Dragon Moon (29 page)

Ping gathered the snare into a loop in her left hand. Then she threw it. Her weeks of practice had paid off. Her aim was good. The loop fell over the startled rabbit’s head and she pulled it tight. The rabbit leapt up at least two feet and turned in midair. As it landed, it darted off. Its strength took Ping by surprise. It yanked the snare and, before she had time to react, the snare slipped through her fingers.

Ping jumped to her feet and ran after the rabbit. She wanted the meat but she wanted the snare more. It was an important part of her winter survival kit. She raced after the rabbit, stumbled on a rock and felt her ankle turn. She fell, tumbling down a slope. Her body crashed against rocks until it landed at the bottom of a gully. She hit her head.

It was peaceful in the gully. Ping was glad that she had stopped tumbling. She was quite comfortable lying where she was. There was soft grass beneath her. The wind was blowing higher up, but couldn’t find its way down into the gully. The air was still and not as cold. Her ankle wasn’t broken, just twisted. She’d be okay once she’d had a nap.

When Ping woke up, it was dark. She was cold. Her
ankle hurt. She lay awake, shivering until dawn. She tried to get to her feet but the pain in her ankle was too strong. She had to find a branch to use as a crutch. The problem was, she was still too high up in the mountains for trees to grow. She tried to crawl out of the gully but it was too steep and the pain made her weak.

It felt colder than it should have been for early autumn. The sun should have been overhead by now. She looked up at the sky. There was a cloud. A grey cloud. It was quite large. She felt a few drops of icy rain on her face. She had pleaded with the dragons to make a cloud. It seemed they had taken her advice. They had made a dragon cloud. She could almost see it growing before her eyes as it gathered the moisture from the air. The raindrops turned to flakes of snow. She would have laughed if she hadn’t been shivering so much. The cloud might grow and grow until it brought unseasonal rain to the people of the Empire. That was wonderful. But there on that mountain, it might end up being the death of Ping.

It stopped snowing after a few minutes, and the cloud broke up and drifted away. But the day didn’t get any warmer. She tried again and managed to stand. Then using rocks to support herself, she hobbled up the hillside. But when she reached the top, the wind blew her off her feet. She slid back down the slope. She was better off sheltering in the gully. She ate the last of her dried meat and nuts, collected some of the thin layer
of snow to quench her thirst and wrapped her bearskin around her.

It wasn’t the cold that kept her awake, it was her ankle. Every time she started drifting off to sleep, the pain would be hiding in drowsy corners of her mind, ready to jump out and wake her.

The next morning Ping didn’t move. She couldn’t think of any good reason why she should. She didn’t know where she was going, or why. She didn’t know what she was going to do with the rest of her life. Perhaps her life was over now that Kai had found his place in the dragon world. She had done her duty.

As she drifted in and out of consciousness, she thought about her family. She could go to them and see if they could find a place for her in their household. But they didn’t need her. What about her friends? She could go to the Emperor and ask him if he could give her a job to do. But she had already refused his offer of love. She could go to Jun’s village and see if he had returned to his family. But what if he hadn’t? She couldn’t bear to find out that she had been responsible for his death. All in all, the best course of action seemed to be to stay right where she was, to sink into a warm, comfortable sleep and never wake up again. That seemed like an excellent plan.

The sky darkened. There’s another cloud, Ping thought. The dragons have been busy. She looked up
at the sky. It was a very black cloud and it was moving strangely. She realised it wasn’t a cloud at all. It was a black bird. A large black bird. It swooped down closer. It wasn’t a bird either. It was a dragon—Hei Lei.

That was a different way to end her life, killed by a dragon.

Ping felt the dragon’s talons dig into her shoulder and haul her up the side of the gully. Her ankle banged against a rock. She cried out.

“Can you climb on my back?” Hei Lei said.

Although she had lost her second sight, she could still understand the dragon. His red eyes no longer looked fierce. They looked like wounds.

“What for?” She wondered if he was planning on flying her to a great height and dropping her.

“So that I can take you to a place where humans live.”

