“Bandits?” Huang repeated. He leaned forward to peer out the small, dirty window set in the crawler’s sidewall. “Do you really think it could be?”
Huang turned back around to see the guard’s answering sneer. “What else?”
Mouth hanging open, Huang looked back through the grimed window and watched the airship drawing ever nearer. It was hard to tell at this distance, but the long black objects slung underneath the gondola appeared to be some form of armament. Firing them would kick the airship back in the opposite direction, unsteadying it, but that would come as little comfort to the crawler hit by the blast. The crawlers were designed for mobility, not heavily armed for combat, and it wouldn’t take a very large caliber cannon to do considerable damage.
Huang tightened his grip on the red saber. So much for boredom.
Huang stood at the center of the ring of crawlers, fighting the urge to run and hide.
“You all right, sir?”
Startled, Huang turned. Beside him stood the older guardsman who brought him his meals. The man had a pistol in his hand, cocked and ready, and was studying Huang with a worried expression.
“Y-yes, of course,” Huang answered, perhaps too quickly. He tried to look calm and composed and knew he was failing miserably.
The guardsman nodded to the saber hanging at Huang’s hip. “You know how to use that, sir?”
It was then that Huang realized that he was the only one of the two dozen or so drivers and guards assembled within the circle of the crawlers not to have a gun, sword, or knife in his hands. With an awkward motion, he reached over and grabbed hold of the saber’s hilt, drawing it from the scabbard.
“Oh, yes,” Huang said, with some measure of confidence. “I know how to use a blade.”
The guardsman shrugged and turned away.
From overhead, one of the sentries posted atop the crawlers shouted down to the massed defenders that the airship was drawing nearer. It seemed to Huang as though it had been hours since the crawlers had pulled off the dirt track of the roadway onto a relatively level clearing, and the six vehicles laboriously maneuvered into position, forming a near-perfect circle, with the tail of one crawler abutting the nose of the next and so on. Now that he stopped to think about it, though, he realized it could not have been more than a matter of minutes altogether. Still, the waiting seemed interminable, standing with the others in the protection of the defensive ring, counting the moments until the bandits attacked.
“Here it comes!” shouted one of the sentries, and Huang looked up to see the ragged airship hovering into view overhead. A hatch was open on one side of the gondola, and men in breather masks and insulated suits with rifles and long knives in hand began to pour out, rapelling down on cables. Huang could hear a faint noise, like the howling of distant wind, and realized he was hearing the bandits’ howls and war cries even through the thin air.
As the bandits slid down on their cables and lines, directly into the defensive ring of crawlers, it occurred to Huang to doubt the wisdom of gathering all of the convoy’s defenders inside an enclosed space. A circle of crawlers might have been an effective defense against attackers approaching overland, but it was suddenly clear to Huang that the tactics only served to hinder defenders facing attack from the air.
It was too late to do anything about it now, though. The first of the bandits hit the red sands, long knives flashing in the sun, and rushed toward the defenders.
Huang tightened his grip on his saber’s hilt and tried to resist the urge to run and hide.
As Huang watched the defenders close with the bandits, it felt more like he was back in his parents’ house in Fanchuan sitting over a game of elephant chess than being in a battle himself. He charted the ebb and flow of the battle with an almost unreal sense of detachment, as though it were something happening to someone else.
Huang noted that there were maybe a dozen of the bandits, so numerically at least the odds favored the defenders.
A body thumped to the ground at Huang’s feet. It was one of the sentries from atop the crawlers, sputtering his last breath as blood foamed from the gunshot wound in his neck. Huang looked up and saw another of the sentries spasm in agony as sniper fire from the airship above lanced into him. In his detached fugue Huang fancied he could almost see the airship wobble with the recoil of the rifle’s fire, but he was rational enough to know that the force of the rifle firing wouldn’t be enough to move the airship more than fractionally. Still, the force of the bullets striking the sentries was clearly more than sufficient to remove them from the board.
