by Alice Major
“Here. You first.” He gestured politely to Li-Tsai. The old man smiled at him and walked through the door, with Mark and the others close behind.
In the dim light, they could see a low, rock-lined room. In its centre, stood a table and chair made from the same dark wood as the door. Around three sides ran a series of carved, knee-high benches. On each bench stood a chest of bright red lacquer. Li-Tsai stepped over to the nearest one and lifted its lid. Inside were nested a row of scrolls. The guardian put the lid back down gently and took a step back. His voice trembled as he spoke.
“They have been here all this time. All the time. And I didn’t know.”
Chapter Twenty-two
It worked. It worked.”
Joss sang the little song over and over in her head in time to the ambling pace of her fat pony.
“Alasdair, you’re a genius,” she had whispered when they were finally sent off to their sleeping quarters, after the commotion of the missing prisoners had died down. He shrugged his shoulders doubtfully.
“I hope we did the right thing.”
“Of course we did.”
“Well shut up about it, for pete’s sake.”
Slightly offended, she had turned away from him, but kept the bubble of relief penned inside her. It was still there when she awoke to find the light node strung pale and clear on its silver cord and the countryside visible again in all directions—with no sign of the fugitives. They had managed to make it clear away in the fog.
In spite of the loss of the prisoners, and in spite of the grim sound of the lash snapping on the backs of the unfortunate guards who had failed to keep them safe, the whole army seemed in better spirits. Perhaps it was simply the lifting of the fog, which seemed to leave the landscape brighter and sharper than it had been before. Perhaps it was the effect of a good rest. But even the horses seemed to step out more willingly.
Alasdair looked back along the column of soldiers. It was definitely shorter, less than half as long as the army that had set out. However, it seemed more disciplined, better organized. His spirits lifted a little. Unlike Joss, he had been full of guilt and misgivings as soon as he had heard the uproar outside the king’s tent. On the one hand, the thought of a small boy being tortured was horrible. On the other, he felt he had committed his loyalty to the Middle Kingdom and Ssu-ma, and he didn’t like the feeling of being a traitor.
However, he felt a little better as he looked back at the purposeful column of men and horses. The country was wide and empty. What difference would two ragged fugitives make to the success of their mission, anyway?
The good spirits and good weather lasted for several pulses. Although the country was as empty as ever, the road had once again widened and become easier to travel. For some reason, this seemed to cheer Ssu-ma.
“Where you have good roads, sooner or later you will have people,” he told the king.
Joss and Chuan stayed decorously with the army now. Joss did not want to risk finding any more of the White Ti people for a while and, anyway, it didn’t seem as easy to slip away unobserved. Wherever she turned, she seemed to see one of the dukes or their courtiers. She found herself disliking Ssu-ma’s stern face just as much as she had disliked Ssu-kung from the beginning.
Ssu-ma sent out more and more scouts to quarter the countryside ahead of the army and report back. With almost every brightening of the light node, Alasdair would ask permission to go along on one of these patrols. On one such expedition, he found himself part of a group led by the crusty soldier who had sat beside him on the day the fog rolled in. Their small party had been sent ahead to find a suitable spot where the army could camp at the end of the pulse.
By mid-pulse, they were many kilometres in front of the army, in a wild burst of country. On their right, the road was overhung by a high, wooded bank that got steeper as they rode along until it towered over their heads. On the left, stretched the dull sheen of a large slough—so large, it could fairly be called a lake. The land around it was boggy, dotted here and there with tall clumps of the reeds that grew like bronze knives.
“Can’t camp anywhere around here,” grunted the soldier who led their small troop. He was an experienced campaigner who had followed the Director of Horses many times. He urged his pony into a trot towards a bend in the road, where he stopped and scanned the landscape ahead. Then he wheeled and trotted back.
“We’d better get back and tell them to camp early, before they get to this big water. The hill on the right here only gets steeper, curse it.”
“So they’d better camp just past that other small slough we passed,” Alasdair suggested.
“Right. And they’ll be passing that soon. If they’re not already there.” He swung his horse’s head around and headed back in the direction of the army. His companions followed immediately, except for Alasdair. He stayed looking a while longer at the wide swatch of water.
The country was so calm, so completely lonely, he thought. There was absolutely no sign of human activity, except for the road itself. And he was struck—just as Mark, far off to the south had been struck—by the intensity of the silence. It wasn’t just the absence of people. It was the absence of everything that moved, chirped, whirred or flew. The slough reflected nothing but reeds and pewter sky. The land lay like a princess in a fairy tale, as though there was life there somewhere that needed some touch of magic to awaken it.
At last, Alasdair shook himself and hauled on the bridle to turn his pony around. It was a willing little beast, worth two of Joss’s any day. For some reason, though, it always wanted to back up rather than turn to face the opposite direction. After some tugging, he got it headed back towards the army. The other scouts were already disappearing along the road ahead of him and riding fast.
About a kilometre along, he paused, noticing something that had half-caught his attention on the way out. It was a small path leading off the main road. It wasn’t much more than an accidental gap between trees. Still, any path was curious in this country where nothing existed to make paths. He looked at the gap, then looked along the road in the direction of the army. He consulted the state of his stomach. There was still plenty of time before the third meal. Then, on impulse, he urged his pony between the trees and up the steep bank.
