“The horses are saddled and waiting. Best we ride before nightfall,” said William, leading the way back towards the fortress’s side gate.
They rounded a corner at the head of a flight of stone steps leading downwards, Pero rubbing his sore wrists – and there they halted. Lin Mae, resplendent in gleaming gold-plated armour, was ascending slowly towards them.
Pero glanced behind him, saw a door standing half-open.
“I’ll wait in here. Don’t leave without me,” he said.
He ducked through the doorway, pulling the door closed behind him, leaving William alone with Lin Mae.
She reached the top of the steps and the two of them regarded one another for a moment.
“I came to say goodbye,” she said finally.
William nodded, momentarily tongue-tied. Then he licked his dry lips and said, “I understand congratulations are in order. General of the North West territory. That’s quite an honor.”
She smiled and nodded at the closed door behind William. “It seems you’ve made your choice.”
William rolled his eyes. “Oh, him? Believe me, I’m already thinking of trading him back for the powder.”
“I heard that,” came a muffled voice from behind the door.
To William’s ears Lin Mae’s laughter was like music.
“Perhaps we’re both wrong,” she said softly. “Perhaps we’re more similar than we thought.”
William felt such a swell of pride and emotion in his chest that for a moment he couldn’t speak. Then he clasped his hands together – the familiar symbol of respect and togetherness and trust. Of Xin Ren.
“Thank you, General,” he said.
Riding away from the Wall, into the Painted Mountains, William paused a moment, reining in his horse and looking back over his shoulder.
Lin Mae was standing atop the Wall, leaning over the battlements, her raven hair blowing in the wind, her armour flashing as it reflected the light.
“Are you sure you don’t want to go back?” Pero asked softly.
“Of course I do.” William grinned wryly. “I just don’t trust you to make it out of here alone.”
Pero laughed, and the two men spurred their horses into a trot, and then a gallop.
In a cloud of dust, with the magnificent Wall stretching to each extreme of the horizon behind them, they rode away.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Morris has written over twenty-five novels, among which are Toady, Stitch, The Immaculate, The Secret of Anatomy, Fiddleback, The Deluge and four books in the popular Doctor Who range. He is also the author of two short story collections, Close to the Bone and Long Shadows, Nightmare Light, and several novellas. His short fiction, articles and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and he is editor of Cinema Macabre, a book of horror movie essays by genre luminaries for which he won the 2007 British Fantasy Award, its follow-up Cinema Futura, and two volumes of The Spectral Book of Horror Stories. His script work includes audio dramas for Big Finish Productions’ Doctor Who and Jago & Litefoot ranges, and also for Bafflegab’s Hammer Chillers series, and his recently published work includes an updated novelization of the 1971 Hammer movie Vampire Circus, the official movie tie-in novelization of Darren Aronofsky’s Noah, and the Shirley Jackson Award nominated novella It Sustains for Earthling Publications.
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Copyright
The Great Walclass="underline" The Official Movie Novelization
Print edition ISBN: 9781785652981
E-book edition ISBN: 9781785652998
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: February 2017
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
© 2017 Legendary
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.