Another sentry fell from his perch into the center of the ringed crawlers and managed to rise up on his knees, leaning heavily on the rifle he still held clutched in one hand. One of the breather-masked bandits rushing by paused just long enough to drive the point of his long knife down into the fallen sentry’s shoulder, and as he kicked the rifle out from under the sentry and whipped free the gored blade of his knife, the sentry collapsed forward like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Huang watched the sentry’s blood spill out onto the red sand, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. He had seen blood, of course. It was a rare fencing tournament that did not see some scratch or cut, with blood welling up to the surface. But never before had he seen so much.
The sound of rifle fire boomed in Huang’s ears, and he started, spinning around. One of the drivers had fired a shot at the oncoming bandits. But the driver had failed to properly brace himself against the ground before pulling the trigger and found himself hurled backward by the recoil, blundering into one of the other guards and sending them both sprawling onto the red sand.
“Come and get us!” another guard yelled with unconvincing bravado, brandishing a sword. Huang could not help but note the poor quality of the man’s grip on the sword’s handle. Then another shot rang out, this one from a bit farther off, and the sword-wielding guard crumpled lifeless to the ground as a cruel red flower erupted on his forehead. Huang glanced back to see one of the bandits braced against a low rise, a rifle cradled in his arms.
On Huang’s other side, one of the drivers threw his knife to the ground and fell to his knees, raising his hands in supplication and begging for mercy. A few of the others apparently thought this a worthwhile tactic, for in short order they threw their own weapons down and were kneeling right alongside him, hands up and pleading for mercy.
One of the bandits unhooked the breather mask that covered the bottom half of his face and regarded the pleading drivers through the dark glass of his goggles. With the mask hanging down over one shoulder, his face was revealed to be surprisingly kind looking, his mouth spread in an easy smile, a neatly trimmed beard shading the curve of his jaw.
“Now that is simply embarrassing,” the bandit said, chuckling, pointing with his long knife at the drivers on their knees before him.
Another bandit came to stand beside him, a tall, skeletal figure with a sword in hand. He removed his own breather mask to reveal a gaunt face, sunken cheeks, and high cheek-bones. “I say kill them now, Chief, and be done with it.”
The smiling bandit shook his head, laughing. “Where’s the fun in that, Ruan?” He looked back and forth among the pleading drivers. “All right, I’ll make you a deal. You’ll get no clemency from the likes of us, but if you get back on your feet and pick up your arms, you can at least die with a bit of dignity, no?”
The drivers began sobbing, wringing their hands, screaming for mercy.
“Now can I kill them, Zhao?” the gaunt man named Ruan asked, stepping forward and raising his sword for a killing stroke.
The bandit chief shook his head, wearing an expression of distaste. “Stay your hand, Ruan. I can’t stomach killing such low creatures.” He spat in the dust at his feet. “Have them hog-tied and left by the side of the track. With any luck, they’ll survive long enough to be picked up by the next vehicle to pass. When they tell others about our prowess and cruel efficiency, perhaps the next convoy will be even less t
empted to put up a fight.”
As the gaunt Ruan relayed the orders to another pair of bandits, the man named Zhao turned to the rest of the defenders, still standing with their weapons at the ready.
“How about the rest of you, eh? Ready to wait by the wayside with your friends here, to tell the next convoy they oughtn’t tangle with us? Or would you prefer to meet your end on your feet, like men?”
The defenders exchanged uneasy glances, and more than a few of them went to join the pleading supplicants on their knees, casting their arms aside.
Huang, who still stood motionless, with his red saber in his hand, watched it all unfold around him as though it were a game, or a drama acted out by players, his mind still filled with the image of the blood pouring out onto the sands.
“And you, boy?” the man called Zhao said, pointing to Huang with his chin. “Are you a man to stand and fight, or a squealing hog fit only to be tied?”
