“I have not told half of what I saw…”
~ Marco Polo
Upon his return from China
700,000,000 Years Ago…
Six thousand light-years from the newly formed planet called Earth, the Black Hole today is designated Cygnus X-1. Seven-hundred million years ago, this Black Hole spewed forth debris from a dying world at the edge of the universe whose distance from the Earth is still unmeasurable. Since then, the giant silver imbued rock made an annual tour of the outskirts of the Milky Way Galaxy. The asteroid made its fly-by of its five-million-year trip near the planet Jupiter as it had for eons. The sixteen-mile-long rock had never been close to a trajectory that threatened the small blue planet that was placed third in orbit around the yellow star many millions of miles away. The journey of this asteroid through the eons of time had come and gone without incident. Without incident until the day a small rock from the solar system’s outer asteroid belt, named ‘The Trojan Asteroid Field’, nicked the speeding body at only seven hundred kilometers a second, a relatively easy bump in celestial terms.
The newcomer to the young solar system spun off in a dizzying roll that sent the sixteen-mile-long rock blazing past the older, outer planets of Jupiter and Saturn. In its direct path was a world that would be unrecognizable to the universe today. The continents had yet to separate into the land masses that is known in today’s geography.
The asteroid would have slammed directly into the relatively new world, and smashed out the young life that had spread throughout the jungles and forests of the baby planet. This did not happen. The asteroid came into contact with the blue planet’s small moon on its dark side. Although only a glancing blow, the brush with the moon changed the attitude of the giant rock and made a glancing blow off Earth’s atmosphere, flattening out its orbit and sending the asteroid into a crazily spinning bullet. Instead of coming straight down onto the surface of the Earth, the glancing blow leveled the asteroid out. The friction of entering the world’s airspace diminished the weight and size of the object by half, sending shards burning off into the sky of the new world. The rest was sent sliding into a lush, green jungle. The silver-green ore material that made up the visitor stayed intact as it hit mountains and evaporated inland seas until it came to rest, sliding deep into the Earth and creating a new mountain range on the surface of the young planet.
The lush jungle terrain gave the elements of the newcomer the fertilization of nutrition the rock had not had in over six billion years. There, the newcomer settled in and lived alongside the growing world and its varying new species of animal life.
That place today would become known as the Rift, or, outer Mongolia.
Hunan Province,
China, 221 BC
The forty-six-year-old ruler of Hunan was brought forward and forced to kneel before the line of men standing rigid in front of his flaming palace. The dead and dying were strewn about just as the bodies of countless thousands in other provinces had before this night of nights—the destruction of the last army standing in the way of a dynasty.
King Tao Che cast his eyes about as the flat side of a sword struck his armored chest, forcing his eyes away from the carnage that had once been his glorious and peaceful capital. He was kneeling in a large puddle of blood that had once flowed through the strong, vital bodies of his palace guard. A thousand men killed and beheaded in less than the time it took to eat a meal. The hundred men standing before him were dressed in the red and black colored armor of the usurper who was walking across all of China in his quest to unify the giant nation. The horse-hair plumes on the apex of their helmets told the king that these were the personal guard of that man, and the scene also explained to him that, no matter what happened in the next few minutes, his nation of Hunan would shortly cease to exist.
As he was forced to kneel, he heard the cries of his subjects as they were torn asunder by lance, arrow and sword echoing in his head. The screams of the children as they were rounded up tore at his very soul. As his attention was forced back to the front by sword tip, he saw the men before him come to stiff and disciplined attention. The center-most ten men separated as a large black roan eased forward. The King raised his eyes and caught a fleeting glimpse of the man he had fought against for three months in the flickering fires of his home. The false deity himself eased the horse to a stop and then one of his men went to all fours as the rider used him as a stage to dismount. Tao Che lowered his eyes, not out of respect, but self-preservation as he wanted nothing more than to spring forth and kill the man that had butchered hundreds of thousands in his quest to subdue all of China.
The man that used to be known in his younger years as Ying Zheng, who was once thought of as a mild-mannered boy who did nothing but read scrolls of bamboo and dream about other-worldly places, glanced around the capital of Hunan and its flaming structures. He used the boot of his right foot to kick out at a severed arm, sending it across the mud, and then stood before the kneeling King of Hunan. The small man, who was now called Qin Shi Huang, finally lowered his gaze to take in the last king to defy his promised rule of the nation now known as China. His eyes studied the unbroken man kneeling before him, a gentle king who was once known across all the land as a proud and just ruler. Qin Shi once thought King Tao Che could be persuaded to add his province to those already conquered and destroyed without the persuasiveness of battle and the coercion of death. But after months of defiance, he had instead brought his kingdom to this sad end. This, in Qin Shi’s opinion, could never be forgiven. His eyes darted to his men, and two of them took the king by the arms and hoisted him, one going so far as to mercilessly twist the man’s arm until he complied.
The sword came free of the scabbard so fast that his imperial guard didn’t see the flash of steel in the firelight’s reflection. The head of the guard that had hurt the sovereign king came free of the body while his torso remained standing. The headless body finally slid to the muddy ground and spewed blood, forcing Qin Shi to step aside. He sheathed his sword and then remained looking at the man before him. He then turned to his men who had not reacted to the sudden and brutal beheading.
“This man is a King and will be treated as such.” He reached up to the taller man and placed an armored glove on his shoulder. “You have my profound apologies for the actions of this fool. He failed to heed his instructions about the respect he was to afford my one-time teacher.”
Hunan King Tao Che finally looked into the eyes of the man he despised above all others. He then turned his head and the black eyes fell on the fallen defenders of his capital. Women and children, the last survivors of his kingdom, were even now being rounded up by the usurper’s soldiers to be herded to camps to begin their adjustment and reeducation to a different life and a new leader—that of servitude in the continuing construction of the conqueror’s new wall far to the north.
“I see the same treatment you profess in regard to myself, does not extend to my subjects.”
The smaller man smiled as he looked around the burning capital, the black beard and hair shining brightly in the fire’s light. “They are no longer your subjects. They are mine. There will be a certain amount of persuasion that has to be made to make my new province more,” he again looked around as children and their mothers were roped together for transport out of the province, “educated in the new world I will create for them.”
“A world in flames—one that is awash in blood and sorrow.”
“To build anew, you sometimes must destroy the old.” His dark eyes, reflecting the burning buildings, turned back to Tao Che. “A man of wisdom once taught me that.” He took Tao Che by the chin and made the older man face him. His left brow rose to the apex of his helmet. I believe that man was you, my old teacher.” His face went blank of all expression. “Now, who am I?”
The meaning of the question failed to register. The king looked at the heavily armored man from the south. His eyes went from his helmeted head to his handmade boots that had not escaped the blood flow from his beheaded man.
Qin Shi took a menacing step forward, quickly releasing Tao Che’s chin and moved his right hand to the hilt of his sword. “I will ask once again, who…am…I?”
“You were once a boy that had my admiration. A smart child, a kind child, and besides one other, my best student. You were a boy that was once a dreamer that I once called ‘son’. In my tired old eyes, I still see the boy named Ying Zheng, who once played in the bamboo forest with his little brother.”
The mention of his half-brother caused Qin Shi to falter. Then his eyes became fury and wrath. “What is my name and title?” This time the sword came free and its tip went to the throat of Tao Che.
The king started to refuse, then his eyes went to the taskmaster’s whip as it popped and cracked, bleeding the backs of the small children and their mothers. His eyes lowered and then he went to his knees.
“You are Qin Shi Huang, King of all the lands that are China.” His hands went to the booted feet of the new ruler of all, as he bowed even deeper.
“Not King, I am the Emperor of China. Do you know what this word means? You should, it was you who instructed me on its definition.” He lightly kicked at the chin of Tao Che as he groveled upon the soaked ground. The head nodded, and the fingers clawed at the blood-soaked mud.
“You are, huángdì, the ‘First’. You are Emperor Qin Shi Huang.”
The sword eased away from the man’s neck. Qin Shi then nodded at his commanding general. The man gestured toward the flaming wooden palace that used to be the home of Tao Che. The man kneeling before the new Emperor heard the cries of his two small sons as they were led from where they and their mother had been captured. Tao Che could not help himself, he raised his head and saw what he feared most. The two boys, thirteen and eight years of age, and their mother, Yao Lin, his wife of fifteen years, were being forced to their knees. General Li Kang looked at his Emperor and saw the man smile. The general remained still, his sullen face not showing the disgust he had for what was about to happen.
Once more the sword appeared at the throat of the king. The blade dug into his neck until it found what the steel searched for. The blade was lifted free of the armored chest plate of the king. There, gleaming in the firelight, was a chain. The blade twisted until the object that dangled from the small, gold links was shown to the new Emperor. The nugget of ore was bright and silverish in color. The blade twisted again, and the chain snapped. Once more the twist of the sword’s edge forced the necklace and the nugget into the air where the Emperor caught it with a gloved left hand. He held it up to the dying moon and examined it.
“Where is he?”
Tao Che’s head dipped as he heard the cries of his two boys behind him.
“You were close to my father and his bitch concubine. You were with him when he brought her back from her home where he had captured her far to the North. Where is that home? Did he and his people flee to this mysterious land?”
The king looked up and with trembling lips answered.
“You seek the great secret of his power. All of this,” he gestured around him at the carnage that once held the populace of a proud nation, “is for that? You will kill millions to get at the thing your father said would always be protected. To dampen your cause, to make all of this even more senseless is the fact that your father never told me where he found the source, nor his concubine.”
The new Emperor pursed his lips in anger and then closed his gloved fist over the chain and the silverish green tinted nugget it held. He angrily nodded his head just once and the General gave the order.