Not far into the trees, Alasdair felt his stomach squeeze tightly in a way that had nothing to do with hunger. Although the path’s entrance had been almost invisible, it immediately opened out into a broad track where five or six people could walk abreast. And it was clear the way had been widened only recently. Tree stumps were fresh and the ground littered with broken twigs and leaves.
He slipped down from the pony’s back and tugged it into the underbrush, well away from the path. He found a small clearing with a patch of summerweed still blooming and tethered the animal firmly to a tree. The pony dipped its muzzle happily into the greenery and snuffled.
Then he slipped back to the path and made his way quietly along, watching carefully as he went. The track climbed straight up through the wood, at right angles to the main road. At first the trees on either side were densely packed, but after a while they began to thin out. Eventually, he found himself at the edge of a wide, open area. It sloped up from where he stood, towards another bank of trees rising a couple of kilometres away. The trail did not cross the open land; instead, it turned left hugging the trees. In that direction, the open area also stretched upwards, towards a low ridge.
He crouched in the shelter of the trees for a while, watching carefully for any movement, any sound. His eye was caught by something rising beyond the ridge. Not smoke, exactly—more like the quiver of air above a hot stove. After studying it for a while, he began working his way towards the ridge, keeping himself tucked in close to the shelter of the trees.
He went as fast as he dared, but it was still an hour before he came to the crest of the ridge. He took one cautious peep, then threw himself fu
ll-length on the ground. Below him, the land fell away in a long slope towards an open plain. In the distance stood a cluster of tents, horses, carts—the unmistakable signs of an army camp.
Not his army.
The column of wavering air seemed to come from several fires in the centre of the camp. They must have been carefully constructed to send up so little smoke, he thought. The camp was too far away for him to see much detail, but he lay there for some time, observing carefully, counting the wagons and tents as best he could. A few human figures came and went, but there did not seem to be enough of them to account for all the baggage.
Where were the remaining enemy soldiers? His stomach lurched again as he thought of his companions. Were they already under attack?
He backed down from the crest of the hill. Hugging the trees even more closely, he made his way back in the direction he had come. Midway he halted. There was a soft rustling sound off to his right and he looked up to see some tall trees in the distance tossing, as if caught in a sudden wind. But there was no other sound, and after a few moments he started on his way again.
It seemed like an eternity before he found himself back in the clearing with his pony. His stomach told him it was well after the third meal now, but it was more cold fear than hunger that made him scramble onto the horse’s back and head in the direction of the Middle Kingdom.
He reached the camp at a gallop. To his intense relief, everything seemed perfectly normal. The horses were tethered placidly, the banners on the royal tent stirred gently in a breeze. A small figure paced back and forth beside the road at the edge of the camp. As Alasdair rode up, Joss rushed out to greet him, relief flooding her face.
“You’re back. You’re all right,” she said. “Where were you?”
He thrust the pony’s reins into her hands. “Here, take this,” he said hurriedly and headed for the king’s tent at a jog. Joss looked after him indignantly.
As he had hoped, he found only the king and Ssu-ma in the tent, and he promptly poured out his story. The king was elated.
“At last! We come up with them.”
The Director of Horses did not share his exhilaration. His mouth tightened, and he questioned Alasdair closely.
“How many soldiers?”
“I’d say about as many as we have.”
“But you saw so few?”
“I’m just going by the number of tents and wagons.”
Ssu-ma asked detailed questions about the terrain. How wide was the clear, unwooded area? How steep was the slope? How far was the ridge? He had Alasdair draw sketch maps of where he had been.
“And you saw nothing else? No signs of activity?”
“Nothing ... except ...” He remembered the waving tree branches and described them. Ssu-ma nodded, satisfied.
“So that’s what they’re up to.”
“What do you mean?” asked the king.
“Ambush, sire. Any time you see tree tops waving like that in the distance, you can be sure the enemy is preparing an ambush. They have been cutting paths through the wood to bring their people right down to the road without our knowledge. And from the description of the terrain, it would be a good place for a surprise attack. We would be trapped between the forest and the water with the enemy above us.”
“Treachery!” said the king indignantly. “How like these White Ti.”
“Merely clever tactics, sire,” said Ssu-ma dryly. “We must be more clever.” He waved the others away, then sank onto the chair beside Alasdair’s drawings, studying them intently.
On the next pulse, the soldiers were surprised by an order that they would remain encamped instead of moving on. The crusty soldier cocked an eye to the sky overhead.
“No fog coming,” he said. “What’s he up to?”
Ssu-ma had summoned the head augurer to his presence. “I want a ceremony,” he said. “A conspicuous one.”
“But, your honour . . .” The priest was staggered. “It is not time for the winter ceremony, as you well know. And we are well past the time when it is proper to hold the autumn rituals.”
“I want a ceremony,” the Director of Horses repeated. “I want one that can be clearly seen from a distance. Arrange it. Now,” he barked at the head augurer, shooing him from the tent. Seeing Alasdair’s puzzled face, he unbent enough to explain.
