With this Power of Nine, Quan should have felt complete and utter despair, but upon the return of his son Wu, his spirits soared and he believed that anything was possible.
“Have you seen any sign of Jasmine?” Master Yun asked Quan.
Quan shook his head. “Perhaps that fall you told me of was finally her end.”
Black shields with the Fox Queen’s silver-tipped, nine-tailed insignia formed a pattern of rings like a multitude of hands raised in victory. “Why do they march out in eight directions like that?” Quan asked. “Never have I witnessed an offensive maneuver so peculiar and so deliberate.”
“Her plan is to block us from all resources,” Master Yun said. “Her first target of course, is the Forbidden City, the seat of Imperial power. We could have holed up behind the walls of the capital, but that would only have brought us under siege. Secondly, she must destroy First Emperor’s tomb, the very hilltop upon which we sit, for it is this burial mound that holds the power to the Crosshairs of the Four Winds. It is only here that we can place the device, only here where it has a chance of success. Her third target is the Dragon Wall itself. With its destruction, the borders will cease to exist. Target number four is the Grand Canal, the waterway to the Yellow River, escape from the capital and access by sea. Number five is the Ordos desert, the homeland of the Mongols, whom the Fox Queen had always planned to destroy. Number six is the jungle along the shoreline where the White Tiger will reveal itself. Number seven is the mountain pass to the southwest, nesting ground of the Chinese Phoenix. Number eight target is the earth itself where the Black Tortoise will emerge. Number nine target is the sky where the Emperor’s Dragon flies. So, you see, Brigade General, she has all her threats covered.”
The herald of the Fox Queen’s horn trumpeted amidst the beating of brass drums.
“That is her warning, Quan. You must get your troops into position. She will not hesitate to attack the mound first if need be.”
“The armies of Captain Huang, Zi Shicheng, Altan of the Mongols and Liao Dong of the Manchus are already in battle formation, and the Yeren hide in fifth position. I think even the fox faeries with their uncanny sense of smell will fail to detect the hiding place of Ren Xiong’s Man-bears. And there, that flood of armed and ghostly racers is Yongfang and his rebels taking up position number six. If the pirates come to our aid, we will be a formidable force. We are almost their match. We can yet win the day.”
“The day, perhaps—but not the war. Not without the help of the White Tiger and the Black Tortoise. Without a magic construct, we cannot defeat Dahlia. Let us pray Li is successful.”
“I disagree, Master Yun. If Li is not successful we cannot give up. Admiral Fong told me that there is one way to defeat her without magic, and that is to slice off her nine tails in a single blow.”
A solid mass of troops comprised the Fox Queen’s Circle. “Do you see a way in, Quan?” he asked.
“But surely you know her weakness, Master Yun?”
“Naturally, I know it. But most of the time what I did not know was the Fox Queen’s whereabouts. And when I did find myself in the unfortunate position of confronting her, her tails were out of reach. You forget, Quan, Dahlia is a creature of enchantment. If she doesn’t want you near her tails, you cannot get anywhere near them. And there is one other thing Admiral Fong probably failed to mention. It is not just any blade that will hew down her tails. It must be a magic blade. So even if you had the opportunity to act, your sabre would ring hollow as though the root of her tails was made of steel.”
“A magic blade, you say?” Quan gazed askance at the bronze scimitar peeking out from beneath the warlock’s robes. “Is that not a magical blade you possess?”
“It is. And it is one thing to use it on an army of men, but can you wield it against her? So again, I must repeat, can you see any way in to reach the Fox Queen?”
