The Red Plains (The Forbidden List Book 3) (21 page)

“Her?” Gang said. “Liu is a man. Haung, if this person can’t even get that right why should we place our faith in them.”

“Your Liu is definitely a woman,” the stranger said, unclasping the headscarf and uncovering their face. Long black hair, braided on either side of her head, fell free and a woman’s face looked up at the angry warrior. “I have raised and looked after enough children, been midwife to more women than I can count. I know a woman when I see one.”

“So do I,” Gang countered.

“It is not the time to argue,” Haung said. “We have a bed at our inn. If the bleeding is stopped we can move Liu there. Gang, go and get a dock cart. Once we have Liu in bed, you can go and find a surgeon for a second opinion. At present, from what I can gather, Liu is out of danger and we need to be away from these,” and he held up the dagger before his eyes, inspecting it for the first time and remembering the archer, “Mongols?”

“There it is,” she said, reining in her horse and letting Zhou catch up.

They had kept the extra layers on as they ascended the foothills, away from the desert. He was grateful to be rid of the sand, out of the blinding storms and had hoped for the weather to improve, to warm a little, once they were out of the wind. He was disappointed.

“It looks deserted,” he said.

The foothills continued to rise and the temperature to drop. Raised in Wubei, a city in the mountains, a city of ash now, the cold weather was not unknown. As winter tightened its grip, it would get colder still. Winters in Wubei had been a time of wonder and danger. Thick snow had coated the high pastures and only the main roads kept clear by troops who were happy to be doing something that kept them warm. He remembered completing his obligatory time in the army, back when he was young and before he started his studies. Being on guard, standing still and watching, was the most hated duty during winter.

“I don’t think it is,” she replied, before adding, “totally.”

He followed the direction of her pointing finger and spotted the smudge of smoke rising into the grey sky. The temple ahead appeared to have been hewn into the cliff face itself and the smoke was twisting out of a window high in the rocks.

The track, he refused to call the weed strangled cobbles a road, led to a large double door, the arch of which blended in with the rocks of the cliff. No one seemed to be on guard duty unless they watched from one of the many windows that dotted the face of the sheer rocks. Someone, perhaps many people, had spent a long time carving statues and symbols into the solid rock. A few of the stone figures looked to be twice or even three times Zhou’s height and all of them were engaged in some activity or another, mining, quarrying, smelting, beating metal and others he could not ascertain. As for the symbols, they were meaningless to him. They might have been writing, but nothing he could decipher, or they could be stylised pictures of something else.

“Are we going in?” he asked. The promise of a warm fire was calling to him.

“That is why we came here,” Xióngmāo replied.

“Who are we meeting?”

“There is someone in here that we have to talk to.”

“Who?” he pushed.

“I don’t know,” she replied. “Someone important, probably the Abbot. They have something we need to take to our next destination.”

“We have somewhere else to go? After this I thought we would be heading back into the Empire. Now we know who set the war in motion, the one responsible for my city’s destruction and the death of my wife and child,” he stopped, took a deep breath and forced down the anger, containing it. Control was central to the life of
Wu
. Control of one’s self, one’s emotions and thoughts. By knowing yourself, you could know the spirit. By understanding yourself, you understood the spirit. “We can help with the defence of the Empire.”

Xióngmāo reaching the door to the temple, slid from her horse and turned to him. “I understand that, Zhou. I know you want to take revenge and I know your spirit pushes you to defend its territory, mine wishes the same. It is the nature of animals to defend what is theirs. Put it aside for a moment. We have been told to come here by the Emperor. He too will be working to defend the Empire and this is part of it.”

Zhou slid from his own horse to stand next to her and looked down into her eyes. “We are on the very edge of the Empire, far from the war. We are running away when we could be fighting.”

“We are doing what we have to do, Zhou. Understand, not all wars are won on the edge of sword. They are won by the actions those outside of the battle. This is important to the war and it is our responsibility to see it through. The Emperor has given us this task.”

