The Red Plains (The Forbidden List Book 3) (11 page)

“Now, Gongliang, signal the men now.”

Haung raced down the wall towards the Mongols as Gongliang headed in the opposite direction. Liu was fighting and encouraging his troops, but it was clear they were being pushed further back. The tall man’s axes were a whirlwind, a blur, rising and falling, twisting, parrying, blocking and hacking. Mongol warriors who stood against him died, but either side the militia and empire soldiers were falling.

Then Enlai was there and, for all their speed, Liu’s axes looked slow compared to his sword. It was impossible to follow the flow of the
Taiji’s
blade, it wove a silver mist amongst the Mongols that was soon tinged with red. The enemy fell back, their dead littered the wall and their confidence dwindled as the empire soldier’s grew.

Haung let the quiet wash him away as he entered the battle at Enlai’s side. There was no communication between the two, just an unconscious reaction to the battle, to the strikes each made, to the deflections and to the movement of the Mongols.

The explosion of thunder seemed to come from just a pace or two behind him. The wave of wind and dust battered him as, all around, the soldiers, Empire and Mongol alike, fell to the floor. Only Haung and Enlai remained standing. The first explosion was followed by another, then another, a ripple of detonations that were followed by the creak, snap and crack of the land coming apart.

Through the haze of dust Haung watched the eastern river cliff fall. Stones tumbled. A few at first then more, gathering pace, bouncing, leaping and at last falling into the river creating tall fountains of water. As more boulders fell, the water ceased spraying as boulder fell onto boulder. The dam grew, stretching across the whole of the river, diverting its path, and joining with the rubble wall that already blocked the road.

“Gongliang?” Enlai said, absently stabbing his sword into the chest of a Mongol warrior who tried to rise.

“Gongliang,” Haung answered.

When the first rays of dawn crested the eastern horizon they mounted the horses. Xióngmāo did so gracefully and without effort. Zhou struggled. His legs were stiff from lack of sleep and traipsing across the plains of grass for the past few hours. With one foot in the stirrup, he attempted to swing his other over the back of the horse. As he shifted his weight to do so, the horse danced away, dragging him with in an undignified hopping manoeuvre that maintained his balance but destroyed his dignity.

Xióngmāo laughed. “You can ride a horse?”

“Yes, of course I can,” he said. “I don’t think this horse is happy with me for disturbing its sleep.”

Xióngmāo turned her own horse and walked it up beside Zhou’s. She reached down and stroked his horses’s jaw for a moment, then fed it another date. “Try now.”

Zhou grabbed the high pommel, moved his weight onto the stirrup, jumped and pulled himself up. His trailing leg swung over the cantle and he settled into the saddle, finding the other stirrup with his foot to stabilise himself. He felt a grin split his face. Xióngmāo laughed again.

“Come on,” she said when her laughter died down. “We have a few hours start over them, but they know the steppes and are good trackers. If we keep moving we should reach the supplies by midday. They’ll be riding hard and swapping mounts. We have to protect and care for our horses. It is going to be close.”

The small
Wu
led the way and Zhou’s horse followed along. The relief of being off of his feet was short lived as the inside of his thighs and legs began to voice their own complaints. His spine soon joined the chorus of unhappiness. To take his mind off the pain, he gazed around at the landscape.

At the academy, where he had learned to read, write and understand the precepts and wisdom of Kǒng Zǐ, they had taught lessons about the known world. The countries to the west, such as Yìndù, and to the east across the sea, like Rìběn, with whom the Empire was alternatively trading or at war with. To the north, the Wall and the savages of whom little was known and taught. The land, it had been said, consisted of flat plains that stretched forever, where nothing was grown, mined or produced except for barbarian killers. Hence the building of the Wall to keep civilisation safe from the raiders who would rather kill and steal than learn to be part of the great Empire.

It was not like that though. From the very little Zhou had gleaned from his conversations with Xióngmāo in the refugee town and his time as a prisoner in the Mongol camp, a different picture had overlain the one created by his teachers.

The refugees were little different to the poor of Wubei. They had their own struggles to survive, to earn money and find food to eat. Every mother cared for their children and the men, the very young or the very old he had encountered in the town, still sought to protect their families. The language was different, but there were places in the Empire where other languages were spoken, where other dialects made even the same language difficult to understand. The food was different, simple and unrefined, single flavours rather than a complex series of tastes across the tongue. They still ate rice and meat, still drank water and wine.

