Jun reached the Fragrant Spring Inn with only two wrong turns and one close call, when he rounded a corner and nearly walked into a gathering of Red Scarves parading down the street, bellowing patriotic chants in support of General Cobu and the valiant Sixth Division. Fortunately, they were too caught up in the excitement of the moment to pay close attention to Jun, who quickly cheered and raised his fist in support along with the others until the procession passed.
When he finally turned onto the Street of Blossoms he was nearly dead on his feet, but the sight of the garden and the covered walkway where he and Yin Yue had conversed at dawn yesterday morning lightened his dragging steps. It was nearly fully dark; lights glowed from the inn’s windows. Stars blinked into existence over the roof. In the distance, the curfew drums began to beat, ten seconds apart, warning travelers that the city gates were closing.
Once he found Yin, he would figure out what to do next. For now, it was enough to know that he would have a safe place to lie down.
He shouldn’t have been surprised when the door to Yin’s room slid open and out stepped two soldiers from the Sixth Division.
Jun spun around; four more of Cobu’s men appeared behind him, detaching themselves from their waiting positions around the street. They approached from all sides, cautiously but purposefully closing in around him like a net pulled around a fish.
Jun dropped into a fighting stance, mind racing, casting about desperately for a way to escape. All six men drew their broadswords with a rasp of metal that caused the few remaining people on the street to hastily depart.
“Don’t put up a fight,” suggested the soldier in front of him, a grizzled old-timer who sounded as if he didn’t relish the idea of killing Jun but would do so without hesitation if necessary. “The general doesn’t want you dead. He wants to talk about how you can help each other.”
Jun yanked the beggar woman’s nasty scarf off his face and threw it to the ground. No point in hiding his identity now. “I already had a nice long talk with Cobu yesterday and we agreed to disagree,” he said. “And that was before he invaded my house and killed my steward.”
“The house and the steward weren’t yours,” replied another, younger soldier, who looked considerably more eager than the first to run Jun through. “You’re a traitor and pretender.”
Jun wished desperately that he had a weapon. “Where’s Yin Yue?”
“What does it matter? He can’t help you.” The young soldier sneered, waving his fist around with crude mockery, as if it were a stump. “Did you think we wouldn’t find out he was a schoolmate of yours in Cheon? That makes him a suspected traitor as well.”
If Yin was dead, then he was well and truly fucked.
The curfew drums quickened. Eight seconds apart. Now six.
Jun raised his open hands slowly. “I don’t have much choice, do I?” he muttered.
One of the soldiers approached from behind. Jun turned his head slightly, watching as the man sheathed his sword and brandished manacles—a piece of wood cut lengthwise, with holes for the prisoner’s wrists and a lock to keep them immobile. “On the ground.”
Jun lowered himself to his knees in the gravel of the inn’s garden path. He put one hand down, as if about to lie flat on his stomach—then twisted and flung a handful of gravel straight into the soldier’s face. The man reared back, throwing a hand up to shield his eyes. Jun lashed out with a low sweep kick that upended the man and sent him tumbling onto his back.
If he’d learned one thing from Leopard, it was the effectiveness of dirty tricks.
All the pain and weariness vanished from Jun’s body in a flood of adrenaline as he seized the nearest available weapon—the fallen wooden handcuffs that the soldier had been ready to slap on him. He smashed the block into the soldier’s face, eliciting a scream and a fountain of blood from the man’s broken nose, then spun and raised it barely in time to block a sword swing aimed at his neck. The edge of the blade sank into the wood and stuck just long enough for Jun to smash his heel down on the startled soldier’s kneecap, buckling the joint. The man went down clutching his leg and Jun threw a kick at the man’s head as if it were a cuju ball, knocking him out cold.
Two down. Those two had been caught by surprise. The other four would not get so close. They would surround him together and hack him to death.
Fight anyway. He agreed with Sai’s suggestion. Better to be killed here on his feet than face the slow, disemboweling death of a traitor that Cobu had in mind for him. No contest.
Jun lunged for the unconscious soldier’s sword. The weapon had fallen next to him and was partly pinned under the man’s legs. He wasn’t able to reach it; another soldier’s swing forced him to dodge away from the broadsword blade that would’ve cleaved his arm at the shoulder. The follow-up attack, a wide horizontal slash, caught the fabric on the front of his shirt and nearly opened his stomach. The old-timer and his younger companion rushed him from the other side.
