Chapter Twenty-four

Battles are very different when they’re close up, thought Alasdair, fighting his horse as much as the enemy. He swung awkwardly with an axe that had been thrust into his hand at the last minute. Oddly enough, the fighting was less noisy than he would have expected, after the initial clamour of gongs and yells. Instead there were grunts and shaking thumps and, from time to time, horrible gurgling noises.

He found himself pressed against the wheels of Ssu-ma’s war chariot. Suddenly, a space opened in the fighting and he saw feet sticking out from under the chariot—just an anonymous pair of feet. Strangely, the sight of worn leather lacings seemed to burn itself into his mind before the struggling mass closed around him again.

Then he heard his pony screech horribly and felt it begin to tumble sideways. At that moment, he felt a pair of strong hands grab him. The hands of the charioteer hoisted him up so he could scramble to safety.

“You’re doing us more harm than good down there,” said a rough voice above him as he hauled himself over the edge. Steve shook sweat and hair out of his eyes and looked around.

The broad platform stood like an island above the battle, a command post so big and sturdy that it was barely shaken when a horse crashed into it below. Cruel, curved stakes ran around the sides to protect it from any enemy soldiers who tried to climb it. A handful of archers occupied the centre of the platform; the edges were protected by a line of regular soldiers.

The voice had been that of the crusty captain. Alasdair grinned at him and asked, “Where’s Ssu-ma?”

“Gone to the king’s side.” The reply came with a jerk of the head, followed by an abrupt shout. “Look out there!” A soldier nearby whirled and stabbed viciously at an enemy soldier who had tried to follow Alasdair up.

Alasdair looked out over the battlefield. From here, he could see that the main focus of fighting had shifted towards the river. It was fiercest around the war chariot where the king’s own banner hung.

“They were probably going to wait until half our army was in the river and then attack,” said the captain grimly. “When they saw us getting ready for them, they rushed us earlier instead.”

“Will we be able to fight them off?”

The captain shook his head. “Too many of them. Too few of us. No time or room to out-maneouvre them.” He paused, looking wearily at the struggling mass. “Our people are fighting desperately. They’ve pushed us into a hole with no escape—and that’s when any soldier will fight best. But those knives, those knives! By the Lord Shang, how can they have so much metal? Hi! Look out there.”

He rushed off to the aid of a soldier who was being pulled over the side of the platform. A sudden swarm of White Ti had poured from behind a nearby grove of trees and were trying to scramble up the sides of the war chariot. Alasdair ran to the other edge to swing his axe and stamp desperately at the hands clutching the side. He felt a hand clutch his ankle and tug savagely.

He felt himself scream. He felt himself fall.

Joss’s stupid pony had bolted when the first enemy rush had come down the hillside, carrying her across the plain towards the river. She hung on desperately, pulling back uselessly on the reins, until it stopped abruptly at the edge of the water. She slid off. The pony, startled again, took off again down the river, ripping the reins from her hands. Joss nursed her cut hand and looked around wildly.

“Here. Over here.” Chuan’s voice called her from one of the big chariots and she looked up to see the other girl peering over the edge. Hands pushed her hurriedly up to stand beside the king.

A cluster of frightened attendants huddled nearby. Although the king’s face was pale, his eyes were bright. He had pulled a thick leather jerkin over his red robes, but he still stood like a beacon.

“Now you’ll see how the soldiers of the Middle Kingdom can fight,” he said, hoisting his double-headed axe easily above his head.

Joss shaded her eyes to stare into the distance. She saw the battle frenzy around Ssu-ma’s war chariot far away. Then a body of men emerged from the hillside and began to head across the plain towards them. A low murmur of dismay rippled from the courtiers.

Then she spotted another figure on a horse break from the first battle. It was Ssu-ma himself, breasting the flood of soldiers, swinging his axe with neat, expert chops from side to side until he could gallop clear. The mounted soldiers of the Middle Kingdom, who were clustered around the base of the king’s chariot, made a path for him. He swung himself smoothly up to stand on the platform.

“Sire, you are too exposed here. We must get you away.”

The king started to protest, then stopped as an arrow whistled, almost lazily, by his head.

“If you are killed, your country is killed,” urged Ssu-ma. “Let me command this post. Your mounted soldiers will take you to that hill beyond the main struggle where you can observe. As long as they can see you, you will be a source of hope for our men.”

The king considered briefly. “All right. Besides, we can take a few enemy heads as we go.”

“What about us?” the head cook quavered.