The landscape was not that which his teachers had shown him on the maps. There were hills and valleys, not the sweeping majesty of the mountains and gorges of the northern empire, but it was far from the level, flat land he had expected. There were rivers too, small and thin, carrying little water though they ran slow and clear.

The morning wore on and the pain in his legs and spine was numbed by the constant repetitive steps of the beast below him. Climbing off the horse would not be pleasant, nor would putting weight on his legs. When his father had taught him to ride, all those years ago, he had not stayed in the saddle long enough to become saddle sore. He had heard about it from the grooms and other riders. Horror stories, to frighten children and amuse adults, of walking with bowed legs for weeks after. Zhou knew them now for what they were, but he expected the pain nonetheless.

They rode up another hill and descended the lee slope, out of the wind for a time, and there something that he had not realised, until that moment, he had not seen since the journey began, a tree.

It was tall, perhaps three or four times his height, and its trunk was smooth, bare of branches, to a level above his head. Where the few branches grew from the trunk they were thin, spindly, none carrying more than a few yellow leaves which curved up towards the end to point up at the grey sky.

“We’re here,” Xióngmāo said.

“Where?”

“The place where I hid the supplies,” she answered.

“Why here?”

“I needed a landmark to find them again. You have seen the plains, there is not a lot out here to guide and locate yourself. I was told about the tree and it was suggested that this was a good place to choose.” Xióngmāo guided her horse down to the tree and dismounted with the same grace she had displayed mounting it.

Zhou followed and bringing his horse to a halt, attempted to swing his leg over the cantle. It refused to move. Trying again, his muscles complained at the demands. He leaned to the left, hoping his weight would drag his foot clear of the stirrup, which it did. His supporting leg decided it was unwilling to take the burden of his whole body and gave way.

Turning at the last moment, he landed on his back. Breath exploded from his lungs and his head hit the thankfully, cushioning grass with enough force to make red and orange blotches dance in his eyes. Despite the impact, the ground felt a great deal more comfortable than being on the horse and he was tempted to close his eyes and sleep.

“Get up and walk around,” Xióngmāo said. “You need to get the blood flowing again. We have a long ride ahead of us and we will need to rest the horses every hour or two. You’ll need to protect your legs, we’ll be doing a lot of walking.”

Zhou struggled to his feet, his knee’s creaked, hips popped and muscles screamed at him. The first steps he took were those of a toddler, stiff legs, little balance, more a totter than a stride. He put a hand in the small of his back and pushed, attempting to straighten his spine. The effort drew a groan from deep in his chest. From the corner of his eye, he saw Xióngmāo shake her head. Determined not to embarrass himself further he kept moving. Each step was a little easier, the thick muscles in his thighs grudgingly obeyed his commands though they let him know on every step they were doing so under protest.

There was little to see and with no destination in mind he circumnavigated the tree a few times as he relearned to walk. At the base of the thin trunk, Xióngmāo had dug a pit and began to pull out a small selection of packs and saddle bags. Another circuit and the pit was being refilled with the excavated dark earth, her small hands pushing it back into the hole.

“That will not be easy to cover up,” Zhou said as he went around again.

“We are leaving a trail wide enough to follow as it is,” Xióngmāo replied. “There is nothing we can do about that. This though, this will be easy to hide. Watch.”

Zhou stopped next to her, rubbing his thighs with the palms of his hands, encouraging the blood to flow and the warmth to remain. Her final preparations were to stamp the earth flat with the sole of her leather shoes. Amongst the grassland, the deep black scar of the pit and freshly turned earth would be easy to spot. However, as he watched new green shoots appeared through the soil. They grew rapidly, reaching towards the sun, twisting, turning, and unfurling as they did so. A carpet of grass soon covered the bare earth and moments later it was impossible to say if there had ever been a hole there or not.

“How?”

“A friend of yours,” she said, holding his staff out towards him. “She wanted you to have this back.”