“You’re not going to kill me?”

“No.”

Ping pulled herself up onto the dragon’s back. She had no rope to secure herself. Instead she looped the strap of her bag around the dragon’s horns and then over her head and around her waist.

“I’m—” Before she could finish, the dragon had taken off.

This would definitely be her last dragon flight. She was glad she could see the view. She didn’t know
where Hei Lei was taking her, and she didn’t care. Below, the mountains stretched in every direction like a huge length of crumpled cloth. Then they were up above the clouds in the sunlight.

“You like flying?” Hei Lei asked.

“I love it.”

Hei Lei’s great wings flapped up and down on either side of Ping. He was flying against the wind but he didn’t falter. She felt her spirits rise. Perhaps she wouldn’t die just yet after all.

After flying for several hours, the clouds disappeared. The mountains softened to hills. She could see a village. Hei Lei flew lower.

“Aren’t you worried that people will see you?” she asked.

“No, I often fly above human dwellings. I can take on the colours of my surroundings. From below, I look the same colour as the sky.”

He had the mirage skill, just like Kai.

Ping wondered why the black dragon visited inhabited lands. Knowing his dislike of people, she couldn’t help but think the worst.

“I come here in spring,” Hei Lei continued. “The pomegranate blossom in this region is the sweetest.”

Ping smiled to herself. She would never have guessed that Hei Lei had a sweet tooth.

He landed neatly on the top of a hill.

“I will leave you here,” he said. “There is a human
nearby who will help you.”

Ping climbed down. Just as the black dragon was flexing his wings to take off again, Ping reached out to touch his scales.

“Hei Lei,” Ping said. “Thank you for saving me.”

The dragon made no response.

“Go back to the dragon haven,” she continued. “Gu Hong is old. Kai is young. The dragons need you. They need your strength, your
yang.”
Hei Lei didn’t say anything. “And the people of the Empire need rain. The dragons only managed to make a shower yesterday. Without you they can’t make enough clouds.”

The black dragon took off.

“Eight is twice-four,” she called out to him. “It’s a very inauspicious number. Nine is better.”

Ping looked around. She could see no sign of life or the village she’d seen from the air. She had no food, no water and thin clothes. The earth was so dry there were cracks wide enough for Ping to put her hand in them. It was chilly. She didn’t think Hei Lei had deceived her, but a dragon’s idea of ‘close’ to a village might be a lot different to a human’s. She found a branch she could use as a crutch.

Before long, signs of human habitation did appear. There were empty fields, a dead ox. Ping’s heart soared
when she saw a house, but when she got close she realised it had been abandoned.

Ping started walking … again. It seemed that she’d spent a large part of her life walking without knowing where she was going. Her ankle hurt and she knew she wouldn’t get far on it. She felt frustration rise in her. She’d had enough of living at the whim of others—masters, emperors, dragons. She was tired of it. She wanted to be in control of her own life for once.

She saw something on the next hill. A plume of smoke. Whether it was coming from a chimney or a grass fire, she didn’t know. Either way it was something to walk towards.

As Ping drew closer, she could see that there was a village on the hill. If there was smoke, at least one person was still living there.

It was a village of about 20 houses. As she walked through the open gate, several thin faces turned towards her. They weren’t welcoming. Ping could guess what they were thinking. Another mouth to feed. Raised voices drifted from a barn. Two donkeys were tied up outside. A farmer came out of the barn.

“I don’t care how much gold you have,” he was saying. “Hay is worth more than its weight in gold. I can’t sell you any.”

Another man followed him out of the barn. He looked as if he were about to argue, then he caught sight of Ping. Ping’s heart began thudding. It was Jun. A smile
broke over his face. He was wearing a thick winter gown and he looked thinner than the last time she’d seen him. Ping suddenly wished she wasn’t wearing a threadbare jacket and trousers with the knees worn through. He ran over and hugged her.

“Thanks to Heaven. You’re alive. I’d almost given up hope.”

Ping clung to him and found that she couldn’t speak.

“Are you injured?” Jun asked. “You look terrible. And where did you come from?”

