Dragon Moon (12 page)

“Kai likes the solid milk lumps.”

The meal smelt strange, but Ping was hungry. Though she had chopsticks in her bag, she ate with her fingers, like the barbarians.

“Barbarians are nice,” said Kai as he gnawed on a bone.

Ping had to agree with him. Though the Xiong Nu were wary of the girl who had been brought to their camp, and frightened of the strange creature with her, Ping and Kai were being treated well.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t call them barbarians,” Ping said. “Or Xiong Nu either.” Xiong Nu meant fierce slaves.

“Should call them Ma Ren,” Kai said.

“Horse People. That’s a good name for them.”

Ping picked at her food, trying to tell herself that it would give her strength, even though it had the taste of sour milk and smelly socks. Kai licked out his bowl. She felt safe with the Ma Ren. She hoped they were travelling west and that she and Kai could go with them. Ping chewed another piece of meat. She would have to get used to their strange food.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” she said when Hou-yi came back.

“It is strange for a young girl to be travelling alone,” he said.

“I’m not alone,” Ping said, indicating the dragon.

Hou-yi smiled. “Stranger still to be travelling with a dragon.”

Ping expected him to ask how she came to be in the company of a dragon, and where they were going, but he didn’t.

“You are a wanderer, like we are,” he said.

Ping nodded. “I am, but from need not from choice. One day I hope to be able to stay in one place and call it my home. Don’t you?”

“No,” Hou-yi replied. “I will wander until I die.”

After they had eaten, the women and girls set about their daily tasks—caring for the animals, preparing the next meal, mending the tents. The young boys practised firing arrows with small bows. They also improved their riding skills—the older ones on young horses, the littlest on sheep. Ping couldn’t help laughing at the sight of the toddlers careering around on the startled animals.

The Ma Ren were generous and courteous, but they were wary of Kai. They didn’t want to touch him. If they had to pass him, they turned their eyes away. The children wouldn’t go near him. Hou-yi was the only one who wasn’t uneasy in the dragon’s presence. He wasn’t afraid to look at Kai, and even touched his scales and spines.

A tent was put up for Ping’s use. It was very comfortable, carpeted with felt and furnished with silk cushions and fur rugs. Ping enjoyed spending the day resting and mending her jacket. Hou-yi didn’t sit with her, but with the other men. Kai tried to play with the children, but they ran away and hid behind their mothers’ skirts.

At dusk Ping was given a plate of mutton gruel and more
kumiss
.

“Thank you,” she said.

The woman who had brought the food nodded and left.

“May we travel with you for a way?” Ping asked Hou-yi.

“We are not riding in your direction,” Hou-yi said. “The grass is sparse this spring. We must travel east to find better pasture. Perhaps we will have to breach the Great Wall and look for grass in the Empire.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

Ping couldn’t hide her disappointment.

“I am sorry, but my people come first.”

“They don’t like Kai, do they?” Ping asked. She suspected that the search for grass wasn’t the only reason they were leaving so soon.

Hou-yi pointed to his gold buckle which gleamed in the firelight. Ping looked closely at the design. She could now see the animals that were fighting—a bear and a dragon.

“Such creatures are in our stories,” he said. “Our tales tell of cruel creatures.”

The dragon on the buckle had its teeth buried in the bear’s neck. Its claws raked terrible wounds in the bear’s belly.

“They are strong but not of this world.”

The Ma Ren took down their tents early the next morning. What had looked like a substantial village had, with the removal of a few poles, collapsed into a heap of cloth. Their entire homes were soon packed into baskets and loaded onto camels.

“I have something for you,” Hou-yi said.

He was holding the reins of a horse. Ping had assumed it was his, but he handed the reins to her.

“This will speed your journey,” he said.

She didn’t know how much such a horse was worth, but she knew it would be many gold
jin
. “I can give you the gold I have, but it won’t be enough to pay for such a fine horse.”

Hou-yi smiled. “It is a gift.”

“But I can’t accept it,” Ping said.

“You have a friend who is concerned about your safety. I promised him I would help you.”

Ping wondered if the Duke had sent gold to Hou-yi.

He fondled Kai’s ears. “And meeting a dragon has been a rare privilege.”

