The Great Wall

by Mark Morris

William staggered past the carts and saw two dark figures standing upright, albeit a little unsteadily, in the murk. As he approached them, they looked blearily up at him, their faces and clothes greyed by stone dust.

  “Are you all right?” he asked Lin Mae.

  She frowned and pointed at her ears.

  He raised his voice. “Can you hear me?”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, though she still seemed a little off-balance.

  Wang coughed and wiped his eyes, then peered back through the settling curtain of dust. “Are they…?”

  “They’re gone,” William said simply.

  Wang nodded, though he looked dazed, as though he couldn’t quite process what William was telling him.

  “What now?” William asked, and then, more sharply, hoping to get Wang to focus, “What now?”

  Wang blinked. Equally sharply, he said, “We free the beast. We let it feed.”

  William nodded and ran across to the meat cart, which he dragged, inch by straining inch, across the floor of the chamber to the foot of the steps on the far side. Glancing up the steps he saw that they culminated in a small stone landing, on the far side of which was a large wooden door.

  “Does this open on to the courtyard at the foot of the Palace steps?” he asked.

  Wang nodded. “Stand back.”

  He waved a hand, gesturing that William should stand with Lin Mae behind him. William did so, and noticed another narrow opening that he had not previously seen in the gloom. Glancing through it, he saw a winding wooden staircase, which he realized must lead up to the various levels of the multi-tiered pagoda.

  Wang moved across to the cart on which the Tao Tei still slumped, oblivious to everything that had been going on around it.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Lin Mae drew her sword and William nocked an arrow into his bow and pulled the string taut, aiming it at the Tao Tei. Both nodded.

  Wang gave a small smile and leaned forward, stretching out his hands towards the creature. “Here we go.”

  Moving slowly and carefully, he lifted the magnet from the pouch attached to the creature’s chest, then backed quickly away to stand beside William and Lin Mae. Freed from the magnet’s influence, the Tao Tei jerked awake and scrambled upright, its dulled eyes suddenly glinting with malevolent life. William, Lin Mae and Wang all held their breaths as the creature suddenly became aware of the harness attached to its body. If it tore off the harness and its cargo of black powder weapons their plans would be in ruins. But to their relief, after giving its body an experimental shake, the creature seemed to forget about the harness, its attention turned to more immediate concerns: food.

  Sniffing the air, the Tao Tei turned its massive head in their direction. Then it leaped down from the cart and start moving towards them. William raised his bow, ready to unleash two swift arrows into the creature’s eyes, but Wang, holding up the magnet like an offering, hissed, “Wait! Do not shoot!”

  The Tao Tei took a couple of steps closer—then abruptly it stopped. Reaching the periphery of the magnet’s influence, it flinched back. It turned away as if it was no longer aware of their presence and began sniffing the air again like a hungry dog. Suddenly its body quivered. Denied fresh, living meat, it had found the next best thing. It bounded across to the meat cart, leaped up on to it and began to devour the huge stack of bloody, dust coated carcasses, gobbling up entire pigs in two bites, swallowing mouthfuls of chickens whole.

  William, Wang and Lin Mae watched and listened to the Tao Tei eating its fill, Wang wearing a small grimace of distaste.

  “You have no real idea where that beast is going when it’s done, do you?” William muttered.

  Wang looked affronted. “It will go to the Queen.”

  “You know this for certain?”

  “It will,” he declared. Then a note of doubt crept into his voice. “It must.”

  Once it had devoured every last scrap of meat, and even lapped up the blood from the bottom of the cart with its barbed tongue, the Tao Tei leaped down from the cart. Then, as if responding to some unheard signal, it bounded across the stone floor and up the steps on the far side of the chamber.

  All three of them heard a crash from above, and then saw the still-drifting dust in the chamber disturbed by an eddy of air.

  “Is it clear?” William asked.

  Still brandishing the magnet like a trophy, Wang hurried across the chamber and moved nimbly up the steps, his energy restored now that his plan seemed to be coming to fruition. He halted at the top, then half-turned and gestured for William and Lin Mae to join him.