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Li looked to the water, the bamboo sails over her head rattling in the wind as they left the Grand Canal and hit the swift-running current of the Yellow River. A chill struck her, and she lowered her eyes to the brown water immediately below the hull of her junk. The most peculiar visions attacked her sight, and her mind swooned while even stranger sensations assailed her. She had seen this before: two bright orbs in the murky water. They blinked like a pair of whale’s eyes, but they were so large and bright and red, that they could be nothing short of demon’s eyes. A dark body, the size of an elephant rippled beneath the surface, sending columns of glowing bubbles in an upward gurgling stream. This was no elephant. A head like a hornless rhinoceros attached to a dark mass, scaled and ridge-backed, cut the surface, gold-clawed feet propelling it forward. Li’s cold hands began to freeze and when she opened her mouth to scream, she saw the creature breach, saw that its back was not slick like a whale nor angular like that of a sea dragon, but broad and capped with a serrated carapace like that of a gigantic turtle.
It was going the right way, but without Lao! Li shouted into the wind, body rigid at the helm as she tried by force of will to attract her son’s attention. Fong’s warship was downriver and they were heading out to sea. That creature was a sign from the gods. An omen of hope! All was not lost if only she could convince Fong to return! She ordered her men for more sail. The warship would soon reach the delta. If it found the open sea, Fong’s vessel would pick up speed. On either side of the river, the jungle was thinning. Something caught her eye and she turned to the far side, where the riverbank was caked with mud and rock like a low wall. The dark, ridged-back dragon-turtle breached the river surface before it bore into the bank like a drill. The upheaval of soil was breathtaking, as trees toppled one over the other, and the creature left the water to disappear into the ground.
“Fong! Did you see that?” Li shouted into her blowhorn. The warship had slowed. They were within hailing distance. “Did you see that?” she repeated to the grey-coated figure at the helm. She ploughed up beside him, signalling her men to cut the sails. Fong looked down at her with a small and frightened Lao beside him.
“It’s been following you, Lao,” Li said gently, addressing her son. “Ever since that night Quan and I escaped from your father’s ship. It followed us when I rescued you and brought you to the palace. It or should I say he, is the Black Tortoise, your namesake and your guardian. You must return with me. It is a portent, the will of the gods.”
“That was no tortoise,” Fong argued.
“Then what was it?”
Fong shook his head. “I do not know. But it is nothing like the tortoises I have fed on.”
“Of course not. Don’t you understand, Fong? The world is broken. Nothing makes sense the way we know it. Long ago, emperors ruled with dragons by their side and empresses rode upon golden phoenixes. Men of long life like yourself were protected by animal spirits. Your son’s is the Black Tortoise. It was foreseen long before his conception.” Li lowered her head. “I do not pretend to understand the prophecy. It said that the black warrior from the North, the Black Tortoise would rise against the enemy and save the Middle Kingdom from annihilation. It said that that warrior would be my son. Lao is my son, so isn’t it he who saves the world? Help us, Fong, all the world trembles on your choice.”
“I did not see this black tortoise that you speak of. I saw only a huge mound, like a whale, bore into the riverbank and vanish. How is this possible?”
“I told you. Nothing is as it was. And nothing is as it seems. You yourself have seen evidence of this from the mound of First Emperor Qin. You have seen the Magic Circle of the Fox Queen. Magic is everywhere and the demons rule it. They will continue to rule if you do not return with me.”
“I have seen the strange comings and goings. And I will not place my son in jeopardy. Long have I waited to have a son; three hundred years have I waited for the right mother to present herself. I will not lose him now. I have seen the forces that comprise that Circle. And my reason tells me that we cannot win. Our best chance is to let them fight it out amon
gst themselves, and we will return when the world is sane again.”
“It will never be sane under the Fox Queen’s rule. You hide only to be hunted down, rooted out and captured—and enslaved.”
“You have seen her armies, Li. We cannot win against ghosts, the undead, demons and giants. I am a man of the sea. I fight with cannon and musket, bow and blade. I cannot fight invisible enchantments.”
“You are the White Tiger,” Li argued. “A man of legend. You know better than all of us, except perhaps Master Yun, what it means to live in a world of magic and myth.”
“That is why I am telling you that the world of men will fail.”
“NO,” Li said. “Not while I still breathe. If you will not come, then give me our son. Let him make his own choice.”
“He’s a boy. He cannot choose, for he knows not what he chooses. Besides, it doesn’t matter. Without me, the Crosshairs will fail.”