“Thank you,” Ping said. “It is very kind of you. But I don’t know how to ride a horse.”

“Nothing is easier,” Hou-yi replied. “All you have to do is sit.”

The Ma Ren learned to ride horses when they were children. For them riding was as easy as walking. Hou-yi bent down and laced the fingers of his
hands together so that Ping could step up onto the horse.

“What about Kai?”

Hou-yi looked at the dragon doubtfully. “I don’t think the horse would let him mount.”

“Kai doesn’t want to ride the horse,” the dragon said. He was as wary of the horse as it was of him.

“You have to,” Ping said.

The dragon shook his head. “Kai can walk.”

“But a horse travels fast, many
li
each day.”

“If the horse-beast carries the bag, Kai will be able to keep pace.”

Kai was less than half the size of a horse, but Ping didn’t argue with him. Hou-yi took the saddlebag from Kai’s shoulders and fitted it onto the horse. He gave Ping some meat and a sheepskin bag full of
kumiss
. The Ma Ren were shifting in their saddles, children pulling at their mothers’ skirts, camels making restless noises.

“Have you heard of a place called Long Xiang?” Ping asked.

Hou-yi shook his head. “There are no villages in the lands of those who draw the bow.”

“Then we will return to the Empire.”

“If you want to cross over the wall without the guards seeing you,” Hou-yi said, “I can tell you of a place where the watchtowers are far apart and there is a hidden hole that leads beneath the wall.”

Ping didn’t ask if the Ma Ren had excavated it
themselves, but she listened closely to his directions for finding this hole in the wall.

“You have been very kind to us,” Ping said.

Hou-yi leapt gracefully onto his own horse and raised his hand. The riders dug their heels into their horses’ flanks, those on foot flicked the camels’ rumps with leather thongs. The Ma Ren set off, heading east. Ping watched their departure. Men on horseback herded the horses. Women on foot, with the smallest children strapped to their backs, urged on the flock of sheep. Swaying camels lumbered off, piled high with folded tents and baskets of cooking utensils. Only Hou-yi turned to wave goodbye.

Ping’s horse snorted impatiently. Ping dug her heels into the horse’s flank, as she had seen the Ma Ren do. It refused to move.

“Come on, you stupid beast!” she said, kicking the horse with her heels as hard as she could.

The horse didn’t move an inch. Even though there was no more grass to eat, it examined the ground, snorting and snuffling at stones. She kicked the horse as hard as she could and flicked it with a thong of leather Hou-yi had given her. It still wouldn’t shift. Then as it turned to look for more grass, it caught sight of its horse friends disappearing into the distance. It suddenly cantered off—in the wrong direction. Ping was concentrating too hard on clinging on—to the reins with her hands and the horse with her thighs—to try
and stop it. They had almost caught up with the Ma Ren, when Hou-yi saw her.

He rode back and took the reins from her.

“You have to be firm when you command the horse,” he said. “It has to know that you are its master.”

He turned the horse round, gave the reins back to Ping and flicked the horse gently on the rump. It trotted off as meekly as a tame dog.

“I think I’d prefer to walk,” Ping muttered to herself.

The horse trotted obediently for the rest of the morning. Ping considered eating as she rode so that she wouldn’t have to get the horse moving again after she’d stopped. But eventually she’d have to stop to pee, and her bottom was getting sore. She reined the horse in and slid awkwardly to the ground.

Ping was glad to be able to stretch her legs, and she was surprisingly hungry considering she’d done nothing but sit all morning. She and Kai ate the strips of dried meat and drank
kumiss
from the sheepskin that
Hou-yi had given them. All too soon it was time to get back onto the horse.

“You hold the reins, Kai,” Ping said, “while I get on.”

As soon as Kai took hold of the reins, the horse started rearing and whinnying. It didn’t like the dragon anymore than the Ma Ren had. Ping took the reins again and tried to calm the horse. Its back was as high as her shoulder. She grabbed hold of the felt saddlecloth, but she couldn’t mount it. It was too tall. She looked around. They were surrounded by a flat plain. There wasn’t a tree she could climb or a rock she could stand on to mount the horse.

“You can stand on Kai’s back,” the dragon suggested.

The horse was calmly pulling up a tuft of yellow grass, but when Kai approached, it cantered away.