  When they had done so, all three moved to the now open door into the courtyard. “Careful now… Slowly…” William said, and cautiously pushed the half-shattered wooden door all the way open. Peering out into the courtyard that adjoined the Palace steps, they saw immediately that it was swarming with Tao Tei. It was an eerie feeling to be so close to such a huge number of the creatures, only to be completely ignored. William was all too aware that if the magnet should, for whatever reason, suddenly lose its effect, he and his two companions would be torn to pieces in seconds.

  Still treading softly, as if that would make a difference, they edged further out into the courtyard until they could see the steps themselves. They too were a mass of green, but whereas they couldn’t see the Queen among the bustling throng of Tao Tei, they did see their ‘own’ creature, with its harness of deadly weapons, snuffling through the crowd. On the wide mezzanine area at the top of the steps, they could also see a circle of larger Tao Tei with fan-like shields on the sides of their heads that were standing shoulder to shoulder, effectively creating a protective enclosure.

  Wang murmured something to Lin Mae, who nodded. William looked at him quizzically.

  “The Paladins,” Wang said, pointing at the circle of creatures. “The guards that protect the Queen. She’ll be there, in the center.”

  William quickly assessed the distance and angle to the target. “It’s an almost impossible shot. We can’t risk it from here. We may have only one chance.”

  Wang nodded in agreement, then glanced up at the huge structure beside them. “Climb the pagoda. Fire from above. But you must hurry. Go!”

  William turned away. Lin Mae asked, “What about you?”

  “I’ll keep us safe with this,” Wang said, holding up the black stone magnet.

  * * *

  William and Lin Mae raced up the winding wooden staircase inside the pagoda, multi-colored light from its stained glass windows washing over them. At the fifth floor William halted.

  “This should be high enough.”

  They ran out on to the roofed balcony that overlooked the Palace steps, which from their elevated position were little more than a rising mass of squirming green flesh. At the top of the steps the extended fan-like shields of the Paladins formed a kind of plated dome with a dark hole in its center. William and Lin Mae caught glimpses of something shifting, pulsating within the hole. They were heartened to see that the Paladins were allowing selected Tao Tei through the barrier one by one, presumably so they could feed the Queen with their partially digested stomach contents. Wang’s plan relied on the fact that ‘their’ Tao Tei would be one of those given access to the inner sanctum. Certainly it had been a good tactic of Wang’s to feed the creature until it was fit to bursting. All they had to do now was hope and wait.

  They did so in tense silence, watching the teeming horde below. At last William nocked an arrow onto his bow, the fuse of which passed through the ignition device on his wrist and instantly ignited. “Ready.”

  Peering at the circle of Paladins and the writhing mass around them, Lin Mae asked, “Can you see it?”

  “Yes,” William said. “It’s with the Queen.”

  He took aim and fired the arrow.

  The flaming arrow sailed through the air, describing a perfect arc over the heads of the massed Tao Tei. Bang on target, it dropped unerringly towards the dark hole at the center of the Tao Te
i shield. At the last moment, however, just as William was beginning to grin in triumph, the Paladins, sensing danger, moved into position and opened the fan-like shields around their heads. To his dismay William saw the shields pass across his original target area like clouds across the sun. As a result his burning arrow bounced off the shields and ricocheted away into the mass of Tao Tei, where the flames were quickly stamped out under dozens of trampling feet.

  William’s face fell and he slumped backward. “No…” he moaned.

  Lin Mae was equally distraught. “They blocked it!”

  But there was no time to dwell on their disappointment. For all at once the Queen rose up from within the protective circle of her Paladins, as if her massive, palpitating body was about to swell and explode. She swiveled her head, her glittering green eyes searching, probing for her attackers. William shuddered as she looked up, directly at them. Even from here he fancied he could feel the icy coldness of her penetrating stare.