“You will take that play sword at your waist and do some real fighting,” answered the Director of Horses.

“What can I use?” Joss asked practically, looking around for some sort of weapon. Ssu-ma’s mouth twitched.

“You will get out of here. Put each of the girls up behind a rider,” he commanded, and Joss and Chuan found themselves bundled unceremoniously down from the platform and thrown up behind two nervous soldiers. The mounted soldiers made a protective shell behind the king and the party moved slowly off.

Fortunately, the enemy had still not completely hemmed in this part of the battlefield, so the king’s guard was not hard-pressed to protect him. Joss couldn’t see much of what was going on—her nose was pressed into a young soldier’s leather-jerkined back, and she was more concerned about keeping her legs clear of his nervously swinging axe than with looking about her. Eventually, the thumps and grunts of fighting died down and the axes stopped swinging.

The mounted soldiers made their way at a fast trot towards the rising land that Ssu-ma had pointed out. There was a long slope, then a short, steep climb to a sort of ledge. Directly behind the ledge rose a high rock wall that protected them against attack from that direction. Nearby, a deep ravine ran well back into the hills. A couple of the guard went to be sure no enemy soldiers were lurking there.

They were now, in fact, relatively close to the mouth of the ravine through which the road ran. They had a good view of Ssu-ma’s chariot and the battle around it. Joss stood peering out and saw for the first time how few the tan jerkins of the Middle Kingdom were in comparison with the enemy.

“Where’s Alasdair,” she whispered, fear setting its sudden, sharp claws in her stomach.

She could see that only a thin shell of soldiers was still struggling around the war chariot. Then she caught sight of a smaller, familiar figure on the platform. She clutched Chuan’s arm.

“That’s him. That’s Alasdair, isn’t it?”

The tall girl stared. “Yes, I’m almost certain it is.”

“Well that’s all right,” said Joss in relief. She squinted off in the direction of the river, where a confused mass of soldiers surged around the other two chariots. It was hard to tell how things were going, but although the White Ti were more numerous, it looked as though the Middle Kingdom soldiers were fighting grimly and holding off the enemy. She caught the sound of gongs and trumpets. Ssu-ma seemed to be getting his troops in some sort of order.

But then she looked back towards the hillside where the first attack had come and her heart sank. A fresh wave of soldiers was moving out over the field. She looked towards the war chariot where Alasdair was standing, just in time to see the rush of soldiers towards it, climbing the steep sides. She saw the defenders rush to the sides of the platform. Almost as if it were happening in slow motion, she saw Alasdair clutch the air and fall. Fall straight down into the surge of enemy soldiers below.

“No, no!” she shrieked and made as if to run down to the battlefield. Chuan held her back.

“Don’t be a fool. What could you do?”

Joss sat down numbly, looking in horror at her hands. She imagined she could hear Alasdair scream as he fell, although it was really too far away for her to distinguish any such sound over the other battle noises.

She did not hear the gallop of hooves as the king’s mounted guard rode back down to throw themselves into the fight. She did not see the king’s war chariot shake and collapse as enemy soldiers hacked the axle in two, did not see Ssu-ma himself fall. She was not watching when the battle seemed to shift gears, when the fight went out of the army of the Middle Kingdom like a candle melting. Groups of soldiers broke away and tried to run from the field, only to be herded back by the enemy. Others simply put down their weapons and covered their faces with their hands.

It was only Chuan who watched the king’s face, strained and confused, as he fingered the edge of his axe.

“They ran away,” he said at last, stupidly, as though he couldn’t believe it. “They tried to run away. My soldiers.”

“What else could they do?” Joss roused herself to ask. He didn’t seem to hear her.

The three of them watched silently, apparently forgotten by everyone on the field of battle. Horns sounded. Enemy soldiers formed groups and hustled prisoners away. The field was left to slow, silent figures moving back and forth, bending over the small, distant, fallen bundles. Joss imagined what they were doing and felt sick.

“I’ve got to find Alasdair,” she said at last. She pulled herself free of Chuan’s grasp and ran towards the field. But the bare river plain baffled her attempts to find cover. She got only as far as a thicket of low bushes where she could hide, but there were still too many enemy soldiers moving around for her to get any closer to the war chariot where Alasdair had fallen. From where she crouched, she could see White Ti soldiers dragging bodies away on rough stretchers. She saw a company of bewildered-looking soldiers from her army pushed stumbling along, hands tied behind their backs. Behind them came another enemy soldier leading a big bay horse. Joss recognized it as Ssu-ma’s.

