William and Pero watched, stunned, as the Tao Tei retreated en masse. All around them, Wall warriors in black, red, yellow, purple and blue armour were standing around open-mouthed, barely able to believe that the battle was over and that they had survived. The upper surface of the Great Wall was strewn with mangled bodies and awash with blood, both red and green. It was a typical battlefield in the aftermath of a savage conflict—except for one thing. There was not a single enemy body, or even a single body part, left behind. As the Tao Tei had retreated they had gathered up every single one of their fallen comrades and taken them with them.
Ever the soldier, and all too accustomed to premature victories, William wandered around, grabbing stray arrows from the ground as he kept a watchful eye on the retreating enemy. When he had picked up as many arrows as he could find, he rejoined Pero, who was still clutching a sword as he stared at the river in the distance, its water churning and boiling again as the Tao Tei army crossed it.
“What God made those things?” William muttered.
Pero waited until the last of the Tao Tei were out of sight, then he dropped the sword he was holding and slumped into a squatting position. “None we know.”
A mist was rising up from the river now, like it had before when the Tao Tei had crossed over. William couldn’t help thinking of the mist as a veil between this world and the next, or perhaps more accurately as a gateway that led from and into Hell.
Pero spoke again. “Think they’ll hang us now?”
“I could use the rest,” William said, smiling wryly.
He glanced at his friend, but then realized that Pero was not looking at him, but at something behind him. William turned slowly to find that the blue-armored crane commander, the big, black-armored bear commander, the dapper little strategist and a huge group of bedraggled soldiers spattered in green blood were standing motionless, staring implacably at them.
Realizing he was still holding the bow, William dropped it to the ground and raised his hands.
Still nobody moved. William swept his gaze across the array of exhausted, staring faces, trying to find something—some spark of emotion, be it friendliness or animosity. Beside him, still squatting, Pero’s heavy-lidded eyes were drooping and his body was swaying from side to side. Despite the potential predicament they were in, the Spaniard looked almost drunk with fatigue.
Feeling an urge to break the silence, William nodded towards the boiling river and the distant jade mountain. “Will they be coming back?”
His voice sounded eerily loud on the now-silent battlefield. It was the blue-armored crane commander who answered.
“Yes.”
William fixed his gaze on her. “Soon?”
She nodded.
Pero roused himself from his semi-stupor, though his words were still a little slurred. “Tao Tei. What does it mean?”
This time it was the little strategist who answered. “The Beasts of Greed.”
The big, bearded commander in the black bear armour muttered something to the crane commander, who nodded.
“General Shao says he believes you now, and that you fought well. You have earned his praise.”
William acknowledged the General’s compliment with a nod of thanks. “Your army fights hard as well,” he said.
Eyeing the young black-armored bear warrior who had frozen in fear during the battle before recovering to save William’s life, Pero muttered, “But I’m guessing they haven’t had much practice.”
“Once a lifetime,” the little strategist said.
William looked at him questioningly.
“Some never have the chance to fight,” the strategist elaborated. “The Tao Tei rise only once every sixty years.”
William blinked in surprise, and was about to ask a question when the young black-armored warrior cried out and ran forward. William wondered what was happening, wondered if he was about to be attacked, but then he realized that Pero, squatting beside him, was toppling forward, sheer exhaustion finally having got the better of him. Before Pero could land face-first on the stone floor, the young soldier caught him and lowered him with surprising gentleness to the ground.
Pero was muttering in Spanish. “Que… estoy… bien… estoy…”
General Shao barked an order, then turned and marched away.
The crane commander regarded William with her dark eyes, her expression softer now. “The General has ordered me to take you to the barracks,” she said. “To find you a chamber in which you and your friend can rest.”
7
Strategist Wang hurried through the bustling interior corridors of the fortress behind the Great Wall, his mind whirring. He dodged and weaved between the bodies of the injured and the exhausted; between soldiers with dented armour and haunted expressions; between those who were sitting against the wall or groaning in agony or lying still and dead on stretchers, their terrible injuries concealed beneath thin white sheets.
The aftermath of the battle was terrible, and tending to the dead and wounded would be a gargantuan task. But callous though it sounded, those who were still able-bodied enough to fight would have to rally quickly. They would have to fall back on every ounce of their training and discipline to recover their senses, re-mobilize, and focus on the task in hand. The Tao Tei would attack again, and they would do so sooner rather than later; there was no question of that. The men and women who dwelt within the fortress and fought on the Wall would be permitted to mourn their fallen friends and comrades—but not until the Tao Tei threat had been repelled, if not extinguished, for another sixty years.
Leaving the post-battle chaos behind, Wang bustled now along quieter corridors—corridors so quiet, in fact, that the atmosphere here was akin to a monastery, or an institute of learning and contemplation. He was nearing the Hall of Knowledge when, from behind a pillar in the corridor ahead, stepped a young man in green robes, his sleek black hair pulled into a topknot, his long face wearing an expression that was somewhere between shy and sulky.
Although the young man tried to look nonchalant, even arrogant, it was clear to Wang that he had chosen to hide here during the battle, no doubt crouched and quivering like a craven mongrel. Wang chose to overlook the young man’s cowardice, however. There was nothing to be gained in antagonizing the imperial liaison officer.
“Ah, Shen,” he said, as if the man had appeared at his bidding, “I want you to do something for me. Nine centuries past—the Year of the Horse—I recall an account of an incident at the Southwest Tower on the third day of the siege. Could you find it for me?”
Shen looked at first as if he was about to refuse, and then jerkily he nodded.
“Thank you,” Wang said. “Oh, and Shen?”
“Yes?”
Wang smiled magnanimously. “Calm yourself. All is well.”
The room was spartan. It contained little more than a table and two straw mattresses with a lantern on the stone floor between them. Peng Yong and another soldier carried Pero over to one of the mattresses and carefully laid him down. Stepping back out into the corridor and pulling the door closed behind them, Peng Yong saw the man who called himself William standing in front of one of the many long mirrors that were propped against the corridor wall. These mirrors were replacements for those on the Wall, should they get damaged—which of course, today, all of them had.