  There was a long, silent moment of mutual appraisal—and then the web of flesh stretched between the Queen’s horns began to vibrate. The sound the action produced was like an ululating screech of such rage, such purpose, that both William and Lin Mae had to momentarily cover their ears. Instantly, like a shoal of fish, the Tao Tei turned as one and began swarming towards the pagoda.

  “They see us!” Lin Mae yelled.

  William leaned out over the balcony and glanced upwards. “We need to go higher.”

  “Come! Hurry!”

  * * *

  Down on the ground, standing in the courtyard doorway that gave access to the pagoda, Wang paled as the milling Tao Tei suddenly turned in unison and rushed towards him. Exactly how strong was the magnet’s influence? He was about to find out.

  Holding the magnet above his head, he stood resolute as the horde bore down upon him. When they got to within eight or ten feet of him, they veered off to one side or the other, forming a semi-circular no-go area around him.

  It was working! He was denying the Tao Tei access to the pagoda! But to his dismay, he quickly realized that the courtyard doorway was not the only way to breach the tower. To the left and right of him the deflected Tao Tei were now starting to climb up the outside of the pagoda. There were so many of them that from a distance they must have resembled a voracious, fast-growing fungus.

  So numerous were they, in fact, and so eager to reach and destroy their Queen’s attackers, that many of those ascending found they were unable to secure handholds through the melee of their fellow creatures’ bodies. These unlucky ones began to fall back, like exceptionally weighty autumn fruit shed from a tree. They crashed down in the courtyard one by one, their vast bodies smashing open on impact with the ground. Protected though he was by the magnet, Wang realized it was only a matter of time before a falling Tao Tei body smashed down on top of him. Added to which, the Nameless Order’s only realistic hope of preventing the Tao Tei scourge from spreading and devouring the world rested with William and the General. It was they who needed the protection offered by the magnet, not him.

  Bracing himself, he stepped out into the courtyard and looked up. “General!” he yelled at the top of his voice. “William!”

  A pair of heads, perhaps seven floors up, appeared over the top of a balcony and looked down at him.

  There was no time to engage in conversation. Wang simply yelled, “It’s up to you now!” and then, gathering all the strength left in his body, he hurled the black stone up towards them.

  * * *

  William looked down in horror as the magnet left Wang’s hand and began hurtling upwards. As soon as its protective influence, which Wang had worn around him like a cloak, was removed, dozens of Tao Tei heads turned in his direction. The little man didn’t try to run. He simply stood where he was, composed and dignified as ever, waiting for the inevitable. Before any of the creatures surrounding him could pounce, however, a climbing Tao Tei fell from the tower directly above him. William turned away, not wishing to see the man he had come not only to respect but to consider a friend crushed beneath it.

  Leaning so far over the balcony that William instinctively rushed forward to grab her legs, Lin Mae pulled free the long lance that was strapped to her back and lowered its metal blade to meet the ascending magnet. Attracted to the metal, the black stone rushed towards the blade and stuck fast to it. Lin Mae pulled the lance back in and gathered it protectively to her chest as William dragged her back to safety. The two of them glanced at each other, a split-second acknowledgement that in order to both justify and respect Wang’s sacrifice they had to act now and mourn later, and then they turned and raced up the stairs to the top of the pagoda.

  When they were as high as they could get, William nocked another black powder arrow onto his bowstring and gave Lin Mae a determined nod. As the fuse passed through the ignition device on his wrist and burst into life he let fly. The target was larger and wider from this height, but with incredible speed and dexterity the Queen’s bevy of Paladins flowed upwards, clambering atop one another like acrobats, and once again deflected the projectile with their fan-like shields.

  “We only have one black powder arrow left,” William said bleakly. “Give me the lance.”

  Lin Mae, though, had unclipped the grappling hook from her belt, and was now quickly unspooling the long coil of rope attached to the hook.

  “What are you doing?” William asked.

  “I have trained for this my whole life. We will fly,” she said.

  William looked across at the Queen. It was a fair distance. He couldn’t see how they would reach her. “What? How?”