The first rule of fighting multiple opponents was to avoid being surrounded at all costs.
With an ear-splitting scream, Jun hurled the heavy wooden manacles at one soldier’s head. As the man raised his arms in startled reflex, knocking the flying object away, Jun charged, the loss of his only primitive weapon creating just enough of a distraction that he was able to dodge around the startled attacker, away from the inn, and out into the street.
He had nowhere to run. He had no chance of making it to the city gates before they closed—but he ran anyway, Cobu’s soldiers rushing to fan out and cut him off.
A clattering of hooves and wheels—a wagon barreled down the street straight toward them. Jun dove out of the path of the seemingly runaway vehicle; the soldiers likewise scattered, but not all of them were quick enough; the old-timer was knocked to the ground by a wall of horseflesh and fell beneath the stomping hooves.
Jun looked up with astonishment at Sifu Chang’s familiar wagon, rocking precariously on its wheels as Po-Po and Smelly were pulled to a rough stop, their eyes rolling and their flanks heaving from being driven harder than Ren had ever whipped them.
Jun’s heart leapt as he raised his eyes to the driver’s seat.
Yin Yue transferred the reins he’d been holding with his left hand, hooking them around the crook of his right elbow. The stump of his missing right hand was wrapped in a thick wad of white bandages, and he didn’t look well—his face was pale and shone with sweat—but he moved with his usual assurance, and his eyes burned with grim resolve. He reached down beside the seat, pulled out the hand axe Jun had used many a time to cut firewood, and hurled it at the nearest of the remaining soldiers.
The axe didn’t quite find its mark—Yin’s left-handed throw sent the blade spinning wildly end over end, but it still struck the nearest soldier in the helmet, hilt first, with a resounding clang. The man staggered, momentarily dazed. Yin flung a throwing knife and then a prop sword.
“Get in the fucking wagon!” he shouted.
Jun sprinted. Leaping for the wagon, he grabbed the metal bar that Chang had always used to help himself up into the driver’s seat. Yin didn’t wait another second; he seized the reins in his teeth and whipped the horses, sending the wagon lurching forward. Jun braced himself against the side of the wagon with his feet, holding on for dear life as they hurtled away from the Fragrant Spring at a dead gallop, sending pedestrians, carriages, and litter bearers hurrying in alarm out of their reckless path. The wagon swerved, taking a street corner at high speed, the back of it smashing into a row of streetlamp poles, sending round red lanterns flying and jarring Jun from his teeth all the way down every little bone in his spine.
Then they were on Meridian Avenue; ahead was the southeast gate. The curfew drums grew louder as they neared, three seconds between every heavy beat, an ominous countdown as the last of the foot traffic—day merchants exiting, city residents returning—cleared from the entrance and White Phoenix Guards began to shut the massive wooden doors.
Jun glanced behind. Cobu’s soldiers had mounted horses and were galloping after them in pursuit. Their steeds were considerably faster than Smelly and Po-Po, and they weren’t slowed down by a wagon. “Close the gates,” he heard one of them shout ahead to the guards. “Close them now!”
We’re not going to make it.
Arms burning with effort, Jun swung himself into the wagon, rolling onto the floor in a heap amid jouncing objects. Throwing open the back, he began to push everything out, muttering an apology to Ren as he sent trunks full of costumes and props, stage backdrops, curtains, and anything else he could heave tumbling out into the road. Their pursuers fell back, forced to veer their horses to avoid the cascade of falling, rolling objects. The lightened wagon surged forward.
Startled White Phoenix Guards hurried to react. From high watchtowers all around Xicheng, city defenders could see an enemy army approaching the capital from hundreds of li away and could ready archers, boiling oil, and rock throwers against invaders, but a berserk wagon heading straight for them was not something they normally encountered. An arrow thudded into the wagon; another whizzed past Jun’s head and a third stuck into the driver’s seat less than a hand’s width from Yin Yue, who kept his gaze straight ahead, teeth gritted as he urged every last bit of desperate speed from the poor horses.
“Hang on, for Dragon’s sake,” Yin snarled, and then, suddenly, they were at the doors, flying through the narrow gap between them before they could close. The wide arch of the gate passed overhead and then they were out of the city, galloping past all the other startled travelers as they fled down the Imperial Road and into the night.