Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 190: Poison

Meiying started to cough.

"Xilai!" Wuyi called.

"I see it, young man."

"Do something!" Wuyi shouted in his head.

Wuyi could feel the poison thickening in the air. It was some curse, the physical manifestation of a curse. He went into his chamber. "I need help. We are going to try something new," he said to his statues.

"A curse. A physical curse – a poison in the air. we need to fix it." He went to the side wall of his chamber.

"None of us have special affinity to wind," he got a message from the statue of harmony.

"But the chamber can manipulate the elements. And we have help from the fort." He reached to the wall.

"Since it's a curse and wind, the statue of knowledge and Light should help resolve it," the statue of harmony communicated.

"That's a fine thought. We just act as conduits." He looked up at the wall of the chamber filled with symbols.

"Light and Knowledge," he said, and the great ranges of symbols rotated silently. The two statues got up from their platforms, walked to him, and kept their hands on his shoulder. The wall of the chamber lit up. At the same time, a light came from the main fort.

In the outside world, the wind came up without warning – first a heavy gust that cooled them, and then a mighty rush of air from the east. Meiying drew a shuddering breath.

"Get a scarf over your face," Wuyi shouted. "Anything." The wind moved the poison, but he could still smell it. And then he felt the sending. It was gentle as snow, and just for a heartbeat, the air seemed to sparkle all around them, as if the world was made of life. All the warriors who had inhaled the poison were feeling healed.

✶ ✶ ✶

Xilai watched the Pavilion Mistress's work, and he could only think of Luding's statement that men were too divided. It was beautiful, the sort of mathematical mysticism that moved him the most deeply. In it were the rotations of the planets and the paths of the stars across the heavens. And many other things, thought and unthought.

"You are far more powerful than I had imagined," Xilai said.

She smiled. Just for a moment, it was the Queen's smile.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"You know who I am," she said playfully. She rose from her seat. "I think Luding will find it very hard to use that trick again."

Xilai raised an eyebrow. "Trick?" he asked. "It was any special mystic art? Not as I understand them."

"There are more things in heaven and earth than are in your philosophy," she said. "He uses the deaths of the Duskreavers to fuel his curse. It is a very, very ancient demonic art."

Xilai nodded in sudden understanding. "But you—"

"I stand for life," the Pavilion Mistress said. "Me and the pavilion as well." She smiled sweetly. "He will not be back for some time. I need to speak to a novice. Pray excuse me."

Xilai bowed. As she swept past him, he said, "Lady—"

"Yes? Advisor?" She paused. Her attendants paused, and she waved them on.

"If we connected our power through the array, lady, we could—" he said.

She made a moue. "Then you would know all my innermost thoughts. And I yours," she said.

"We would be more powerful," he insisted.

"I am already linked to my novices. And to all my elders," she said. "We are one."

"Of course you are," Xilai said. "Heaven, of course you are. I'm a fool." It was obvious when she said it. Forty weak Qi novices would still be very powerful indeed, together. But it would require incredible discipline, like monks.

"I will think on it," she said. She smiled. He watched her go and then sat beneath the apple tree.

✶ ✶ ✶

The Siege of Yushan Fort. Day Eleven Jia's Notes

The Young Master took the watch to support our group in the Lower Town – a small fortified bastion at the base of the ridge. The enemy has constructed large stone throwers – to attack. Because of the range of ballistas atop the fortress, and because we can launch raid groups from the fortress through the streets of the Lower Town, the Young Master says that the enemy must take the Lower Town first.

Enemy made two attempts, but both resulted in heavy losses of creatures of the demonic wild. We lost not a single man or woman yesterday. The Pavilion Mistress called on the power of the heavens and defeated the enemy's poison air. Many men felt lighter at heart after she prayed.

But the enemy's stone throwers now throw heavy stones all the time. The air is full of smoke, and many of the farm folk have become angry and downcast. During the night, swamplings assaulted Bridge Castle, but their surprise failed, and they were driven off.

Jia put his brush down and shook his head at the ink stain on his forefinger. Xin Yi had not come out to meet him last night, even though he was on his way to the Lower Town. The farmers were angry – he could feel it. Old Lan, an oily bastard in the early days of the siege, was now surly and silent. Farmers muttered when he walked by. They resented their boys being taken to be archers.

And perhaps resented—

"I will marry her," he said to himself. But he couldn't keep his eyes open...

✶ ✶ ✶

The curtain wall around the Lower Town was gradually pounded to rubble. Before the sun rose, the stars were obscured, and clouds rolled in. The rain that started wasn't hard, but it was soaking and cold.

"Attack coming," Dong said, rubbing his cheek. The boy's breath was sweet with peach juice. Wuyi rose blearily, feeling as if he'd been tired forever. It was an effort of will to run through his mental exercises, and it was torture to arm. Dong had to put his armor on him – Jia was down in the Lower Town. Every man and woman had to do their duty now.

When he went out on the wall, the fields were moving again, lines of Duskreavers marching to form up opposite the northern flank of the town. Now they had shields – great pavises of heavy bark stripped from downed trees in the deep woods. They formed in six deep columns, glistening in the light rain.

Baijian had twenty Qi warriors and as many initiates and attendants waiting for them, and twenty archers on the tower. The breaches in the town wall glittered damply with men in armored Qi cloaks. The enemy's stone throwers were silent.

Yuei stepped up on the wall with his Young Master. "It's done," he said. He pointed to the squat remnants of the former southern tower. Now it was a ballista platform, two storeys tall, crowned with a ballista whose launching arm was as tall as the spire on the pavilion hall.

Wuyi gave him a tired smile. "Let's see if we can give Master Luding another surprise," he said. "Let's go."

The first arrow was loaded with some trepidation. The bow arm of the ballista would throw a man in Qi armour five hundred paces, a horse three hundred paces. Yuei fussed like a mother sending her child to a clan gathering for the first time.

Xianyu Ma, who was supposed to be off duty but whose love of ballistas outweighed his good sense, pushed the loader out of the way and positioned the arrow into the great hemp-rope web.

"Care to do the honours?" Yuei asked Wuyi.

"Everyone off the tower," Wuyi said.

Every one of the farmers was in the courtyard. They'd worked like draught animals to get the ballista built and in place – to level the stump of the tower. Their grumbling was loud and aggressive, and Wuyi ignored them. But he needed them to wind the arm into place.

When they were all clear, Wuyi pulled the lever. The ballista's arm moved slowly at first, then rotated faster and faster until the great bow at the end was fully drawn. The arm and its tension passed the centre of rotation and the tension released – thump – and the arrow flew free, rising for what seemed an incredibly long time.

And of course, the heavy arrow started three hundred feet above the fields below. It rose and rose, passing over the Duskreavers, who had just started to move forward, clearly unsure of the efficacy of their new shields. Then it began to fall.

It came down at a steep angle, passing over the Duskreavers, over the deep trench the boglins had dug, over the enemy's attacking platform, the mound on which his stone throwers sat, and vanished into the trees of the woods at the western edge of the cleared ground.

It did no damage to anyone or anything. But the farmers cheered, and the archers cheered, and Wuyi grinned to see it. Yuei ran back up the ladder and pounded his Young Master on the back. Wuyi smiled. "Nice work."