Chapter Twenty
T
he space beneath the arch of the bridge was cool and damp. A faint light filtered down from the lanterns on the street above to cast them in a world of shape and shadow. Li Feng closed her eyes and slowed her breath, feeling her mind expand and her muscles loosen with each inhale and exhale.
‘What do you think of when you’re flying over the eaves?’ Han asked.
He was leaning against the wooden frame of the bridge, arms crossed over his chest. She was tucked opposite him as they waited for the night to completely envelop them. They were both in black from head to toe.
‘I think of nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing but the next step.’
They had set out across the river into the north part of the city before evening came and the streets cleared. Now they had to wait for the right time. Neither of them had twitched more than an eye in the last hour. It would do no good to pace or fret.
The gentle lap of water from the canal created a soft, lulling rhythm and she had fallen into an almost meditative state. She pretended that she was preparing for a performance, an elaborate dance. In her mind, she rehearsed the steps.
Han had drawn out the map of the magistrate’s yamen for her, detailing where the guards were stationed. Not that it mattered too much. She needed to glimpse the terrain for herself before she could know how to traverse through it.
The sky continued to darken as they waited. Han’s face began to fade into the night and she could hear the cadence of his breathing deepen across from her.
‘Tonight is the last we’ll see of each other,’ he said.
A lump formed in her throat. After tonight, she and her family would be in hiding and he would no longer seek her out.
She’d known they would have to part. To remain together would be dangerous for both of them. They were standing in the dark and surrounded by the swampy scent of the canal. The hollow beneath the bridge seemed a desolate and lonely place to say their farewells.
‘You’re risking everything to help me, thief-catcher. I’m grateful.’
She avoided using his name on purpose. She was already too emotional as it was. Despite the effort, her voice still wavered on the last words.
Han reached out and she lifted a hand to ward him away. Sentiment would cloud her focus during the run. Undaunted, his fingers closed around her wrist and he pulled her towards him, firm but gentle. Wrist to elbow to shoulder, until his arms circled around her.
When his lips found hers, all the fight within her drained away. She had lain naked in his arms, had known the thrust of his body deep inside her, yet this embrace in the gathering darkness was more complete than all of those acts of passion. His kiss was gentle, yet shockingly intimate out here with the great city around them. Such an act was a private thing meant for closed doors and drawn blinds. Yet when Han kissed her now, it was more than a precursor to lovemaking. It was language. His lips caressing softly to find her. She responded in kind, pressing close to him. It was longing and it was farewell.
A gong sounded in the marketplace and was echoed by another, then another. The nightly curfew. A foot patrol marched over the wooden planks above. They both grew still, holding on to each other through the rumbling.
In that pause, she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like to have a man like Han beside her. Someone who was strong and good-hearted. She would turn one day on her pillow to see that his hair had turned grey. Hers would be grey as well and it would be a gift to have spent all those days together. This night would be done and just one adventure of their wild youth.
‘Li Feng.’ His voice was close to her ear.
The guards had cleared the bridge and there was silence around them. No sound to disrupt her thoughts. She could feel her eyes stinging, but she blinked the tears back furiously. Tears would blur her vision and she needed to remain sharp.
Han continued quietly. ‘Once this is done and you’re far away, find a place where you and your family can live without fear. A place where you can be happy.’
She nodded against his shoulder. He was an upstanding man in his blood, in his bones. He still believed in justice above all else. This was Han’s dream for her in the spirit of such righteousness, but it wasn’t a dream that could ever include himself. He was from the world of courts and laws. She belonged to the rivers and lakes outside the city walls.
‘The streets should be clear now,’ she said faintly.
‘It’s time, then.’
She allowed herself to touch her fingertips to his jaw as he let her go. ‘Once it starts, remember to keep moving until it’s done. We can’t hesitate; we can’t stop even for a moment.’
His eyes glittered in the darkness. ‘I won’t stop. Not even for a moment.’
