Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 183: Attack

Meiying had the duty helping Yun Ming Manage the for defense. She was fresh enough to her new role that she still enjoyed the responsibility—making a special effort to be clean, neat, with her qi armor well-polished, dressed as a qi warrior. She knew that many of the older men resented taking orders from a woman, and she understood that a perfect turnout helped.

She set the guards at the main gate and marched the duty detachment to their posts, relieving each post in turn—challenge, secret codes, posting by the numbers, and accepting the salutes—she loved the ceremony. She also loved seeing the effect on the farmers and their families. Farmers clean and oil their tools, tour their livestock, morning and night.

They recognize a patient craftsman when they see one, even when the craft is war.

She relieved the last post and marched the off-going group through the courtyard to the base of the West Tower, where she dismissed them. Two slow-moving archers were detailed to wash the heavy wooden piling driven into the ground for sword practice—one of the warriors had been tied to it for his punishment, and it had various substances on it that needed cleaning off.

Then she climbed the steps to the tower, listening to the departing warriors. She was listening for criticism; she expected it. She wasn't really good enough to be a third in command. She wanted to be—but there was so much to learn.

And she knew that this was going to be a tough night. All across the main towers, men were polishing, sharpening weapons, checking the stuffing on armors. A thousand rituals to conjure safety and luck in battle. And they were all tired.

At the head of the stairs stood Baijian, her nemesis, with his cronies. She straightened her back, noticed that even though he was supposedly off-duty, he was still fully armed, wearing full Qi armors except for the cloak and the mask, which sat together on the table. She noted that his armor was as carefully polished as her own.

He was talking to Wanxie, and they were smiling. She met their looks and glared. "What?"

"Your people look good enough for the Royal Guard," Baijian said with a rich chuckle.

"What the hell does that mean?" she spat. She looked past him, over the walled balcony that let light and air into the tower from the courtyard. She could see the monk from here, climbing out on the wall. She wondered what he was doing there.

Wanxie slapped his thigh and roared, "Told you!" he shouted, and went back to his game, and she forgot the monk.

"Can't even take a normal compliment."

She glared at both of them and went to the roof to watch her posts. "Where are all the Qi warriors? Young Master left a note—"

Baijian nodded to her. "I've got it. I'm preparing the expedition group to head out of the fort." Meiying felt a keen disappointment edged with anger that was her thing; the young master always sent her for these tasks.

A group? But—' 'You have the duty,' Baijian said. 'It's my turn.'

'It's always your turn,' she shot back.

He nodded, unrepentant. "I am the chief, my sweet. I will lead this expedition until the immortals return—perhaps even longer. Wait your turn."

She drew herself up. But Baijian shook his head. "Nay—never mind me, Meiying. That was ill-said. But I want the expedition group. The boys need to see me fight."

"And you love it," Meiying said. She put her nose very close to his. "I love it too, you bastard."

Baijian laughed. "Point taken, mistress.'

She backed off. "I want my turn. Anyway—where is everyone?"

'The boys are all off confessing to the monk. Don't worry, Meiying. We probably won't go. But there's going to be an expedition group ready all night, every night, in the covered way.'

Meiying shook her head and went up the steps to the rooftop, feeling left out.

Full night had descended, and the eerie calls of the encircling foes might have struck fear into anyone who dwelled on such things, but she remained unshaken. Instead, she joined her comrades at the massive ballista, now mounted on an intricate array of gimbals crafted by the old advisor.

She tried it herself. Now it moved like a living thing. Xianyu Ma, the man responsible for the machine, patted it affectionately. "The old advisor gave it soul? That's what he did. It's alive.

Going to get us a few flying serpents, next time one comes"'

She swung it back and forth. It was physically pleasant to move—like playing some sort of game.

"Sometimes a machine is just a machine," said a strong voice, and the old man himself emerged from the darkness. She was meeting the old man for the first time, and she startled.

