by Mark Morris
For a couple of seconds, though, she was vulnerable. And sure enough, as she let go of her lances and watched the dead, impaled Tao Tei sink back into the morass of wriggling green flesh below, another of the creatures surged up from the throng, using the bodies of its comrades to propel itself towards her.
Lin Mae watched its widening maw grow larger beneath her feet, knowing there was nothing she could do. She saw rows of jagged teeth, a long red throat, smelled the thing’s breath come boiling up towards her, hot and rancid.
Just as the creature’s wide-open jaws began to close, the ropes of the sky rig reached their maximum tautness, and a split-second later she was shooting up into the air like an arrow fired from a crossbow. The Tao Tei’s jaws snapped shut so close to the bottom of her feet that she felt the upward push of air created by it rippling through her lower body.
Nevertheless she composed herself as she hurtled upwards, stretching out her body, enjoying the sensation of the wind parting around her as she cut through it. As she neared the top of the Wall, she tilted her body, shifting her weight on to her right side so that the sky rig swung round with her in a graceful half-circle. She held out her hands and one of the Tiger Corps soldiers expertly tossed across two more lances. Lin Mae caught them, and without even catching her breath, flipped and dived again. Around her she was aware of other Crane warriors rising or plunging as they performed similar maneuvers.
Suddenly she heard a scream from below. Looking to her left she saw one of her warriors plummeting towards the open jaws of a rising Tao Tei. The girl was trying to twist in mid-air, to aim her lance towards one of the creature’s eyes, but it was clear that this creature had not been her intended target, had instead risen unexpectedly from the mass and caught her on her blind side. Lin Mae looked on in horror as the girl frantically kicked her legs in an attempt to arrest or alter her course. But it was no use. The ropes of her sky rig were too slack.
Next moment the Tao Tei had her. The girl disappeared into its maw, still clutching her lance, and the Tao Tei’s jaws snapped shut. With a couple of sickening crunches it devoured both the Crane Corps warrior, her lance and half of her sky rig, leaving the remainder of the rig dangling in mid-air, blood-stained and mangled.
Awful though the sight was, Lin Mae knew she couldn’t let it affect her. They had all of them been resigned to dying a heroic death. They had known it was inevitable that once battle became joined with the enemy there would be casualties. As she plunged once again towards the seething green sea below, she tried to focus, to rediscover the point of stillness at her center.
But as she tried to home in on her new target, she realized that something was happening beneath her.
More than that, she realized that something was wrong.
* * *
High up in his command tower, General Shao had been watching the battle with a great deal of satisfaction. Their tactics had been working well. They had thinned out the advance guard of the Tao Tei with their fireballs, many of which were still burning; they had used their mirrors to prevent the Tao Tei from scaling the Wall, thus causing the creatures to mill about mindlessly at its foot; and now his Eagle Corps, Tiger Corps and Crane Corps warriors were working together with devastating effect to pick off the rest of the creatures at will.
It was almost too easy. Like spearing fish in a barrel.
But then perhaps they deserved an easy victory. They had been working tirelessly for many years to produce the most effective weapons and the most highly trained fighting force imaginable. And the Tao Tei, formidable though they were, were really nothing but mindless beasts. Perhaps they had finally met their match. Perhaps this victory would mark an end to…
Then Wang, standing beside him, drew his breath in sharply, and everything changed.
Shao looked at Wang. But Wang’s eyes were fixed on the battlefield below, where the Crane Corps were still diving and swooping. Wang, though, was not looking at their own troops. Instead he was observing the Tao Tei with narrowed eyes. General Shao followed his gaze—and then he too gasped in astonishment.
Something was happening among the Tao Tei. The mindless beasts that had been packed so tightly at the base of the Wall it was almost as if they’d been offering themselves up for slaughter, were now thinning out, pulling back—and not haphazardly but uniformly, like soldiers following orders. Indeed, General Shao saw an increasing number of the creatures lifting their massive heads and extending their surprisingly long necks, as if receiving some form of signal. The Crane Corps were still diving, but now there were fewer and fewer of the creatures left for them to kill. Almost meekly, considering how voracious, how utterly savage they were, the majority of Tao Tei were not only retreating but moving into formation, lining up in ranks.