Suddenly, Tao Che threw himself to the feet of his conqueror, embracing the man’s embroidered boots and begged for the lives of his family. He pawed at the emperor’s bloody boots and cried until he heard the swish of blades through the air and the sudden cessation of crying coming from his two boys and his wife.
General Kang turned to his emperor and nodded that the deed was done. The general then turned away and gave the order to remove the headless bodies of the king’s family.
Qin Shi kicked away the grasping hands and then brought the curved sword down.
“I must not have ghosts threatening my rule. I can combat any force upon this earth, but I find no defense against the souls of the dead. If one descendant is left alive from the loins of my father’s whore concubine, their brethren will come for revenge.” He once more held the strange silver nugget, that was etched in a green vein, into the air, so the forlorn king could see it in the fire’s light. “This is only a part, I want the whole, and the man who knows how to wield its power. I want my half-brother!”
Tao Che suddenly stood. The blinding speed of the action made the Emperor’s guard move forward, but with a simple hand gesture they were stopped by Qin Shi himself.
“Ghosts?” Tao Che laughed as his tears still flowed. “All the ghosts of all those you have butchered will not be comparable to the foe you still have to face if you attempt to run him and his people down. This man will not be as obliging to your rule as the rest. This was something I taught him, a thing your father taught you both, and it is a thing you have forgotten and will be your undoing.”
Tao Che saw the sword falter somewhat as it came up. The doomed King smiled, this time the gesture made it to his eyes as he saw the effect his words had on the new emperor.
“Yes, the one man that you fear. The one soul in all the world who can stop you. The man who has the power of that,” he nodded at the silver nugget in the emperor’s hand, “flowing through his heart and blood stream. The last true magic upon this Earth” He laughed as Qin Shi’s eyes blazed with hate. “The one man—”
The sword came down and silenced the hate-filled warning. The cutting edge sliced deeply through the leather armor of the king from the man’s right shoulder to his left hip, cutting him into two halves. Qin Shi watched the body falling in two differing directions, and then viciously kicked out with his boot at the still moving parts. Qin Shi threw his sword into the burning embers of the palace and then turned to his general.
“You told me he was dead! Now this fool says he is alive!”
“My Emperor, it was reported that your brother,” he saw the anger once more flare into the eyes of his emperor at the mention of the relationship, and he quickly continued as he lowered his eyes, “…it was said that he died many years ago. I have not been able to confirm this from any of the conquered provinces. I have eyes and ears out all over China, and there has been no word on his being seen alive anywhere.”
The emperor held the chain and nugget up so the general could see it clearly. “I thought I only had to be concerned with his fanatical followers who would know where the source of the ore is, now I am told its not only them that have to be found and destroyed, but the bastard child himself, my one-time half-brother is still alive!”
“If he is alive, I swear to you, my master, he and his people will be found. The war is over, they have no place to hide. But he must be dead. He must be.”
“That is not good enough!” he stormed to his horse and kicked out at its tender. He turned back to General Kang. “I must know. If he is truly dead, I want his rotting corpse dug from his burial mound and brought before me!”
“Perhaps great one, if you had not killed Tao Che before questioning him, we may know where it was Li Zheng went to ground…if he is truly alive. Without any information and absent any witness accounts of his still being alive, we need not worry, unless you intend to carry out another search of all China?”
The emperor mounted his horse and cruelly steadied the animal with a slap to the side of its head, making the large roan rear and then finally settle. He pointed his finger at his general, the iron nugget hanging from his shaking fingers, and then moved the accusing digit to his personal guard. Shaking with anger, he once more reared his horse to its hind legs.
“Find him! I do not care how many villages you sack, kill as many as need calls for, but find Li Zheng, find him or your heads will join those of the fallen!” He wadded up the chain and the nugget and threw it angrily into a pile of burning rubble. The resulting explosion flared bright blue and green, killing five of his own personal guard from the debris thrown up by the nugget striking the flame. “My bastard brother knows how to control that! It is in his very blood. If he turns this against me, I cannot stop him. If he is alive, find him and bring him before me. Then execute all who ever followed him.”
General Kang watched the Emperor as he turned his horse and sped from the burning Hunan capital, followed by his personal guard of fifty cavalrymen. Kang started giving orders as Hunan’s capital buildings fell in embers and flames.
“Use ten thousand men, all of our scouts, assassins, scoundrels, but find him!”
The orders had gone out all over China—find the man known as Li Zheng, the long-lost half-brother of the new sovereign Emperor of China, and the last of the mythical Elementals.
Huang He River (Yellow River) Region,
Thirteen miles south of the Great Wall, five years later
The large village of Lanzhou was one populated by teachers, artisans and engineers, and the men and women they supported, the laborers. They all had equal voice in village affairs. These were men who had fled with their families to escape the genocide in the south. With their women and children by their sides, they sold their skills to the new emperor’s task masters in the construction of the massive wall that would separate the new nation from their far-off enemies of the north, the Mongol hordes. This was the place they had chosen to hide—right beneath the very nose of the man they feared most—Emperor Qin Shi Huang. They lived in relative obscurity, due to the valuable work the engineers and scholars offered the new empire. They were left to their own devices after trading their knowledge for food and other bartered items from the large army of the emperor’s soldiers that guarded the Great Wall’s construction.
After the day’s work was completed, the villagers moved back into the relative safety of the small city they called home. Traveling outside of the area was forbidden by the elders as that was deemed too risky. Any chance discovery or loose talk would cause them all to lose their heads. The emperor had been searching for them for the past five years, never realizing they were right here in the north, actually assisting him to build his great barrier. This was a joke told many times around village camp fires and caused the horde of followers many a laugh at the man they deemed a devil.
The cries and shouts of children met the smiling faces of the men as they moved into the village after their labors at the wall. They were greeted with hugs and offers of water from the river. The men laughed and scooped the smaller of these children into their arms as they were more formally greeted by their spouses. Life was a constant fear of discovery by the Emperor, but at this moment, life was also good.
It was after the moon had risen high when the men of the village met in the great hall made of tall logs and covered in a heavy cotton tent. The fire in the middle of the enclave offered warmth and gave the men a sense of camaraderie. The laughter and goodwill were prevalent and much food was had. Men told stories about the failed attempts of their taskmasters to rope them in. The soldiers and the emperor’s engineers knew the wall could not be built without their knowledge, and they used that to great advantage over the entities of the man that wished them found and beheaded.
The men sat upon bundles of soft woven pillows. Women appeared every few minutes with even more food—food that was bartered for through their skills as artisans and engineers and chief laborers, as they all considered each other a valuable asset to their survival. The emperor’s construction specialists and soldiers were so dependent on these strange people that they were able to hide in plain sight among the Emperor’s spies and informants.
Qui Li, the eldest member of the village council, stood and smiled at his friends. The old man had to be helped to his feet. Qui Li was the man responsible for keeping the secret that was Lanzhou. The old man raised his right hand and the large enclosure quieted.
“I wish to offer my condolences to Wei Chi and his wife. The loss of your eldest son at the wall last week was a blow to our family of man, beyond which we will not soon recover.”
All faces turned toward the center of the crowded hall and a middle-aged man sitting with a wooden cup of water. He nodded his head in deference to the man standing before him. The father slowly poured the water from his cup and stood. He bowed to the east, the west, the north and the south. He straightened and then looked around him at the men in the meeting. He faced the front once more.
“I thank our elders for their consideration and condolence.” The man grew somber as he reflected on his son and all in attendance felt the mood change from jovial to serious. “My son was a proud boy, but also a curious one. We have yet to learn just what it was that our son died for. He and many others. We help the Emperor build his wall, a man that would kill every man, woman and child here if he knew where it was we were hiding. We have yet to hear the grand plan.” A man reached up and tried his best to still the words of hurt feelings of the father, but the hand was eased away by the sorrowful man. “Why isn’t this plan shared with those who follow? For many years we have lived and died without explanation as to what it is we are truly doing.” The father of the dead boy looked around at his brethren. “We assist the beast we should be meeting in battle. We build a wall that will eventually be used to corral us like animals, ready for slaughter. This Great Wall is not for the defense of this new, evil empire. It is to be used to cage us like the animals the Emperor thinks we are. The time has come for this grand plan to be told to the people. The Great Wall is nearing completion. It is time our Master shares with us the escape plan he has promised for so many years.”
Slowly, there were nods of agreement from the two hundred men of the council. The elder remained standing and his eyes told the men he was in complete understanding of their fears. Again, he nodded to the father of the dead boy and the man reluctantly sat down. Many a hand reached out to convey to him the village’s sorrow over his loss and agreement with his thoughts.
“Our hearts are with you, brother Sum. To have a boy crushed between blocks of stone is disheartening to all. Even our Master. He has heard all of the people’s anger and extreme blackness of loss. The mistake you make in your harsh judgement of our Master is the fact that this wall we assist in building is not to keep the Emperor’s subjects caged like beasts, it’s to keep our Master and ourselves out if we escape his evil grasp. It is our Master he fears, thus this Great Wall.”
“Then, where is he, why can we not hear this from the Master himself?” shouted one man from the darkness at the back of the wooden building. This same question was echoed by a few others as the old man tried to bring back order.
“You receive messages from him, but we have not seen the Master since he went North of the construction. Has he been killed by the barbarian hordes of the North? Has he abandoned us to the murderous rampage of the Emperor?”
The elder looked at the man who had spoken. It was General Jai Li Chang. The once proud soldier who had served the Master since the beginning. His words stung only because of the weight it carried for the other ears listening. The shouts of agreement were louder. The old man could see the conflict in the eyes of the General. If the Master lost his closest military leader, all could be lost.
