They did not get far. Po-Po and Smelly were steady and reliable wagon horses used to long but leisurely days of placid travel; they were neither built for nor accustomed to hard running or the stress of being whipped and chased and careened through busy streets in a madcap escape. Within minutes of being out on the road, the two horses could go no farther; they stumbled to an exhausted stop on the side of the Imperial Road, their heads drooping, mouths foaming, frothy white sweat running off their steaming bodies.
“We have to leave them,” Yin Yue said.
He dropped down to the ground and unharnessed the horses one-handed while Jun gathered anything useful still left in the wagon that they could easily carry—a fire stick, a small stash of coins, a blanket, a small bag of dried meat and rice cakes, water flasks. They worked fast; it wouldn’t take long for General Cobu to have the gate reopened past curfew to send soldiers out after them. Only their head start and speed under cover of darkness gave them a chance of escape.
Jun patted Po-Po and Smelly apologetically on their bowed necks before leaving them where they stood. He and Yin struck off through the tall, dry grass, heading for the cover of the trees. They kept up a brisk jogging pace for some minutes, but both men were as near their limit as the poor horses. Jun could barely feel his own legs and his vision was blurred, but as long as Yin Yue was still going, Jun wasn’t about to be the first to give in and collapse.
Then he looked over at Yin and felt like an ass. Yin was weaving and stumbling, his face ashen and tight with pain as he clutched his right arm to his body, trying to hold it still. Blood was staining the white bandages around the stump; the wound must be giving him terrible pain.
Yin Yue was no longer his childhood rival, the diligent, shining older student that Jun would enviously use as a yardstick to measure the length of his own ability and ambitions. He was a badly injured man who’d already lost nearly everything, yet had nevertheless saved Jun and escaped with him, making himself a fugitive and treasonous collaborator when he had no reason to do so.
“You—we need to rest,” Jun said. “Just for a few minutes.”
They reached the trees and dropped to the ground in the hollow behind a fallen log, where they couldn’t be spotted from the road or the surrounding field. They drank water in greedy sips, resisting the urge to gulp down their limited supply. The only sounds beyond their labored breathing were the hum of night insects and the rustle of a breeze that stirred the first of the falling leaves from the branches overhead and chilled the sweat on their skin.
Jun wrapped his arms around his bruised torso, pulling the ruins of his damp shirt tight around his body. “I thought you were dead,” he said, keeping his voice to a whisper. “When I saw Cobu’s soldiers at the Fragrant Spring, I figured they’d already gotten you.”
Yin Yue shook his head, leaning it back on the log. “The news spread fast, lucky for me. When I heard people saying the Scroll had been stolen and you were a traitor, I figured I’d better get out. We’re from the same city and school and have been seen together during the tournament. General Cobu was sure to send soldiers after me.”
Jun wished he’d thought as clearly as Yin had before he’d shown up at the Fragrant Spring and walked straight into a trap. “You could’ve left,” he pointed out. “You didn’t have to come back to the inn. You’re not the one Cobu wants to scapegoat and execute as a traitor.”
Yin rubbed his forearm below the stump, trying to ease the pain. “I have my own reasons to consider Cobu an enemy.” Bitter vindictiveness was an unsettling thing to hear in Yin Yue’s voice. “Winning the Guardian’s Tournament and starting my own Iron Core school has been my goal for years, ever since I was a boy. Cobu and his warmongering followers didn’t just take my hand, they took away everything I dreamed about and the very meaning of the tournament.”
Jun nodded. That was a sentiment they shared.
“I’ll do anything to stop that bastard from taking over the country.” Yin stared down at his maimed limb. “Whatever I can do, the way I am now, that is.”
“Look, I’m just … trying to say thank you,” Jun muttered, looking at the ground and knowing he didn’t sound the way he felt. “For not leaving me behind.”
Yin turned his head toward Jun with an expression that couldn’t be read in the dark. “I owe you. For killing Leopard.”
“If I hadn’t killed Leopard, I’d be in a grave right now. And the only reason I was able to beat him was because you injured him first,” Jun said. “You don’t owe me anything,”
“You’re the rightful Guardian. That should still mean something. It means something to me.” Yin gave a soft snort. “Besides, if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that you’re not a cunning secret agent of the East like Cobu made you out to be. You’re too self-absorbed to have been a political operative this whole time I’ve known you. If the Scroll was stolen from you, it was because you were manipulated and fooled along with everyone else.”