* * *
William and Pero too were watching the Tao Tei with astonishment.
“Jesus,” William murmured. “They’re forming up.”
With nothing left to kill, the Crane Corps soldiers were leaping back up onto the battlements, detaching themselves from their sky rigs. William was relieved to see that the Crane Corps commander, whose name might or might not be Lin, was one of them. Not all the Crane Corps soldiers had made it. William had seen several flying rigs hauled back up over the battlements shattered, bloodstained and empty.
Pero was peering beyond the ranks of Tao Tei, squinting into the sun. Now he nodded to indicate the distant desert.
“Look there,” he said. “Further back.”
William looked where he was indicating, wishing he could raise his hand to shield his eyes. Some way back beyond the furthermost ranks of the Tao Tei another group of creatures had emerged from the cloud of mist that now all but shrouded the boiling river. There were around a dozen of them, similar to the Tao Tei but taller and more powerful looking. Impressive and terrifying though these new creatures were, it wasn’t they that drew the eye, however. Like a ring of bodyguards, the larger creatures were surrounding a being that was truly monstrous. Its body was massive, with dark, translucent skin and a huge, distended belly. Its eyes were a vivid green, flashing in the sun, and even though he was some distance away William sensed that a fierce, unknowable intelligence burned behind them.
As he watched, the creature raised its head and opened its vast mouth, as though chewing the air. William saw endless rows of curved, glinting, razor-sharp teeth, each of which looked as long as his forearm. Indeed, the maw itself, opened to its full capacity, looked capable of swallowing half a dozen men with a single gulp. He looked on with awe and revulsion as horn-like appendages on the creature’s head, linked by a web-like film of connective tissue, suddenly began to vibrant, and to produce a hideous, high-pitched ululating sound, which caused many of the soldiers in front of him to cover their ears with their hands. As the sound drilled into his head and seemed to set his skull vibrating, William wished he could do the same.
* * *
Watching from her perch atop the battlements, Lin Mae saw that the awful, elongated screech of sound issued by the vast creature in the distance was having a marked effect on the now eerily ordered ranks of the Tao Tei. Straightening up, row after row of them, like soldiers going into battle, they each raised their heads and let out an answering wail of their own. Then, in perfect unison, the first row charged headlong at the Wall and crashed into it with all their might.
Lin Mae tensed as she felt the stone battlement tremble beneath her feet. She knew, though, that no matter how hard they tried the Tao Tei would never smash their way through the Wall using sheer brute force. Did they honestly think they could?
Nevertheless they kept at it. After the first row had moved out of the way, seemingly none the worse for wear, the second row charged. Then the third row. The fourth. The fifth. Despite being bombarded by fireballs from the trebuchets and hails of arrows fired down from the top of the Wall by the Eagle Corps, the barrage went on and on.
It was only when the sixth or seventh wave of Tao Tei had smashed into the Wall that Lin Ma
e suddenly realized with horror what they were doing. They weren’t trying to smash their way through the Wall at all. They were trying to smash the mirrored surface, which had prevented them from climbing it!
And they were having a great deal of success too. Peering down between two Eagle Corps archers, who were perched on their “nests,” firing arrow after arrow into the Tao Tei ranks, she saw that the mirrored surface was already cracking, splintering, falling away. And with each successive wave of Tao Tei pounding their considerable combined weight against the Wall, she saw more and more of the smooth mirrored surface disintegrating, revealing the bare—and climbable—stone beneath.
* * *
Wang was a man who usually kept his emotions on a tight rein, but at this moment his face was etched with anxiety. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he pointed at the vast creature in the distance with the other.
“That must be their Queen. She commands them.”