“If this is so, we must come up with a plan of our own. For too long have we awaited the Master’s views on what happens when our skills are no longer needed. As a man trained in the art of war, it is my feeling that the long arms of the Emperor are reaching for us, growing ever closer. A feeling of gut? Yes, that has always been a general’s strength—my strength. He is coming, make no mistake. Strangers have been seen in and around the wall and villages, asking questions. Men and soldiers that we have never seen before scour the land, asking questions about our Master. The emperor has never believed the false rumors perpetrated by us of the Master’s demise. Our time is short,” the general said as he looked around, his eyes finally settling on the row of elders at the head of the gathering and the old man standing before them. “My old friend and mentor, General Kang, is rumored to be near. A rumor that includes an army of ten thousand men traveling with him. This force is not here to celebrate the final blocks of stone as they are placed in the wall. They are here for us. I cannot train artisans and engineers for battle against such a force. If we cannot fight, then we must either flee or disband forever, to melt into the heart of China. Only the Master can give us guidance about this deadly quandary.”
The old man again raised his hand as the last of the goodwill escaped the meeting. He shook his head as he had no answer. It would be a knife straight to the heart of every man present if it were known that he had not spoken words with the Master for over three years. He looked at his fellows who sat in silence as they too saw the former general’s point. Time was indeed running out.
“Is the Master dead?” came an ominous question from the dark. Men stood and faced the elders and shouted their agreement of the query.
“I am afraid the question you ask is somewhat without merit, as I sit here among you.”
The council chamber quieted as if by magic as the voice carried to every corner. The fire blazed and erupted as a man in a torn and battered robe stood and then lowered the hood of his cloak. The figure moved easily through the stunned men as he took up station in front of the grieving father who had started the small revolt. He touched the man on his shoulder and bade him to rise. The father stood, tears coming to his eyes as he recognized the man who had sat with them unnoticed.
“My heart breaks for you, my friend,” the man said as the father lowered his eyes in shame for speaking out against him. “But soon there may be many more sons and daughters that will join him in the darkness that is death.” The man nodded and then removed his robe. As it fell to the floor, he turned and faced the men in the room, each getting a good look at the man they had not seen in three long years. “The General is right. The time has finally come, my brothers of the earth. Many of you think that we may have clung too long to the hope of blending into this new world, but it was an unavoidable evil. The Emperor would have become aware of us if we had suddenly packed everything and left before the wall’s completion. This, my brothers, would not have given us the time and cover needed to go to our new home. It is time—now is that time.”
Every man in the council chamber went to their knees as his face looked about them. Even the elders kneeled and lowered their eyes.
Li Zheng, the half-brother of the Emperor, raised both hands to the air and bade the men to rise.
“No brothers, no. Rise and face the world and you will never bow to a man again. I have been away too long. You are not to bow to me. I am a brother of every man in this council, not your ruler.” He turned so all could see. “Rise, you are men!”
General Jai Li Chang took the six steps toward Li Zheng and went to his knee, taking the older man’s right hand, and kissing it. “You will forgive my harsh words, Master?”
“Stand, old friend, there is nothing to forgive. I cannot fault a man when he is right,” he looked about at the faces that were now raised to see the great one. “I cannot lay blame for men fearing for their families and loved ones, if I did, I would be far worse than my brother. The General is right.” He looked over the men as they rose to their feet. “By the next full moon, we will be well on our journey to our new home, my birth place. The land of my mother. For every man, woman, and child who choose to follow me, we will vanish into a new life far beyond the borders of the Emperor’s new China.”
“My Master, where is this new home?” asked the father who had led the revolt.
The silence made those watching Li Zheng afraid. He looked around those faces and settled on the General.
“You will prepare our people to travel far North of the Great Wall.”
The men were shocked as they saw the words spill from the Master’s mouth. They looked from him to each other.
“Yes, my brothers, we will escape into the great desert to the north. Our new home, where we can live out our lives in peace for generations to come.”
“Into the hands of enemies that are worse than the Emperor?” came many voices at once, only in differing forms.
Li Zheng tried in vain to silence the men around him. Even the village elders stood in disbelief of the final plan for escaping the wrath of the Emperor. The shouts of doubt and anger filled the ears of Master Li Zheng, and for the first time in years he felt his anger boil to the surface.
Both arms flew into the air, and the graying beard of Li Zheng rose and fell in a wash of wind that sprang from nowhere.
“Silence!” came his strong voice. The wood of the structure shook, and many planks popped free of their notched anchors. The fire pit erupted, and the flames shot straight into the air. The force was so powerful, the cotton fabric of the roof burned away into nothingness as it rose with the flame toward the stars. The water in the rain barrels also erupted into the air, washing the men free of their sudden anger and fear. Debris, along with wooden and porcelain cups went flying, some striking men that shouted the loudest.
They had gained the unwanted attention of the Master—the last Elemental.
He lowered his arms and the fire retreated back into the pit. The water, not as controllable, was still soaking most of the stunned villagers. One by one they sat. One by one they lowered their gaze from the eyes of the small man standing amongst them. The few burning remnants of the roof flitted away into the night as if fireflies, and all was silent.
“Those of you who choose to stay, may stay. I make no demand. I give no orders. I have told you the plan I have for some, but not all. Many of you will be able to blend in with the new world order. I cannot. Many of you will choose to follow me into the wilderness, and many of you may die. I make no promise as to life, only the freedom for you to choose where and when that life may end, or flourish. Sometimes that is the only true freedom one has in life.”
“But how will we—”
The man asking the question was silenced by a young boy, dressed in ill-fitting ancient leather armor handed down to him by his father and his father before him. The boy stood at the doorway trying to catch his fleeing breath.
Li Zheng nodded for the boy to enter. He went straight to General Chang.
“We have received word from our outer pickets, the soldiers at the Wall are gathering. One of our men at the construction site has heard word that they are to be the advance element coming here. General Kang is nearing the wall from the south. It looks as if they seek to catch the village in-between. Many of our spies’ voices were silenced before they could get word to us.”
“Get the boy some water,” Li Zheng called out as he took the runner by the shoulders and pulled him from the general. “Where is General Kang now?”
“Still across the Huang He River, thirty miles distant,” the boy said, breathing heavily. He gratefully accepted a cup of water and drank greedily. He was patted on the back as the Master turned to the men who stood nervously.
“Those of you fleeing northward across the wall, prepare. Those of you who have chosen to stay, take your families to the river and hide amongst the forest and the rocks, you will know when it is safe to flee south.”
“When will we know that?” shouted the voice of a frightened man.
“When the sounds of battle and the cries of many soldiers as they die have subsided,” Li Zheng said loudly as he turned to the General. “You, my old friend, we will face General Kang. You and I.”
“How many men shall I muster to assist?” Jai Li Chang asked with an appeased nod and bow, as he was finally going to face his old friend in combat, even if doing so meant his own death. He was tired of hiding.
The man with the deep brown eyes smiled softly as he squeezed the general’s shoulder. “No soldiers other than your personal guard, General. You and I. Together we will face General Kang at the river.” He again smiled and for a reason the general would never be able to explain, he understood what it was that was being asked.
“It will be my life’s honor to die at your side, Master Zheng.”
Li Zheng accepted the robes that he had discarded earlier from one of the elders as other men prepared to do as ordered, while the rest ran for their families in preparation to flee the coming battle and imminent slaughter.
“Many men will die this night, General, but our deaths will not be counted among them.”
The general nodded his head. He still didn’t understand but knew the plan he had so worried over was about to be explained to him in deadly detail. He would bow to the power of the last Master of the natural elements of the very planet. They were to rely on the magic of the far North.
“Elders, take those that are coming north of the wall for a new life, to the low plane of wall at the village of Hinn Shu Wei, the wall is still incomplete there. Wait until I arrive to cross over. Now please, go.”
Men scrambled from the council chamber. Many ran for families to flee with Li Zheng, many more others to flee with wives, children and as many belongings as they could carry for their flight to the south and the protection of the river.
“Shall we go and admire the rays of the moon by the river’s edge, General?”
In minutes, the village of Lanzhou, a home which had stood for fifteen years hiding the fugitives of the Emperor, would vanish into history and myth.
The General saw that Li Zheng altered his course to the river. He held his hand in the air and his personal guard turned with the Master. The General slid his horse in beside that of Li Zheng.
“The only reasonable crossing point for General Kang and his army is three miles further on, Master. We are heading for the village of Ti Zuay.”
“You and your men will not join me at the river, General. I have another task for you and your guard that I could not explain adequately in front of the elders and the council.”
The General watched as Li Zheng eased his horse into the creek that fronted the small village of Ti Zuay. The wooden huts were dark. That was when the General noted that there was absolutely no sign of life. Even at this early morning hour, farmers and their wives were usually up and preparing for their day. As their horses exited the slow-moving water, Li Zheng eased his horse to a stop. His eyes scanned the darkened living spaces that once held the populace of Ti Zuay.
“General Jai Li Chang, you have been a loyal friend.”
The general looked from the darkened and abandoned village and placed his right fist to his chest armor and bowed his head. He suspected something was coming and knew he would not like it.
“It is time for you to take charge of the people until their new Master comes of age.”
“New Master? You are the only Master our people have ever known. I do not understand.”
“Your duty to me ends here, this night. You will not accompany me to the river. Your mission is here, and then it lies beyond the Great Wall, in the ancient lands that will be the people’s new home.”
The general sat upon his horse as his men held fast in the shallow creek to their rear. He removed his plumed helmet from his head and then lowered it.
“If I have done something to offend you, Master—”
He was taken aback when Li Zheng laughed heartily. He removed the hood from his cloak so he could see his old friend better, and in return the general could see the deep brown pools of his eyes. Finally, with the general looking on, Li Zheng stopped laughing as he placed his free hand on the man’s shoulder.
“Offense? My friend, you have done nothing to have ever given offense. You and your men have laid blood and bone upon this earth to protect me. No, no offense—just a new task, one which I could only give to one I trust above all others. Do you remember when you were but a boy and we spoke of things, events, people, that could destroy the world? What were my two points that I pointed out again, and again?”
