by Mark Morris
On the other hand, it might not even come to that, because one thing which had encouraged Wang, and which he had pointed out to William and Peng Yong, was that the Tao Tei appeared to be veering slightly off course. Unless they corrected themselves there was a chance they might bypass the city altogether. If that happened, and the creatures ended up in the open plains, it might then be a case of bombarding them from the air with black powder weapons. The Nameless Order had lost so many balloons, and might yet lose more, that Wang didn’t know whether they would have anywhere near enough firepower to wipe the Tao Tei out completely. But they might severely weaken them. And if they could score a direct hit on the Queen…
His musings were broken by Peng Yong, who was working the ropes. “They’re turning! Look!”
Wang, who had been resting, leaped to his feet. He looked over the side of the gondola, and saw that what Peng Yong had said was true. The Tao Tei were indeed turning—and were now once more heading directly towards Bianliang. It had perhaps been too much to hope that they would miss the city entirely, but even so, he couldn’t help feeling disappointed.
* * *
The Reception Hall of the Imperial Palace was a place of beauty and serenity. It was a huge, empty space, shuttered and silent, draped in peaceful, pale grey shadows.
The ornate double doors at the far end of the room were sturdy, bolted from the inside. Anyone in the Reception Hall at that moment might have looked up at the suggestion of an approaching rumble from somewhere beyond those doors; might have wondered whether a storm was brewing on a distant horizon.
But the approaching rumble was no storm. And as it got closer to the doors, it began to break down into individual sounds: screams, pleas for help and mercy, panicked running footsteps.
Then there was a crash, which quickly became a clamor of shouts and banging fists, as something huge and weighty hit the double doors from the other side. The doors held at first—but then, as the pressure and the panic on the other side increased, they began to shake and bend inwards, the gap between them widening. Under immense strain, the bolts that secured them together first started to bend, and then to tear themselves from the wood. And then suddenly they flew off, and went clinking and clattering across the polished floor.
The doors crashed inwards, one of them with such force that it was almost ripped from its hinges. And a flood of people surged through, like a single, flowing entity made up of many parts. The people were screaming, running, falling then scrambling upright again, their faces stricken, their eyes wide. They raced through the Reception Hall as though they had demons at their back.
Which, to all intents and purposes, they did.
* * *
Lin Mae could barely believe it. The Tao Tei had won the race!
They were in the city now, spreading havoc, while she and what remained of her warriors were still drifting above it. What was most demoralizing was that, aside from the many casualties the Nameless Order had suffered en route, it had actually seemed for a short while as if the tide might be about to turn their way. Not only had the flotilla caught up to the wave of Tao Tei, but it had looked as though they might overhaul them, reach the city first. If they had they could have organized Bianliang’s defenses, battened down the hatches as much as possible, and hit the Tao Tei from behind the city walls with the full force of their black powder weapons. It still might not have been enough to stem the tide, but at least they would have been in with a chance.
The Imperial Guard, though… they had never had to deal with a threat of this magnitude, and as such they had been ill-equipped, ill-prepared and subsequently overwhelmed. Now all the Nameless Order could do was track the marauding Tao Tei through the city and try to minimize the damage they had caused. But they would have to do it with a severely depleted force. As far as Lin Mae could tell, there were only twenty-five balloons now left out of the entire flotilla. Which meant they had less than a hundred troops to fight thousands of Tao Tei.
It was a hopeless task, but one which she would not give up on; one which she would pursue to the end. She tried not to dwell on the many problems that had beset them on the final stage of their journey, but it was hard not to feel that the gods were against them.
First, the wind had dropped, causing many of the balloons to drift aimlessly, some of them going way off course. Of those that had been able to maintain their course, a large number had then started to run out of fuel, and had crashed one by one to the ground. Now those that were left were drifting in over the city, but losing altitude fast, Lin Mae’s among them. With Xiao Yu at the ropes, and Lin Mae and Li Qing guiding her as best they could, they were currently both tracking the Tao Tei and looking for somewhere to land.