General Shao diverted his gaze, peering in the direction of the Strategist’s pointing finger.
“Attack the Queen!” he bellowed. “Attack the Queen!”
* * *
Tiger Corps soldiers buzzed around the trebuchets like wasps around a nest, making alterations. Meanwhile, within the vast machine-like workings of the inner Wall, ammunition was being made ready. This time the oil-coated cannon balls were linked together and embedded with dozens of razor-sharp blades. They were lit and then propelled, burning, along the iron chutes, towards the waiting scoops of the trebuchets.
* * *
General Shao watched as the trebuchets were loaded, one by one, with their deadly cargo.
“Fire!” he yelled, and the counterweights of dozens of trebuchets were released almost in unison, the great firing arms flipping up and over. His eyes narrowed in grim satisfaction as razored fireballs flew through the air towards the distant Queen. Surely nothing could survive such a deadly barrage. Within moments the Queen would be cut to flaming ribbons and the Tao Tei would become mindless beasts once more. Then it would simply be a matter of employing their superior firepower to dispatch the creatures until there was not a single one of them left.
The razored fireballs flew up and over the main mass of Tao Tei who were still hurling themselves in ordered ranks at the mirrored surface of the Wall. Some of the fireballs, Shao saw, would fall short, whereas others would overshoot their target. More than enough, however, would reach their intended destination. He clenched his fists, knowing it would only be a matter of seconds. Already the first of the razored fireballs was beginning its downward arc.
But then Wang gasped beside him. One of the larger beasts surrounding the Queen had risen to its full height and unfurled what appeared to be great fan-like shields on either side of its head. Shao had no idea what the shields were composed of, but they must have been tougher than steel, because as the first fireball reached the Queen and her cortege of Paladins, Shao saw it hit the shield in a shower of sparks and bounce harmlessly away.
Within seconds the rest of the Paladins had risen to their full height and extended their own fan-like shields. Shao saw fireball after fireball hit the shields and deflect away, leaving barely a mark. Enclosed within the protective barrier, the Queen remained entirely unharmed. Directly below, meanwhile, the Tao Tei continued to follow her bellowed instructions, hurling themselves relentlessly against the mirrored surface of the Wall.
Then they stopped. And for a moment an eerie silence fell. Wang and General Shao looked at one another. Down below them, on the Wall, the thousands of Corps soldiers seemed to pause too, as though readying themselves for the next stage of the battle.
The mirrored defenses had fallen. Now they were just so much glittering shrapnel at the base of the Wall. The stone surface had once again been exposed, leaving the Wall vulnerable to renewed attack.
The Queen used the vibrating web between her horns to issue another order, and all at once the Tao Tei surged forward en masse and hurled themselves at the Wall once again. But this time they dug their taloned claws into the crevices between the stones and began to haul themselves upward. Some fell back, but many didn’t. The Tao Tei were climbing the Wall!
Trying to hide his anxiety, to appear calm and authoritative, General Shao stepped forward. “Close combat!” he shouted.
Immediately his order was conveyed up and down the length of the Wall. “Close combat! Close combat!”
Although General Shao had hoped it would never come to pass, this was another eventuality for which the soldiers of the Nameless Order had prepared themselves. Over and over again they had practiced their strategy for what would happen if the Tao Tei ever managed to breach the Wall. They had practiced it until every single man and woman could have performed their designated tasks in their sleep. And now the day had finally come when they were being forced to put that strategy into operation.
Within the inner Wall the Tiger Corps were busily pulling levers and adjusting mechanisms. As a result of their endeavors, the raised “nests” on which the Eagle Corps warriors perched with their crossbows suddenly cracked open, releasing great coils of barbed wire netting. As this was happening, the Crane Corps soldiers, now uncoupled from their sky rigs, moved back to form themselves into a defensive barrier, the rigs themselves, no longer needed for the time being, folding up and descending through trapdoors in the floor that had opened to receive them. The forward positions vacated by the Crane Corps were now taken up by the purple-armored Deer Corps, who advanced to a point directly behind the raised nests of the Eagle Corps archers. At an order from Commander Deng, which was relayed along the length of the Wall, the Deer Corps warriors raised their turtle-shell-like shields in unison, creating a formidable barrier between themselves and the enemy.