“So you say.” He heard the words escape his mouth and wished, with all his being, that he could take them back. The look in her eyes hurt more than the fall from the Wall. “I’m sorry.”

“If you don’t trust me, Zhou, leave. Go your own way. It was the Emperor who helped me find you, helped me rescue you from the Mongols and now, with one simple task, you throw all that away. Is that really the person you want to be? Would your wife recognise the man in front of me now?” She held her ground and stared into his shame-filled eyes. “Would your son be proud of you?”

“You don’t...” he tried, anger warred with shame and lost. “No, they would not. Xióngmāo, I am sorry. Those words.”

She held up a hand and stopped him. “Do not explain, Zhou. You will only take the truth away from the apology, lessening it. Believe me, I understand the frustration and anger, but this is vital. I do not like being away from the Empire when it is in trouble. I have spent centuries looking after it and its people.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, all his diplomatic eloquence fleeing before her dark eyes.

“The temple door,” she said, indicating he should seek entrance.

Cold knuckles met cold, hard wood and the echoes took a long time to die away. Zhou blew on his hands as he awaited an answer. None came and he knocked again. After waiting what he considered to be a polite length of time, he turned to Xióngmāo and shrugged.

“Try opening the door?” she said.

He grabbed the thick bronze rings on either door, thankful it was not iron. Had it been there was a good chance he would have left a layer of skin behind on the metal when he pulled his hands away. He gave the rings a tug, the door did not move so he pushed instead. The wooden doors bowed inwards a little, but still did not open.

“Locked,” he said.

Xióngmāo shook her head and gazed up towards the window from which smoke still billowed.

“Call?” she suggested, raising an eyebrow as she spoke.

“Hello!” Zhou shouted. “Open the doors.”

Three more times he shouted and there was no answer. He knocked once more, for the sake of symmetry more than expectation.

“We need to get into the temple,” Xióngmāo said.

“It is deserted,” he said.

“The smoke?”

“Could be any number of reasons,” he replied.

“Describe one,” she said and when he struggled, she laughed. It was a good sound, one he worried he might never have heard again.

“I could break it down?” he suggested and called to the spirit. It leaped down the blue thread in his mind and expanded in his consciousness. His vision changed. The muted colours of winter were overlain with blue. He let the anger rise in his chest, ready to transfer feeling into strength and power.

“We will not break into a temple, Zhou. It is not right.”

“We have to do something,” he said, holding the spirit close. “I am not spending another night out in the cold. Not when there is a wall, a fire and, hopefully, a bed close by.”

He shouted once more, letting the great cat that was his spirit add its own growl to the tone. There was no answer so he raised his fist, to bang it hard upon the door. If it accidently broke open, well, surely he could be blamed for that. The meaty side of his closed fist met the door and the world vanished.

# # #

He fell.

He knew he was falling. He’d fallen before. Arms wheeling, mouth open, screaming. Panic. Fear.

The spirit took control, turning and twisting to guide his descent. Manoeuvring his body, flattening it out to increase the resistance of the wind, and ensuring he faced in the direction of the fall, getting ready for the landing. The impact, a small part of his thoughts shouted at him.

Only there did not appear to be a floor. There was, when the initial fear had subsided, nothing. Everything was dark. Not the dark of night, it was not black, it was grey. A dark grey to be sure, but not black, and the more he examined it, the more less uniform it seemed.

He became used to falling. Without a floor in sight, and as the time passed, it stopped being a thing of fear and perversely, he felt, it was almost enjoyable. With fear no longer dominating is thoughts, he stopped fighting the fall and focused instead on the grey. With the eyes of the spirit, he examined the new world around him.

Amongst the dark grey, he started to notice a mottling of lighter greys, flecks of blue and green. These grew and sparkled with different hues, some glowed and others pulsed. He saw they were connected to the greyness surrounding them by little filaments, tiny wisps of colour. There were dark spaces too.

There was no impact, no smashing into an unseen floor, no snapping of bones or explosion of gore. One second he was falling and the next he was not.

