Dragon (15 page)

“They should both be there,” Hok replied. “Seh never leaves, and Fu and his father were supposed to return to the camp last night, along with my mother. They were on patrol with us, but their watch ended.”

“Are their replacements patrolling the other side of the stronghold?”

Hok shrugged. “The replacements never showed up. That happens sometimes, especially with newer recruits. They get lost or become frightened upon seeing soldiers, and they run off.”

Ying frowned. “I wonder if Long will get lost on his way to Tunhuang.”

“Long will make it. You of all people should know that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know how tenacious he can be. He is a lot like you.”

“I suppose.”

Hok shook her head. “No, he truly is a lot like you—in more ways than you are likely to know. In fact, he asked me to share something with you.”

“Such as?”

“I am not sure how to tell you.”

“Just say it,” Ying said.

Hok pursed her lips. “Long is your cousin. Your father and his father were brothers.”

“And?”

“‘And?’” Hok repeated. “You knew?”

“No, but it does not surprise me. Long is a dragon, like Grandmaster was. I am a dragon, too. Long and I also look alike. I have never told anyone this, but part of the reason I changed my appearance was so that I would look less like Long.”

“Really?”

Ying nodded. “So Grandmaster was Long’s grandfather, as well as mine?”

“That is what Grandmaster told him.”

“Did Long know how he came to Cangzhen Temple in the first place? I remember he was already there when I arrived, but he was a tiny infant.”

“It pains me to tell you this,” Hok said, “but apparently your father killed Long’s parents.”

Ying rubbed his carved forehead. “I guess I believe it. Before I reunited with my mother I would not have, but she has told me stories about what a horrible man my father was. I wish Grandmaster had told me some of it.”

“If he had, would you have believed him?”

“Probably not. However, I would have believed that he was my grandfather. As much as I did not like him, I always felt a bond with him. If I had known we were related, I might not have killed him, and we would not be in this situation now.”

Ying felt his
dan tien
begin to tingle, and he rubbed his stomach.

“Do you think there is trouble ahead?” Hok whispered.

Ying nodded. Hok rushed on, and Ying followed her. They caught up to Gao and Malao, and Gao raised his nose into the breeze, sniffing loudly. His face twisted, and his big brown eyes filled with fury. “Gunpowder! Someone is loading firearms.”

Shots rang out, and the white monkey shrieked above them.

Malao shrieked, too. “The camp is under attack! Fu! Seh! We have to help them!” He raced into the
leafless treetops and disappeared, the white macaque leading the way.

Gao and Hok broke into a run.

Ying did his best to keep up with them, but it was no use. Gao dodged between trees and bounded over obstacles with the agility of a wolf, while Hok had always possessed the unnatural ability to glide through the forest faster and more silently than any human Ying had ever seen. Malao was long gone, leaping tree to tree like a rabid monkey.

Ying was able to follow Gao’s tracks easily enough, though, and he did not slow his pace until he heard shouting and saw clouds of black smoke. The camp was burning.

Ying came to a small clearing and stopped. What he saw before him was utter chaos. Not only because of the number of firearms, but because of the horses. Close to one hundred soldiers sat atop war stallions, firing pistols and muskets at the bandits and their recruits, who were scurrying about, wielding only spears and swords.

The soldiers were well trained, firing their single-shot weapons in coordinated waves so that one group was always firing while the others reloaded. A few of the recruits were able to connect with their lengthy weapons, but many more were falling to the bullets or being trampled beneath the horses’ hooves. It was a massacre in the making.

Ying sank back into what little shadow the leafless trees provided and watched a soldier methodically
torching the few bandit tents that were not already ablaze. The bandits were clearly outclassed.

Ying began to circle the clearing, searching for a way to help, and found a handful of bandits doing some significant damage. Ying recognized some of these individuals alongside his former temple siblings. They were well organized and fought in pairs, one adult bandit with one young person. He could not help but admire the way in which they worked together.

