Xeng stood and ran along the wall, away from the gate. When the troops noticed him, he dropped to his belly again, then slowly crawled toward the gate. He had failed in his mission, he thought, but all was not lost. He still had the ebony tube, and Wu would be able to develop another plan for delivering it to the Divine One.
But Wu was in desperate need of the emperor's help at that very moment. She lay crumpled on the floor, where Ting's troops had dumped her when they began searching for the stolen document. Qwo sat beside her mistress, and Wu's head now rested in the old servant's lap.
In the space of a few minutes, Wu's house had been reduced to a shambles. Even with a hundred men searching the compound, the troops from the Ministry of State Security had found nothing, not even Ji and Yo. Ting Mei Wan angrily paced back and forth, forcing her personal escort of twenty soldiers to stand crowded together at the edge of the chamber.
"Where is it?" Ting demanded for perhaps the hundredth time.
"I have no idea what you want," Wu gasped, also for perhaps the hundredth time.
"Liar!" Ting responded. "My patience is at an end." She turned to two guards, then pointed at Qwo. "Take her."
Wu forced herself to sit up. "No!"
Two guards seized Qwo by the arms and dragged her to Ting's side.
"She knows nothing!" Wu said.
Ting studied Wu with narrowed eyes. "Tell me who does," she countered.
Qwo spat in the minister's face. "Tell this traitor nothing!"
A soldier quickly took a cloth off Wu's night cabinet, then gave it to Ting. Staring at the old maidservant, the mandarin slowly wiped the spittle off her brow. In a calm voice, she said, "Kill this woman."
The guards blanched, but one dutifully drew a ten-inch pi shou. The dagger glinted ominously in the morning sunlight.
"Wait!" Wu yelled. She was barely able to force the words from her throat. Qwo's entreaty and the guards' reluctance had given her one last idea.
Addressing the soldiers, Wu said, "We're not the traitors; Ting is." Her voice quivered with stress and fatigue. "The document she's looking for is evidence of her treachery."
A veteran with a missing ear frowned and looked to Ting. The mandarin appeared momentarily stunned and confused, but she recovered quickly. "If what you say is true," the minister said, "produce the document."
"Don't!" Qwo urged, feebly trying to pull free of her captors. "My life is worth nothing."
Ting and the soldiers turned to Wu expectantly. The noblewoman considered revealing where Xeng had gone. If the treacherous minister realized she was defeated, perhaps she would see no use in harming an old woman. Unfortunately, Ting did not seem like the type of woman who gave up easily.
Wu shook her head.
"Kill the servant," Ting ordered. As she spoke, she did not take her eyes off Wu.
The guard holding the pi shou obeyed without hesitation. Qwo let out a terrible, woeful scream, then quivered as the last traces of life fled her body. The guard twisted the dagger and plunged it farther in to finish the job. Finally, he withdrew the pi shou and allowed the old woman's body to slump to the floor.
Ting turned back to Wu. "Now, will you—"
She was interrupted by sobbing children. "Where is that coming from?" the minister demanded of nobody in particular.
A guard kneeled and put his ear to the floor. "From beneath the house."
Ting pointed at the floor. "Get them!" she ordered. "Perhaps they'll persuade this traitor to confess."
Several guards rushed outside, and several more used their weapons to begin prying up floorboards.
"They're just children!" Wu pleaded. "Leave them alone!"
"Nothing would please me more," Ting replied. "I have no wish to injure a child. Their fate, however, is in your hands."
Wu crawled into a kneeling position, ignoring the agony in her midsection. "I won't allow you to hurt Ji or Yo," she warned.
"Then tell me where you've hidden my paper!" Ting shouted.
They stared at each for several moments, Wu breathing slowly and evenly, gathering her remaining energy to defend her children. Several guards moved into defensive positions to either side of Ting.
Wu knew now that the minister intended to kill her whether or not she gave up the document. She could accept her fate because she had no other choice. The noblewoman was not ready to sacrifice her children's lives, however, not even for the sake of the empire. Fortunately, she could think of two ways to save them. Only one involved giving Ting what she wanted.
After prying up the fifth plank, a guard said, "Here they are."
He reached below the floor and extracted Yo. She was curled into a stout little ball, covered with dirt and sobbing loudly. The soldier passed her to the veteran with the missing ear, then reached into the opening a second time. He screamed and cursed loudly.
"He bit me!" the guard snapped, holding his hand.
"What do you expect?" asked the veteran. He set Yo aside, then stuck his head and shoulders below the floor. "Come here, little tiger!"
Yo took advantage of the opportunity to scurry over to her mother. Without looking away from Ting, Wu guided her daughter to her side. She continued to breathe evenly and steadily, focusing her mind on what she intended to do.
The guard emerged with Ji a moment later. Tears and dirt streaked the boy's face, but his expression remained determined and angry. He reached out and raked at his captor's face with his fingers, but his arms were too short to reach.
Ting looked away from Wu, settling her gaze on Ji. "Which shall it be?" she asked. "Your son—or the document?"
"Neither, traitor!" Wu yelled, releasing the store of energy she had been building.
The noblewoman's wound reopened as she sprang forward, but she felt no pain. Her thoughts, her spirit, and her body were focused only on one thing: reaching Ting.
Wu moved so quickly that she took all but three guards by surprise. The first stepped in front of her, his polearm held across his body like a staff. Wu stiffened her index and middle fingers into the secret sword position, then drove them into the man's throat. His larynx popped, and he collapsed, dropping his weapon and gasping for breath.
The next guard swung his chiang-chun at Wu's knees. She leaped into the air, catching the soldier simultaneously with a camel kick to the groin and a ram's fist to the nose. As he finished the swing, he collapsed into a twisting mass of groaning flesh.
Wu was not so lucky with the third guard. When she descended from her jump, he stepped forward and jabbed, using his weapon like a lance. Wu tried to knock the blade aside with a crane's wing block, but the guard was a strong man and held the shaft in place. The blade slipped between the noblewoman's ribs and punctured her lung.
Having seen the fate of his two fellows, the guard took no chances with Wu. The blade felt icy and painful in the noblewoman's lung, and the strength to continue fighting escaped with her final scream. The guard's thrust carried her a full two feet. She landed on her back with the polearm protruding from her chest. The guard still held the other end.
Ting had not moved. The minister stared at her attacker with a look of uncomprehending shock, hardly registering that she had come within a breath of dying.
Wu lay on the floor for what seemed to her like an eternity of silence, struggling to breathe through the cold agony in her lungs. The only thing she could see, the only thing she was aware of, was the guard at the other end of the polearm. He was a young man, no older than Batu had been when she had first met him. The youthful soldier looked deathly afraid.
Ji and Yo screamed and rushed toward their mother's side. The earless veteran caught and restrained them before they arrived.