“You are both welcome.”

# # #

Light and the door opening.

He could not stop his fist moving, the power of his own muscles and the spirit driving it forward, and he missed the door. Set for the expected resistance and finding none, he lost his balance and fell into the temple. Spirit enhanced reflexes saved him from falling face first onto the stone floor, but the stumble to his knees was less than graceful and more than a little embarrassing.

“It seems we have been invited in,” Xióngmāo said, stepping past him. “Shall we go and see if they can help. Close the door behind you. No point letting the cold in.”

“Pass me the thread.”

Haung picked up the small spool of silk from amongst the instruments on the table and passed it to the lady who bent over Liu’s unconscious form. The master of the twin axes was laid, face down, on the table in Haung’s room. The room itself was bathed in flickers of orange and yellow light. Oil lamps and candles rested on every flat surface.

“Will he,” Haung corrected himself, “will she be all right?”

“The wound is deep, Haung. I can prevent the bleeding, though it is tiring to work at such small scales. The needle and thread should take care of the rest. As long as I do not cut too deeply and sew carefully. Your warrior will be swinging those axes again in a few months. The muscles will take some time to bind themselves together again, even with the help of the thread,” the lady said.

“But why isn’t she awake?” Haung said. In the war with Wubei, and on the Wall, he had seen the surgeons work, their patients awake and screaming until a draught could be swallowed, or forced down their throats. For many it was their last drink in this life.

“I’m keeping her asleep. It is easier for her and for me, the less she moves, the more careful my stiches can be,” the lady explained.

“How?”

The lady turned her face to Haung, an exasperated look in her eyes and a frown creasing her forehead. “You will not leave me alone to work, even though I am trying to save the life of your friend? Is your trust so difficult to give?”

“I’m sorry,” Haung said. “I was trained to be suspicious, and I like knowing things. It makes decisions easier to make, if I know what is going on.”

She stared at him for a long moment and he in turn, took the chance to inspect her features. She was young, much younger than he had suspected from her words after the battle at the docks. Long hair, tied back into a ponytail, and dark eyes that reminded him of Xióngmāo’s, too knowing, too measuring, to make him feel entirely comfortable. There were creases on her face, around her eyes and mouth that suggested she smiled a lot, or frowned, he allowed. On her left cheek a tattoo, three rings through which a single line wound and twisted. She still wore the same long dark robe, not cut in any fashion of the empire and the belt round her waist held her scabbarded sword.

“I am suppressing the amount of air in her lungs. Not only does that protect the one that is damaged and allow me to repair the damage, but it has the added bonus of keeping her unconscious. It is doing no harm as long as I work quickly and for that to happen you need to trust me. If you are about to ask me how, don’t bother. It will take too long and you will have more questions than I can answer in time to save her life. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just call it magic and get on with this.” She did not wait for answer, turning back to her work, the needle dipping into Liu’s flesh and remerging stained red.

He watched her work, alert and suspicious. The wound was deep, he had seen the knife plunged into Liu’s back, but slowly the open gash was being drawn together. The lady did not look away from the wound, speaking only to give Haung instructions, which instrument to hand over, when to rethread a needle with yet more silk and when to step out of the light if he got too close.

The door was thrown open and a dishevelled man was pushed in. Haung moved to catch the untidy fellow before he clattered into the instruments or, worse still, the table where Liu lay.

“Found one,” Gang said. “The fool took a while to wake up and then tried to say he wasn’t going to come with me. I changed his mind.”

“A doctor?” Haung said.

“Reckoned to be one of the best. I did some asking,” Gang said, closing the door behind him and looking round for the first time. “Lot of lights. Now get the foreign woman out of the way and let the doctor do his work.”

“Gang,” Haung began, “she is almost finished.”

“What? No,” Gang took a step forward and pointed an accusing finger at Haung. “How could you let her treat Liu? Get out of the way, Haung. Let the doctor repair the damage she’ll have done.”

