‘It will be for you if you don’t come with me,’ she said. ‘I’m giving you the chance to escape.’
Zhu shook his head. ‘I won’t be part of this. Not anymore.’
She shook her head and walked away. Syà watched her turn right at the end of the antechamber and disappear. She didn’t even bother to look back.
‘Well, that didn’t go as I’d hoped,’ he said to himself.
He turned to see three Mongol soldiers standing at the other end of the antechamber. The stout heavyweight one in the center smiled. Zhu noticed blood congealing on his axe.
The three soldiers separated, two moving around the edges of the antechamber. He thought of running, but the pair quickly closed behind him, cutting off his escape. One carried a bow and quiver on his back, but like his partner he wielded a scimitar. Zhu figured they knew that would be all they’d need for him.
‘There’ll be a nice reward for this one,’ the soldier with the axe said. Then he blinked. ‘Where’s your magic rock, little man?’
Zhu took a deep breath and yelled, ‘I don’t have the magic rock!’ He held up his hands in surrender. ‘Someone stole it from me!’
His voice echoed through the passageway. He hoped Syà would hear, but a sickly shiver ran across his back when he remembered she was injured and she had what she’d come for. She would be foolish to come back for him.
The soldier with the axe approached him.
‘Where is the magic rock, little man?’ he said, his deep voice menacing.
‘I told you—’ Zhu said. ‘Wait, I’m taller than you.’
The soldier straightened up. ‘So?’
He placed the head of his axe lightly on Zhu’s shoulder, the sharp edge facing his neck.
‘I’m the one with the sharp axe,’ he said.
Zhu tried not to swallow but he did anyway. ‘Someone else has it,’ he said.
The soldier leaned in and sniffed him. ‘Gunpowder,’ he said. ‘This someone is a friend of yours. Is he close by?’
One of the soldiers behind Zhu screamed. He turned his head, the heavyweight soldier’s axe still resting on his shoulder. From the corner of his vision he saw one soldier fall to his knees as the other collapsed against the wall, blood shooting from his inner thigh. Their scimitars clanged on the tiled floor.
‘Yes, she’s close by,’ Syà answered.
She stumbled past the bleeding soldiers as her blade cut their throats.
Zhu ducked his head under the axe but the soldier’s foot caught him and sent him tumbling. The axe swung down after him. It struck the floor next to his face, making a resounding ring. He rolled over the broken bow. The axe came after him again.
In a blur of movement, he saw Syà step in range. She wielded her saber in one hand, a scimitar in the other. She sliced them through the air. But the heavyweight soldier easily batted her strikes aside with the head of his axe, lunging and twisting for her. He smacked the scimitar from the loose grip of her wounded arm and came in with his own strike. Zhu searched for the scimitar but Syà and the soldier were between him and it.
Syà ducked under the axe, moved behind the soldier and sliced. The soldier was quick to respond, shifting his weight. Syà’s saber rattled across his armor.
He pushed in, slinging his axe into her saber. The hooked edge of the axe captured the saber and tore it from her grasp. The blade almost took Zhu’s head off as it went flying past, clattering across the other side of the antechamber.
Syà was unarmed. The soldier took his axe comfortably in both hands and stepped forward.
For a moment, Syà’s eyes met Zhu’s.
She’d come back to save him and now she was going to die for him. His chest tightened. He might as well have put the arrow through her himself.
The axe swung down on her. She sidestepped it. The edge of the axe clipped the floor and she kicked it, pinning the axe on its side. The soldier stumbled, and leant forward to keep purchase on his axe.
Zhu grasped the broken bow and slid it across the worn stone. It found its way into Syà’s grasp and she brought the broken, jagged end up, rammed it deep into the soldier’s eye.
He screamed and raised his axe, swinging wildly.
Syà grasped the soldier’s wrists and directed a mighty swing. Zhu saw the sharp edge move and looked away. He heard the scream and the gurgle as she directed his axe back onto himself. It gave way to a chilling rasp. When he looked back she was standing above the lifeless body, her face and arms glistening with sweat and the blood of Mongol soldiers.
‘Why did you come back?’ he asked.
She walked to him and pulled him up with her good hand. Her sweat smelled oddly sweet now.
‘If anyone’s killing you,’ she said, collecting her saber, ‘it’s me.’
‘That’s reassuring.’
Zhu found the courage to look at the fallen soldier. He lay motionless, his axe embedded in his neck and the broken bow standing upright, jammed in his eye socket.
‘I won’t be doing this a second time,’ she said evenly. Her jade eyes were faded now. ‘Are you coming with me?’
‘To the White Lotus?’
She smiled and handed over his satchel. ‘Who said I was going there?’
He took the satchel but didn’t say a word. Instead he followed her past the dead soldiers and into the passageway, pausing only to take a new bow and quiver from one of the bodies.
She led him into what looked like the royal bathhouse. Pale bathtubs gleamed in the moonlight.
She pointed to the small door behind him. ‘The tunnel is through that door. We should go before they take this building too.’
‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ Zhu said.
She paused. ‘What?’
‘The Phoenix elixirs,’ he said. ‘You know what they do, right?’
With a heavy push, she opened the door. ‘One reads emotions, one reads behavior, the other reads minds.’
‘And all three combined?’
‘Three out of three,’ she said.
Zhu shook his head. ‘No. Unstoppable. With all three, you don’t just read minds, you control them. You become the Controller. And that’s something your sorceress might want.’
‘And it’s something the Great Khan and his general might want,’ she said.
‘We could save the world.’ Zhu walked over to a bathtub, an elixir in his hand. ‘You and me. We just have to pour them down here.’
‘It’s an incredible waste, you can’t do that,’ Syà said.
He opened the elixir bottle and held it over the bathtub. Syà’s saber gleamed in the moonlight, moving steadily towards him.
‘Don’t,’ she said.
He watched her hand move across the edge of the bath and touch his. He wanted to see her smile again.
‘Imagine what good could be done with it,’ she said.
‘There’s no good. You must know that.’
His thumb quivered, touching her palm.
‘There’s only bad,’ he said.
Syà withdrew, her saber lowered. He smiled, but she didn’t return it this time. He heard movement behind them and looked over his shoulder. Mongol soldiers were standing at the bathhouse entrance. They parted to let their leader through.
Under his helmet, the leader wore a mask made of bronze, with narrow slits for his eyes, nose and mouth. He moved stiffly and his armor protruded around his midsection. The man standing before them was the commander of the invasion, the Great Khan’s greatest general.
The soldiers behind him held axes and scimitars. One aimed an arrow at Zhu’s head, in case he was thinking of using his bow. He wasn’t.
‘Syà,’ the general said. ‘It is a wonderful surprise to meet you again.’
His voice was low enough that it rippled through Zhu.
Syà tightened her grip on her saber, but didn’t raise it.
‘Wonderful, but not a surprise,’ she said.