Pero looked at William, amusement dancing in his eyes, and mouthed: Wrong keys.
William grinned back at him, but there was a part of him that couldn’t help feeling sorry for the boy.
General Shao stood on top of his command tower, his black cape with its bear emblem snapping in the desert breeze. Flanking him on both sides were several of his commanders, resplendent in their brightly colored armour. Though the group stood in solemn silence, staring out at the desert beyond the Wall, the air seemed to vibrate with tension and fear, but also with excitement. They all knew that what they were about to face was savage and terrible—but it was a moment they had all anticipated for as long as they had lived. A moment they had trained for, ceaselessly and tirelessly, since they had been children. A moment they had been born for.
In the distance, across the valley, a thread of river glistened under the sun. Beyond the river was the jade green Gouwu Mountain. At first glance the scene seemed a picture of beauty and tranquility. But beneath the whisper of the breeze was another sound, almost indiscernible at first, but quite definitely there. It was a sort of churning. Or rumbling.
Like distant thunder.
As the rumbling grew louder, it was accompanied by yet another sound, carried forth on the wind. This new sound was shriller and far more disturbing. It almost sounded like… babies.
Thousands of babies.
Wailing in terrible distress.
The group in front of the stockade door suddenly tensed and raised their heads, each of them half-turning in the direction of the outer wall. From beyond it, faintly, they could hear a terrible sound, a hideous screeching wail, as if thousands of children were being tortured.
Lin Mae was the first to recover. Turning to Wang she said urgently, “Strategist, the Crane Corps needs me. I must go. Please forgive me.”
Without waiting for a response, she hurried after her lieutenants, Xiao Yu and Li Qing.
Wang sighed, and then turned his mounting ire on the young Bear warrior, whose name was Peng Yong. “Hurry!” he snapped.
But his irritation did not encourage the boy. In fact, it had the opposite effect. Peng Yong jumped, and dropped the ring of keys, which hit the floor with a tinkling clatter. Sweating heavily, Peng Yong patted his own body, as if the missing key could somehow have magically worked its way beneath his armour without his knowledge.
“Sir, I…” Suddenly he blurted it out. “I cannot find the key!”
Wang sighed again, heavily, then spun to indicate the two prisoners. “Forget it! Bring them to the Wall and have the Bear Corps watch them!”
He stomped away. Still sweating, Peng Yong turned to the two prisoners and the group of impassive Bear Corps soldiers behind them. He gave a jerky nod, and saw the two men’s eyes widen in alarm as gauntleted hands clamped down on their shoulders.
Moving nimbly and almost silently for a man of his age, Strategist Wang sprinted up the steps of the command tower. He emerged into daylight to find General Shao standing there alone, staring broodingly at what looked like a dust storm, bowling towards them from the far-distant jade mountain.
Shao turned and nodded a greeting. Wang moved forward to stand beside him, his head barely coming up to the clawed bear paw epaulette on the General’s right shoulder.
“So General,” he said, “it’s finally happening.”
Shao nodded again. “Sixty years,” he said. “Sixty years spent in preparation for this one moment.”
Lin Mae hurried up the steps of the Crane Corps command tower, followed by several blue-armored warriors. At the top a nervous but clearly relieved Xiao Yu moved forward to greet her.
“Commander Lin,” she said, “the sky rigs are ready to deploy.”
William whistled in admiration as, escorted by the bear warriors, he and Pero passed through a pair of huge wooden doors and onto the wooden platform of a vast space just behind the outer surface of the Wall itself. The area—it couldn’t really be called a ‘room’—was deep and high, and stretched as far as the eye could see in both directions. William couldn’t help but feel he was standing within the workings of some colossal timepiece, albeit one that was infinitely more intricate and complex than anything he had seen before. Wherever he looked, his eyes were dazzled by numerous, vast mechanical components working in perfect harmony. There were enormous wooden and iron bearings, a cornucopia of wheels, winches, gears and levers, some propelled by gushing spumes of water. And among all of this, like busy but autonomous cogs in the machine, were dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of yellow-clad tiger warriors, each of whom were working furiously, operating an array of cranks and pulleys and rotating wooden handles.
He and Pero were ushered to the edge of the platform, and just for a moment William wondered whether they were about to be pushed into the maelstrom of grinding cogs and cables he could see below—blood sacrifices to the great devouring Wall. To his right he saw weird contraptions, five of them, slowly rising from hollows within the depths of the machinery. They were long and thin, and made him think of part of a ship’s rigging, its sails and spars tucked in tightly for now, though ready to expand, to unfurl, when given space to do so.
The five contraptions were being hauled upwards by chanting, sweating soldiers, but before they could reach the level on which William and Pero were standing, an iron cage slid down from above on pulleys and opened directly in front of them. The young soldier who had dropped the keys, as if anxious to make up for his earlier mishap, barked at them and shoved them forward. He and another bear warrior followed them into the cage, the young soldier closing the door behind them. Then several soldiers on the platform began to turn a winch, and the cage rose smoothly into the air.
William might have been alarmed if there hadn’t been so much to distract his attention. Through the bars of the cage he watched the narrow contraptions, which were now beside them and still rising rapidly—more rapidly than they were, in fact. Pero’s astonishment matched his own as the huge, folded bundles of sails and spars slid past their cage, ascending to the high ceiling. Just as it seemed the five contraptions would either have to come to a halt or collide with the ceiling, five separate sections of the ceiling opened with a cracking sound, and the contraptions rose majestically up through the holes, beyond which they could see daylight.
William and Pero looked at each other, blinking in awe. They had seen many wondrous sights on their travels, but never had they seen anything so advanced as this, and on such a vast scale. William couldn’t help but feel he and his companion were primitive and uneducated cave dwellers in comparison to their hosts. Whoever the enemy of these Wall warriors might be, they would surely have no chance of victory against such an incredible display of ingenuity and organization.
The cage reached its apex and clanked to a halt. The big bear warrior opened the door and the younger bear warrior, overly aggressive now, shoved William and Pero forward. They stumbled a little, squinting in the sudden bright sunlight that shone down on top of the Wall. To their right the battlements, which faced the desert, were a hive of activity as troops made their final preparations for war. William veered in that direction, hoping to catch a glimpse of whoever was foolhardy enough to attack the Wall and its many and varied defenses. He had taken no more than a couple of steps, however, when sunlight flashed on steel, and a moment later the tip of a sharp lance was pressed against his neck.