“Try shape-changing,” Ping suggested.

Kai took on the shape of a rock. The horse went back to chewing the dry grass. Kai inched closer, until he was next to the horse. Ping carefully stood on Kai’s rock-shaped back and then flung her leg over the horse. She was glad she was still wearing trousers. The horse skittered around for a while but then settled. Ping thought she’d won, but now the horse wouldn’t move. She kicked it, called it names, flicked it with the leather thong, but it wouldn’t budge.

Without warning Kai came up behind the horse and
made a sound like someone banging a gong. The horse took off at a gallop. Ping lost her grip on the reins, so she clung onto the horse’s mane. It kept galloping. She gripped the horse with her thighs, but she couldn’t stay on. She fell, hitting the hard earth with a jarring thud.

“Is Ping all right?” Kai asked, when he ran up to where she was lying in the dust.

Ping half-hoped that the horse had run away for good, but when she sat up, she could see it quietly cropping a clump of grass a few paces away.

“I’m okay,” she said.

“Perhaps it would be easier to leave the horse behind,” Kai said.

Ping got to her feet. “No, it’s not going to get the better of me. We need to find the dragon haven as soon as possible. Riding will speed our journey.”

With Kai’s help, she got back on the horse.

“Kai could roar again.”

“No, don’t do that.”

Eventually, the horse decided it was time to move again. It walked a little faster than Ping would have liked, but she hung on tight. Kai walked alongside them. His legs were strong now, and he kept pace as he said he would.

As Ping bounced along, it felt as if the horse beneath her was made of stone. They rode until it was dark. She had thought that her bottom hurt as they rode, but
when she got down from the horse it was worse. It was so painful tears streamed down her face.

“Ping sad?” Kai asked.

“Not sad, Kai. Sore. Very sore.”

“Poor Ping.”

“I can’t walk,” Ping said. “I’ve never been in so much pain before. Never. If feels like someone’s ripped the skin from my legs, set it on fire and stuck it back on again.”

“Kai’s legs ache, too. What’s for dinner?”

There were no trees, so there was no wood, but Ping managed to light a small, smoky fire from animal dung that Kai collected. She made gruel from grain and the rest of the sheep meat that Hou-yi had given them.

When he had finished eating, Kai made himself a nest and was soon asleep. Ping wrapped herself in her bearskin and lay down. She couldn’t sleep. The burning pain in her bottom and thighs was too strong.

They stayed outside the Empire on the northern side of the Great Wall and no one interfered with their passage. The days passed in silent torture for Ping. She spent her time in a battle of wills with the horse, trying to get it to walk at a comfortable speed and not to wander from the road. She tried being nice to it. She tried being unpleasant to it. It made no difference. It started when it was ready and once it had decided to stop, there was no shifting it. Ping tried to befriend the horse by giving
it jujubes. The beast ate the dried fruit, but still tried to throw her off whenever the mood took it. She would have been happy to leave it behind, but it was too late for that. She was too sore to walk.

Each morning, Ping climbed painfully onto the horse and bounced uncomfortably as it trotted along. Her bones felt as if they were jangling out of their sockets, and her teeth rattled in her head. She thought that she would hurt forever.

She would have been grateful to listen to Kai’s chatter to take her mind off her aches and pains, but the dragon didn’t speak much as he loped along just behind her. He needed all his energy to keep up with the horse.

“I like most animals,” she told Kai. “I liked the goats and the pigs at Huangling, but there’s nothing about this horse that I like. I don’t like its horsy smell. I don’t like its hard hooves that step on my feet every time I mount it. I don’t like its big teeth which have bitten me more than once. And I don’t like the way it rears up whenever it sees you. Which is often.”

“Perhaps if Ping gave it a name, it would be more friendly,” Kai suggested.

“I can think of some good names for it,” Ping said. “How about Stupid, or Stubborn or Big Nose.”

The horse suddenly sped up. Ping clung on, determined not to let it win their battle of wills.

On the fifth day, the agony began to lessen. Ping finally worked out how to move with the rhythm of the horse’s gait, so that her bones didn’t jar. Her body still ached, but it wasn’t as painful. Kai must have been sore as well, trotting alongside the horse all day, but he never complained.