Jai Li Chang closed his eyes as he thought. He remembered, but what did that memory have to do with what they now faced and the Master’s mysterious request? He did remember the lesson.
“That it is not the horrid acts of men that will kill the world but lies and deception. Every time a man lies it is like a sword point to the heart of the world.”
The Master smiled. “Yes, and here you sit upon your magnificent mount facing a man that is guilty of both.”
“I do not understand.”
“I regret that I could not foster the trust in you that I should have. But many years ago, I foresaw this night of nights when my people would be forced to leave their homeland for the burnt soil of another world. A barren place that witnessed my birth. A place where my father and that of the Emperor found and fell in love with a woman of that far off land. You believe that I am a hermit. A strange being who holds power that is unimaginable.” Again, the Master smiled as another confused look came to the general’s features. “I am all but the most human man. My weakness in my beliefs will be your new mission. To safeguard my legacy to the people.”
“Master, we are short of time. I can even now hear the thunder of many horses across the far river bank.”
“My vision many years ago told me I would not further venture with our people after tonight. I took it upon myself to safeguard their future.”
“Master—”
“Come, my love,” he called out as he turned to a darkened home at the center of the old village.
The general peered into the inky darkness but could see nothing. He gestured to one of his men and he was handed a torch. He held it high to see. There, in the deep shadows, a figure stepped into the weak light.
General Jai Li Chang felt his heart skip a beat in his chest. The woman was dressed in modest clothing. He handed the torch back to the soldier when his Master dismounted and went to the woman. He took her into his arms and kissed her cheek and then held her close. The general was shocked. He watched as Master Zheng turned with the woman and nodded at him as he dismounted. He approached and then the general bowed his head.
“This is my wife, Mai Li. We have been married for seventeen years.”
The general almost lost his balance as his continued bow threw him off. He straightened and took in his Master and the woman at his side. Before he could say anything, the joyful scream of a small child erupted from the dark night. Li Zheng broke the embrace of his wife and then took up the weight of a small boy who had burst from the darkened house where he had been sleeping. He watched as his Master picked the child up and hugged him. He swung him around and then approached the general.
“My son, Tao Mei. It means, ‘big brain’. At four he can already read and write better than most.”
The general felt his mouth open as his jaw dropped.
“You see, I am most human, my old friend. If love of family is a human condition, which I suspect it is.”
General Chang bowed again, and the small boy grabbed for the red feather plumage and missed. The general raised his head and then smiled at the grinning boy-child. He turned and tried to speak but found no words. The woman smiled as she relieved her husband of their son.
“Wife, are you ready?”
The woman just nodded her head once. The general could see that she was not happy in the least. The smile and love shown seconds before vanished just as quickly.
Three women emerged from the same house with large bundles. The general gestured for four of his men to take their burdens. As he watched, Master Zheng assisted his wife and child as they mounted his horse. He nodded at the women and then bade them farewell as they bowed deeply. One even ran to the wife and child and threw herself onto the wet ground at their horse’s prancing hooves. Zheng assisted the woman back to her feet and gently eased her over to the other two.
“Go now. You have served my family well.”
In tears the women departed, crying heavily and consoling themselves as they vanished into the night.
“You must now leave this world,” he said as he squeezed his wife’s leg as she sat upon the horse. He turned to face the general. “Protect them as best as you can. My son is the people’s future. They will eventually come to call him Master. Then they will call his son the same. There will always be a part of me with the people. Through the centuries I will be there, watching, protecting.” He smiled at his grinning son.
“But—”
The general’s words were cut short by the sound of horns. The morning sun was only minutes away. General Kang’s army would soon follow the rising of that sun.
“Go, get the people to safety beyond the wall.”
“My husband—” the woman started to protest once again for the millionth time in their married life.
“I will be with you, wife. Just look into my son’s eyes as he grows to manhood. I will be there. Now,” he turned again to Cheng, “go, flee to the wall with all haste.”
“Kang’s entire army has arrived, they will overtake not only us, but the people. We have waited too long.”
“The General is more fearful of my one-time half-brother than he is of military defeat, old friend. He has made a mistake in his choice of offensive operation and lacks the knowledge of a land he has yet to see. You will never see the army of General Kang after this dawn. Now, goodbye my faithful General.” He turned and looked at his hidden family for the last time. “This is for the people, my love. For the people.” He slapped at her horse and with one last look at his old Master, the general bade his men to follow as they headed back north.
Li Zheng felt the hot roll of tears as they came from his dark, brown eyes. He placed the hood on his head as he raised a hand to the dark air around him in a final goodbye that only he could see.
Master Li Zheng turned back and strode across the small creek and started for the river. It was now a time of war for the last of the air benders, the elemental wizard of the great desert.
The flags of General Li Kang crested the small hill that fronted the large river. His scouts had found a place to ford the large force of cavalry, and that mass of humanity soon joined the flags of the army.
The last to arrive was the general himself with his personal guard. As the sun crested the Earth to the east, the general saw the shiny river and the far bank beyond. He steadied his restless mount as his general’s eyes took in all. He saw the distant deserted village. He also noticed there was no enemy activity on the opposite bank. Then something caught his eye. The lone figure came into view as a small fire flared to life. One of his captains pointed to the lone figure that was stooped to the flame he had just started.
“A monk perhaps?” the captain asked.
General Kang watched as the figure, barely discernible in the weak morning light, turned slowly away from the small campfire and then sat easily on the soft, sandy bank. His legs were crossed and his hooded head lowered in prayer. The general looked up at the sky and saw only a few wispy clouds as the rising sun gave them a luminous sheen. His attention then went back to the man across the way. As his ten thousand men formed along the opposite ridge and the tone of assembly horns wafted across the river, the monk they faced seemed not to notice. The small fire was just large enough to cast flickering patterns on the man’s brown robes.
“That is no monk,” the general said just as his hackles rose as high as his new-found concern.
Kang had been expecting at least a rear-guard action to give the rogue people the time they needed to disband, or whatever their plan was. Instead his greatest fear may be sitting two hundred yards away. His spies had finally brought the news the Emperor had waited upon for many years. His half-brother and his wayward clan had been found. Upon learning that he had been so close and hiding right beneath their noses, the Emperor had flown into a rage and killed the bringers of the news. After Kang dispatched the people following his brother, his orders were to bring Li Zheng to the emperor in chains. Now the general faced the hard truth—Zheng was alive and ready to face him.
“Bring me your best archer. We will soon discover the truth of who this lone man is. I fear I already know who it is we face.”
The captain to his right turned his horse and, in a few minutes, returned with a solitary soldier. The general nodded his head. The soldier looked from the general to the captain awaiting his orders.
“Get this man’s attention,” the general ordered without taking his eyes from the man with his head bowed and the small fire by his side. The man’s hands were held out and the index fingers and thumbs touched, as his palms were turned toward the brightening morning sunrise.
The archer nocked his arrow and the longbow came up. The shiny arrowhead caught the rays of the rising sun and it flashed brightly. The arrow was loosed. It traveled high into the sky and then came down and speared the sandy earth only a foot from the praying man. He didn’t react. He didn’t even look up at the sound of the arrow’s impact.
General Kang watched all of this silently as his men were confused as to their delay in crossing the Huang He River.
“Kill him.”
The archer nocked another arrow. The red feathers at its end shone bright in the morning sun until a small wisp of a cloud passed overhead. This time the arrow was loosed with power. It didn’t climb as high as the first shot. It flew straight and without wind, true to the target.
General Kang saw the man move his right hand in a swirling motion. Suddenly, a small breeze sprang from nowhere. Kang felt the softness of the cool wind just as his heart froze. The arrow was on target, and then it suddenly veered off to the man’s right side. It was if an invisible hand had simply moved it from its track. The long projectile thudded into the sand and buried itself deep. The man’s hand went back to its original position. He had never even looked up from his silent prayers.
Without a verbal order being given, the captain brought up three more archers. Before he gave the killing command, he noticed that the man across the now brightly illuminated river slowly rose. He placed both of his hands into the sleeves of his robes and that was when General Kang felt his heart skip a beat in his chest. The hood and head of the stranger was still bowed in either prayer or arrogance.
“Nock!” came the command.
The four archers drew their arrows taught. They raised their aim and then waited.
“Loose!”
All four arrows flew straight and true. They arched into the blue morning sky as the robed man remained still across the waters of the river.
Again, the breeze sprang from nothingness. This time it was a swirling mass that picked up sand and dirt as it swirled toward the flying arrows in a funnel of moving material. In shock, the cavalrymen watched as the arrows were suddenly upended as they reversed their course just as if they had hit a stone wall. Then the wind picked up even more as General Kang lowered his head as sharp grains of sand pelted him just as the four arrows turned and shot back across the river. One of the killing sticks fell to the water’s surface as it traveled away from the altering current of air. The other three gained speed as they crossed the river in a blinding race to the far shore. They impacted three of the archers and they fell to the ground, as the long shafts pierced their armor and nearly shot through the other side. The three men fell to the ground as the remaining archer lost his grip on the longbow and it fell to his feet.
It all had happened so fast that Kang’s horse reared up. His eyes were still on the stranger as his men behind him tried to steady their horses as once more the strange wind died down and then ceased altogether.
“So, we truly face the great one, that is most assuredly Li Zheng.”
The captain swallowed the lump in his throat as he heard the name. He stiffened his resolve even as he watched his general lose his.
“Prepare to ford the river!” came the order.
Before the general could calm his men, the captain gave the order as Kang sat upon his horse in helpless silence. He had grown up on the emperor’s stories about the man they faced and the strange power he wielded.