Haung looked at the doctor. The man was stick thin and did indeed look like he had been woken from a deep sleep, and none too kindly. With his hands on the doctor’s arms, he could feel the man trembling in fear.

“Doctor,” Haung said. “I am sorry you have been dragged here tonight. My name is Colonel Haung. It is good to meet you, though we might wish under different circumstances.”

The man’s gaze flitted around the room, taking in the candles, the instruments and the body on the table. A semblance of control seemed to return as he realised that he was in a somewhat familiar situation.

“Colonel,” he said, “I am Doctor Zhi and I do not appreciate this sort of treatment.”

Haung could see the doctor was not finished, but interrupted anyway. “Of course not, good Doctor, but we appreciate you coming anyway. One of our small group was injured in an altercation at the docks a little while ago and Master Gang is rightly concerned for their well-being.”

“Well,” Zhi said, lifting his frame into an upright stance, shoulders back and chest puffed out, reminiscent, Haung thought, of a peacock about to fan its tail, “let me see the man then.”

Haung stepped aside and let Zhi pass. The lady ceased bending over the injured Liu and stepped aside, not uttering a word as she did so.

“Now, let’s see what we have here,” Zhi said, taking up the spot the lady vacated. “Interesting, a knife wound?”

The question was not addressed to either Gang or Haung, Zhi was looking at the lady. She nodded in return.

“Good stich work here. They’ll hardly leave a scar. All the internal bleeding stopped?”

The lady nodded again.

“Punctured the lung, I’d bet,” Zhi said, turning to Haung and doing his best to avoid Gang’s furious looks. “You can see the bruising around the wound that indicates the force and angle of the knife.”

Zhi put two fingers alongside Liu’s neck, nodding to himself as he did so. Then he rested a palm on either side Liu’s spine.

“Good work,” Zhi said. “Pulse is strong, and the lung appears to be re-inflating, though it will be weak for a while. I would suggest bed rest for a month or two, then a further two or three of limited physical activity. Give the lady enough time to recover her strength. If I am honest,” he said with an accusing tone in his voice, “I do not think you needed to wake me up, drag me across the city to treat a lady who was already under care almost as good as I could give.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Haung said.

“Liu’s a lady,” Gang said, the anger fleeing his face, replaced by open-mouthed shock.

“Of course she is,” Zhi said. “Any fool can see that. Now, if that is all, I will be returning to bed. You can expect my bill in the morning.”

The stick thin doctor swept past Gang, his head held high and a careful refusal to meet the large warrior’s shocked eyes.

# # #

The dawn’s light crept in through the inn’s window and Haung awoke to find he had fallen asleep upright in a wooden chair. In his sleep misted sight he could see that Gang had done the same. The large man had moved his chair up to the side of Liu’s table, where she slept. The big man was still asleep. In the corner, where the light had not yet reached, the lady sat, her eyes watching him.

“Good morning, Colonel Haung,” she said in her sing-song voice. “In all the confusion of last night, I don’t think we have been properly introduced and there are some things that perhaps only you should hear. My name is Sabaa. Please don’t worry about your friends, they will sleep a little longer.”

Haung stood up. His back complained at the sudden movement and his legs added their own chorus of unhappiness. “You are keeping them asleep?”

“I am,” she said from her seat.

He waited for more, but nothing was forthcoming and he considered her actions. She had saved Liu’s life last night, fought alongside them and posed no threat, that is until now. Keeping Gang asleep, however she did it, was not the act of a friend and Haung was tempted to settle into the quiet, to be ready for her next move. “Will you let them wake?”

“The large one with the quick temper and slow mind will awake as soon as our conversation is done. The injured lady, Liu, it would be better for her if she slept for longer. It stops her moving about too much and tearing the stiches. I promise, no harm will come to them.”

“I am listening,” Haung said.

