulong answered with another whinny of his own, stamping his front hoof twice, impatiently. I must have almost flown across the little clearing. In the next instant my arms were around his warm, quivering neck. I breathed in the horsey smell with a feeling of blissful homecoming. Even when I felt his teeth close over my bare shoulder in a painful bite, I didn’t let go.
“I’m sorry I left you behind. I didn’t mean to,” I mumbled, leaking tears into his dark mane.
Apparently satisfied, he released my flesh and began whuffling at my head, letting out a snort of dissatisfaction at the smell. He nudged at me, and I reluctantly stepped away, running my hands down his neck to savour the familiar coarse-silk sensation of his hide.
“I know. I stink. But a bath is going to have to wait, dear friend. We have a long journey ahead of us – and a very important message to deliver.”
Twenty-eight
he two city guardsmen stationed outside the room were talking in low voices. I couldn’t hear precisely what they were saying, but the occasional snigger that punctuated their words enabled me to guess.
Their sergeant was not laughing.
“You expect us to believe all this?” he asked, for what must have been the fifth time since I had been stopped at the Gate of Shining Virtue, refused entrance to the city, and accused of being a thief.
“I don’t expect you to believe anything without corroboration, Sergeant Lo,” I said. My voice – despite the many days since I had dosed myself with the tincture – was gravelly and rough, deeper than his. I was by now fairly certain it was going to stay that way.
It was not easy to hold on to my patience and my facade of calm, when all I wanted to do was leap up and kick the man repeatedly in the face. Not that I had a hope of successfully executing such an attack right now, unless he lay on the floor and let me do it. I made myself go on calmly, “Which is why I have asked for a message to be sent to General Wu Jiang at the—”
“Who do you think you are, boy? I’ve told you that General Wu will not be disturbed on my orders for the likes of you!”
“Please address me by my rank, Sergeant,” I said crisply. “Even if you have no respect for me, you should respect the Glorious Brotherhood.”
He gawped at me, then narrowed his eyes. “Why you little—”
The sniggering guardsmen outside broke off their conversation. There was an indignant shout, and then the door to the interrogation room burst open, admitting Wu Jiang, a dull brown cloak thrown on over plain leather armour. His face was flushed and his hair dishevelled. The general’s helm, with the horsehair crest, was tucked under one arm. He must have been sparring or doing an inspection of the troops when word reached him I was here.
I felt a starburst of emotion in my chest at the sight of him – so many emotions, so painfully sharp, I could scarcely pick out joy from relief from fondness. He’s all right. In my mind, I had been sure that he must be. No mere rebel could hope to overcome his s
uperlative skills, his sheer strength. But so many awful things had happened, it had been hard to allow hope, even justified hope, to remain alive.
I got to my feet as quickly as I could, secure that the expression on my shadow face revealed nothing but the respect due to one’s superior officer, but struggling to conceal the telltale stiffness that gave away my still healing injuries. A week, especially a week of hard riding and sleeping on the ground, was not enough time to repair all the damage my captivity had done.
“General, Corporal Hua Zhi reporting.” The salute lacked some of the necessary sharpness – my shoulder was still too sore to permit it.
The words were almost lost in Sergeant Lo’s flustered kowtowing. I winced as his forehead bumped loudly against the floor in his haste to make his subservience clear. Wu Jiang ignored both my official greeting and the sergeant’s obeisance. He stalked across the room and dragged me into a crushing bear hug.
His breath was a hot, almost soundless exhalation against my cheek. “I thought you were dead. My orchid, I thought—” A brush of lips next to mine, and then he was stepping away, putting me from him. His eyes met mine directly for a second and, without really knowing why, I had to put out my hand to steady myself on the wall.
“The emperor, sir? The crown prince?”
“We got them both to safety. It worked, Hua Zhi. Your plan succeeded.”
I closed my eyes in unspeakable relief. “Thank you.”
He nodded. Then he turned away, and when he faced the guardsman, Wu Jiang was the Young General again, the mantle of command gathered around him so that his rough cloak and workaday armour seemed to shine as brightly as gold.