The captain drew his sword as he turned to face his cavalry. “Death to the traitor, Li Zheng! First division, prepare to charge!”
Kang tried to stop his onrushing cavalry, but the charge command drowned his voice out.
“Charge!” the captain screamed as the first line of men and horses bounded down the slope toward the river.
As the first three thousand rode forth, the action scared Kang’s horse and it spun in a circle. Finally, the general saw the man across the river slowly lower his hood. The eyes were staring straight ahead as the first of his cavalry struck the river’s edge.
Li Zheng’s head turned toward the sky as the shouts of the cavalry reached his ears. Their bloodlust was up. Then he lowered his head after calling forth the God of Air. He looked at the water at his feet, then his hands, palms up, shot out and again they raised toward the bright sky. The waters of the calm river rose straight into the air. The wall climbed high, higher, and then it crested. The wall of river water came down on the first three thousand men, crushing man and horse beneath its tonnage, as the river splashed down after reaching a height of a thousand feet. Men, horses, and weapons, were washed away by a sudden rush of river flow. Li Zheng than repeated the move of his hands stretching out across the river. The water rose once more as he twirled both hands in rapidly expanding circles. The wall of river water again shot high, and then even higher. This time, with his face turned toward the heavens and the Gods that powered his magic, Li Zheng held the water. The wall of frothing river now separated the far shore from the near.
A thousand arrows were loosed at the wall and they all shot straight up and vanished among the violent and writhing wall. Again, and again men and horses tried to charge through, and they too were lifted high into the air and thrown a half a mile away as if swiped aside by the hand of God. Still, Li Zheng twirled his hands. The wisps of clouds over their heads expanded into a dark mass of swirling death as it shot down and joined the impenetrable wall of river.
Arrows rose into the sky and were brushed aside by the tornado-like barrier as the wind met the river. General Kang tried in vain to steady his horse. Even the stories he had heard could not compare to the power they now faced. He had never thought to see such a sight. Li Zheng was gathering the very forces of nature against them.
Master of Earth, fire, air and water, Li Zheng felt the power draining as quickly as it had come on. Sections of the wall of water were falling, splashing down into the river bed, and then slowly, haltingly rising again. He knew if General Kang just waited it out, his power to control the elements would soon fail him. He had never gathered all of his strength before this day. Men were even now starting to get their horses through the weakening wall of river. Arrows and lances shot forward, only missing the Master by inches. Finally, he used his left hand and then it too swirled in a rapid and ever-increasing circle. He was using the last of his strength. His hand motions stopped as he reached into his robe and pulled free something that looked like small stones. These stones of silver were flecked through with greenish streaks, the same as the ore that once was necklaced around the great King of Hunan. Li Zheng tossed them into the small fire. The bonfire he had started earlier puffed, enlarged, and then a long line of burning air rose and spread out in line with the raging wall of water as a brightly flamed tornado. Of this, small balls of flame broke away from the tornado and shot across the river. The first cavalry to breach the wall were met by fireballs from Li Zheng. The flames struck man and horse and they burst into flame as they fell into the starved river bed.
Li Zheng felt his legs give out as he collapsed to the sandy shore. The river collapsed as it smashed four thousand men in its haste to return to its natural state. The tornado of flame diminished and almost flamed out. The water suddenly rebounded, sending a forced tide-like surge across the way, washing up on the remaining two thousand men who sat in silent shock at what had just killed their fellows. The tornado again burst into the morning skies and then steadied. Then Li Zheng collapsed to the sandy shore of the river’s edge.
As his enemy collapsed to the sand, General Kang saw his moment. He withdrew his sword and this time he would lead the final charge. The clouds overhead dissipated as if they had never been, and the river once more flowed as if it had been as normal as the day before. The fire storm of tornado dwindled to nothingness.
Li Zheng looked up as the last of the general’s army started their charge to kill the Elemental. Again, his hands turned up to the sky, then they both came down. He once more reached into his robes and brought out the last nugget of his strange powers. This one was larger. This was the last of the ore he had brought from his travels back to his birth place. Once more he prayed to the heavens as his fingers, with the large silverish nugget in his right hand, dug deeply into the soil. He never felt the sand and rock as it scraped his fingernails to nothing, as he clasped the earth into his now balled fists. Sand and rock flowed from his fingers over and around the silver rock-like ore.
“Forgive me, my people. Your life will now start amidst your enemy’s deaths.” His hands left the earth and shot skyward. The sand of the riverbank and the ore flew high into the sky just as the stone and river sands left the fingers of the Master.
General Kang and his last two thousand men were only fifty feet from the far shore as arrows flew. Five of them struck Li Zheng, but still he held his hands even higher than before as the fists emptied of the damp earth.
Before the charging cavalry knew what was happening, it was as if the earth exploded. The water from the river shot once more into the skies. This time however the riverbed came with it. Earth and water joined the remaining flame from the firepit as it too rose. The cavalry was lifted with the natural elements of the world, and once more men, horses and equipment flew into the air. The first of the rising waters caught General Kang and threw him and his mount into the air. Kang felt his body swirling through the air and water, and then jarringly falling, crashing back onto the river bed that had once been the base for that water. He came to his senses in time to see his last two thousand men and their animals tossed a thousand feet into the sky with the exploding earth battering them to pieces. Then, as the earth and water were lifted totally free, he sat and watched as Li Zheng, who had finally become visible, slowly lower his hands, and with the arrows buried deeply into his chest and stomach, collapsed onto his face.
“We have met the Devil, and he has sent us all to the hell we deserve,” Kang moaned aloud, just as the river and earth, followed by the remaining flames of the fire, crashed back down, covering Kang and his dead ten thousand.
The skies cleared as if nothing had happened. The sun rose higher into the sky and the river was once more calmed. It flowed to the far shore and its waters slowly lifted the lifeless body of Li Zheng. The body swirled gently in the current for the briefest of moments and then it joined that of ten thousand of the emperor’s best soldiers, along with their General, as they started their long journey southward.
The Last Air Bender, the Great Elemental wizard of the great desert, bereft of the power of life, was now relegated to the annals of myth and legend.
Fifty miles to the North, General Chang watched as the last of the men and women of Li Zheng’s tribe crossed over the bottom row of giant stone blocks. There had been a brief battle with the soldiers guarding the unfinished portion of wall, but his men dispatched the Emperor’s killers with little effort or loss of life. The soldiers were buried in hidden places inside the wall for their witnessing of the great exodus of people. They would be buried in the wall for all of eternity.
The last two people he assisted up and over the low wall were the wife and child of Li Zheng. He felt the woman’s sorrow as he too knew they would never see the Master again. As he watched Zheng’s wife and infant man-child join those who now started North into the unknown lands, he looked in that direction. He knew what kinds of danger awaited them, but he knew that the Master had given them this once chance at life and freedom. He swore he would take these people to safety into the lands of the Master’s birth—the desert and rugged mountains of Mongolia.
The people of Master Li Zheng crossed the Great Wall and would vanish from history for over two thousand years.
Altai Mountains,
Mongolia, 1182 A.D.
The line of horses was packed full of the trade goods that were bartered for, near the Great Wall. The trip had been a long and arduous one for the thirty-six volunteers from the village of Hanshu, near the Gobi Altai Mountains. They had traded the spices drawn from the plants found only in that region for the seeds and poultry they now carried. They had also traded small ingots of gold and the silverish mineral they sourced from the mountains for the more expensive livestock. The silverish ore was found to be an excellent source for producing harder than normal steel and they used this to barter for the trade goods that were hard to come by in the forbidding mountains that protected the village of Hanshu. These long trips were made once every five years so as to avoid any observant eyes of the Empire of China.
The campsite they had chosen this night was a protected canyon where a small trickle of water was to be had from a creek that coursed its way down the rugged and rocky mountain. The camp was jovial as each man knew they would not have to set up another camp as they were only ten hours away from the borders of their hidden village. The horses had been unpacked and were now standing and feeding on the last of their grain supply. All in all, it had been a good trip to the enemy’s homeland, and the joviality came from the fact they had come and gone without spies from the empire catching on that their greatest threat had been amongst them.
The cooked chicken and rice was passed from eager hand to eager hand as the men talked and joked of their successful trade expedition.
Wei Mei, the oldest of the travelers, was sitting cross-legged by the fire as his men laughed. He felt the tension of the last four months of dangerous travel slipping from the men as if it were an important bodily discharge. He could not help but allow his own guard to lag as they neared their hidden home of over a thousand years.
“Wei Mei, this is the first time in the months that we have been traveling that I have seen your sour face smile,” said one of the men, who was removing one of the small chickens from a spit over the fire. The man reached out and slapped the leg of the man next to him, “I told you he was human.”
The men laughed, and Wei Mei finally nodded and also smiled. Suddenly he lost that smile as he held up a hand for silence. The men automatically lost their joviality, and each cocked an ear to the dark night. Wei Mei placed a hand on the sandy soil and felt the earth.
“Horses, five of them.”
The men, as experienced as they were of the dangers of their travels, automatically reacted. Each stood and retrieved their choice of weapons. Fifteen gathered bow and arrow, the other twenty-one, swords. Archers to the rear, swordsmen to the front. They circled the campfire, each wishing for the darkness that fire magnified.
Wei Mei slowly withdrew the sword that had been handed down to him by his great-great-great-grandfather. He heard their own mounts as they nervously pawed the ground as the five horses and the sound of hoof falls came closer. Suddenly, the noise stopped, ceasing just out of sight cast by the cooking fire.
“Greetings the camp,” came a voice from the darkness. “We are travelers in need of assistance. We mean you no harm.”
Wei Mei stepped forward, parting the swordsmen to their front. “How many are you?” he asked, knowing full well the visitors were outnumbered by his own men.
“We are five. We have two wounded men. May we approach the camp?”