Despite the anxiety he was feeling, General Shao watched the preparations with pride. His soldiers had trained well, and now, with conflict against a terrifying enemy looming, they were acquitting themselves admirably. Whether they would win the upcoming battle was an impossible question to answer, but he was sure of one thing: whatever happened today, the men and women under his command would fight with courage and conviction, and would not give up until the very last one of them was dead.
6
William and Pero had a grandstand view of the action as battle was joined. Despite the best efforts of the red-armored archers, the first wave of screeching, green-skinned Tao Tei suddenly appeared at the top of the Wall, scrambling and clawing their way over the battlements. There was no reticence about them, no hesitation. They were insatiable creatures, who wanted only to tear and kill and devour. They had no notion of fear or pain or death. Each and every one of them was purely and simply a compact, ferociously equipped war machine.
William had been in enough battles to know how chaotic, how disorientating they could be. He knew that to survive you needed to keep a clear head, to keep your eyes and ears open, to react quickly and efficiently. As the first wave of Tao Tei swarmed up and over the battlements he took in all that he could, his mind simultaneously assessing his and Pero’s chances of survival. He knew that to have any hope of living through the next few hours, if not minutes, they needed to have their hands in front of them rather than bound behind their backs.
As had been the case for some time, the young black-armored soldier and his silent companion were now more concerned with what was happening in front of them, rather than with what their two prisoners might be doing behind their backs. Acting quickly, William jumped down from the buttress and pushed his shoulders back, stretching his arms as far as they could go. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his bound wrists, he forced his hands down his back, at the same time bending forward until he had managed to get his tethered hands over and beneath his backside. Crouching low, and eventually dropping to his knees, he then contorted his body still further until he had managed to push both his feet through the loop of his conjoined arms. By the time he struggled back to his feet his hands were in front of him. Although they were still tied tog
ether, and his wrists were slippery with blood as a result of his efforts, at least he could now use them to defend himself if needs be.
When he saw what William was doing, Pero followed suit. It took both men around thirty seconds to perform their contortions, by which time the Tao Tei were cutting a swathe through the front line of red-armored archers. Some of the archers’ arrows had pierced the creatures’ eyes and killed them, but it hadn’t taken long before the ascending Tao Tei were overwhelming the archers through sheer weight of numbers. The first thing William saw when he straightened up was one of the archers being swept from his perch by the massive taloned claw of a Tao Tei. The archer flew through the air, flailing and screaming, then sailed clean over the Wall and disappeared from sight, plummeting to his certain death far below.
Having broken through the line of archers, the Tao Tei leaped towards the barrier of shields held in place by the purple-armored soldiers. As though unaware of the danger in front of them, though, many of the creatures were instantly caught in the coiled barbed wire nets that had unfurled from the archers’ nests. Although the coiled and razored nets didn’t shred their flesh, as they would have done to any normal adversary, they did hamper their progress enough for the purple soldiers to use their long lances to impale many of the creatures through the eyes. Within minutes many of the Tao Tei lay dead, tangled in the nets, but that still didn’t deter those that were following on behind from surging forward.
And eventually, again through sheer weight of numbers, the Tao Tei began to gain the upper hand. From his vantage point, William saw that the creatures were beginning to bypass the barbed wire nets by trampling over their dead fellows, who had effectively done the job of flattening the nets for them. He winced as one Tao Tei opened a massive mouth and bit not only a purple soldier’s shield in half, but also the man who was standing behind it. Another Tao Tei further along the Wall clambered up on to the dead body of one of its fellow creatures and used it as a springboard, leaping straight into a line of shields and scattering them and the soldiers behind them like skittles.