* * *
The curfew worked to their advantage. At the evening gong, the ward gates had closed and all inhabitants were to remain inside their respective neighbourhoods. The lanes and alleys emptied out. To Li Feng, the city became an open maze. Han followed closely beside her as they ran through the city on quiet feet, twisting and turning to avoid the guard patrols.
At the magistrate’s yamen, they flattened themselves against the wall in a side alley. Li Feng inspected the brick wall that surrounded the compound.
‘A bit high,’ she admitted.
‘Can you make it?’
She wouldn’t know until she tried. She scanned the wall, looking for hand holds, foot holds, a path that was invisible to all but her.
‘Be ready.’ Her heart was already pumping faster in anticipation.
‘There’s a patrol outside the walls as well as sentry inside. There can be anywhere between six to ten men,’ Han reminded her.
‘I’m more worried about the archers.’
Foot soldiers couldn’t catch her while she was high above them, but an arrow could pluck her out of the sky. She couldn’t worry too much. Yet. Han left her and she started counting silently to give him enough time to get into position. She reached one hundred and kept on going. At two hundred, she took a deep breath and started towards the wall.
It wasn’t so much speed as it was balance, pressure, and placement. She pushed into the wall with her lead foot. One step up, then two. A final nudge against the indentation of the bricks and her hand was at the top. She found a grip against the crenellations to pull herself up.
It had taken no more than a few heartbeats and her blood was soaring. Crouching at the top, she peered down into the interior of the yamen. The courtyard was surrounded by buildings. She mapped out the landscape with all of its structures and obstacles. Columns, steps, eaves, railings. Then she began her run.
She stayed low on the wall, running over the rise of the crenels with the grace of a cat. An alarm sounded. The foot patrol had spotted her.
Li Feng reached the main judicial hall. She hooked her hands into the ornamental carvings that looped around the eaves and used them to hoist herself on to the rooftop. The moon was above her, the lanterns below. From here she was an easy target. There were shouts from within the yamen and more cries from outside the surrounding wall. She caught her first glimpse of archers assembling.
Keep moving.
She did just that, rolling over the slate tiles and ducking behind the roof ornaments as the first arrows sang past her. She had to think moment by moment, stringing each movement together, planning the next step by feel and sight.
She dropped to the stone floor. The foot patrol gave chase, but they were armoured and slow. She wove behind the columns, drawing out more guards. Vaulted over a railing to gain a few steps ahead of the mob. The yamen was a compound with its own winding alleyways. She ran down one narrow lane and used the two surfaces on either side to climb up like a spider, hands and feet flat against two walls.
It was exhausting work, but she was back on the rooftops. It wasn’t long before a new cry sounded. They’d found her again.
She ran to gather momentum and attempted to leap clear of the yamen to an adjacent rooftop. For the space of a heartbeat, there was freedom as she flew through the air. Then she landed. Short.
Her fingers jammed painfully against the edge of the roof and her nails clawed uselessly over wood and tile before she plummeted downwards.
The fall seemed endless as the breath rushed out of her and her heart seized. She collided with the ground, feet first. She tumbled backwards out of reflex, and then lay stunned, unable to move. The impact had jarred her to the bone and she feared she’d broken her legs.
Breathe.
The tightness in her chest was just her lungs clutching on to that last breath. It seemed a long time passed before her vision cleared. She saw the sky, heard the footsteps. Dimly, she remembered she had to keep moving.
Li Feng dragged herself up, found that everything was still working and staggered off. She was disoriented from the fall and realised too late she’d made a wrong turn. The mob behind her was closing in. Her left wrist throbbed painfully. The hand was stiff and nearly useless. The death of her.
Her legs regained their strength the more she moved, and soon she was running at full speed again, winding through the streets. She had to find her way back to the water. Keep corners and buildings between her so the archers wouldn’t have a clear shot. She could outrun soldiers wearing armour and carrying heavy swords, but one sharpshooter could end it all.