“Aha!” she shouted. “Will fail. Are those not your words? If the Crosshairs will fail without you, then there is a chance that it will succeed with you. Admit it! There is a chance.”
“There is no chance, Li. You misread my words. All reason tells me we will fail.”
Li was at wits end. She could not force Fong to return if he refused. And the boy was not hers to take without his permission. But what would it matter if she returned with Lao? For without the White Tiger, there was no Crosshairs.
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All must accept Wu as emperor, if only in name. There was no time for pomp and ceremony, no time for a coronation. But Wu was merely a boy. What did he know of fighting and strategy? How could he rally the people and keep them steadfast? What could he possibly know about ruling an empire?
The Ming armies had set out at dawn, but Quan did not expect many to return by dusk. They fought south of the wall, and they would die south of the wall, unburied in the wild grasses, their corpses fresh meat for crows, their white bones left to shine under the moon. The waters of the Yellow River tributaries ran turbulent with blood, staining the brown rushes as though with ink. Quan saw it from his station atop the mound. He witnessed his first line of cavalry fight to the death, their exhausted horses whinnying in terror, pacing back and forth searching for their riders who were already dead.
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The yellow grasses along the bank were withering away. Li stood at the helm of her junk, thinking how the reeds of the river looked so much the colour of her tattered bamboo sails. She had failed to bring the White Tiger and the Black Tortoise. Now her only hope was that the Pirate King was waiting for her, and together they would sally forth and join the fight for all mortal kind.
Her thoughts were with Quan, He Zhu and Master Yun now—and the boy who would be emperor. How had that come to be? She had no will to answer it. Why did the weight of the entire world rest upon his small shoulders? Her heart sank toward despair. She thought dourly of how far away her quest had taken her, so unimaginably far. And so broken with gaps in her remembrance that she could not fill. How had she come to be a pirate, when she was a concubine, then to learn she was a princess? How had she come from the Forbidden City to the serpentine wall of the desert frontier to the water lairs of the sea gypsies? She loved Quan, and in all her exile she remembered she loved him, and for her own safety and his they were kept apart. Each night she dreamed they were together again, only to wake up to the knowledge that he was in foreign lands and she a pirate, always on the move, separated from each other: he at the wall where the withered mulberry trees defied the sharpness of the wind, and she upon the sea feeling the bite of its cold. And yet this path, her quest, was so broken. It had so many gaps in its telling that her memory lapsed intermittently and frequently. Am I going insane? Have the gods finally taken all that is left of my sanity?
At the confluence of the Yellow River and the Grand Canal, the black flag of Mo Kuan-fu saluted her. Here, at least, was one more ally to fight an impossible war.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
The Battle of Nines
The lack of word from Li and her pirate consortium told Master Yun that there was every chance no help would come until the last desperate moment. He could not wait until then. He must have a contingency plan. A portion of the Ming Army must draw the eastern arc of the Circle toward the Forbidden City, leaving a gap by which Brigade General Chi Quan could distract the troops of the Inner Circle. Already, He Zhu was leading Zi Shicheng’s former rebels and Liao Dong’s Manchu forces to defend the city walls. Their hope was to lure the outer legions of the Circle to the east, and draw the enemy’s fire. If they succeeded at this diversion, Master Yun could slip through the channel and strike at the Fox Queen.
While Quan paced the plateau atop First Emperor’s mound, Master Yun scratched out his strategy on the hard, dry earth. The Pole winds raised yellow dust over the plain. “Quan, stop pacing. It’s making me nervous. Come here and study this plan before the wind wipes it away.”
The brigade general came to stand beside the warlock. Eight channels radiated between the troops of the Inner Circle. Which path was weakest? Quan must divert the legions of the Outer Circle, leaving only those inside protecting the Fox Queen. There was no chance of breaking the entire Inner Circle, but a crack in its rigid structure might be possible. The target was the Kui, the strange mutated man-beasts whose arms grew front-to-back. Because of this aberration they were useless as ground troops. They couldn’t use their arms for fighting and see at the same time, and so they were mounted upon the seven-headed, one-eyed Jian, who attacked from the air. On the other flank of the channel was the Tao Tie, the gruesome gargoyles seated upon the Nian. Both the lion beasts and the seven-headed birds were easier to spook, unlike the ghost warriors of the Night Guards Army.