Huang looked at the drivers and guards on their knees. The fallen sentry had been on his knees when the bandit had driven his knife point-first into his shoulder, hadn’t he? And this Ruan seemed ready to dispatch the rest of them just as quickly, and Zhao’s mercy be damned. Could Huang trust that, if he surrendered and begged for mercy, he’d be left alive and not slaughtered like the fallen defenders had been? And even if they were left alive, there wasn’t another convoy bound this way for another week. Could he last a week without food or water, unable to move? He wasn’t in any hurry to find out.
“Well?” Zhao demanded. “Which is it?”
Huang had fought with a blade so often that he dreamed of duels, and yet he had never been forced to fight for his life. Could he do it? The sword was a tool used for sport, for art, not the kind of rank butchery he’d seen the bandits practice. Was Huang willing—was he able—to use the sword to hurt, even to kill?
To Huang’s surprise, he watched the point of his red saber rise as though another man held it. His body fell into a defensive posture almost as if it were another man’s body. The movements were instinctual, unexamined, years of fencing training taking over without any conscious thought on his part.
A handful of the guards were at his side, swords drawn and rifles ready. So were a couple of the drivers, with long knives and pistols in hand, and even a mechanic who carried only a heavy lug wrench in her hand.
“Well, there’s some men among you, at least, even if some of them are women.”
“Now?” Ruan asked impatiently.
The bandit chief Zhao laughed louder, and nodded. “Now!”
The bandits closed with the defenders, and the air rang with the clash of steel on steel.
Huang was only just beginning to tire when he realized that only he and one of the guards still remained on their feet. When the guard fell to a bandit’s sword—a red rill cut through his tunic from shoulder to hip—Huang was the last left standing. Last left of the defenders, at least, facing almost a dozen bandits. He found himself standing at the center of a ring of sword points.
In all his years of fencing, Huang had never faced more than six opponents at one time, and then only with wooden practice swords. If he’d had the opportunity to slow down for a moment and consider his situation, he’d have been terrified. As it was, he was so occupied with the parry and thrust of turning aside blades and seeking for weakness in his opponent’s form that it didn’t occur to him to be afraid.
He fought on, knocking aside a sword as a bandit lunged forward, then spinning on his heel and parrying another blow from behind, then sidestepping and riposting, darting forward and scoring a hit against one of the bandits. It was a small cut on the bandit’s shoulder, which in tournament play would have been a scoring hit.
When the bandit, his shoulder bloodied, bellowed in rage and rushed toward Huang, he was reminded that this wasn’t tournament play, and that a scoring hit was meaningless in a contest of life and death.
Now, at long last, Huang began to feel the icy touch of fear.
In the end, though it took as long as it had taken the bandits to subdue all the other defenders combined, the sheer numbers overwhelmed Huang. His muscles ached; his arms and legs were covered in nicks, cuts, and bruises; and his weary fingers were numb. He had turned aside a final thrust when another bandit clubbed at his blade from the side, knocking the red saber from his hands.
A kick knocked Huang’s legs out from under him, and he collapsed in a heap.
Sprawled exhausted on hands and knees, head throbbing, Huang lifted his eyes, mouth hanging slack, expecting the killing blow to fall at any moment.
But the blow didn’t fall. Not yet, at any rate.
A bandit stood over him. His face was round and genial, though a wicked scar crawled up one side of his face from the corner of his mouth, making his face look frozen in a lopsided grin.
Another bandit rushed forward, holding his long knife in a two-handed grip, murder in his eyes.
“No!” The scar-faced bandit whipped out his hand and grabbed the knife wielder by the elbow, stopping the blow.
“What is it, Jue?” the other bandit said with an actual sneer curling his lip.
“Didn’t you hear the chief?” the scar-faced Jue said, pointing with his chin to the other side of the circle.
The knife-wielding bandit hadn’t, clearly, and neither had Huang. He turned his head, to see the bandit chief approaching, mouth open and yelling.
“Hold, I say!” Zhao had his sword sheathed at his side, a pistol in his hand.
Huang stopped breathing, his heart in his throat, expecting the bandit chief to raise the pistol and fire. To his surprise, Zhao instead stood over him, the pistol’s barrel pointed to the ground, and regarded him with an approving look.
