The Mandate of Heaven (26 page)

A great cheer rose from the government troops. Jebe Khoja ordered his drummers to beat a special signal and a dozen guards rushed from the ranks to the gates, carrying a large wooden box. This they leaned against the gate. Lighting a fuse, they scurried back – and just in time, for the thunderclap bomb exploded early.

Every living thing in the valley quaked at its roar. Even the plants appeared to shimmer. Waves of sound echoed back and forth across the cliffs and peaks. Splintered wood, dust, and stone rose in the air along with billowing grey smoke. So loud a noise in the limestone hills was greeted with watchful silence. Creatures froze in valley after valley – tigers, mountain goats, foxes.

As for the rebel defences, a gash had been torn in the palisade. Once the smoke and dust cleared it became clear the camp’s defenders had abandoned their ramparts.

A roar rose from the Mongol army, almost to rival their thunderclap bomb. Here was the kind of victory everyone liked! They had sacrificed nearly fifty men to seize the walls, but what was that?

Boom. Boom. Boom.
The signal drums ordered a final, decisive advance. Through the still smouldering gateway they poured, this time led by the guardsmen in shoulder-to-shoulder formation. More arrows and crossbow bolts met them, for the rebels had gathered in the gaps between the houses. Good! An enemy within cutting reach! The guards rushed forward to engage the village’s defenders.

For the next half hour desperate fights flowed back and forth in the alleyways and narrow roads, the Mongol forces hampered by sheer numbers in so confined a space. Skirmish by skirmish those numbers inevitably forced back the rebels. Deeper and deeper into the streets, through pig sties and yards, thatched hovels and storehouses, the two sides fought.

Finally, trumpets blared out from behind the camp, a long, beseeching, mournful sound, and the rebel soldiers broke off and retreated in close order, leaving the densely packed village to its new owners. Again, a cheer rose from the victors, though less confidently than before. Scores lay in the narrow places of the camp, corners well known to the rebels but a hostile maze to their conquerors.

Again and again the trumpet sounded. When it fell silent it seemed the entire valley waited for the next voice to speak.

Jebe Khoja cantered to the front of his troops, a large man in gleaming armour, the blue plume of his helmet nodding like a peacock’s tail. Furious at the losses he had suffered, he issued orders to take no prisoners – every last traitor to the Great Khan must suffer separation of head from neck.

Once more the Mongols moved forward. They had begun to regard their opponents with more respect. At the fissure of Fourth Hell Mouth many touched lucky amulets. Rumours had spread throughout the Mongol army concerning Hornets’ Nest’s personal entrance to the Underworld and his friendship with demons who came up to drink and enjoy virgins in his company.

The village was ominously quiet. Armour jingling, they reached its outskirts.

A limestone cliff covered with vines towered at the rear of the village; a steep hillside of broken boulders climbed to meet its base. Here the Red Turbans had gathered for a last, desperate defence. The Mongols stared up at them in surprise; they had not expected so many well-disciplined troops, at least five hundred, ready to defend their toe-hold with arrows and bristling halberds. Their backs were literally to the wall. Nothing left to lose, nowhere to go, what the ancient commentators called ‘dying ground’ where one either perishes or triumphs. Jebe Khoja examined the rebel formation and laughed.

‘The fools!’ he shouted to his officers. ‘We will clear them from Hou-ming Province forever! They have lined themselves up nicely! All we need do is wait.’

This sentiment went down well. His officers hurried off to ready their men for a final assault, one Hsiung had not anticipated.

With each flight of arrows from the village below Hsiung felt the resolve of his men weaken. The Mongols were fine archers, perhaps the finest, and soon the Yueh Fei lines were shedding corpses. He had trusted the enemy would rush up the slope in a fierce, reckless charge, so that his two Horns, Left and Right, might fall on their flanks and rout them. Instead they were bleeding away his strength.

‘Loose! Loose!’ he ordered, urging his crossbowmen and archers to respond in kind. But the Mongols were using houses and fences as cover: an unequal exchange of fire. Lieutenant P’ao rushed over.

