He only realized he’d been unconscious when his eyes snapped open. How long everything had gone black for, he had no idea. It could have been anywhere from two seconds to two hours. His guess, though, was that it was seconds, otherwise the Tao Tei would surely have eaten them for breakfast. Head still spinning, confused and disorientated, he struggled to his knees.
When he saw a flashing wall of yellow, like a piece of the sun fallen to earth, he thought at first he was hallucinating. Then his vision steadied, enabling him to focus, and he realized it wasn’t sunshine he was seeing, but a contingent of Tiger Corps warriors in their yellow armour and flowing cloaks. Two of them were dragging a deliriously struggling and thrashing Pero towards a black doorway that had opened in the base of the Wall, while the others formed a protective guard, backing to the door with their long lances held out in front of them.
To his horror, William realized that they hadn’t seen him, that his body had been hidden behind the slumped bulk of a Tao Tei. He staggered to his feet, his legs feeling as unsteady as splints, and raised a hand.
“Hey!”
His voice was a rusty croak. The Tiger Corps warriors, still backing towards the door, their faces set, gave no indication they had heard him.
Pero had, though—or at least, at that precise moment, he seemed to come temporarily to his senses and look up.
“William!” he yelled.
His cry alerted a pair of yellow-clad warriors, who glanced in his direction, their eyes narrowing against the smoky air. Summoning all his strength, William began to stumble across the sand towards them. The warriors, seeing him, beckoned him towards the open doorway, barking words at him in a language he didn’t understand, but which he nevertheless knew was their way of urging him to go faster.
He broke into a shambling run just as a Tao Tei erupted from the grimy fog to his left. It would certainly have intercepted him before he reached the door if a pair of Tiger Corps warriors had not leaped forward and thrust their long lances into the advancing creature’s eyes.
With a last burst of effort, William homed in on the black doorway and propelled himself towards it. He felt hands grabbing his arms, supporting him, hauling him forward.
Then the doorway swallowed him and he tumbled into the blackness beyond.
15
It was dusk. Lin Mae’s first full day as General of the Nameless Order was almost over.
And what a day it had been. A day of blood and violence and fear.
But they had survived. Again. And with the foreigner’s help they might even have achieved a significant victory.
Only time would tell.
Exhausted now, but trying not to show it, she followed a nurse into the huge infirmary, buried deep within the belly of the fortress. Most of the time, during the years when the Tao Tei slept, the infirmary was all but empty, the smattering of patients suffering from little more than fevers or training injuries. Now, though, it was a full and bustling place, the medical staff tending day and night to those wounded, some severely, in the recent battles. Nurses and doctors hurried here and there as Lin Mae followed ‘her’ nurse between the occupied beds, nodding and offering encouraging words as she went. Many of the men and women lying here had lost limbs or been so badly injured that they would never fight again. Some were so badly injured that they would not survive, and were merely being kept as comfortable as possible until the inevitable occurred.
The patient she had come to see, though, had suffered no more than cuts, bruises and concussion. His worst injury was a gash to his ribs, which a nurse was bandaging as she arrived.
Nevertheless, when she sat at the side of William’s bed, Lin Mae was shocked to see the condition of his body. William, still groggy, was stripped to the waist, and she found it hard not to stare at the dozens of battle scars striping his torso. Together they seemed to make up a map of pain; they were testament to a life ruled by violence and conflict. Some of his more recent scars were still red and angry, whereas others were little more than tough old knots of white scar tissue. She exchanged a glance with the nurse tending him, who was also clearly shocked at the extent of his injuries. Finishing up, the nurse bowed and excused herself, as did the one who had brought her here.
“Tell them I won’t be long,” Lin Mae said as the nurse walked away. She bowed in obeisance.
William turned his head slowly on the pillow to look at Lin Mae through heavy-lidded eyes. Drowsily he asked, “Did it work?”
“Yes,” she said. “The beast was captured.”
“And my friend?”
“He was unharmed.”
He sighed in satisfaction and made an attempt to lever himself up on his elbows. His face, however, creased in pain, and Lin Mae moved forward to help. Eventually, grunting with the effort, he managed to raise himself into a sitting position. Once again Lin Mae’s eyes strayed to the scars on his body. William noticed her looking, and became suddenly self-conscious, trying to tug his thin blanket up over his chest.
“I know. It…” He shook his head, embarrassed. “It looks worse than it is…”
Lin Mae lowered her eyes and offered a small smile of apology. When she next looked up, it was to find that he was staring fascinatedly at her.
To cover both their embarrassments she asked, “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did you go over the Wall? Why did you risk your life?”
He gave a crooked smile. “Xin ren. Did I say it right?”
She nodded. She looked stunned. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, as if uncertain what to say. Then she murmured simply, “Thank you.”
He gave an awkward nod, as if the gratitude of others was a new thing to him. Self-consciously he rubbed at a dark patch of soot, a powder burn, on his right forearm.
“Do you know what that is?” Lin Mae asked. Her voice grew heavy. “That black powder?”
William’s eyes flickered. “I’ve never seen its like.”
“It would be best if you had never seen it.”
There was a deep sorrow in her voice, and perhaps also an implied threat. When William looked at her he saw how uncomfortable she seemed, how regretful. All at once he realized that she hadn’t simply come here to thank him, or to see how he was. No, she had a different agenda. Something larger and more important.
A little hesitantly she said, “It is a terrible weapon. I know… very little of the outside world, but it seems to me that men are not so very different from the Tao Tei. Both are full of greed. Is that true?”
Despite her prowess as a warrior, the expression on her face was one of naivety and confusion.
“The strong take what they want,” William admitted.
Tentatively she reached out. William didn’t move as she trailed a finger gently down his cheek, then held the finger up in front of his face, showing him another smudge of black powder.
“Think of a world where that becomes this simple.” She stared into his eyes, her face becoming serious. “Forget what you have seen.”
Before William could answer, one of her lieutenants, her blue armour flashing beneath the lamps, hurried through the crowded ward towards her.
The lieutenant said something, her tone urgent, and Lin Mae nodded.
As she stood up, William asked, “What is it?”
Lin Mae turned back to him. “The beast is waking.”