Mong, the bandit leader, fought with his back to his son, Seh. Seh was spinning a spear with deadly precision, while Mong fought with his bare hands, pulling soldiers off horses. Hok was with a beautiful woman who Ying assumed was her mother, Bing, or Ice. Both Hok and Bing battled empty-handed, their lightning-fast crane-beak fists dealing with the soldiers unseated by Mong and Seh.

Fu was there, too, fighting back-to-back with a large bandit known as Sanfu. Fu was holding a pair of tiger hook swords, ripping soldiers from their mounts, while Sanfu followed up with mighty swings of a gigantic broadsword. Malao and the white monkey attacked from the trees, the monkey clawing at soldiers’ faces while Malao knocked them from their horses with his carved Monkey Stick.

Ying also saw Hung, the bandit known as Bear, whirling a pair of immense war hammers. Hung fought alongside Gao, who brandished no fewer than five pistols. Together they kept a group of relentless soldiers
away from a regal-looking man who Ying knew to be the governor of the region.

Gao had apparently run out of loaded weapons, and Ying watched him hurl one of his pistols at a mounted soldier in obvious frustration.

In response to Gao’s action, someone called out, “Gao! Over here! I have something for you!”

Ying saw that the speaker was a bandit in tattered clothes sitting atop a magnificent warhorse thirty paces from Gao. The man pulled a pistol from his sash. “It’s loaded! Come and get it!”

Gao ran over to the man. Reaching up for the pistol, he said, “Nice horse. Who did you steal it from?”

The man smirked. “No one. Tonglong gave it to me.” Then the man aimed the pistol at Gao and fired.

Ying’s eyes widened, aghast. He watched as the bullet struck Gao in the chest. Gao coughed up a mouthful of blood, then dropped.

Fu and Sanfu roared in unison, and they raced toward the mounted bandit. Fu shouted,
“You
were supposed to relieve my watch at the stronghold last night! Instead, you led Tonglong here!”

The man laughed and nodded. He pulled another pistol from his sash and aimed it at Fu, but did not get a chance to fire. Hung attacked the man from his blind side. One swing of the mighty hammers crushed the rider’s skull.

The monkey shrieked overhead, and Ying looked up to see Malao beside it, pointing with his blood-streaked Monkey Stick toward a wall of smoke across the clearing. “Tonglong is coming!”

“Bandits, retreat!” Mong shouted.

Bandits began to race into the trees from every direction, with mounted soldiers close on their heels. Ying turned toward the smoke and saw a rider barreling forward across the open ground, a line of additional horsemen behind him.

Now what?
Ying thought. Grandmaster’s sword would be useless against a charge like that.

He tore his chain whip from the pocket in his robe sleeve, and as Tonglong emerged from the smoke, Ying rushed into the clearing and lashed out at the front legs of Tonglong’s horse. The extra-long chain wrapped itself around the horse’s knees, and the animal went down in a heap. Ying locked eyes with Tonglong as Tonglong sailed forward over the horse’s head, and Ying could see the surprise of recognition written across Tonglong’s face. Ying knew that Tonglong had thought him to be dead.

Ying watched Tonglong crash headfirst into a stand of saplings at the clearing’s edge, their trunks snapping like twigs. Tonglong lay still as his horse skidded and thrashed about, managing to stand and shake the chain whip from its bloody legs.

The riders in Tonglong’s wake somehow steered around Tonglong’s horse, and Ying thought,
Those men are very, very good riders. Let’s find out how skilled they are with weapons
.

As Tonglong’s horse hobbled off, Ying snatched his chain whip from the ground and headed for Tonglong.

The soldiers on horseback formed a barrier between Ying and Tonglong’s unmoving body. There
were ten mounted soldiers in all, and three of them raised their pistols and pointed them in Ying’s direction.

Ying did not care. If Tonglong wasn’t already dead, Ying would put the final nail in his coffin, regardless of the consequences.

Ying began to swing his chain whip overhead like a lasso, preparing to slice every one of those soldiers to pieces. He had taken two steps toward the line of horsemen when he was knocked violently to the ground. At the same instant, three pistols rang out, their bullets throwing up chunks of earth where he had been standing.