‘Sir! I beg you to order a charge!’ he cried. ‘We cannot just stand here to be skewered.’

From their elevated position, Hsiung could see that the streets below harboured waiting columns of Mongols. Any charge by the rebels would soon be halted by the weight of their guardsman. He glanced up nervously at the cliff walls on either side of the valley. This was the moment he had feared, the moment of decision. Could he trust his fanciful plan? So many things might go wrong. But the alternative was to crouch here while Jebe Khoja whittled his forces as a carpenter planes wood.

‘Tell the men to take cover where they can,’ he ordered. ‘Prepare the fire arrows. We will burn the village.’

At first P’ao seemed inclined to argue, then he shrugged, placing fist against palm in a salute. With a grin he whispered, ‘Why not, young Hsiung? I have enjoyed being a Lieutenant, even if it was only for a few hours. Let us go out with a blaze!’

He bowed low to the younger man.

‘It
will
work!’ whispered Hsiung fiercely, glancing round to see who overheard. ‘Just keep the Ram’s Body whole, and when you hear the trumpets, charge with all your might.’

Lieutenant P’ao nodded and hurried off to issue orders.

Soon afterwards, scores of fire arrows trailing smoke flew from the rebel lines, a stream of tiny meteors landing on the straw roofs of the village. Now the absence of rain turned to Hsiung’s advantage: buildings began to smoulder and catch flame, smoke drifting lazily upwards.

Hsiung had gathered the Left and Right Horns near the base of the cliffs surrounding the village, each positioned on opposite sides of the valley. He raised his sword as a signal and Lieutenant Jin, bruised and injured by Hornets’ Nest’s maltreatment, but refusing to surrender his command, replied in the same manner.

A hot fury filled Hsiung. If his cause and dreams were to burn he would die sword in hand and drag a hundred hated Mongols with him to Hell! At this prospect he felt the dark lights begin their dance. Yet he knew his head must be clear!

The smoke was thickening, filling the narrow valley, obscuring the visibility of those in the village. Hsiung turned to the Left Horn, crouching with armour and weapons ready.

‘To the Monkey Paths!’ he cried. ‘Follow me!’

In a bound he scrambled onto a narrow ledge and started edging along the side of the cliff, climbing steadily until the burning rooftops were some distance below. He had no eye for anything other than the next hand and toe hold. A miscalculation would cast him onto the rocks below. Like spiders on a wall the rebels slowly traversed the cliff – no great distance, perhaps a single
li
, but an eternity when exposed to the bows of a thousand men milling around in the village below. Acrid smoke obscured Hsiung’s vision and he choked back tears. Even in his temporary blindness he could make out the dark hole of Fourth Hell Mouth in the centre of the village, and he had a sudden vision of its potential – so exhilarating it took all his will to hold back the dark lights. Not yet, he promised himself, but soon …

In the village below Jebe Khoja faced a decision. Should he attack the rebels gathered at the foot of their last cliff and so escape the smoke and flames swiftly spreading around him? Or order a hasty retreat through the burning village and reform back at the palisade? Then, once the place had turned to ash, he could order a renewed advance.

He sensed his decision must be instantaneous and longed to attack. But he had already lost too many in this campaign and was loathe to waste more.

‘Order a withdrawal!’ he barked at his drummers. ‘No, hold! Hold, damn you!’

To his surprise a crude horn trumpet was sounding in the rear of his forces, then another and another, rebel trumpets if he wasn’t mistaken. He turned to confront a further surprise: Yueh Fei rebels surging down the hillside from the rear cliff in a wild charge, flags waving and halberds levelled. Jebe Khoja’s proud blood flushed at such a challenge from this rabble.

‘Stand and meet them!’ he bellowed.

His best men, the guards companies, duly shuffled forward to receive the Red Turbans’ reckless attack. Instantly Jebe Khoja sensed his mistake. The village was burning more fiercely and half his army remained trapped in the flames …

* * *

Moments earlier Hsiung had emerged from the monkey path near the wooden palisade at the front of the camp and rejoiced to feel his boots on firm ground. More soldiers landed beside him, raising tensed crossbows or steadying pole arms. But the only enemies in view were a dozen military officials and their guards gathered round a portable map table. All were staring into the burning village like fishwives fearfully awaiting a fleet’s return from a pitiless storm.

