Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 196: Not Really a Battle

Master Zhang waited a moment, looking at the two messengers. "Wait here," he said aloud. These were the first words Han had heard from any of them since they left the Royal Camp. The black-clad Qi warriors vanished into the woods.

An hour passed. It was cold – the spring evenings were longer, but not much warmer. Han couldn't decide whether he was cold enough to take his great cloak out of the bundle behind his crupper or not. He didn't want to be caught dismounted at the wrong moment. He cursed Master Zhang and his silence.

He kept looking at the older messenger, Feng, who waited, apparently calm, without fidgeting, for the whole hour.

"Here they come," Han said suddenly.

Master Zhang walked up to his horse and sheathed his sword on the saddle. "Come," he said. He was smiling.

He walked off up the steep hill, and all the horses followed him. "Uncanny," Feng said. He spat and made an avert sign.

They wound around the hill, widdershins, climbing as they went around. It seemed a tedious way of getting to the top, but in the very last light, Han could see that the crown of the hill was steep and girt in rock.

The horse ahead of him shied, and then was quiet. Han looked down and saw a corpse. And then another. And another and another.

They were not human. He wasn't sure what they were – small and brown, with big heads, cords of muscle, beautifully worked leather clothes, and huge wounds made by two-handed swords.

"By the Righteous Heavens," Feng said aloud.

There was the smell of fire, and then they came over a crest.

The top of the hill was hollow. It was like a giant cup, and the Qi warriors had three fires going, and food cooking. Han's stomach, outraged by the inhuman corpses and their red-green blood, now seized on the smell of food. Rice congee.

"Unsaddle your horse, and curry him," Master Zhang said. "After that, he'll see to himself."

Feng frowned, but Han refused to be moved by the older man's caution. Han was suffused with joy. He was living one of his secret dreams.

Feng clearly wanted to go back to the king.

"They fought a battle," Han said, his eyes sparkling in the firelight. "And we didn't even hear them."

Master Zhang smiled at Han. "Not really a battle," he said. "More of a massacre. The demonics didn't see us coming."

He shrugged. "Have some congee. Tomorrow will be harder."

✶ ✶ ✶

Li Zhuang had done his exercises of arms and had offered his prayers to the Righteous Sages. And now he had little to do. He'd had enough of his cousin and enough of the army in every way.

He mounted his riding horse, left his attendant at his tent door, and went for a ride.

The camp was enormous – a sprawling thing as big as a market fair or a small town, with more than two thousand tents, hundreds of wagons drawn up like a wall, and a ditch all the way around it, dug to the height of a man and with the upcast flung back to form a low rampart.

No man was allowed outside the ditch on pain of punishment. Li Zhuang understood – better than his cousin – that he needed to set an example, so he rode slowly around the perimeter, nodding to the Tianqin warriors he knew and their lords.

He saw a pair of younger men with hawks on their wrists, and he was envious.

He thought of home. Of sun-drenched valleys. Of riding out with his sister's friends, for a day of wit and wine and frolic, chasing birds, climbing trees, watching a well-formed body on a horse, or by a stream...

He shook his head, but the image of Mei Ling, his sister's friend who visited him, looking back over her naked shoulder before leaping into the lake haunted him.

There had been nothing between them. Until that moment, he hadn't even noticed her except as a pretty face among his sister's friends.

"Why am I here?" Li Zhuang asked himself.

"See something you like?" said a familiar voice. Li Zhuang reined in, his reverie exploded.

It was the old archer. Li Zhuang was surprised to find that he was happy to see the low-born man.

"You were going home," Li Zhuang said.

The old man laughed. "Heh," he said. "Lord Wang asked me to stay. I'm a fool – I stayed. I sent my useless brother-in-law home." He shrugged. "Of the two of us, my daughter probably needs him the more."

"The Lord of Liangcheng?" Li Zhuang asked.

"The very same. I was his archer on the campaign, oh, ten years back." He shrugged. "Those were some hairy times."

Li Zhuang nodded. "I knew you were a warrior at heart."

The old archer grinned. "Aye. Well. I meant what I said. It's all foolishness. Why are we at war with the demonic Wild?