Directly in front of them was the magnificent Imperial Palace complex, its glazed roof tiles, shimmering in the sun, stretching nearly a mile into the distance. Several of the flotilla were drifting over this now, the thoughts of their crews no doubt echoing her own: Can we land here? Do we dare?
In truth, though, they needed to get to the rear of the Imperial Palace if they could, because interestingly, and perhaps ominously, the Tao Tei had veered around the outskirts of the city to enter Bianliang via the North Gate, which just happened to be the one closest to the Palace itself. Could this be because they knew the Imperial Palace was the Emperor’s residence, and that to attack here first would be to strike at the very heart of the Kingdom?
Despite the fact that Wang had said the creatures were evolving, she couldn’t believe they were imbued with such intelligence. So what, then, had possessed them to enter the city here? Instinct? Or had it been a random choice?
Then she remembered the way the Tao Tei had all suddenly changed course, as though responding to a signal. And she recalled too the lone Tao Tei, placated by William’s magnet, that had been brought to Bianliang by Shen. Could it be that the placated Tao Tei had somehow summoned the others here from the Imperial Palace? If so, then Shen might have delayed the terrible fate awaiting the people who lived in Bianliang’s streets, but he had put the Emperor in deadly danger!
Their balloon was sinking rapidly now. In one of the balloons ahead of them, also sinking, she glimpsed Commander Chen. Leaning forward, she yelled, “To the rear! Steer to the rear of the Palace if you can! Stay together!”
She was aware, even as she gave her orders, that her words would probably be in vain. As they lost altitude the balloons would doubtless prove ever more difficult, if not impossible, to steer. She supposed that the best most of her crews could hope for was to reach solid ground—wherever that may be—in one piece. And even if they did manage to stay together and get to the rear of the Palace, what could they hope to achieve? Her plan, such as it was, was the same as Wang’s—any chance they got they should bombard the Queen with everything at their disposal. It sounded simple, but Lin Mae didn’t think for a moment that it would be. The Queen would no doubt be highly protected. Unless her Paladins could somehow be disabled, they would deflect anything the Nameless Order threw at her.
The balloon at the head of the flotilla drifting over the Imperial Palace was also the one that was sinking most rapidly out of the sky. It was barely managing to crest the tiled rooftop beneath it, though Lin Mae could see three Eagle Corps soldiers struggling tirelessly within the gondola to keep it airborne. She clenched her teeth, hoping they wouldn’t be reckless with the black powder—and then just when it seemed they might make it over the roof, after all, the tiles beneath them erupted outwards with a splintering crash, and a Tao Tei burst through, its jaws opening wide.
It leaped into the air like a breaching whale and grabbed the gondola in its teeth. The gondola tipped, all three of its occupants falling out. One fell straight through the hole the Tao Tei had burst from and the other two hit the roof. One of the men landed, bounced and then slithered right off the edge of the roof, disappearing from view. The other rolled over, then manage to scramble up onto his hands and knees.
As the Tao Tei dropped back into
the hole from which it had emerged, still hanging on to the gondola, the balloon, yanked downwards, first tore and half-deflated, then erupted into flame. The fireball shot up and sideways, engulfing the surviving Eagle Corps soldier and scorching the roof.
By now Lin Mae was already diving for the ropes and yelling at Xiao Yu and Li Qeng to take evasive action. They steered around the already dwindling conflagration, clearing the edge of the tiled roof with inches to spare—but now they were descending far too quickly towards another rooftop, the one over the North Gate.
Xiao Yu tugged frantically on the ropes as the roof rushed up towards them, while Lin Mae grabbed a couple of long lances attached to the inside wall of the gondola and yanked them free. As Li Qing slashed at some of the ropes secured to counter weights on the outside of the gondola in the hope of reducing the speed of their descent, Lin Mae extended the lances over the side with the intention of using them to slow their fall or perhaps even push them higher.