Ying rolled several times and popped to his feet. He was beginning to wrap his chain whip around one hand, ready to smash his attacker with it, when he saw that it was Fu who had tackled him.

Fu scrambled to his feet. “Run, you idiot! This way!” He sprang into a thick stand of pine trees, and two more shots rang out, the bullets striking the soft trunks.

Ying leaped into the evergreens after Fu, landing out of the soldiers’ sight. He was about to crawl deeper into the interwoven pine boughs when he heard a familiar voice. He spun around on his stomach and peered into the clearing through a tiny opening in the wall of pine needles.

“What happened?” ShaoShu shouted, emerging from the smoke atop a pony.

The horsemen ignored ShaoShu. Eight of them fanned out across the clearing to guard against a possible
counterattack by the bandits, while two riders remained in front of Tonglong’s body.

It appeared that ShaoShu was at a loss as to what to do with himself. He steered his pony over to the tree line and began to ride slowly along the clearing’s perimeter. As he neared Ying’s hiding spot, Ying whispered through the pines, “ShaoShu! It’s me, Ying. Find out if Tonglong is still alive.”

To his credit, ShaoShu did not bat an eye. He acted as though Ying were not even there and casually turned his pony around, heading back toward the two horsemen.

One of the horsemen scowled at ShaoShu. “Where do you think you are going?”

“I want to check on our leader,” ShaoShu said. “To see if he needs help.”

“No one could survive a fall like that. We are just protecting his remains in case the bandits return.”

“I would hate to be you if he is still alive and he finds out you said that.”

The man glowered at ShaoShu, and the second horseman spoke up. “Let the kid take a look. What can it hurt?”

Ying watched as ShaoShu dismounted and hurried over to Tonglong’s side. ShaoShu began to fidget about Tonglong’s neck, and he suddenly stopped and pointed across the clearing. “Hey!” he said in a worried tone. “I think I see someone in the smoke!”

The two horsemen looked away, and Ying saw ShaoShu slip something into the folds of his robe.

The horsemen looked back at ShaoShu. “What were you pointing at? There’s nothing—”

“He’s alive!” ShaoShu interrupted, genuine surprise in his voice. “He’s breathing!”

The horsemen looked at each other, their eyes wide. “Let’s get him away from these flames!” one of them said. They dismounted, and ShaoShu scurried away, hurrying in Ying’s direction. When he got to the edge of the clearing, he pretended to trip, stumbling and tumbling into the pines. He stopped next to Ying.

Ying could not help but smirk. “You are insane,” he whispered.

“I know,” ShaoShu whispered back. He slid one hand into his robe and pulled out a key tied to a thin strand of silk. The key was entwined with dragons. “Take this. It is supposed to open one of the gates or something at the back of the Forbidden City.”

Ying took the key and stared into ShaoShu’s tiny eyes in disbelief. “I do not know how I will ever be able to repay you.”

“Take me with you. Weeks ago I told Tonglong that Hok was dead, but I am sure he saw her fighting here just now. He will kill me.”

“Do you think he will live? That was a nasty fall.”

Ying’s question was answered by a loud groan from Tonglong. Ying peeked back out through the pine boughs. Amazingly, the two horsemen were helping Tonglong to sit up. His head sagged under the weight of his long ponytail braid, but he was clearly conscious and had the use of his arms and legs. He appeared to be fine, and coming around fast.

ShaoShu peeked out, too. “Tonglong is wearing the famous white jade armor beneath his robes. I saw some of the little plates when I took the key.”

“That would explain why the branches did not impale him,” Ying said.

“We had better get out of here,” ShaoShu said, pointing east. “The bandits ran that way.”

“Let them run where they may,” Ying whispered. “It is Tonglong who we will follow. Now that he knows that I am alive, too, he will not rest until he is deep within the walls of the Forbidden City. Let us hunt him down and paint those walls with his blood.”

ShaoShu nodded, and Ying nodded back.

Ying slipped the key into the folds of his robe and backed away through the pines on his hands and knees.

ShaoShu scurried after him.