The bridge came into view ahead of her. It was the highest bridge in the city, spanning the Min River below. Gasping for breath, she climbed to the top of the rail, her wrist protesting against the strain. Only then did she glance back once over her shoulder. A good-sized patrol chased after
her. She’d done her part. For the rest, she would have to trust Han.
Her muscles were burning, but she couldn’t stop yet. She filled her lungs with what very well might be her last breath and dived into the black water.
* * *
There were shouts from within the walls and the sounds of pursuit. Li Feng had breached the yamen and was facing off against a horde of armed guards. Han fought the urge to go to her aid. He had to trust her to do her part, just as she trusted him to do his.
Han tied a scarf around the lower part of his face and prepared to play the part of an outlaw. When it came to justice, an individual could question right and wrong. A man could waver and sympathise and have doubt, but a state had to be exacting and act without hesitation. Han wasn’t nearly as unbending as his father. He couldn’t stand down. He still believed in the rule of law, but he no longer believed that justice was justice. Justice wasn’t the same for everyone. It wasn’t a sacred, immutable force.
He unravelled a length of rope with a hook attached, which he used to catch the top of the wall. After a quick climb, he dropped down into the rear of the compound. A lantern glowed above the front door of the prison house. As expected, there were two men stationed there. Their swords were drawn, but they were distracted, anxious. There was an intruder somewhere on the grounds.
Detaching a wooden staff strapped to his back, Han disarmed the first guard with a strike to the wrist. He caught the second guard in the face with the upswing, a blow that likely broke his nose. The staff wasn’t Han’s strongest weapon, but he was proficient at it.
The first guard disappeared to call for reinforcements. Every moment was critical now. Li Feng had the night patrol engaged inside the main gate. The confusion created a small opening for him.
The second guard stood his ground. He held on to his sword while blood streamed from his nose. He had a fighter’s spirit…curse him for it. Han jabbed forwards. The guard attempted to block and all it took was a quick twist of the staff for Han to lock on to the sword and jerk it out of the guard’s grip, a technique he’d learned from a fighting monk. Han disarmed the guard and moved in with a blow to the knee, to the shoulder. As the man staggered, Han swung his hook. The weight acted as a lead, entangling the rope about the guard’s arms. From there, Han wrestled him to the ground and tied the knot.
The shouts from the courtyard grew louder. Li Feng still giving them a good chase. Han kicked the prison door open, prepared for another fight. To his surprise, the prison house was empty save for the two prisoners staring at him from their holding cells.
Han pulled down the scarf covering his face. ‘Quickly. There’s not much time.’
The one that Li Feng called Bao Yang was the first to speak. ‘He sent
you
?’ he asked in surprise.
Han didn’t have time to ponder that statement or the lack of additional guards. Using the constable’s key, he unlocked the cell doors. He went to remove the chains around Liu Yuan’s wrists only to watch him struggle free of them on his own.
Han should have known. This was Li Feng’s brother.
‘Release him and be ready.’
Han gave Liu Yuan the key and put his mask back in place before going outside to grab the incapacitated guard. The sounds of the chase had subsided and there were footsteps approaching. Returning inside, he shoved the guard into a now-empty cell. He threw his staff to Bao Yang who caught it with one hand. Another staff was strapped to his back. That one he tossed to Liu Yuan.
‘We’ll need to fight our way out,’ Han said.
‘With sticks?’ Liu Yuan said in disbelief.
Bao Yang merely laughed. He gave the staff a twirl, before adjusting his grip. Han unsheathed his sword, disturbingly aware that he was now fighting alongside outlaws against law-abiding citizens.
‘The sun sets in the east.’ Bao Yang smirked, reading his hesitation. ‘And all for a woman.’
There was something sharp and laced with poison hidden in the remark. This was not a man Han wanted at his back in a fight.
‘Not a woman,’ Han replied curtly.
Liu Yuan flanked him, staff ready. This was for Li Feng and her brother and the injustice they had suffered, but it was also for an inequity in the law that Han had finally acknowledged. He felt no need to explain such motivations to rebel-bandits.
‘Guards will be coming,’ Han warned as he pushed the door open.