"It is indeed fortunate that we are suddenly graced with fifty skilled artisans. A plasterer skilled in detailed designs. Bladesmiths capable of crafting springs. A carpenter adept in fine woodworking." He gave a casual shrug. "In truth, it is an ancient contraption I discovered in a tome.

The artisans brought it to life." Yet, the elder's eyes gleamed with satisfaction as he affectionately patted the device. "Though I must admit, I did imbue it with a whisper of Qi Magic."

"Which he magicked it, and now it's alive!" said Xianyu Ma happily. "Going to bag us a flying serpent."

Xilai shrugged as if mocking the ignorance of men—while accepting their plaudits.

His eyes lingered on her.

Heavens—did the old advisor find her attractive? That was a chilling thought. She wriggled involuntarily.

He caught her movement and laughed. Then stopped laughing. "Something is moving down between the forts," he said.

She leaned over the tower. "Wait a little," she said. Then, "How did you know?"

His eyes glowed a little in the dark. "I know," he said. "I can make the sky bright for a moment."

"No need," she said.

Sure enough, there was a low clash, as if of cymbals, and then another. "Young Master put lines of tin bangles across the fields," she said as the ballista spun, Xianyu Ma pulled its lever, and a bolt crashed out into the darkness.

On the neighboring tower, the ballista unleashed a volley of arrows, and suddenly the night air was pierced by a chorus of screams.

A retaliatory bolt of purple-gray lightning shot out of the darkness and struck the tower on which the ballista rested. Sparks flew as if a smith was pounding red-hot metal.

"Heavens, what the hell was that?" Meiying asked the darkness. Her night-sight was ruined by the gray bolt; all she could see was a pattern on her retinas.

Old Xilai leaned over the tower, and a bolt of fire sprayed from his hand—it passed almost exactly down the line of the gray lightning, as far as the dancing images on her retinas could discern.

"Damn, damn, damn," he said. Over and over.

His target caught fire in the distance—a giant of a man, or an oddly misshapen specter. The size of a tree? Perhaps two trees.

"Dear God," Xilai muttered. "Again!" he called.

Xianyu Ma needed no urging. Meiying watched her crew as they danced through their drill—two men wound the winch, slipped the cocking mechanism into place, removed the winch again, a third carried the twenty-pound bolt as easily as if it were made of straw, dropped it into the charge-trough, and pushed it back until the huge nock engaged the heavy string.

Xianyu Ma spun his machine with one hand, gave the burning specter man a hint of windage, and pulled the release.

Another line of lightning, this one levin-bright, flashed onto the north tower and rock exploded. Men screamed. Her men.

She turned and ran for the stairs. And then paused. She couldn't be in both towers at the same time.

Behind her, the two attendants winding the bow sweated to do it as fast as they could, but Xianyu Ma didn't look at them or at Min, a giant, who dropped the next bolt into the trough with perfect timing, so that just as the string clicked into place on the latch, the nock slid back and engaged the string, and Xianyu Ma had the weapon aimed.

Xilai grunted something and cast fire on the earth. His fire was caught as if by a basket of gray light, and cast straight back at them; quicker than thought, his own basket of blue lightning caught it and he threw it back—

Xianyu Ma pulled the release.

The bolt hit the specter man squarely in the bony trunk. The bolt was enchanted. There was a roar and a burst of ball lightning like a summer night, and the tower trembled. The ball struck the curtain wall over the main gate and there was a cataclysmic explosion—like pouring water on a hot rock, expanded a thousand times.

The curtain wall groaned, buckled, and collapsed outward, and the new covered way behind the gate started to take hits.

Someone was alert and still moving on the ballista tower, though, because a basket of red-hot bolts—another of the old advisor's innovations—flew from the ballista, the arrows flashing through the air like meteorites.

All the lights went out together, and then there was quiet, punctuated by screams from the plain far below. And moans.

"Again!" Xilai called. "Same target. Hit him again! Before he can—"