“Good, that’s a start. Your friends will need to remain here when we leave. The lady is too injured to travel and it would be better if she was accompanied by someone she knows and trusts. Liu is going to be in bed for a few weeks at least. That is not easy for anyone, and for a lady in a strange town it is even harder.” She lifted a finger, forestalling Haung’s objections. “The stiches will help her body to repair the damage. I used small stiches to minimise the scarring and so that she could regain her former freedom of movement. A sudden movement, a jolt, a twist, anything could rip the flesh they are in. She stay’s here, in this room preferably and Gang stays with her. I understand he has known Liu for a long time as a man. We talked last night, while you slept. He has a lot to come to terms with and we have a dangerous path ahead of us if everything your Emperor sent to me is true. I have somewhere to be in the not too distant future. Gang understands this and has agreed.”

Haung was silent for a moment, processing the news, and had only one question. “Why not tell me all this with Gang awake? If he agrees to it all.”

“I was not sure of your reaction. Gang describes you as an honourable man, one who puts the lives of others above his own. There was a chance that you would take issue with this news or, worse yet, try to force the issue. It might have become embarrassing for Gang,” she explained. “I have lived a long time by taking care of men’s egos. Your sex seems to have the ability to blow any imagined slight out of all proportion. I have seen embarrassment lead to the deaths of thousands and learned to step carefully when I can.”

“As long as Gang agrees when he wakes, I see no need to do anything. My task was simply to escort you, safely, to the capital and a meeting with the Emperor,” Haung said.

“I have news regarding that too. While you all slept, I sent my gaze as far as I could. I looked at your capital. It is under siege by an army. By the state of their camp, I would say they arrived early yesterday morning. The road back to the capital is not going to be an easy one.”

# # #

“Are you sure this is what you want?” Haung asked.

“It is,” Gang replied.

Both men had left the room where Liu lay, tended by Sabaa, and descended the stairs to the main room. The fire had been lit and the heat was slowly working its way across the room. Aside from the two of them and a few waiters, the room was empty. Haung ordered a pot of tea and a bowl of
congee
. For once Gang did not eat.

“We can make sure she is looked after, if you come.”

“It’s not that, Haung. I know we could pay for her care, the Emperor’s seal and orders would do that, but I have an obligation. All those years we were sent on the Emperor’s orders, all over the Empire, and I never knew. I’m not the quickest thinker, I know that, but I should have noticed something, shouldn’t I?” Gang looked at him with pleading eyes.

“Liu had me fooled too, Gang. We spent all that time on the Wall, in combat and on the retreat, and I never noticed a thing. It never occurred to me and, don’t forget, I am trained to be observant, to find out secrets. I suppose the insistence on a separate room when we arrived at the Wall wasn’t just because your snoring sounds like a mill full of carpenters all sawing at a particularly stubborn log.”

“I don’t snore,” Gang said with an indignant half-smile.

At least the large warrior had not lost his sense of humour. “Why would someone pretend that they were male?”

“Oh no, Haung, that makes some sense. Liu travelled all over the Empire and not everyone, everywhere treats women with respect. A woman travelling on their own would raise suspicions or make some men think they could act in a certain way. He, she, Liu would have taught them the error of their ways quickly enough. Liu is as dangerous without her axes as she is with them. The more I say ‘she’, the more I get used it.” Gang shook his head, picked up his tea and, after a moment, put it down again. “Travelling as man she would not be forced to defend her honour against every idiot, in every inn along the road. Believe me, Haung, there are a lot of idiots out there. No, travelling and living as a man makes a certain sense, but why didn’t she tell me?”

“Perhaps she feared your reaction, that you would treat her differently?” Haung said.

Gang stared at Haung for a moment. Haung let the big man some time to think it through and ate a little of congee.

“You might be right,” Gang eventually conceded, “however, I owe her a lot. There have been too many times when my temper got us into fights and her axes saved my skin, or her words calmed everyone down. She has saved my life many times over and I have a duty to repay that.”

“I understand,” Haung said.

“Plus, when you think about, here is a woman who knows everything about me, all my faults and idiocies, and still fights at my side,” Gang laughed. “Not many that would do that.”

“Only one, perhaps.” Haung nodded and both men settled into silence whilst they finished their tea.