“Obviously they have spies watching us,” he said. “I felt sure they must have, but they have been very clever. We have never so much as caught sight of anyone. I need something that will tell these watchers we are staying put for a reason—a reason that has nothing to do with any suspicion of an ambush up ahead.”
He stopped abruptly. “You are sure no one saw you?”
Honesty compelled Alasdair to answer, “I can’t be completely sure. I didn’t see anyone, but I suppose there could have been someone deeper in the woods watching me.” He hesitated. “It didn’t feel like anyone was, but that doesn’t tell you anything.”
To his surprise, Ssu-ma gave one of his rare smiles and clapped him on the shoulder. “Indeed it does,” he said. “We shall assume you went unseen.”
The soldiers, as bewildered as the head augurer, were put through a re-run of the autumn rituals: the king wearing the red formal robe of the season; the horns blaring and the gong sounding. Meanwhile scouts were sent quietly off in several directions to comb the area for spies. Alasdair himself led one party back the way he had come, unobtrusively pointing out the entrance to the path as they rode by it. Finally, in the fading hours of the pulse, Ssu-ma began to put his plan into action.
Almost half the army was marched quickly away during the hours they would normally have slept. They followed the road for a short time. However, long before reaching Alasdair’s path, they swung off to the east, pouring over the countryside in a steady, silent column. When they reached the broad, grassy slope between two wings of woodland, they were commanded to melt quietly into the trees on the upper part of the slope, eat from their well-filled food wallets and rest for a time.
The remainder of the army slept as usual, then woke to the usual round of feeding horses and packing wagons. Then the march began as usual, along the main road. What was not quite usual was the fact that the wagons and cooks and attendants began to fall behind while a large company of the most experienced fighters drew ahead. This group was led by Ssu-kung, intense and nervous at the head of the column.
To Joss’s disgust, she and Chuan had been ordered in no uncertain terms to stay behind with the baggage carts, under the sharp eye of the head cook, who had been ordered in turn not to let them out of his sight.
“A battlefield is no place for women,” Ssu-ma had said curtly when Joss tried to protest. Flushing with anger, she turned away, disliking him more than ever.
Alasdair, however, had been allowed to accompany Ssu-ma and the king. As the light node brightened, he found himself crouching in the underbrush, looking down onto the enemy camp. It was the hour of the first meal, and tiny figures milled around the distant cluster of tents.
“There are a lot more soldiers than when I was here before,” he whispered. The Director of Horses only nodded and turned to scan the wing of woodland that stretched off to their left. There was no sign of movement.
“Presumably they are not in position yet for the ambush,” he said. “Ah...” He pointed, and Alasdair looked down again at the plain where a small mounted figure was moving swiftly towards the camp from the direction of the main road.
“Their scouts have no doubt signalled that our army is on the march.”
Ssu-ma turned and murmured some orders to the captain beside him, who nodded and moved away.
They watched as the horseman reached the camp. Within a few moments, there was a bustle of activity and soon there was a column marching swiftly across the plain and up the ridge.
“Eight hundred, a thousand men,” said the Direc
tor of Horses, frowning. “They are holding back many soldiers in the camp.”
Faintly, Alasdair could hear one or two shouted commands, but the enemy’s march was almost as silent as theirs had been. They lost sight of the enemy column for a few moments as they came up the far side of the ridge; then they came into view again briefly before melting into the cover of the trees on the far side of the open area.
Ssu-ma waited patiently until he was sure the entire column had gone deep into the woods to take up their position near the road. Then he gave more orders. Soon, his soldiers were emerging from their hiding place and moving rapidly into the open area. Alasdair watched with gathering excitement as the army of the Middle Kingdom moved smoothly and professionally into an L-shaped formation.
One leg of the “L” ran parallel with the crest of the ridge, while the other faced the woodland where the enemy lay hidden. The soldiers stood in columns seven or eight deep, clutching oval leather shields in front of them.
On the higher ground behind the main army, groups of archers were placed strategically. In the angle of the “L” was a body of mounted soldiers, ready to gallop to either end of the army, wherever help was needed. Among them, Alasdair could make out the bright red figure of the king trotting restlessly back and forth in front of his troops. A captain led another horse up to Ssu-ma, who swung himself onto its back.
“Where should I go?” asked Alasdair.
The Director of Horses looked down at him with a grim smile. “You will stay here.”
“But I could do something . . ..”
“You could get in the way. You are not trained or equipped to fight.” He smiled down at Alasdair’s insulted face. “Watch and learn.”
He urged his brawny bay horse into a trot towards the army. Alasdair watched him go, then trudged uphill to find the best vantage point for seeing the battle. As he sat on a hillock well behind one of the groups of archers, a damp swirl of air made him shiver unexpectedly. The lines of soldiers below suddenly looked small, unimpressive. Two men of the White Ti came out of the trees, saw the army drawn up and tried to run back, but were overtaken and captured by some of the king’s mounted soldiers. The wait dragged on. Alasdair even began to feel hungry.