The short staff, barely reaching from the floor to the base of his rib cage, was just as he had last held it on the Wall. The polished wood was warm to the touch, the grain, mottled green, brown and flecks of silver-white, was smooth. No stubs of branches or twigs broke the surface of the wood, no knobs or knots to disturb a firm grip. The staff was straight, no curve, bend or warp. It was as if the tree had grown the rod of wood for the sole purpose of being a staff, a weapon.

And, Zhou thought, that is exactly what had happened.

There it was, the pulse of life beneath the exterior and it travelled through his hands, along the veins and arteries of his arms, into his heart. Warmth bloomed from the centre of his being, a new energy suffusing his body, washing away the pain in his legs and spine. Every beat of his heart sent a new wave through his body and, even through closed eyelids and dark clouds, the bright light of the sun shone yellow. He stretched his arms up towards it, feeling young and alive again.

In his mind, in that place where he had not been able to tread since the day of his capture, the tortured landscape turned green and verdant with life. From the imaginary sky above the ruin of his city, the ash covered graves of his family, a bright pillar descended. Where it touched the floor, grass and plants grew. Trees grew from sapling to full-grown in the space of a few heartbeats. Crowns spread and sheltered the ground below. Ferns grew on the shadowed ground and wild flowers burst forth in a multitude of colour wherever the canopy allowed a spear of sunlight through. New life wrapped itself around the ruins of the dead city.

“You do not have to exist here,”
the voice said.

“Yes, I do.”

“Life is death and death is life. You cannot have one without the other. What would be worth striving for if not for the realisation that you have only a short time to accomplish your goals,”
the voice persisted.
“The tree knows it may live for two hundred years, but that each season is like a day for you, and it must compete for sunlight, for water and food if it is to succeed and procreate, if it is to ensure its immortality in the next generation. The animals that live amongst its branches must brave the thinnest to gather the fruit and to avoid predators. They know that it is a risk, but one that must be taken if they are to succeed, if they are to have young.”

“My child is dead,”
Zhou said.

“We know,”
said the voice.
“Yet you live. You have more chances to succeed, to ensure your immortality. The good must have children to continue the fight against evil. Life is ever a struggle. Some win and some lose. The tree may not reach the sunlight, a great storm may rip it from the ground, but another will take its place in the struggle. The fallen tree will provide its goodness to the soil for the newcomer to use. Even in its downfall and death, it gives what it can to the struggle so that others may succeed. This is life.”

“I don’t want to have more children,”
Zhou said.
“The pain is too great. I cannot go through that again.”

“Then why do you go on?”

“I want to make the person who destroyed my city feel the pain I do.”

“You have already done that. You killed the duke in his castle. We helped you do that,”
said the voice.
“So, why do you go on?”

“The mountain,”
he answered.

“Mountains rise and mountains fall. The world has its own struggles.”

“They took my home from me, from the others.”

“You want revenge,”
the voice stated.

“Yes,”
Zhou answered.

“You will not get it. Not as you think and perceive. That which you achieve will be nothing but more dust and ash. This is not the struggle. To defeat your enemies, we understand. To find a place of safety and security, we agree. The real struggle is afterwards. What then will you do?”

Zhou gazed around the green covered remains of his city.
“I don’t know.”

“You have time,”
the voice said
, “but you cannot exist here forever. It will define you and influence everything you do, for good or evil. Pain only leads to more pain. Let it go.”

“No,”
Zhou said.

“We understand.”

An explosion of light burst from the centre of the city, blinding Zhou. He raised his arms over his face, protecting his eyes, and crouched down, turning his back to the light. A warm wind passed over him, ruffling his hair. Not the searing heat of a dust and debris laden explosion, more the first warm wind of summer that promised a bright day and rain later.

Blinking the tears from his eyes, he regained his feet and turned back to the ruins in his mind. The carpet of green life had gone, the grey, fire scorched remains had returned. In the distance, the green pillar had shrunk to a thread that twisted and twirled around a the brighter blue thread.

“We were sorry to block your access to the Spirit when you needed it the most,”
the voice said.
“However, we could not permit the other one to access our realm or that of your spirit. We gave assistance to the one who rescued you to balance our act.”

Zhou drew an angry breath, but the hot words on his tongue stayed there. Instead, he reached  out the fingers of his mind and grasped the blue thread. He climbed, hand over hand, faster and faster, the realms becoming a blur as he rose.

It was waiting for him. He poured his spirit into the panther and roared.