‘Shh!’ urged Hsiung, ducking out of sight behind a boulder as more and more of the rebels appeared from the cover of the smoke-cloud. When enough had assembled he ordered an attack, dispatching the few enemy on this side of the village with ease. While withdrawing his sword from a man’s chest, he met Lieutenant Jin, who had successfully travelled the monkey paths on the opposite cliff with his Horn. Combined, they formed a force of nearly two hundred, the ‘bravest and best’ of the Yueh Fei cause.

‘Sound the trumpets!’ ordered Hsiung.

How they rang out! Mountain trumpets made of ram horns, blown by blue-tattooed Yulai tribesmen.

On the other side of the village, Jebe Khoja felt panic sweep his troops. The very air was barbed with sparks, floating, smouldering wisps of straw. He turned to find his drummers, all picked, seasoned men, crouching in fear, staring round at the fog of smoke through which rebels occasionally darted to stab at the heavily armoured Guards.

‘Sound a withdrawal!’ he called.

Slowly at first, then with desperate passion, the signal drums beat out:
boom dum boom
… And what should have been an orderly withdrawal became a terrified rout through lanes choked with fume and flame. Where men encountered the hungry lips of Fourth Hell Mouth they toppled over, pushed by the weight of those who came behind, spinning and screaming into the void below. Others, more resourceful, sought the cliff walls and used them as a guide through the smoke. Still more charged down the narrow alleys like maddened beasts gasping for air.

Because the village was not large, it did not take long to emerge from the smoke clouds in ones and twos, then tens and scores. If Hsiung’s ‘bravest and best’ had not been waiting for them, assuredly they would have lain on the ground gasping until fresh air filled their lungs, and their eyes ceased to weep. As it was, they emerged like deer driven through thickets onto hunters’ spears. The sudden flash then agony of arrows greeted them. Those who survived the arrows were cut down by swords and halberds.

But not all. Stray groups of coughing soldiers broke through and fled up the valley while Hsiung’s Horns were busy elsewhere with their pitiless work. Amongst them were five wretches in rags, evidently escaped prisoners, or perhaps Hornets’ Nest’s servants, for one was female, though she ran with the same desperate determination as the men.

Thicker and thicker billowed the smoke. A heat haze gathered, making the air shimmer and distances distort. The need to breathe whipped more waves of men forward, only to emerge on a shoreline of corpses littering the ground. A few stumbled back the way they had come, colliding with dozens more seeking a way out of the cloud.

Hsiung strode up and down the ranks, goading on his men to more efficient acts of slaughter, occasionally cutting down a Mongol or Chinese mercenary.

Finally, like the swallows who streamed each night into Hornets’ Nest’s cave, the flow of men slowed and ceased. Hsiung turned to locate Lieutenant Jin. He was leaning on a spear, exhausted by his injuries at their former chief’s hands. Could all the enemy be dead? Hsiung heard distant sounds of fighting from the rear of the village: proof P’ao was still leading the Ram’s Body.

He stepped out of the rebel ranks, over to a boy who lay shivering on the ground. Was he barbarian or Chinese? One could hardly tell from his appearance. Hsiung leaned over the sobbing child. How old was he? Eleven, twelve? A useless boy dragged where he did not belong … Hsiung recalled himself as a boy of twelve, staring fearfully up as Overseer Pi-tou raised his whip. He gasped, stepped back from the harmless child.

At that moment a group of coughing, limping Guardsmen emerged from the smoke. Some had abandoned their weapons. Those who still bore arms were barely capable of raising them. In their midst was a wounded man in noble, splendid armour, his silver and gold helmet askew, its blue plume scorched and soot-grey. Hsiung sensed crossbows and bows levelling behind him.

‘No!’ he cried. ‘Do not loose!’