If Quan managed to scatter the legions of Scorched Mountain and their gargoyle compatriots, Master Yun had a chance of reaching Dahlia with the Scimitar of Yongfang.
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The autumn air bit, and a dull mist swept over the vista. Off on the horizon, mountains and streams vanished before reappearing in a swirl of fog. The plains rolled away into the distance shadowed by the black armour of the Fox Queen’s marching armies. The horses of the Imperial troops whinnied anxiously. For a thousand miles, from where He Zhu stood upon the parapet of the wall, he watched the banners with the insignia of nine silver-tipped tails. Dust spiralled, mixing with the fog, and the vibrations of one hundred thousand demon warriors shook the wall. He Zhu raised a hand and the gongs thundered. Every soldier, mounted and unmounted went still. Zhu joined his generals at the frontline. The drums began to rumble.
Zi Shicheng, the former Chinese rebel, rode to the northernmost endpoint of the line, while the Manchu leader Liao Dong took the south. Zhu stayed in the center with his legion of Ming bowmen. He looked to the east for help from the sea and saw none coming. He raised his hand once more, dropped it like a bolt of lightning, and fifty thousand allied cavalry charged to meet their deaths.
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The challenge for Brigade General Chi Quan was to bait the undead from their queen. Because Yaoquai, the hopping corpse, and the Night Guards Army were not killable, Quan’s only hope was to lure them to the mountain and trap them there. The legend of the wall said its trajectory was written long before the first brick was laid. A great dragon had fallen from the sky. Dragons fought only for emperors and it was Master Yun’s hope that Fucanlong’s kindred would hear his plea, awaken from their slumber, and become the keepers of the captives they sent to the wall.
Oh, the irony, Quan thought. To capture the great ghost emperor, the very first emperor called Qin. His were the men who began the wall as a defense against the raiders of the north. And Quan had fallen into the same trap. Build a wall, he had urged. That will keep the barbarians out and protect the citizens. What was he thinking? You cannot keep people in or out. And at the end of all things, who is to say what is barbaric?
Would this wall work to hold back ghosts? It didn’t hold back men. He had linked the massive rampa
rts until they blocked the desert from the mountains and the mountains from the forests. And as soon as the walls were strong in the east, the hordes trampled them down and looted the west. And when the plundering ceased and the northern raiders retreated, the walls went up again. The bricklayers worked to exhaustion, from sunrise to sunset, until the sun and the moon themselves tired of watching.
But now the wall must save them.
Quan sought the sky, cloudy and wet. There were only six dragons left in the world: Fucanlong, the blue shapeshifting treasure dragon, Yinglong of the mountain, Shenlong of the rain, Tianlong of the sun, Lilong, the hornless one of the sea, and Jiaolong of the swamp. The king of all dragons laid buried in Hot Lake at the edge of the Red Desert where the Fox Queen had obliterated him. Yes, Master Yun had told Quan of their fate—but what of Dilong, the dragon to rule all dragons? True, he was no more. And since his devastation, all remaining dragons were diminished to sleeping kittens. But his bones had magical abilities, and Master Yun had been duped out of the fifth rib of Dilong, which had released the Night Guards Army.
But since things no longer follow the rules of the Cosmos, can’t the great dragon return from the dead? Quan wondered. He Zhu returned from the dead. And if that was possible, then anything is. Where were the dragons? Quan looked over his shoulder as he galloped like a hundred thousand ghosts chased his soul, and saw that his fear was not unwarranted. Hordes of ghouls of all kinds pursued his troops in a flurry of acrid dust.
“Go, go, go!” he hollered to his men.
The line of Ming soldiers and their Mongol allies stormed across the plain, bringing at their rear, their imminent doom.
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