“The speaker alone, come with hands outstretched into the light. There are many arrows ready to judge your actions.”
As the men watched, a single man came into the flickering firelight. His hands, complete with the battle gloves of a soldier, were held straight out in front. The clothes he wore were rough animal skin, his armor thickened leather. He was helmetless, and he looked to be himself one of the wounded he spoke of.
“We mean you no harm, brothers. My companion has taken many an arrow, all we need is clean water and the light and warmth of your fire. Perhaps food if you can spare it.”
Wei Mei gestured for ten men to leave the camp and gather at the base of the mountain trail, hidden from view. They would assure the newcomers would remain well-behaved.
“Bring your men forward, we will do what we can.”
They watched as the grateful man turned and vanished into the darkness. Wei Mei and his men tensed. They relaxed when the five men reappeared entering the circle of firelight as if ghostly specters from the desert beyond. Two men were holding another up and the last two had their loosed equipment. Wei Mei could see the group was heavily armed.
“Bring the injured man closer to the fire.” He stepped closer to the visitors from the Gobi. “I feel you will find no complaint if my men hold your weapons for you?”
The five men stopped short of entering the camp. “You are not men of the Gobi?” the man who had initially spoken asked.
“If a people who have called the Gobi home for over twelve hundred years are considered not of the desert, then yes, we are strangers in a strange land.”
Wei Mei saw the broken shaft of an arrow as it protruded from the speaker’s thigh. He handed off his burden to another and then stepped forward, heavily limping.
“We have heard the rumors of an ancient tribe that hides in the Altai Mountains. We thought the tales only myth, as no one can live in such desolation.”
Wei Mei remained silent. He watched as the man nearly collapsed from his thigh wound. Wei Mei sprang forward and caught the boy before he struck the earth. “Come, assist this man to the fire,” he ordered.
As seven men came forward and helped the wounded men and their three companions, they all saw who it was who came in from the dark night. One of Wei Mei’s men turned and looked at the older man. “They are Mongols, General.”
The visitors, even the man with three arrows in his leather covered breast, reacted to the word ‘general’. They looked up in fear, or was it killing anger.
“They are but men. Bring them in.”
With trepidation attacking the normal kind hearts of the traders, the visitors were allowed in. The severely wounded man was brought to the fire and the speaker of the group knelt beside him. The broken arrow was causing him much pain as he leaned in close to the man who looked to be dying.
“We are safe for now, my old friend. These men will help…”
Wei Mei watched as the man collapsed onto his dying friend. He moved to take the weight from the silent man lying near the fire. He gestured to his men. “Get these men food and drink.” He helped the wounded man to sit up. “We need to get that arrow out of your leg, my son.”
“No, I am not important, please help my friend.”
Wei Mei looked back at the boy by the fire. He shook his head as he placed a hand on the wounded man’s shoulder and forced him to lay down. “I fear your friend is beyond our help. You, we can assist, but this man will soon join his ancestors.”
The man fought to sit back up.
“Here,” Wei Mei said as the men of both tribes gathered around the fire. The newcomers were drinking from bronze cups greedily, “bite upon this. It will not be pleasant.” He took hold of the broken shaft of arrow. The piece of rolled leather was placed into the man’s mouth and he bit down with his angry eyes still fixed on his dying friend near the fire. In a moment of pride, the Mongol spat the leather from his mouth. His concentration was only upon the boy. Suddenly he closed his eyes and swallowed as the pain engulfed his sun scorched features as the arrow and its barbed tip was yanked from his thigh. Wei Mei immediately placed a folded cloth on the spurting wound. “You did not cry out. Either it is because you suffer wounds like this often, or you are just too stubborn to allow strangers to see your pain. Yes, you are truly Mongol.”
The man tried to sit up. “My friend.”
“I have seen many battle wounds,” Wei Mei slapped the cloth holding the man’s blood flow at bay, and then took the man’s left hand and made him compress his bleeding wound. “Two of the arrows can be pulled free of his body without killing him. The third however is lodged too close to his heart. As I said, your friend will join his ancestors before the breaking of the dawn.”
The man reached out with his free hand and grasped the cold one of the dying man. “I have failed you. Before the dawn I will guide you to those ancestors. I will join my brother in death.”
“Mongols are so very dramatic. Foolish, but dramatic.”
The voice came from the darkness. “And as well trained as my General is at battle tactics, he does not fare as well as a physician.”
The men moved to their weapons for the second time that night. Soon they heard the ten men that had been sent into hiding run into the camp.
“Apologies, General, we heard no one approach the camp,” said one of the breathless bowmen as he stumbled into the fire lit encampment.
“Calm yourselves,” Mei Wei said as he tried to ease the minds of his scared men and their Mongolian guests. He knew the voice well. He stepped toward the darkness and the voice beyond. The Mongols wanted their weapons and Wei Mei’s men held them at bay. “How many times have I warned you not to venture from the village alone?”
“You fret as much as my wife, General,” said the voice in the dark. “Now, may I enter the camp without receiving a welcoming arrow from your frightened men?”
“Stand down,” Wei Mei said to his men. He turned to the wounded man he had just assisted. “Fear not, he is our Master.”
The Mongols did not relax as the other men did. They watched as the lone figure in the long robes of a monk entered the circle of light. Wei Mei stepped forward and then went down on one knee. The newcomer placed a hand on the man’s dark hair and then assisted him to his feet.
“Why are you so far from home?”
The newcomer lowered his hood and looked at the more relaxed faces of Wei Mei’s men, and then turned and looked at the apprehensive faces of their visitors. Then his attention went to the man lying nearest the fire.
“Not only do I like greeting the supply trains when they return from their long journey, I am here for him,” he said as he gestured at the boy. The small man slowly approached the fire. The three Mongols dropped their cups of water and surrounded the dying man. Even the man with the leg wound tried to stand.
“He will not live to see the dawn, Master.”
The man stopped and smiled at the men surrounding the wounded boy. Then he turned and faced Wei Mei. “You left these many months ago as a General, now I learn you have returned not only a commander of the home watch, but that of a healer as well?”
“Master, I have seen many wounds in my lifetime—battle wounds, and even those received in stupidity. This is a dead man.”
“Don’t say that again,” the man who had just had the arrow removed from his leg said as he struggled to sit up.
“Calm, my Mongolian brothers. No one is dying here tonight.” The newcomer smiled and then turned in a circle to face every man present, Chinese and Mongolian.
“Who is this purveyor of riddles?” the barbarian asked as he was assisted to his feet by his brother Mongolians.
“He is fire, air, earth, wind and water. He is Master Zheng.”
“This is a lie. The wizard you speak of died a thousand years ago.” The man struggled in the arms of his men as he became angered at such a brazen falsity.
“Yes, he did die over a thousand years ago, but his bloodline lives on,” Wei Mei said as he turned to face the startled Mongolians.
“We all live, we all die. Our destiny has always been to rejoin the earth from which we all spring,” Zheng said as he lowered to his knees with the palms of his hands touching as he bowed his head in prayer. When he was done, he kept his eyes closed and, with his right hand, he reached for the boy. He placed the hand between the three arrows that protruded from the leather chest armor of the Mongolian.
“What is he doing?” the Mongol asked, favoring his wounded leg as his companions held him up.
“This boy, he fevers from far more than his wounds.” Zheng looked up at the men surrounding the scene. “I see the arrows’ feathers are of the same tribal colors as your own.”
The Mongols remained silent.
“Familial squabbles are usually the harshest of all.” Zheng placed his right hand on the boy’s fevered brow. He tilted his head to the left as he once more closed his deep brown eyes. “Do you wish to speak to the boy?” Zheng asked as he finally looked up again. He faced the man with the wound to his leg.
“I find it difficult to speak to the dying. He will not hear my words.”
Zheng smiled as he took the hand of the wounded man and placed his other upon the chest of the boy. Suddenly the doubtful man felt the electricity flow through Zheng as the feeling hit him as a lightning bolt. His eyes fluttered as Zheng closed his own. The memory was as clear as the man had ever remembered it being. Two boys playing on a plain of grass. It was himself and his dying friend. He was ten and the boy seven. They were stalking five wild horses that had wandered down from the great rift. That had been a good day as they had both caught two of their horses. They had made their small village proud that day. The man pulled his hand free and looked upon a smiling Master Zheng.
“Witchcraft,” he mumbled.
“Possibly. But as you see, the boy’s brain is still functioning quite nicely.” Zheng once more lowered both hands to the feverish boy. “His mind is even now seeking a safe place for his wounded body. He is with whom he wishes to be with in his final moments. We will now try to change his mind about leaving us.”
As the men watched, the campfire flared as Zheng closed his eyes. Without looking, he grasped the first of the three arrows. The one lodged just below the left of his ribcage. He eased the arrow out, making the boy cry out in his unconscious way. Zheng laid the arrow aside. He then took hold of the second shaft. It was lodged about four inches beneath his heart. He pulled. The arrow still remained lodged and the boy cried out again.
“You’re killing him with even more haste than his wounds!”
“Still yourself if you wish your friend to live,” General Wei Mei said as he placed a hand on the wounded man’s shoulder to steady him.
Zheng closed his eyes as he placed more pressure into his pulling of the arrow. This time the arrowhead came free of the leather armor and once more he placed the bloody projectile near the first.
Zheng relaxed and then sat upon his haunches. He again prayed to the sky with eyes closed. He rubbed his two hands together and the fire flared again, startling those watching. He clapped three times in slow succession. He opened his eyes and everyone one of the men took a step back. His eyes had gone from dark brown to a flaming green. It was if the eyes were illuminated from some inner fire. Those eyes looked into the clear, starry skies above the lee of the canyon. Again, three claps of his hands. He then twirled his fingers as he gestured to the sky. Before anyone knew what was happening, rain drops came from a clear night and inundated the camp. The Mongols gasped as they could not believe what it was they were seeing. Water rushed over the slow rising of the boy’s chest under his hand-me-down armor. Suddenly, Master Zheng reached for the shaft that was embedded just an eighth of an inch from the wounded man’s heart and pulled. The arrow was struck so deep that the leather armor tented upward as Zheng pulled. He doubled the effort and the shaft came free. The boy screamed in pain as Zheng laid the arrow down beside the two others.
