by Mark Morris
They both jumped as the surface of the Wall at the bottom of each of the trebuchets suddenly began to crack open. William’s first thought was that the Wall was somehow breaking up, that the enemy, whoever they were, had launched a stealth attack, which was now undermining the structure. But then he realized that, like the ceiling through which the sail-decked contraptions had risen, the Wall was supposed to break open. He watched, amazed, as from the channels that had been created rose a series of vast iron chutes.
This, though, was perhaps only the least of the wonders they were destined to witness over the next few minutes. No sooner had the chutes appeared than, with a further series of cracks, the stone floor in front of them opened in multiple places once again, and what appeared to be numerous nests or platforms rose up from below. As soon as they were in position, rows of red-armored eagle snipers lined up and began to climb onto the platforms. Each of them was holding a weapon William had never seen before. It was similar to his own bow, but shorter, stubbier, and held horizontally rather than vertically. Odd though the weapons were, he and Pero had seen for themselves how accurate they could be. Again William wondered how an attacking force could hope to win against such firepower.
With the archers in position on their raised platforms, the floor cracked open yet again—in different sections this time—and the contraptions that William and Pero had seen earlier rose up through the gaps. There were not just five of them this time, but dozens—hundreds perhaps. They rose up into the air like giant spikes, and then, when they were in position, a flood of female crane warriors, fluid and nimble as dancers in their vibrant blue armour, flooded forward to tug on ropes and pulleys dangling from the undersides of the contraptions.
As they did so the contraptions opened up, like vast elegant birds spreading their wings. Immediately crane warriors began to step up onto the bird-like rigs, to buckle and strap themselves into harnesses that were attached to the structure, to become a part of it. As soon as they were in position, yellow-clad tiger warriors came forward to toss the crane warriors long lances, which they caught nimbly, before taking up their positions on massive winches to which the bird-like rigs were attached. The tiger warriors began to haul on levers and ropes, hauling the rigs higher, causing the great wing-like sails to spread wider, to fill with air. Now the crane warriors looked ready to launch themselves from the battlements, to fly and swoop through the air like gigantic birds.
William glanced at Pero, and saw that his dark eyes were as big as saucers.
Just as amazed himself, he muttered, “This is…”
“Unbelievable,” Pero supplied.
William spotted one of the crane leader’s captains or lieutenants clambering atop one of the rigs and strapping herself in, but he couldn’t see the crane leader—Lin?—herself.
And then he did see her, further along the Wall, barking orders, organizing her troops. She was perched on one of the rigs, which was being hauled into position by tiger soldiers. As the wings of the rig spread she stood proudly, stretching her body out as though eager to launch herself into battle, a long lance in each hand, as if she was prepared to fight twice as hard as everyone else.
She looked magnificent, dazzling, beautiful. Her black hair flowed in the wind. William couldn’t take his eyes off her.
And then, from behind a shadowy buttress in the Wall close to them, half-concealed by one of the trebuchets, a head suddenly appeared, snagging his attention.
The head was followed by the upper part of a lean, almost scrawny body. William blinked in surprise as the newcomer turned to regard him. What surprised him the most was not that the man had appeared, but that he was a Westerner, like himself! Who was he? Where had he come from? He didn’t seem to be a prisoner here. The man was cadaverous, with sharp, almost fox-like features. He clenched his teeth in a grin and nodded. Then, as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone again.
William turned to Pero, feeling slightly dazed. “Did you see that?”
Pero nodded. “I did.”
Beyond the din of preparations—the clank and creak and scrape of machinery, the pounding of drums, the bellowing of orders—the sound that had pulled them all up short in front of the stockade door, the screeching and wailing, as of a thousand tormented children, had been growing steadily louder. Now it was loud enough to start drilling into their heads, to send shudders of primal fear through their bodies.
“Who the hell are they fighting?” William asked, raising his voice above the ululation.
Pero shook his head. “No idea. But they look nervous.”
William surveyed the well-drilled activity still taking place in front of them. Admiringly he said, “They know how to follow orders.”
What Pero had said, though, was true. The soldiers did look nervous. And as the ceaseless wailing grew louder and closer and more ear piercing, they looked more nervous still, their eyes flickering with fear, sweat running down their faces.
“It’s a big wall to be so nervous,” Pero said.
Their bear guards had now turned their attention from their two prisoners and, like everyone else, were focused on the oncoming threat beyond the Wall. William nudged Pero and indicated the buttress to their right, from behind which the scrawny Westerner had appeared.
“Let’s get a closer look,” he said.
The two men sidled across to the buttress and, awkwardly because of their bound hands, scrambled up on to it as best they could to get a better vantage point. As soon as they were high enough, they peered over the heads of the hundreds of waiting troops at the desert beyond.
What they could see made them gasp. The river in the distance, which seemed to mark a border between the Wall and the jade mountain, was seething and churning, as if the water had turned boiling hot. Foam and spray were rising in the air, sparkling in the sun. But there was something in the spray, something dark that seemed to move with a kind of frantic purpose. Was it a single entity or…
“Dios mio…” Pero muttered.
