“Of course it’s safe. Just—”
His words were interrupted by a massive explosion, which buffeted the bench and threw both men backwards. Pero felt as if his skull had been smashed between two sledgehammers. His brain was shaking like a dice in a cup and his ears felt simultaneously to be stuffed with soil and leaking blood. The air was full of smoke and dust and debris; when he breathed in, the air was hot and seemed full of splinters. He clawed at the bench in an attempt to pull himself up on to his knees and peer over the top, but he couldn’t see a thing. His eyes were blurred and smarting.
In the kitchen the floor shook and the pots and pans hanging on hooks from the ceiling began to sway, clanging against one another. Peng Yong gripped the side of the sink to steady himself as a heap of metal bowls slid to the floor with a clash of metal on rock.
When the tremor had passed he looked up. Where had the explosion come from? Though muffled it seemed too close to have echoed down from the top of the Wall. Could it have come from the courtyard then? Somewhere closer? And who could have caused it?
Then he remembered seeing the foreign soldier…
The air was still full of dust and debris, but it was slowly settling now. Coughing, eyes still stinging, Pero clambered to his feet. He felt bruised and battered, but a little pain was nothing new to him; he was used to carrying injuries.
He was not used to being deaf, though. Not used to feeling as if his head had been squeezed in a vise. He opened his mouth, rotated his jaw from side to side, and was pleased to find that the pressure in his ears eased a little.
Ballard had already scuttled out from behind the bench and was now crouching beside the door. He was a dark, blurred shape behind a curtain of floating grime. The explosion had blown many of the torches out, transforming the room into a realm of shadows. Flapping at the dust, Pero realized that where the stout wooden door had been was now a charred hole, around which lay pieces of blackened wood, some of which were still burning.
Ballard’s head snapped round. His thin face was a soot-smeared mask of savage triumph.
“Shake it off, soldier!” he barked. “To work!”
William was going round in circles. Somehow, after passing the kitchen, he’d lost his way, got turned around, and was now standing outside Ballard’s suite. He banged on the door, then opened it and looked inside. Empty, as he’d suspected. So where—
The BOOM! of an explosion, not too far away, caused the flames of the lanterns in the corridor to flap momentarily and the floor to shudder beneath his feet. William didn’t exactly stagger, but he put out his arms to steady himself, like a tightrope walker, and turned his head in the direction the explosion had come from.
After a few seconds a waft of warm air barreled down the corridor and rolled over him, causing the lantern flames to shiver again. He caught a faint odor of charred wood. He felt dread seeping through him, curdling his insides.
Oh no, he thought, and began to sprint back the way he had come, homing in on the sound of the explosion and the still lingering smell of burning. He had an awful suspicion, though, that no matter how fast he ran, he was going to be too late.
Peng Yong was frozen to the spot, his mind churning. Should he investigate the explosion, confront the foreigner—if that was who had caused it? But what if the foreigner was armed? In fact, there was every likelihood that the foreigner would be armed. He was a soldier, after all, and a good one at that. He would doubtless think twice about cutting Peng Yong’s throat if his plans were compromised.
But what were his plans? What could he be blowing up inside the fortress? Surely he couldn’t secretly be working to undermine the Nameless Order? The Tao Tei were a threat not only to Bianliang and the rest of China, but to the entire world. No matter how ruthless the foreigners were, Peng Yong couldn’t believe they would be so foolhardy as to aid the Tao Tei, not even for their own gain. Then again foreigners were inscrutable, unpredictable. Who knew what dark and twisted thoughts went through their minds?
If it was unwise then to confront the foreigner directly, Peng Yong must inform the Order what was happening. But would they listen to him after his previous misdemeanors? He scrunched the bottom of his wet, filthy apron in his hand. He would make them listen. And who knew, if he acted quickly enough and thus helped prevent the foreigners from committing whatever heinous activities they were currently engaged upon, he might even be reinstated as a Bear Corps soldier. He might even be honored with—
The foreigner ran past the doorway again—and in the same direction he had been heading last time. Which meant, as far as Peng Yong could tell, that he was heading towards the explosion, not away from it. Which further meant that he couldn’t have caused it—unless, of course, he had used a very long fuse.
But where had the foreigner been since Peng Yong had last seen him? Had he been running in circles? For what purpose?
Curiosity getting the better of him, he hurried across the kitchen floor and found himself turning not right, towards the route that would lead him up through the fortress, but left, after the foreigner. If he was careful, and kept out of sight, he might be able to ascertain the foreigner’s plans. It would be better to give General Lin Mae as much information as he could when the time came.
“What is this?” Pero asked, peering over Ballard’s shoulder at what lay behind the door. He’d hoped it would be an escape route out of the fortress, perhaps a secret passage to the stables, but in fact it appeared to be nothing more than a huge cupboard containing many shelves, each of which were packed with a cornucopia of objects: weaponry, scrolls, tablets, notebooks, various instruments whose use Pero couldn’t even begin to guess at…
Granted, there were jars of black powder here too, but surely it would not be too difficult to work out the correct proportions of each ingredient from the powder they already had in their possession, and therefore to make more?
“It’s a treasure trove,” Ballard said. “Contained here are the fruits of Strategist Wang’s studies. It’s an invaluable resource. And all for the taking.”
Pero shrugged. He wasn’t much of a one for learning—though he couldn’t deny that some of the weapons Wang had collected over the years looked interesting, and would no doubt prove useful. At Ballard’s bidding, he opened the sack he’d been carrying and withdrew the folded-up saddlebags he’d crushed into it. As Ballard began to ransack the shelves, taking what he needed, Pero held the saddlebags open so that Ballard could fill them. Moving between the cupboard and the opened saddlebags, Ballard outlined his plan to Pero. One saddlebag was full and the second beginning to bulge when Pero heard the scuff of a footstep on the gritty dust behind him. He spun round—then smiled.
“Compadre.”
His greeting caused Ballard to turn too.
William was standing there, his body, mostly in silhouette, wreathed in dust. He stared at Pero, saying nothing.
Impatiently Ballard said, “So you’ve come to your senses at last, eh?”
When William still failed to reply, Ballard flapped a hand in irritation. “Well, good God, man, come on, make haste! Grab a bag!”
But William ignored him. He kept his eyes locked on Pero.
Smiling, Pero said, “Ballard has explained it all. He’s planned well. The horses are strong. Getting out will be easy. There’s a gate twenty miles west. We take that and we can dodge the hill tribes. We can make it, amigo.”