Thanks to their combined efforts, they managed to slow and steady the balloon, at least a little. As it passed over the roof, however, so close that the black powder weapons that were dangling below the craft scraped and bumped over the roof’s surface, a Tao Tei, having scaled the wall to the edge of the roof, suddenly appeared in front of them and leaped.
Caught off guard, Xiao Yu recoiled, letting go of the ropes that controlled the steering mechanism, and the gondola dipped to the side. As it did so, Lin Mae, struggling desperately to retain her balance, thrust one of her lances forward in an attempt to deflect the leaping Tao Tei.
She managed it, the lance piercing the side of the creature’s head, and causing it to flip and writhe in the air. It missed the tipping gondola by inches, hit the edge of the roof, then flipped over and plummeted to the ground below.
The danger was not over yet, though. Not only was the gondola still tipping, causing all three of its occupants to lose their footing as they scrabbled frantically for the dangling ropes that would steady them, but now more Tao Tei, alerted to the presence of the sinking balloons, were swarming up the walls and scrambling on to the variously leveled roofs of the Palace.
Fighting to hold on and to get back to her feet, Lin Mae glimpsed two of the creatures loping along the edge of a roof above them. Before she could draw breath to shout a warning, the creatures leaped, talons extended, like cats attempting to pluck a bird from the air.
Shoving herself upright in the tipping gondola through sheer force of will as Xiao Yu tumbled past her, Lin Mae again raised one of her lances and rammed it forward. More by luck than judgment it struck one of the leaping Tao Tei squarely in the chest and deflected it past the gondola, its teeth still gnashing and its claws flailing at the air. The second Tao Tei also missed the gondola, but became briefly entangled in the ropes beneath it, causing the craft to veer even more wildly out of control. The Tao Tei squirmed violently, causing the gondola to rock from side to side, and then, still squirming, it clawed its way free of the ropes, only to plummet past the edge of the roof and down to the ground below.
The balloon, though, was failing badly now, starting to deflate. Glancing up from the rocking gondola, Lin Mae saw that not only was the heat in the unattended brazier now dwindling, which meant there was not enough hot air to keep it afloat, but at some point in the past few minutes the balloon itself must have got caught on a passing spire, or perhaps even been slashed by a Tao Tei’s talon, and had sprung a leak.
For now the gondola was still directly above the roof of the Northern Gate—a drop of ten or twelve feet—but as the balloon slumped, its weight and the pull of the wind dragging at it, it would likely be plucked sideways, whereupon it would either ignite or crash down to the ground below, which was teeming with Tao Tei.
Their only choice, therefore, was to jump from the gondola on to the roof and hope for the best. Already she could see more Tao Tei rapidly scaling the walls towards them, but it was still the more favorable of two very bad options.
“Grab whatever weapons you can, and jump!” she screamed, then led by example, launching herself from the gondola, one of her two long lances still clutched in her hand. She saw the roof rushing at her, hit it and rolled, distributing her weight and dispelling her momentum. She looked up just in time to see Xiao Yu falling towards the roof. Her lieutenant, though, looked as if she had not so much jumped from the gondola as tumbled out of it. She hit the roof hard, a flailing mass of arms and legs, the jolt sending her own lance flying out of her hand. As Xiao Yu turned painfully on to her front and pushed herself up on her hands and knees, groggily looking around for her weapon, a Tao Tei dragged itself up over the edge of the rooftop behind her. Before Lin Mae had time to scream a warning, the creature lunged forward, jaws open and swallowed Xiao Yu whole!
Lin Mae froze in horror, but she had no time to mourn. She heard Li Qing’s frantic warning, “Behind you!” and the next moment she was wheeling round, instinctively swinging the blunt end of her lance into the gaping maw of a Tao Tei that was rushing up behind her. The creature tumbled away, knocked off balance, but sprang instantly back to its feet. Sensing movement on her other side, Lin Mae turned to see Li Qing using her lance as a vault, jamming it into the crevice between two tiles, then rising in a graceful arc up and over Lin Mae’s head. As the Tao Tei leaped forward to attack again, Li Qing hurled the spear she was holding in her free hand with all her might. The spear went straight through the creature’s eye and into its brain.