William gaped, but couldn’t speak. He literally couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The creatures now bursting from the smothering cloud of spray, revealed for the first time beneath the unforgiving desert sun, were not animals but monsters. They barreled en masse towards the Wall, hundreds of them, thousands of them. And as they came they screamed their terrible, wailing war cry; a sound of rage and hunger and misery. It was as if they had burst from the very depths of Hell, bringing the screams of the tormented with them.
The closer they came to the Wall, the more William and Pero could make them out. Each one of the beasts was the length of a grizzly bear, or a great ape, with a solid, muscular body that was nevertheless lithe enough to propel them across the desert sand at an incredible speed. Their skin, plated like armour, was green and crocodile-tough, with a ruff of hyena-like fur on their backs, and although it was hard to tell at a distance, each plate seemed to be marked or inscribed with a translucent pattern of swirls. Their heads were massive and shark-like, dominated by huge, blood red mouths filled with countless rows of sharp, jagged teeth. Their eyes, by contrast, were small and deep-set, and were positioned not on their heads but on either side of their wide, barrel-like chests. Although the creature William had fought and killed the previous night had reared up on two legs to attack him, these monsters were racing across the desert on all fours, impeded not in the slightest by the fact that their claws were huge, club-like, and inset with curved, black, razor-sharp talons.
A shudder of primal terror ran through William’s body, yet mixed in with that was a scintilla of admiration, even awe. In all his travels he had never seen a creature so well equipped to fight and kill. He only hoped the Wall would stand firm against what was destined to be a devastating attack, and that the many and ingenious weapons of their captors would be enough to repel the invaders.
5
Up on her sky rig, Lin Mae gripped her two long lances tightly and tried to stay calm. The wind, which she could feel blowing through her hair,
brought the awful screeches of the Tao Tei, which alone would have turned an ordinary man or woman’s guts to water. But she had trained for this. She had been born for it. She took long, deep breaths and tried to find the point of stillness in the center of her body. When it came to the battle she would draw her strength and her focus from that stillness. Whatever happened today, she would not be found wanting.
* * *
Still standing on top of his command tower, Wang beside him, General Shao silently observed the oncoming horde. He was anxious, though not for himself. He feared for the city of Bianliang, which the Wall had been designed to protect, and for the one million people who lived there. If the Tao Tei breached the Wall… If they reached the city…
He quashed the thought.
The Tao Tei would not breach the Wall.
He and his troops would not fail.
He would not allow it.
He watched the Tao Tei approach. He stood silently, waiting for them to get a little closer… a little closer…
Wang looked at him anxiously, but still Shao waited.
Come on, he thought, come on…
And then suddenly he sprang into motion, startling Wang.
Wheeling first left, and then right, he bellowed the order:
“Long distance weapon!”
* * *
As the war drums quickened, and General Shao’s order was relayed quickly along the Wall in both directions, the Tiger Corps warriors, responsible for engineering and artillery, leaped to the fore. Within the machine-like workings of the inner Wall, huge cannon balls were winched carefully from cauldrons of boiling oil and placed on iron chutes. Beside the chutes waited more Tiger Corps soldiers with burning brands, who set the cannon balls aflame and then launched them, trailing flames and heat, down the metal slopes of the chutes towards their destination. The chutes passed through channels in the Wall, allowing the flaming cannon balls to roll into the iron holders of the dozens of trebuchets ranged along the battlements. As soon as the cannon balls were in place, a trigger was activated and the trebuchets fired. Once their cargos had been released the trebuchets were primed again and the action repeated.
* * *
Perched precariously on the buttress, their hands still tied behind their backs, William and Pero watched as the sky became filled with massive iron fireballs. The noise as the trebuchets, one after another, launched burning metal death towards the advancing horde of green monsters was tremendous, almost but not quite loud enough to drown out the ceaseless screeching of the creatures themselves. And the effect of the fireballs was devastating. They rained down on the horde, smashing many of the creatures into instant extinction, and creating a barrier of rising flame between the Wall and the incoming tide of attackers.
Yet unbelievably the creatures kept coming. Many dozens of them, undeterred by the rain of missiles, burst through the flames leaping up around them, as if unaffected by the blistering heat. From his perch William could see that the creatures’ advance guard had suffered serious casualties. Yet he could also see that the creatures were so numerous that in the long run the death toll they had suffered from the fireballs alone would be so small as to be virtually negligible.
Another cry went up from the black-armored General on the command tower, his stentorian voice cutting through even the screeching of the creatures and the din of battle. William glanced up and across at the General, a distant figure whose black armour glinted in the sunlight, and wondered what he had said.
Whatever it was, he hoped it would prove effective against the enemy.
* * *
The drums changed tempo in line with the General’s new order, which in turn was relayed swiftly along the length of the Wall in both directions: “Raise the mirrors! Raise the mirrors!”