The man with the leg wound slid from the grasp of his fellows as he knew his friend, the boy he had been sworn to protect, was dying before his eyes. The blood spurted, becoming a lesser flow as he watched the seconds tick by.
“The boy’s life blood mingles with the earth he sprang from. The rain he was born into,” Zheng said as he dug his fingers into the earth and came up with two handfuls of mud as the rain came down at a greater rate. He then reached into a leather pouch and produced several small nuggets of the mountain’s wares. He held the ore out to Wei Mei. “General, crush these as best as you can with the hilt of your knife.”
The general did as he was told. He placed five of the nuggets into a wooden bowl, and then using the hilt of his blade, slowly started to crush them. Not as fine as he would have liked, he handed the bowl over to Zheng.
“Now General, the three offending shafts.”
Wei Mei reached for the three arrows, which had been removed from the dying man, as the blood coming from the third wound near the heart ceased to flow. He held the arrows out to Zheng. The master, without opening his eyes, took both hands full of the crushed ore and grasped the arrows sharp points, covering each of the deadly warheads with the ore that was now damp with the rain. His eyes were still closed, and his lips moved. The arrow heads were dripping with the silverish material.
“To die and be reborn is the rarest of gifts bestowed upon the lowest of man. You will arise with a new name, a new tact for a life that has yet to be revealed.” His eyes opened, and he looked down on the boy and then, when the last rise of his chest came, he placed the first arrow, dripping silverish looking mud from its barbed point, into the first wound. The body didn’t react. The second arrow was jammed harshly into the second of the wounds, just beneath the heart. The arrow dug deep into the wound that had been created when the arrow first struck the boy down. Still no movement from a body and heart that had stopped working.
“Stop, stop!” cried the boy’s friend. He moved with the rest of his companions to stop Master Zheng from driving the third arrow back into the dead man’s chest.
With the last ore-covered arrow in his hand, Zheng’s free hand shot out with the palm facing toward the men that were trying to stop him. A hurricane force wind rose from nothingness, throwing stinging rain into the charging men. The force threw the Mongols from their feet as they flew backward, landing them in the fierce flood that was now inundating the campsite. The fire burst free from the pit and rose high into the sky. In that light they saw the arrow, the silver ore still clinging to the sharpened point, rise and then come down into the boy’s still chest with a force that drove the head deeper than it had been the first time. This time the dead man’s body arched, and the boy’s eyes sprang open with a scream into the storm that had sprung from nothingness. As the boy screamed, Zheng reached for the arrows and pulled them free once more. The motion was so fast the astounded men weren’t really sure it had been made at all. Tossing the arrows aside, the wind and the rain ceased as suddenly as they had started.
“General, remove the boy’s armor—quickly!” Zheng called as Wei Mei stepped forward and did as he was ordered. He slashed at the leather straps and the animal sinew that held the breast plate in place. The other Mongols were just now starting to pick themselves up from the ground and stared wide-eyed at the unbelievable scene before them.
Master Zheng tore away the shirt made from homespun sheepskin. He then started slamming the remaining crushed ore from the bowl into the once more flowing wounds. The boy screamed again. Then Zheng lowered his entire body onto the boy and covered it with his own. The night became still. The fire died down to almost nothing as the wet wood finally realized it was wet. The flame was just enough to show the scene. Zheng eased himself up with the aid of a shocked General Wei Mei. The general could feel the weakness coming from his master. He eased Zheng over to a blanket and allowed his tired body to sit.
“Cover your friend from the cold night air, for I have no power to stop the common cold as well as I do wounds.”
The wounded man limped up to the boy and, in the dying light of the fire, he saw the mud-covered chest rising, and then lowering with every beat of his once still heart. His eyes went from him to Zheng, who only nodded as a blanket was placed over his shoulders by the general. The wounded man did the same. He put a rough woven cover over his body and then stepped back as the boy’s eyes fluttered open. His jaw dropped as he rose slowly onto an elbow. Instead of looking at his shocked and stunned companions, he turned his head, his long hair dripping water, and stared at Master Zheng.
“I know…you,” the boy said as his friends rushed to his side. He gently shoved them away when they blocked the view of the man that had just saved his life. He continued to look at the tired old man before him covered in a blanket. Then his eyes went to the wounded man who was now kneeling at his side. “He was with us that day many years ago when we caught the wild horses by the Krall.”
“I have been watching you for many, many years, boy.”
All eyes went to Zheng. Even the General was taken aback.
“I have even seen this night many, many times.” Zheng looked up at a stunned General Wei Mei. “As you know, I never venture out this far to greet a trade mission. I knew this boy would be here.”
The Mongol boy gently pushed grateful hands from his body and, with soreness and difficulty, rose to his unsteady feet. He looked at the silverish and roughly crushed mud covering the wounds on his chest. He brushed away the layers and what everyone saw made them go to their knees. There was not even a mark where the arrows had been. The long braids of the once dead man shone brightly in the sitting moon, whose surrounding skies were now clear of any weather. His eyes went to Master Zheng and he slowly moved toward him as he pulled the blanket closer around his body. As he approached, Master Zheng lowered his head and his body slumped. General Wei Mei helped him once more sit up straight as the master’s patient approached. The boy stepped up and, with a shaking hand, reached out and placed his fingers under the old man’s chin and slowly raised it so he could see into his eyes.
“I am looking at myth. I am looking at legend. I have seen you many times in my life, have I not?”
“Yes, you were always a serious boy. You will become even more of a serious man.”
“Why have you been an unseen savior of one who is worthless to the world?”
“Do you have children, my son?” Zheng asked, his voice growing weak. His eyes were once more brown and deep seated, as if his eyes were retreating into his head.
“I have not the time,” the man said as he lowered himself to sit beside the Master.
“I have. I have a boy child not much younger than yourself. I have an entire tribe of children. We dwell in these lands. This is our home and one day men such as yourself will come to claim them. This is why I have been a protectorate of your young life.”
“You are he whom my father’s father, and his fathers before him, have spoken of, are you not?”
“I am but a man of the earth, as you are now.”
The boy looked up at his four Mongol brethren. He spoke strange words to his guard and they all went wide-eyed and then suddenly went to their knees and bowed.
“You are an Air Bender, the Elemental kin to the natural world. Not myth, not legend, but as real as I.” He spoke again to his brethren. “Elemental. Wizard of earth, air, wind and fire.”
Master Zheng lowered his head and took the boy’s roughened and scarred hand.
“I am nothing more than a man lost in the world. This we have in common. You will be a great man, as I am not, nor ever will be. My choices here tonight have sprung from my greed. My greed of wanting my people to remain hidden within a world you will create. A world where you will eventually conquer enemies of many years. Your enemy, and my people’s historical enemy. A longtime foe that would see my people wiped from the face of this, our earth.”
“I do not understand,” the young boy said as he squeezed his savior’s gentle hand.
“You will know the day when it comes. Hide my people of the mountains. Chase away all those who threaten us. I have traded a life for one who will become great, whereas we are not a great people. A simple trade. Honor among those lost in this wilderness. In exchange for the life I have given back to you, protect and hide my people from those who would destroy us. End this tragic game of life and death over offenses long forgotten by the people who play this shameful game.”
There was a gasp when Master Zheng slid forward into the boy’s arms. General Wei Mei sprang forward and assisted Zheng back to a sitting position. He removed the blanket and raised the robe’s front. The blood flowed freely from three wounds, the most serious at Zheng’s heart. The evidence was clear. The wounds of the dying boy had been somehow transferred to the body of their Master. He was even now breathing his last.
“Master!” Wei Mei cried as he took the weak man into his arms. The general cried when the realization struck that he would lose the most important man in the world that night.
“I will always be with the people. Only I will see them through the eyes of my child, and his children after. This man will save us from a world that wishes to hide the truths of our land, a world they will never understand.” His hand reached, not for the general’s, but for the man he had just given his life for. It was grasped in the now strong fingers of their guest. “Do what you will to the world but join me in keeping the people safe. Do I have your word?”
The boy looked around at his men. Then he went to one knee and bowed his head as Zheng placed his dying hand on his long hair.
“I will keep the secret of your people if I have that power within me to do so.”
“The boy I found so many years ago has now become a man. Some will hate you, others worship you, but greatness is yours on both sides of that life telling story.”
“General, we have spied many torches in the valley below,” one of the pickets reported as he took in the scene he had just joined.
Wei Mei looked up and fixed the man with the wounded leg with his own darkened eyes. “Your foes have tracked you.”
“Yes, I am afraid we have led them straight to you.”
The boy’s hand was squeezed tighter by Master Zheng. Then the grip lessened, and the hand fell away as fast as the flow of blood from his self-imposed wounds. The boy bowed his head and then placed the Master’s hand over his chest as he gently laid him upon the ground. He stood and faced the General of the man who had saved his life.
“Armor!” he said loudly as his eyes remained fixed on the Chinese General. “We will now lead them away from your camp. You have my solemn oath; no army of men will ever breach these mountains if I can stop them. This is my only promise as I have nothing. Nothing in this life as valuable as the man you just lost. But if I am able, I will give you the only thing worth any value—my word. No matter what ills or disaster befall me and mine, you will live hidden from the eyes of men. This I owe to him,” he once more knelt as his leather armor was brought forth. He stood as the armor was slipped on. “We will ride to the south, drawing our enemies from this mountain. Go, take the Elemental back to your people. He will always be remembered, as this place will never be spoken of in our lifetimes. On that you may depend,” he said as his leather armor was tied off and his horse brought forward. He touched the three holes in the thick leather and the blood stains surrounding them. His four men and himself mounted. “May the Elemental’s force push us like the wind away from this place.”