When I lie out at night hunting, I love to have a chat with the spirits. I've traded with the demonic nomads more than once. They like a nice piece of silk, and mirrors – hehe, they'd trade their mothers for a bit of salt." He nodded. "Admit I can't stand the swamp dwellers, but they probably feel the same about me."

Li Zhuang couldn't imagine such a life. He covered his confusion by dismounting. He was surprised to find the archer holding his horse's head.

"Habit," the old man said.

Li Zhuang cusped his hand. "I'm Li Zhuang."

"I know," the old man said. "I'm called Zhong. Make of it what you will. Zhong Zhai, it says in the family records."

Li Zhuang surprised himself by cusping his hand and giving a light bow, as if they were both Qi warriors greeting each other.

"Surely it is a crime against both the King, the empire, and the Righteous Heavens to trade anything to the demonic nomads."

The old archer grinned. "It's a crime to shoot Lord Cheng's deer. It's a crime to take rabbits in his warrens. It's a crime to leave my steading without his leave." The archer shrugged. "I live a life of crime, m'lord. Most low-born do."

Li Zhuang found himself smiling. The man was really very likable. "But your immortal soul," he began softly.

The old man pursed his lips and blew out a puff of air. "You're easy to talk to, foreigner. But I don't need to debate my mortal soul with the likes of ye."

"But you are willing to speak with evil." Li Zhuang shook his head.

The archer gave him a wry smile. "Are all the men you know so very good, m'lord?"

Li Zhuang winced.

"Stands to reason all the nomads ain't bad, don't it?" he went on. "What if none of 'em is bad? Eh? What if there's no power on earth as bad as a bad lord?"

Li Zhuang shook his head. "What bad lord? This is rebel talk."

"Rest easy, m'lord, I'm no Talon." The old man sneered. "Boys playing at causes. And broken men and traitors." He nodded. "Some good archers, though."

"Let's say I'm coming around a little to your way of thinking," Li Zhuang said carefully. "I would like to confess that I want to go home."

"Knew you was a man of sense," the old archer laughed. He looked under his hand and shook his head. Pointed at an archer, asleep. "Swarthy, you useless sack of rice, get off your arse and work."

Li Zhuang turned and saw the young archer trying to hide in the ditch. He was all huddled up, as if by being very small, he could avoid the old man's wrath.

"Now I'm the master-archer, and I wear myself out riding these boys." He laughed.

Li Zhuang didn't think he looked worn out.

The old archer stepped closer to the ditch and bellowed, "Swarthy!" at the young man.

He paused and in a moment Li Zhuang saw what he saw. The boy was eviscerated. And very, very dead. "Damn," the old archer said.

✶ ✶ ✶

King's messenger Han had never been so cold for so long, and he lay as still as he could, watching... well, watching nothing at all. Watching the woods. A breath of breeze stirred, moving the new leaves, and the light rain fell and fell. Despite wearing heavy robes, with a heavy cloak over all, he was soaked to his underclothes and colder than he was when riding through heavy snow in December.

Master Zhang had left him to watch at the first grey light of dawn. Had said he'd be back. He'd taken Feng with him.

As time went by, his thoughts grew darker and darker. Why would they ride off and leave him?

He had a fire kit. But Master Zhang had been very forceful on the subject of fires.

I'm going to freeze to death.

For the thousandth time, a twig cracked in front of him. Han wondered how twigs could just crack in the woods.

A bird fluttered in the wet leaves and made a low thrumming sound – and then burst out of the leaves and leaped into the air.

Something had just moved.

Han felt his blood still in his veins.

He scanned his eyes frantically back and forth.

Oh good sweet Righteous Heavens, now and in the hour of my death, protect me.

They were almost silent – filing along the streambed at the base of the low hill.

But there were hundreds of them.

Oh my heavens, dear heavens, protect me.

In the lead was a willowy demon, all black, which moved like an embodiment of shadow, flitting rather than walking. Behind him came the hosts of hell, walking, strutting, shambling—

Han found he could neither watch nor turn his head away. When he closed his eyes, he couldn't picture exactly what they looked like.