Perched on the battlements at the very front of the Wall, effectively standing on the edge of a precipice and peering down at the desert far, far below, Commander Chen of the Eagle Corps gripped his crossbow and waited grimly to be called into action. If all went to plan it would not be long now. The order to raise the mirrors had been given, and already, leaning forward, he could see bricks in the Wall flipping over rapidly, to reveal that on their backs were smooth reflective surfaces that caught the sunlight and deflected it in a shimmering wave of golden light over the advancing hordes of the Tao Tei. Within moments every single brick in the Wall had flipped around, to create a smooth mirrored surface that stretched the length of the Wall. It undulated and meandered through the Painted Mountains, absorbing the blinding sunlight and casting it back as a white glare.
He braced himself on his perch as the first of the Tao Tei approached the Wall at lightning speed and then hurled itself forward. It tried to scramble up the mirrored surface, digging in its talons, but the mirrors proved every bit as effective as it had been hoped. Unable to get any traction on the smooth surface, the Tao Tei sank back to the ground, its claws making a hideous screeching sound as they slid over the glass. Immediately more of the Tao Tei hurled themselves at the Wall, but they too fell back. Soon hundreds of the creatures were packed against the base of the Wall, writhing and squirming over one another in their desperation to rend and tear and devour. Chen smiled grimly. The Tao Tei were now exactly where the Corps wanted them to be. He raised his head, looking to his left and right, and gave the order.
“Fire! Aim for the eyes!”
Immediately a lethal rain of bolts poured down on the mass of Tao Tei below. Those creatures that were struck in the eyes died instantly, their life force extinguished in a split second. However those that were struck in other parts of the body only became more enraged, tearing and biting at the bolts, ripping them from their plated bodies and casting them away, as if they were nothing more troublesome than thorns or the stings of insects.
Still firing arrows, his hands moving so quickly they were almost a blur, Chen heard Commander Shao, up on his command tower, issue another bellowed order: “Crane Corps attack! Now!”
Watching another of his bolts strike home, he felt like a small but vital component of a great war machine.
Soon, he thought with grim satisfaction. Soon we shall have victory.
* * *
Lin Mae conveyed the General’s orders, and watched with pride as the red-armored Eagle Corps drew back, allowing the sky rigs of the Crane Corps to be wheeled forward. The mechanisms and controls of the rigs themselves would be manipulated by the Tiger Corps, each of the different disciplines among the warriors of the Nameless Order working together like harmonious parts of a single entity.
As she was moved into position she looked right and left, and saw that the first wave of her Crane Corps soldiers were as poised and ready as she was. Each of them was standing upright on their rigs, proud and fearless, lances in their hands ready to strike at the enemy. Lin Mae knew how eager each of them would be to do their duty, the exultation they would feel as they launched themselves from the battlements. As a Crane Corps soldier, to fly was everything. To soar was the closest one could get not only to freedom, but to divinity. Facing front, she gripped her lances and took a long deep breath, searching again for that point of stillness in the center of her body.
* * *
As the blue-armored woman on her flying rig was wheeled forward to take her place at the forefront of the battle, William felt his stomach clench. They hadn’t exactly become friends in the short time they had spent together—in fact, he was sure she would see him executed without a qualm—but he nevertheless couldn’t help feeling there was a connection between them, and not simply because she spoke his language. The thought of someone so beautiful, so graceful, going head to head with the slavering, voracious beasts below seemed wholly wrong to him, obscene even. How could her elegance and purity survive in the face of such insatiable savagery? War was a filthy, bestial pursuit, best carried out by filthy, bestial creatures like himself and Pero.
As she braced herself to leap into the unknown his heart began to beat as fast as the pounding war drum
s, and he opened his mouth, as if to cry out.
But before he could say anything, the moment was gone. She yelled out an order, and then without hesitation dived from the battlements, lances extended.
William watched with horror as she plummeted towards the ravening horde below.
* * *
Launching herself from the top of the Wall, Lin Mae knew that her life was in the hands of the Tiger Corps warriors operating her sky rig. If they made the slightest mistake she would die, but she had the utmost faith that that wouldn’t happen. As she soared into the air, she knew they would be operating the winches to slacken the ropes of the rig, allowing her to plunge towards the sea of green flesh and ravening jaws below. Holding on to the point of stillness within herself she readied her lances and focused on making her contribution count.
At the apex of her dive she felt herself tipping, falling, the desert wind battering her body and the sails of the sky rig with increasing force as she hurtled towards the ground. It was easy to panic here, to lose control, to spin and twist in mid-air. But she maintained her shape and concentrated on picking out her twin targets and sticking to them.
There! The eyes of the creature rearing up towards her, like a dog leaping to snaffle a scrap of tossed meat, were small and black, but as she plunged towards it, they seemed to grow larger, to fill her world. She adjusted the position of her lances slightly, and then, just at the right moment, thrust them downwards! The creature shuddered and died as the lances embedded deep in its eyes bent in two perfect arcs, slowing her fall. As her downward momentum was arrested, Lin Mae calmly and expertly flipped her body round in mid-air, from a diving position into a sitting position, at the same time bending her knees and drawing them into her body, tightening herself into a ball. She knew that up above the Tiger Corps soldiers would be frantically turning the winches in the opposite direction, pulling the ropes of the sky rig taut, so that she could spring back up into the air, out of danger.