As he turned his horse away toward the direction of the soon to rise sun, General Wei Mei stepped forward with his men. He was lost as to what had happened this night.
“Boy, who are you? I must know that our people will learn the value of a debt paid.”
The boy didn’t answer; he kicked his horse in the side and it sprung forth, away from the dying campfire. His friend remained for the briefest of moments.
“He is the divine one, he is Temüjin, horse lord of the plains.” The man’s horse was spurred forward and then five men vanished into the night with war yelps that would frighten any man on earth as they would do for the next twenty-five years.
As the body of Master Zheng was prepared for his journey home to the hidden mountain, the general saw the torchlights far down in the valley below suddenly turn as their pursuit changed course. The boy named Temüjin had kept his word. He was leading his pursuers away from their mountain.
In the many years that followed that long-ago night, the man who would eventually be known as the greatest conqueror in world history, would indeed keep his word and the secrets of the Elemental Air Bender and his hidden kingdom in the wastelands of the Gobi.
Genghis Khan would forever be a protectorate of the hidden Empire of the Dragon.
Gobi Desert, July 1945
The B-29 lost three hundred feet of altitude before the pilot and co-pilot could fight the controls hard enough for the wings to catch more air. The bomber known as ‘Slick Willy’, with her painted nose-art of cartoon character ‘Boxcar Willie’ on a locomotive dropping bombs onto the head of the Japanese minister of war, Hideki Tojo, fought her way back up to altitude. Both men at the controls felt their arms cramp with the effort. The damage they had taken over Manchuria by a high altitude ‘Zero’ fighter, while on the most heavily guarded secret bomb run in United States military history, had damaged the bomb bay doors, jamming the ‘device’ just feet above the twin doors under her belly.
The B-29, ‘Mama’s L’il Helper’, the camera plane, and the third B-29, ‘Summer Solstice’, the weather platform, went down not long after the failed experimental drop over Manchuria, which covered the exact same miles and course adjustments that another B-29 would make the very next day. The name of that aircraft was—the ‘Enola Gay’. The bomb itself was one you will never find mentioned in the history books. Instead of taking the chance that the atomic bombs, Fat Man or Little Boy, would fail to detonate over a target on mainland Japan, making the American threat to Japan a moot point, ‘Slick Willy’ carried ‘The Thin Man’ apparatus over territory that was uninhabited in the barren wastes of the Gobi Desert. If this test failed, the Americans would be the only ones to witness it. When the night-fighters attacked, they caught ‘Slick Willy’ in the middle of its bomb release over its target. Now, that bomb hung precariously in her bomb bay.
Their chance to bail out was passed over through unanimous vote to ride the aircraft until their fuel was exhausted, rather than the inevitable prisoner of war camp and the torture they would receive over their top-secret mission. They all agreed that falling from a height of twenty-five thousand feet, with a weapon that they still had no idea the power of, was their clear choice. With their compass shot away and their escorts blown from the skies, and with their radio blown to a thousand smoldering pieces, no one would ever know what became of the ‘Slick Willy’ and the top-secret payload she carried. The best they could hope for after crashing was rescue and the recovery of the bomb that no one outside of Washington even knew existed. To cover their mission parameters, they had launched from India for secrecy.
“Damn, that was close,” Major Douglas Pierce said as he flexed his right arm, trying to relieve the cramp that had developed in his effort to regain control of the ship.
“Hydraulics are completely shot, and there is no way to get the doors closed, Skipper.”
“Goddamn S-2 said there was not a night-fighting Zero anywhere near the Gobi, and we run into a whole squadron!” Pierce said as he angrily slapped at the broken glass of not only their hydraulic pressure gauge, but also the compass.
“S-2 intelligence my ass, those bastards have been wrong more times than right,” the co-pilot, Captain Everson Krensky, said as he released the control yoke and flexed his gloved fingers.
“We’re going to have to sit this thing down into that sandstorm while we still have enough control to hop over a few of those sand dunes.”
“Damn, I hate doing that,” Krensky said as he peered out of his window at the raging mass below them. “With those bomb bay doors jammed open, that thing just may detonate. Armed or un-armed.”
“Better than getting our skin peeled off by that sand if we bailout. I’ll take my chances with ‘Slick Willy’.”
Both men were silent as they listened to the drone of their remaining three engines. Number four was starting to backfire and the co-pilot adjusted the mix to that engine. It sputtered and then suddenly fell into sync with the other two. Krensky placed a thumb on his throat mic.
“How you fellas doing back there?”
“Still breathing in the forward spaces,” came the reply from the pressurized compartment behind the cabin.
“We lost Jimmy about five minutes ago. Bled out on us.”
Krensky lowered his head and then glanced at the Major. His eyes told the story after hearing the latest bad news from the rear pressurized compartments. Sergeant Jimmy Blackwell, a baseball player from Muncie, Indiana, had just recently joined the crew after his transfer from B-17’s. When the war in Europe had ended, instead of going home like he should have, he retrained in the remotely operated fifty caliber machine guns of the B-29 Superfortress, and then was transferred to the Army Air Corps Pacific command.
Pierce shook his head and swallowed. That was crewman number four. The other three had died when a twenty-millimeter exploding round shattered the bombardier and radio stations, also taking out the forward operator’s radar powered station for the turret mounted upper fifty. Four of his men were now dead. His crew, the boys he had promised to get home at war’s end, were now gone.
“Roger, hang tough men, we are about to sit ‘Slick Willy’ down, we may not have that long to dwell on what’s happened.” He knew they would have had a better chance jumping over Manchuria, and the Major gave the ten-man crew every opportunity to do so. They had chosen, to a man, to escape the Japanese occupied area of Manchuria, to take a chance over what they hoped was a sparsely populated area of Mongolia. Only after they had arrived did they find the desert area socked in by one of the worst sand storms in recorded history. Now they had no choice, they would ride ‘Slick Willy’ down to the desert’s floor. “Okay you bunch of cowpokes, keep your external oxygen supply ready, we could lose all pressure at any time. We’re starting our descent. It should be fun. Out.” He smiled at his copilot. “How’s that for putting a brave face on our rather dire situation?” Pierce asked with a wink at Krensky.
The co-pilot cleared his throat as he placed the memory of the young baseball player from Muncie out of his thoughts for now. “Just like they taught in command school.” He then examined the remaining and still functioning gauges of the shaking and damaged B-29. “Try as I might, I cannot see a break in the weather anywhere down there, Skipper.”
“The damn storm is reaching up for us!”
The giant aircraft buffeted and rose to an altitude of thirty thousand feet before it seemingly hit the ceiling. The impact was like hitting a brick wall, straining the harnesses of all onboard. Before anyone could realize what was happening, all hell broke loose. The rivets between frame sixteen and seventeen separated from the bomber’s ribs and that was that. The air was immediately evacuated from the aircraft. The B-29 Superfortress started to shake violently.
“All crew, go to external O-2!” Krensky tried to shout over his throat mic. He managed to secure his mask and then take the control yoke, so the major could squeeze his over his mouth and nose. The temperature inside the bomber went from a bearable thirty-two degrees to minus six in a split second.
Behind the main cabin’s bulkhead, they heard a screeching, ripping sound and then all went dark as the last of the pressurized air escaped the aluminum aircraft. The control yoke was yanked out of both the pilot and co-pilot’s hands.
“…gone, they’re…just ripped out of the plane…they’re just…,”
The call came over their headphones, but whatever was meant by the frantic message went unheard as the B-29 started a death roll toward the storm below. Pierce knew that they had lost internal integrity of the giant Boeing plane. They had a hole ripped into her somewhere and the major had a sickening feeling it was the frame where the remainder of his crew had taken station for safety reasons. How many more of his young crew had he just lost?
“We’re losing the starboard wing!” Krensky screamed as the vibration coursed through their entire beings.
Before Pierce could respond, the starboard wing folded completely in on itself. The massive wing twisted and the force of their downward spiral sent the five-ton aluminum reinforced wing crashing into the side of the aircraft. The ‘Slick Willy’ started burning in its death plunge.
The centrifugal forces made the control yoke spin and sent it back and forth enough that the motion became blinding. Then Pierce could feel the entirety of the large fuselage twist as it was corkscrewing downward. The major closed his eyes as the cabin started filling with debris and sand from the raging storm. This was how he and his crew would meet their end. No goodbyes, no job well done, no homecoming to family and friends. Their war ended here, and it ended now.
Blood was rushing to parts of the remaining crew’s bodies, where blood was never meant to go. Pierce felt his brain grow fuzzy as the B-29 spun out of control. He felt his stomach as it was sent back into his spine. His vision grew dim and he was grateful for that one mercy as the right wing of the giant, and once lethal, bomber separated and flew off into the sand storm. He knew through his fading consciousness that he and his men would never feel the impact of the ‘Slick Willy’ hitting the sands of the Gobi traveling faster than the speed of sound.
His wife and son’s faces came unbidden to his dying brain as his eyes started to close. Then, in the briefest of moments before his brain shut down, Pierce saw the silvery haze, and that was when he knew his time was at hand. The spinning view and the forces working against him dulled his mind and he thought he was seeing the image and color of what death looked like. It was beautiful, it was terrifying. The silverish hue took over everything as his mind shut down.
The B-29 bomber known as ‘Slick Willy’, with the first atomic weapon, ‘The Thin Man’, vanished into the largest sandstorm in recorded history that night in 1945.