As soon as he looked upon them, the soldiers and the two other men dropped to their knees and bowed their heads. The woman in the blue armour came forward and gave a small, respectful bow.
“I am General Lin Mae,” she said. “Your Majesty’s humble servant.”
The Emperor, recovering a little of his composure now, came slowly down the steps.
“Servant?” he said curtly. “Of what? How have you served me?” Suddenly his long pent-up fear found an outlet, erupting into fury. “The Wall has given way! My Palace is falling! My Kingdom overrun with beasts! Thousands of soldiers and innocents are dead! This is your service?”
Lin Mae lowered her head, as if in shame. “Forgive me, Your Majesty.”
The Emperor stared down at her with contempt. “How many men have you brought?”
Lin Mae hesitated, as if afraid to answer.
“Your Majesty,” the Chief Counselor interjected, “for the sake of the Kingdom, we must leave quickly.”
Finally Lin Mae gave him an answer to his question. Her voice was both apologetic and defiant. “I brought many. But these ten are all that remain.”
The Emperor seemed to sag, his arms reaching out for support. His Chief Counselor and two attendants rushed to his side to stop him from falling.
As though he had had enough of etiquette and deference, Wang rose to his feet and stepped forward. “Where is the captured Tao Tei?”
Everyone looked at everyone else. No one answered. Wang cast an accusatory look at the Chief Counselor, then at the Imperial Officer.
“Tell me you still have the captured Tao Tei!”
The Officer looked at the Emperor for permission to speak, and received a small nod in response.
“Of course. It’s been moved below,” he said. “To the dungeon.”
“Take us there!” ordered Wang.
In direct contrast to the opulence above, the Palace dungeons were dark and dank. Water ran down the slimy stone walls and dripped from the ceilings, as William, Wang, Lin Mae, Peng Yong and the rest of the Nameless Order were led hurriedly down a set of wide, slippery stone steps.
The Imperial Officer, leading the way with a torch held above his head, informed them hurriedly of Shen’s death, and of how the Tai Tei had wrecked its cage, necessitating its transferal to one of the cells in the Palace dungeon. He said that now the magnet had been placed back around the creature’s neck, it was once more dormant and pliable.
It was clear, as a pair of Imperial Guards unlocked and opened the cell, however, how frightened of it the soldiers here still were. They hung back, their faces taut with apprehension, as Wang, William, Lin Mae and (more reluctantly) the Imperial Officer crowded inside.
Lit by torchlight, the slumped Tao Tei did indeed look a fearsome beast. In the enclosed space, the scent that it exuded was musky, bestial. It breathed noisily, its great chest rising and falling, and even in repose they could all see the muscles clenching and rippling in its tree-like limbs.
Perhaps because he felt he had to make up for the terrible losses the Nameless Order had suffered as a result of his suggestion that they use the untested balloons, Wang seemed hyperactive, full of nervous energy.
Indicating the Tao Tei, he said, “We load it up with black powder weapons. We feed it. We pray it returns to the Queen.” As everyone nodded, he added, “We have very little time. With every minute that passes the death toll mounts, and the Tao Tei grow stronger. We must act now! Immediately! And may fortune be with us!”
His words had a galvanizing effect. Immediately Lin Mae started barking orders, which were relayed, via the Imperial Officer, to his own men. Within minutes everyone had an assigned role, and preparations were underway.
A dozen men, a mixture of Imperial soldiers and Nameless Order warriors, carried the Tao Tei up the slippery steps of the dungeon and into the courtyard above, where they loaded it onto an open cart. After heaving and pushing the creature into place, they stepped back, many of them unconsciously wiping their hands on their armour as if they had touched something unclean, expressions of disgust on their sweat-streaked faces.
Meanwhile William, Lin Mae, Wang and one of the Bear Corps warriors fashioned an elaborate harness of chains and leather bindings. As soon as the Tao Tei was in place, they fastened the harness tightly around its neck and arms. On the front of the harness was a pouch, designed to nestle snugly against the creature’s chest, made from a piece of canvas torn from one of the felled balloons, into which they carefully placed the magnet. That done, Peng Yong dragged the makeshift silk pouch, containing its arsenal of black powder weapons, up to the cart and quickly unwrapped it. He began to hand the grenades to William one by one, who, together with Wang and Lin Mae, knotted them tightly to the chains attached to the harness. As they were doing that, two Bear Corps soldiers appeared from an arched entranceway, wheeling forward another cart, this one piled up with meat—whole hogs, sides of beef, stacks of plucked and headless chickens.
Once the bulk of the work was done, the last few minutes were spent in a flurry of final preparations. Soldiers checked their swords and lances; torches were lit; Wang fussily re-checked the harness around the Tao Tei, tightening knots here and there. William strapped an ignition device—one of Wang’s inventions—to his arm, while Lin Mae, standing beside him, tightened her ropes and the scabbard containing her sword. All around them was a babble of voices, of steel weapons sliding into sheaths, of ropes creaking. In the midst of it, William looked up, to find that Lin Mae too was raising her head, turning to him. She hesitated a moment, and then said, “I was wrong about you.”
William smiled. “No. You knew me right away.”
She smiled back at him, but hers was an ironic smile, even a little bitter. “If I had been right, you would not be here.”
“I’m not here,” he said. When she frowned in puzzlement he explained, “The man who first arrived at the Wall is not here. I’m not him any more. I’m someone else now.”
Before she could reply, they were distracted by the creaking sound of a door opening on the far side of the courtyard. Both of them looked across to see the Imperial Officer pushing his torch forward into a dark entrance, illuminating a slope leading downward. William and Lin Mae watched as Wang and the Imperial Officer conferred for a moment, Wang nodding curtly. As Lin Mae translated what they were saying, explaining to William that beyond the door was a tunnel leading under the Palace complex, Wang marched back to a group of soldiers, who were waiting on the far side of the courtyard, and who had been chosen to stay behind as a last line of defense.
“We need all the time you can buy us,” he said.
As one, the small band of soldiers, fronted by two Eagle Corps warriors in filthy, battered armour, bowed in obedience, their faces masks of duty and grim determination.
Wang called together the procession that were undertaking the journey into the tunnel, and seconds later they set off. He and the Imperial Officer led the way, the Officer holding up a torch to light the route ahead. Directly behind them came two Bear Corps warriors, grunting with effort as they pushed the meat cart. Following them were Lin Mae and Peng Yong, both of whom, like the Officer, also brandished torches. Then came the three biggest and burliest warriors that the Nameless Order had at their disposal, all of whom wore black Bear Corps armour, and all of whom panted and strained and sweated as they maneuvered the heavy cart holding the recumbent Tao Tei through the tunnels. And finally, bringing up the rear of the group, came William, their last line of defense.