  But she was already spinning the grappling hook on the end of its rope to gain speed and momentum, her eyes fixed on an ornamental corner of the overhanging roof above the balcony, which had been carved into a curl that looped up and then back on itself. Without another word, she let fly.

  The hook flew straight and true, the rope wrapping itself around the jutting corner of the roof, before the hook itself, having spun round on the rope several times, clamped tightly on to the structure, its metal prongs digging deep into the wood.

  William looked dubiously at the jutting curl of wood to which the hook was attached. It was stout and solid, but would it be strong enough to take their combined weight? Turning back to her, he said doubtfully, “Lin Mae, I—”

  “Xin ren,” she said fiercely. She held his gaze for a moment, and then he nodded at her.

  “I’ll give you the shot,” he said.

  With no further argument, he plucked the magnet from the end of the lance to which it was still attached and tucked it beneath the breastplate of his armour, knowing the magnetism would hold it there until he pulled it free. Lin Mae, meanwhile, quickly secured the line around the both of them, binding them together, then drew her lance, around the top of which she tied pouches of black powder with leather thongs. Lighting the long fuse, which ran up the shaft of the lance, she said, “Ready?”

  He nodded. Lin Mae transferred the lance with its sizzling fuse to her left hand, and then, with Tao Tei hurtling up the stairs of the tower towards them, their cries echoing in the confined space, they climbed up on to the top rail of the wooden balcony—and leaped.

  As they swung away from the tower, looping towards the ground, the first of the pursuing Tao Tei reached the balcony on which they had been standing seconds before. With no thought for their own safety, the Tao Tei hurled themselves one after another from the balcony, their jaws snapping as, like vast eagles attacking smaller prey, they tried to pluck their enemies from the air. William and Lin Mae, however, were moving too quickly, their bodies describing a graceful arc as they swung out over the courtyard. Lin Mae looked down at the Queen and her Paladins. Then, almost casually, she hefted the lance in her right hand, drew back her arm, and nodded at William, who tugged the magnet out from beneath his breastplate and hurled it towards the center of the protective dome created by the Paladins.

  With expert precision, Lin Mae hur
led her lance, which followed the arc of the black stone as though the two objects were tied together. The magnet landed first, causing the Paladins, the rigged Tao Tei and the Queen herself to freeze, as though hypnotized. With the Paladins unable to maneuver themselves to create a barrier around their Queen, the lance fell straight and true, right into the gap at the top of the dome. There was a pause, during which time William and Lin Mae continued to swing over the Queen and her entourage, as the fuse on the lance burned down…

  …and then there was an earth-shattering explosion, mostly contained within the Paladin’s protective barrier, which tore the Tao Tei Queen into a million pieces, gobbets of flesh and gallons of green blood erupting into the air like lava from a volcano.

  Swinging in a great loop, low over the Palace grounds to the side of the steps, William and Lin Mae were buffeted by the explosion. It bore them back round and up on their return trajectory more quickly than they would have liked, and they crashed against the sloping pan-tiled roof of the pagoda with enough force to smash the breath from their bodies. Lin Mae, the lighter of the two, recovered swiftly, scrambling up and onto the balcony above her even as the now cracked and unstable tiles began to slither and tumble away beneath her feet. William, however, was not so lucky, nor so nimble. Scrabbling for purchase, he found that the already-damaged tiles were shattering and sliding away beneath him too rapidly for him to gain any forward momentum. As a result he found himself skidding back down towards the edge of the roof, knowing all too well that if he fell he would plunge to his certain death hundreds of feet below.

  Then he felt a hand enclose his wrist and grip on tight. He looked up to see Lin Mae, her face contorted with effort, leaning over the balcony. “I’ve got you,” she gasped.

  With strength that belied her small frame, she began to haul him towards her. Now that his fall had been arrested, William was able to aid her by gripping with his free hand on to the edges of unbroken and still securely fastened tiles on the roof around him and claw his way upwards. A few seconds later he was up and over the edge of the balcony, the two of them gasping with effort and shaking with reaction. Clambering to his feet, he stood beside her, the two of them looking back at the devastation they had caused.