“I dropped out of the sky,” Ping said, smiling through tears. Hei Lei had known exactly where he was leaving her.

Jun looked around.

“Where’s Kai?” he asked.

“I had to leave him,” she said.

“You found the dragon haven,” Jun said.

Ping nodded. “It wasn’t on Long Gao Yuan.”

“Where was it?”

“In a faraway place. I don’t know its name or where it is. I could search all my life and never find Kai again.”

Ping hadn’t allowed herself to think about the little dragon after she’d left the dragon haven. Now her unhappiness overflowed. She buried her face in Jun’s gown and cried. She sobbed until she had no strength to cry anymore. It took a long time. The villagers grew tired of watching and went back to their business. Jun
stood holding her, stroking her back until all the grief had emptied from her heart.

The barn was the only accommodation available in the village. Jun had some food supplies, a warm jacket. Ping had a little dried ginger left. A village woman gave them a kettle of boiling water to make tea.

Ping sipped her hot drink. “What happened to you after Kai and I climbed up the Serpent’s Tail?”

“I tried to climb the cliff myself, but I couldn’t. I had the strength, but I couldn’t fit into the narrow space between the cliff and the falls like you and Kai. I reached about two
chang
and then the water washed me off the wall and I fell.”

“But you didn’t wait for us,” she said.

“I couldn’t,” Jun replied. “A large yellow dragon picked me up in its talons, carried me for many
li
and dumped me in the middle of nowhere.”

Ping smiled. “That was Tun.”

Ping and Jun took it in turn to recount their adventures. Jun had bought the two donkeys so he could search for Ping, but it had been difficult to buy enough food to keep him and the beasts alive.

“Everyone is hungry,” he said. “No one has any food to spare, I don’t know how we will survive.”

Ping told him about the dragon haven—the dragons, the coloured pools, the bubbling mud, the talk of making it rain. It all sounded like a story she’d made up. They talked until after midnight.

The sound of excited voices woke Ping the next morning.

She went outside. The villagers were staring into the distance, shading their eyes from the early morning sun. They were pointing at the horizon. Grey clouds were huddled there. Jun came and stood next to her.

“They’re big clouds,” Ping said. “Hei Lei must have gone back to the dragon haven and helped the others make mist.”

“You believe that?”

Ping nodded. “Yes.”

The sun shone on the underside of the clouds turning them from grey to deep purple. The villagers watched, worried that the sun would frighten the clouds away. A rainbow appeared over a distant hill, its colours as pallid and translucent as dragonfly wings.

“There must be a shower of rain over there,” Jun said.

The band of cloud loomed closer. The colours of the rainbow grew stronger until they were as brilliant as those of an embroidered gown. They could see it clearly now—a column of steady rain falling on the next hill. The sun still shone stubbornly over the village.

“The dragon!” one of the villagers shouted.

Ping looked up in the sky, but there were no dragons there. The villagers ran into the barn and emerged again with a dusty bamboo shape covered with faded silk. Four men held the shape above their heads and danced
around the village. The silk that covered the bamboo was tattered and faded, but it was still recognisable as a dragon.

The clouds continued to move steadily towards them, dark and heavy, until at last they blotted out the sun. The rainbow disappeared. The villagers cheered. Lightning zigzagged across the sky. There was a crack of thunder. Large drops of rain were falling on the villagers’ upturned faces. Before long the rain was pouring from the sky. No one took shelter. They danced in the rain.

Ping was riding on one of the donkeys. She no longer had to hide. They could travel along good roads. With the help of the donkeys, they would reach Xining before winter set in. The rain was still coming down as it had been for two days. The hills were already tinged with green. Ping wore a bamboo hat that kept her head dry, but the rest of her was soaked to the skin. She didn’t even think of complaining. Jun was leading the other donkey which carried their baggage. His hair was wet through. Water was dripping off the end of his nose.

“You don’t think your dragon friends will get too carried away and cause a flood, do you?”

“No. They’ll know when to stop—when the lakes are full and all the rivers are flowing again.”