Letting go of the lance, Li Qing completed her arc, which took her over the now-collapsing body of the Tao Tei. She rolled and jumped to her feet, but before Lin Mae had time to thank her for saving her life, two more Tao Tei loomed up over the edge of the roof, one of them snatching Li Qing with its black talons and stuffing her into its mouth.
Of her three-strong crew that had risked so much to get here, Lin Mae was now the only one left. She had known and trained with Xiao Yu and Li Qing for almost all her life; she had regarded them as friends. But now, within a matter of seconds, they were both gone.
The two Tai Tei to her right, one of them with Li Qing’s blood still dripping from its jaws, moved towards her. To her left a third Tao Tei scrambled up on to the other side of the roof. Adopting a fighting stance, lance held out before her, Lin Mae backed up to give herself room to maneuver. As the three Tao Tei closed in, she readied herself for her final battle.
22
“Lin Mae! Above you!”
William saw her whirl round, then look up, her eyes widening in surprise as the gondola rushed towards her. The three Tao Tei, who had now been joined by a fourth and a fifth, were closing in on her, blood and drool trickling from their jaws, their small eyes glinting.
Knowing he had only a few seconds, he leaned as far as he could out of the gondola, his arm stretching out.
“Hand!” he yelled, but even as he gave the instruction he knew the gondola was still too high, a good six or eight feet above her, and she would never make it.
She was sprinting towards him now, though, the five Tao Tei springing forward, close on her heels. He saw her jam her lance into a divot between two of the tiles that covered the roof and launch herself toward the gondola.
She kicked her legs, as though pedaling the air, to gain as much height as possible. At the same time she stretched upwards, gritting her teeth in her attempt to make her arm, her hand, her fingers as long as she could.
William concentrated on that slender hand. Right at that moment it was, for him, the only thing that existed in the world. He stretched out his own arm and hand just that little bit further. The slim white hand came within reach…
He lunged and grabbed it! Grabbed it and held on tightly. As he yanked backwards, pulling Lin Mae up towards him, she brought up her legs and tucked her knees into her chest, the jaws of a leaping Tao Tei snapping shut on empty air just a couple of inches below her.
“Hold fast!” he shouted as she dangled below him, like a hunk of meat above a pool of hungry piranhas. Then h
e heard a cry of dismay from Wang and turned his head to see that the balloon was heading directly towards another roof, one that was a good twelve or fifteen feet higher than the roof they were currently flying over.
Still hanging out of the gondola, still gripping Lin Mae’s hand, he shouted, “Pull it up!”
His words were unnecessary. Peng Yong was already frantically cranking the little fuel they had left, while Wang, showing rare speed and nimbleness, had pulled out his sword and was slashing free unwanted ballast.
As the weights fell and the hot air gave the balloon extra lift, the gondola rose so quickly that it tipped a little, then righted itself. Fortunately for William and Lin Mae, it tipped up rather than down on the side of the gondola where he was clinging to her. As a result, she was jerked up into the air. Before she could fall again, William reached out and gathered her in, then allowed himself to drop backwards.
They tumbled into the gondola in a tangle of arms and legs, William on the bottom and Lin Mae landing on top of him. For a moment their bodies were pressed together, their faces so close that their noses were almost touching. Breathless and stunned, Lin Mae stared into William’s eyes, as though unable to believe he was here in front of her.
“I set you free,” she said.
He smiled. “And yet here I am.”
“Hold on!” Wang yelled before she could respond. Both their heads jerked up. Lin Mae used her now freed arms to push herself to her feet. The balloon had cleared the higher roof, but now, thirty feet in front of them, was one of a pair of huge pagodas, its tiered roofs shining red and gold. The balloon was still rising, but the pagoda was at least a hundred feet high and dead ahead; there was no way they would clear it.
