“Boats. He’ll need boats.” Wu Yong turned from staring out at the stars, back to Chao Gai and Song Jiang and Commander Yang, three of Liangshan’s sharpest leaders here in Loyalty Hall. “The boats will delay him.”
The other haojie were gathering, but Chao Gai had wanted to take the report from Bianliang in private first. Wu Yong and Lin Chong had made it back to Liangshan just fast enough to be able to guide their stolen horses through the marshlands in the deepening evening.
Zhu Gui’s inn was shut up with the Crocodile herself hunkered behind the mountain’s defenses, but Seventh Brother Ruan had come in stealth through the dusk in answer to their whistling arrow. In returning back up the mountain, Wu Yong’s shame dragged as never before in memory. It weighted every motion, every step, every word in confessing failure—even in offering a final sacrifice, one Chao Gai refused, saying tersely that they needed their chief strategist for the upcoming battle.
Wu Yong would offer again after, if they both lived.
With no defense against Cai Jing’s new god’s tooth–like weapon—nothing but whatever Sister Lu and Sister Lin might muster up—Chao Gai intended to give all the haojie the choice of leaving the mountain before the battle descended. Wu Yong did not think any would take her up on it. Some because they had nowhere else to go, but most for loyalty—even in the face of known defeat.
They stood with each other. As haojie. Not only the heroism of intention or convenience, of rising to a storied champion of poetry—but justice, honor, commitment to one’s chosen bonds. Fighting with those sworn kindred to the end, even as the world crushed against them. Even when no one would know.
Liangshan was the home they would fight and die for. Just as Wu Yong would.
Think hard. You must surrender everything of mind and sword until there is nothing left, if you are barred from surrendering your life.
Marching an army took longer than travelers riding hard, longer even than those same travelers on foot. Add time to mobilize and equip the troops—add time to seize every fishing vessel along their way. The Empire may have a mighty navy, but not one that could be transplanted over land to come here, nor one designed to fit the nooks and narrow waterways of Liangshan Marsh.
Seizing boats would stall them. Two days at least, then, before the army was at Liangshan’s doorstep. More likely four or six. In that time, the bandits could at least plan a strategy against any traditional attack …
“We’ll be manning the watchtowers,” Commander Yang murmured.
“I want us to be readier than that.” Wu Yong felt through the tactics aloud. “Our traps might drown or crush a thousand men upon landing, but once we’ve used them, combat on the ground will be our only defense. We need to challenge them farther out.”
“How many paths are there through the waters of the marsh?” Chao Gai asked.
It was the right question. “Safe ones—perhaps a dozen. I’ll check with Second Brother Ruan. I believe they all cross some of the same points.”
“A dozen … we could field a dozen boats,” Song Jiang said thoughtfully.
Indeed they could.
“A three-fold defense.” The instinct rang right. If, for any Benevolence-granted reason, Cai Jing attacked only with his army, and not this new power … it might grant them an outside chance. “We can have a line on the water, to trap and pick off the Guard before they can ever cross. Our members with the greatest brute strength will lie ready to loose the dam and release logs and boulders upon the enemy the moment they begin flooding our shores, with everyone else standing by to dispatch any who escape the traps.”
Chao Gai nodded. “Good. You and I will command the defensive line on land and coordinate from the watchtowers. Commander Yang can lead the release of our prepared protections, and Drill Instructor Lin the boats—I believe she’ll be able to utilize a particular skill that makes her ideal for coordination on the water. It’s a strong plan.”
Not strong enough, likely. But it was all they had.
“Where is Sister Lin?” Song Jiang asked. “Shouldn’t she be here as well?”
Wu Yong grunted. “She’s with the Divine Physician.”
“She’ll be able to fight?” asked Commander Yang.
Wu Yong had no doubt. Sister Lin was one of them now. One of them—to live, or to die, on a toss of the coins.
“It’s only scrapes,” Lin Chong tried to protest, but An Daoquan shut her down with several very definite gestures. Lin Chong still couldn’t catch the meaning of more than one in ten—she glanced over to where Lu Da stood watch like an overactive guard dog. “What did she say?”
“She says it’s your whole body, ass to toe,” Lu Da answered, in what was clearly not a literal interpretation. “Sister An says, if you leave so much blood open to the air and dirt and stuff, it’ll creep in and rot you all black from the inside out. Let ’er poultice, Elder Sister.”
Lin Chong let her protests lapse, watching Sister An’s sure fingers wrap the medicated bandages and secure them tight against her skin. At least they would be bound up for whatever fighting was sure to find them soon, here, in this last refuge.
Lin Chong should carve out some time for sleep. She’d caught bare moments of napping over the last two days.
Maybe it didn’t matter. A much longer sleep might be about to claim her, after all, once Cai Jing came for them.
The Divine Physician finished another set of bandaging, hiding away where the lines of the tattoos had left their bloody shadows. She turned and motioned to Lu Da.
“She says not to worry, they won’t scar or nothing. Unless you didn’t want them to get gone, then I guess you should worry—me, I say it’s downright tragic to get inked so much and not keep it!” Lu Da thumped her own chest, where her intricate floral designs wound against each other under her tunic. An Daoquan snapped fingers at her. “Oh, and she also says that if we all survive, now the one on your face is all the way healed, she can scrape it off with a good old gold and jade poultice if you want. Takes a whole season and your face is all red and blood while it’s being done, but after there’s no mark left. She’s done it on more’n a few of the others, you know.”