Jun hunched his shoulders. Yin could still make him feel inferior, even if he was only telling the truth. Especially because he was only telling the truth. “It was Yama.” The former Guardian’s name stung like acid on Jun’s tongue. “He had his own plan all along, and he outsmarted everyone, including Cobu and the Silent Flute Society.”
He told Yin about the counterfeit Scroll, the message Yama had left, and what Steward Tang had told him about the former Guardian’s belief that the Scrolls were the key to unlocking untold powers and the secret to immortality.
“I’ve heard of that theory.” Yin grew thoughtful. “Master Song said that before the Virtuous Rebellion, when the Scrolls were united, people lived longer and more of them were breathmarked. That was more than fifty years ago, though, so who can say if it’s true.”
“Sifu Chang said something similar, about the energy of the land changing for the worse and fewer breathmarked children being born ever since the Scrolls were separated,” Jun said. “That’s still a far cry from what Yama’s imagining, though.”
“The Scrolls are divine documents. Not even the most learned scholars fully understand them, and who knows what they reveal to each person who consults them,” Yin said. “Yama’s studied the Scroll of Heaven more than anyone else over the past six years. No doubt he couldn’t stand the idea that once a new Guardian was named, he’d lose access to the Scroll before unlocking its secrets.”
Jun recalled the first of the enigmatic lines on the fake Scroll. Foolish is the rooster that crows at noon. At first it had seemed like a riddle, one of those proverbs that scholars and wise elders would use to obliquely impart some nugget of wisdom. When he thought about it more, though, it seemed to be a scornful admonition about failing to be on time.
Yama was well-studied in poetry and philosophy; apparently, he couldn’t resist composing a bit of stylish eloquence as a smug taunt. The crowing roosters, Jun suspected, were those Yama held in contempt because they wanted to influence or outright control the Guardianship and the Scroll for political purposes—General Cobu on one hand, Sifu Chang and the leaders of the Silent Flute Society on the other. If they were reading the counterfeit Scroll that Yama had left for them, then they were indeed foolish and too late.
The second part of the message: He heralds half the day and knows nothing of the moon.
Another jeering riddle. The sun and the moon shared the sky, but the rooster knew and celebrated only one. Yama had thoroughly examined the one Scroll he’d taken, but as Steward Tang had said, the answer could not be found in half of the whole.
“Yama’s going to the East,” Jun said with certainty. “To the Sun Pagoda. He plans to reunite the Scrolls. Not because he gives a shit about reunification or who sits on the throne. He wants the secret of the Scrolls for himself. And he doesn’t care if he starts a war in the process.”
Yin took a small sip of water from his flask. He nodded.
“If Ren escaped with Sifu Chang, that’s where they’ll go, too.” Jun had nearly forgotten what Ren had said to him in the arena. Right after kicking him in the chest, before she’d fled the scene with Cobu’s soldiers in hot pursuit.
“See you back home, Little Dragon.”
He’d thought she’d meant Cheon—but that was not Ren’s home. The only “home” they shared was from their childhood. They’d both been born in the East.
Jun pressed his fingers into the cool dirt, breathing in the smell of damp earth and trees, his heart so heavy that it made his chest hurt. He would not be returning to Cheon. The wagon with Li Hon’s body would make its way south, and when it reached its destination, Jun’s father would be buried without him there to burn incense or make offerings to his spirit. The little house they’d worked so hard for would sit empty. He would likely never see it again. He would never even get a chance to see his father’s grave or mourn him properly.
A mountainous sorrow wrapped itself around Jun’s resolve.
“The Snake Wall is nearly sixty li from the city,” Yin said. “Three days of hard travel if we were both healthy and well-supplied, which we’re very much not. We won’t be able to take well-traveled roads either, since Cobu’s soldiers and bounty hunters will be searching for us. If we manage to reach the Snake Wall, we’ll most likely be killed on the spot if we try to cross.”
Jun had to admit it sounded foolish. Impossible.
Yin Yue stood, lips pressed together in pain as he pushed off the log with his good arm. He held it out to Jun and pulled him to his feet. “In other words, we’d better get moving.”