For some reason, that was the final straw. The face of the Director of Horses swam into her memory. Stern. Disciplined. Fair. She had to admit that. She put her head on her knees and wept tears that were hotter and saltier for having to be kept silent. She wept until she heard another company of soldiers being driven along, arms bound, like sad cattle. For some reason, the look in their faces as they passed brought a strange white anger alive in her. As soon as they had passed, she left her hiding place to run back towards the king. She found that Chuan had coaxed him into the nearby rock cleft where they were well hidden. The red robe still burned brightly, contrasting with his pale, stunned face.

“You must go down,” Joss panted. “You’ve got to.”

The king only looked at her as if she was speaking a foreign language. It was Chuan who asked, “What do you mean?” She made a dark protective movement towards the king as she spoke.

“Your soldiers. It’s your soldiers—and they’re being taken away as prisoners. Who knows what they’ll do to them. You should go down and find the leaders. Negotiate with them somehow.”

He looked at her at last. “I ... can’t”

“What do you mean, ‘can’t’?” Joss blazed. “They’re your people. They’re in this because you brought them here. You must!”

“How dare you talk to him like that?” Chuan’s hands were folded and her long braid hung over them like a black bar. “He is the king.”

“King! King of what, now?” Her voice changed, pleaded. “You haven’t seen their faces. They don’t know what’s going to happen to them. Surely you could talk to their general, offer him something.”

“I can’t,” he repeated simply. “I cannot humiliate the crown of the Middle Kingdom by begging.” He put his hand up as if to touch something on his head, then dropped it, confused to find it wasn’t there.

“You mean you’re too proud to?” demanded Joss. “What kind of a king are you to be proud of?”

Chuan stepped forward. “That’s enough.”

“You’re right it’s enough.” She was yelling now. “If you won’t go down, I will. I’ll find Alasdair’s .... Alasdair’s b-body, at least.” She turned and stumbled down the hillside into the gathering mist.

She did not look back for a final glimpse of them. The king hardly watched her go. His face still wore its stunned expression, even when Chuan touched him on the shoulder and said, “Sire, we should conceal ourselves more safely. And find shelter before the fog comes.” No-one saw the expression of strange exultation on her face as she led the king like a sleepwalker into the hills.

The fog was rolling in heavily by the time Joss made it back to the trees where she had hidden before, just as one last party of enemy soldiers loomed up out of the mist. She crawled back into the centre of the grove. Then gasped in fright as she put her hand on a yielding shape—a cloth-covered human arm. In the dull light, she could see the signet ring of Ssu-kung on the little finger. The fingers were slack and cold. The rest of the body was almost hidden by branches, and all Joss could see was a pool of dark fluid. The duke must have been injured while trying to escape, she thought dully. He must have hidden here, in one of the few places of shelter on the open plain.

Near the hand lay a small cloth-wrapped object. Shuddering, she picked it up and unrolled the silk strip. A cold, familiar smoothness lay at its centre. It was the tsung, the same yellowish-brown piece of jade that they had found in the cave on the journey to the capital. Had Ssu-kung brought it here? She looked back at the lifeless hand and knew she couldn’t stay here a moment longer.

The fog was now so thick she couldn’t see more than a metre in any one direction. But she kept wandering, groping and searching, afraid of what she might find. Finally, by sheer luck, a large shape loomed up on her right. It was one of the war chariots. She had no trouble identifying it as the one that had belonged to Ssu-ma—the one that Alasdair had been on. However, the ground around it was already bare and clean of any fallen soldiers. She huddled beside the wheel that towered over her head and wept again for a long time. She finally stopped from weariness and cold.

Putting her hand into her jerkin pocket she felt the smoothness of the tsung. Nothing moved around her except the drifting fog, but the jade seemed to bring pictures into her head. Mark standing with his arms folded as they left the li, Ariel pleading with her in the palace garden. Ssu-ma’s white robe gleaming as he lifted the ceremonial weapon on the steps of the temple. Alasdair frowning as he puzzled out the plan for rescuing the prisoners. Alasdair falling ... falling ... falling. No matter how she squeezed her eyes shut, that picture would not go away.

“My fault. My fault,” she murmured.

Hours crept by. She wasn’t really aware of the cold as it sank into her bones. She wasn’t aware of being hungry or exhausted. She dimly thought of how these fogs could last for days and days, and felt a flutter of fear. Mostly she felt wiped clean of everything except those awful words.

“My fault.”

They were still beating dully in her brain when she slid slowly into blackness.