“Too admirable an opponent to kill in cold blood, wouldn’t you say, Jue?”
The scar-faced bandit nodded to the bandit chief. “If you say so.”
“And I do.” Zhao chuckled. “And it seems ill fitting to leave such a prize hog-tied by the roadside, for all of that.”
The scar-faced Jue shrugged, checking the action of his own pistol, a long-bladed knife tucked into his belt.
“What shall we do with him, then?” Zhao asked.
The gaunt bandit named Ruan joined the small circle standing over Huang, who now quivered with the terror it had taken him so long to feel. “If you’ve no taste for the killing, Zhao, let me do it.” Ruan tightened his grip on his sword’s hilt and eyed Huang hungrily.
Zhao seemed to consider the suggestion seriously for a moment, and Huang heard his own pulse thundering in his ears. Having held his breath so long, he now began to pant with fear, running the risk of hyperventilating.
The bandit chief finally shook his head. “No, there’s been enough killing for one job, I should think.” He scratched his chin through his well-trimmed beard. Then he turned and snapped his fingers at one of the bandits checking the bodies of the fallen for valuables. “Bring a length of strong cord,” he commanded.
“I thought you weren’t going to leave him hog-tied,” said the scarred Jue.
“I’m not,” Zhao answered, tucking his pistol in his belt. “I’ve decided we’ll keep this one as a pet—and we can’t take him with us without a leash, can we?”
Huang’s eyes widened even farther. He wasn’t sure whether the bandit chief was joking or not, and wasn’t sure which was worse.
Huang found himself longing for the relative comforts of the crawler’s metal benches and the comparative camaraderie of the drivers and guards who’d regarded him with naked contempt. He hadn’t known how good he had it, just hours before.
Now he found himself trussed up like a chicken ready for the pot and deposited unceremoniously in a corner of the bandit airship’s gondola. The dozen or so bandits—none of their number had been lost in the raid, though more than a few of them had bandages over wounds received at the end of Huang’s red blade—went about stowing the booty prized from the holds of the crawlers. And though they passed flasks from ha
nd to hand in rough good humor, they did not boast of their exploits or brag to one another about their martial prowess in defeating the defenders. These were men doing a job, nothing more.
After the bandit chief had Huang tied hand and foot and carried to the waiting airship, the bandits seemed essentially to have forgotten their new “pet.” Or if he was not forgotten, they seemed to think so little of him that they scarcely deigned to notice his presence.
Huang’s wrists and ankles chafed against the rough cords that bound them, but while his extremities grew numb from the awkward position and lack of movement, it seemed that the bandits had not tied the bonds so tightly that the blood was cut off. So he wouldn’t be losing fingers or toes to poor circulation, at least. Small comfort, especially considering that the bandits might just decide to toss him out the hatch once the craft was airborne, at which point the fact that his hands and feet were still amply supplied with blood would hardly be much consolation.
Eventually, the bandits all returned to the airship, evidently having picked the convoy clean of the most valuable or useful items. They seemed to Huang to have concentrated on foodstuffs, fuel, and armament, leaving behind dry goods like clothing and textiles. They had, however, retrieved from the crawlers’ engines various grease-covered mechanical components. Huang wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that the whole airship had been constructed from such salvage, after seeing its interior up close. The whole affair had a jury-rigged look to it, bits and pieces of other vehicles and devices repurposed to the bandits’ needs. The control mechanisms at the helm, for example, appeared to incorporate a velocipede wheel and the steering column of a ground car, while the knobs from a household oven appeared to control the airship’s lift and forward motion.
The bandits stepped over and around Huang as they boarded the airship. Even through the sturdy fabric of his Green Standard Army officer’s tunic and trousers, the metal of the deck was cold beneath him. The deckplates began to vibrate, subtly at first and more noticeably as moments wore on, and Huang could only assume that the engines at the rear of the airship had begun to thrum to life. The hatch was closed, and the bandits began to take their places around the cabin, securing themselves for flight.
Iron Jaw and Hummingbird Page 9