Lin Chong hadn’t known. She’d spent so much time these past few days with deep consciousness of the brand on her cheek, the inelegant scrawl marking her a criminal forever. Now it turned out she could … erase it? Just like that …
It seemed too easy. Or maybe she had begun to think of the tattoo as a part of her. This strange new identity as a hero of the hills.
“I’ll think about it.”
“Loud and proud, I say,” Lu Da said. “But I guess I served my time, so it’s not so much a bother. Anyone gives me mouth about it, I punch ’em.”
An Daoquan’s fingers began to explore the more serious cuts and swelling across Lin Chong’s temple and eye. She paused to say something else to Lu Da, who snorted and guffawed.
Lin Chong glanced between them.
“How long would it take me to understand you the way they do?” she asked the Divine Physician.
“Real soon, if you keep getting injured this often,” Lu Da translated, with another barked laugh. “You’ll learn it fast, don’t you worry. Weren’t more than a few months for me before I could tell nearly all of what she said. Easier too on account you can read and write, so’s if you miss something she can finger-draw the word for you. She does that sometimes if you’re not getting it.”
Lin Chong rather thought Lu Da might be underrating herself—or overrating Lin Chong, considering how many weeks she’d been among the bandits already.
Sister An seemed to agree. Before beginning the next bandage, she looked up and made a few amused, almost conspiratorial motions that made Lu Da’s chest puff out. “She says I’m remarkable quick. Says our sister the Mathematic still always asks her to slow down and she has to end up writing everything down on paper. I bet you get it way sooner though.”
Soon. The word tumbled against the ugly wall of what was to come, dread settling heavy across Lin Chong’s mind again. She tried not to wince away from the Divine Physician’s ministrations, tried to reach for a calm beyond the dull thud of pain in her head that had been Gao Qiu’s gift to her this time.
Soon.
A nice fantasy, pretending they all had a future together.
The curtain at the door pushed aside, and Song Jiang slipped in. “May I join you?”
Lin Chong motioned her to enter. The movement didn’t sting like she expected. Shining Benevolence, but her skin already did feel better.
“We’ve been in consultation to prepare our defense,” Song Jiang said. “Sister Chao will want to speak to you when you’re done here. We don’t know how likely it will be for Cai Jing to use these new god’s teeth of his, though. The Tactician says they still appear very unstable?”
Lin Chong let the memory wash over her, the oscillating energies, wild and overbalanced. “Yes. It seemed so.”
“If he does bring them against us … you are the only two who can effectively counter such things.” She turned to include Lu Da as well. “Sister Chao says if you sense them coming, don’t wait. Do whatever you can.”
“Understood,” Lin Chong said.
“I’ll smash Chancellor Cai and his fake god’s teeth into the ground,” volunteered Lu Da. “And if I can’t, Sister Lin will. She’s getting to be an all-experted master now.”
Her confidence made a small, sad smile come to Lin Chong’s lips. She had felt Cai Jing’s new god’s teeth—she knew how far they measured beyond her every capability. How far they measured beyond even what Lu Da’s god’s tooth could draw. She’d told the Flower Monk this already, describing it in great seriousness, and Lu Da had merely smacked a fist into her palm and said their righteous cause would protect them. Then she’d called Lin Chong a fighting god again.
Lin Chong knew the truth of it. She’d felt the truth of it. Her nascent skills had no chance of victory, not in a fight against that. Lu Da’s sisterly faith in her, however …
It made her want to believe. It made her want to rise up, and fight with hope, and call success possible.
“Everything we have is Liangshan’s,” Lin Chong told Song Jiang.
With a strange sort of peace, she found herself thinking that as deaths went, this would be a proud one.
Lu Junyi carried the pot carefully between folded cloths. Its heat still poured through and warmed her hands. Steam escaped the tight-fitted lid, enough so that its metallic, earthen scent lingered in her senses.
Not a pleasant scent. Reminiscent of burnt coal and noxious, bitter roots.
When she arrived at the Chancellor’s tent, one of the soldiers stationed outside saluted and went in to announce her. She tried to blink the grimy exhaustion out of her eyes, the full days of reading nearly a library’s worth of alchemy in the carriage as they traveled, then nights spent bent over the crucibles … only her, now, working alone. She had half expected Cai Jing to leverage his Imperial power to find other alchemists, to insist on bringing greater experts on this deadly march—or even to overrule her decision to send all her scholars home. But he had not.
She did not question it. Better for this to be on only one person’s head.
She shifted on tired feet and gazed around the campground as she waited to meet with him. She had never traveled with an army before, and the visual was—imposing. Overwhelming. The soldiers who moved in lockstep, the cavalry of fierce horses with plumes and bells, the colored pennants and flags flying over different divisions of the undulating sea of troops … she could not pretend to understand the organization, but their numbers stretched like a great shining ocean across the land, the edges invisible in any direction. Even the smallest or clumsiest soldier became formidable in polished armor and clutching a spear or sword or halberd that was brightly tasseled to match his fellows. Then each one marching among so many like him that together they became as a swarm of bees, each individually armed but together a colossus no one would choose to face …
From here she could see where the front edge of the camp came up near the shoreline. Guardsmen moved in formation to secure boats in the water, mostly fishing vessels they had requisitioned on the march and carried over land in mass parade formations. Other men worked to erect a tall command platform, shouts echoing in unison as they heaved each piece. Colorful banners already fluttered from its wooden skeleton.
Lin Chong had mentioned her dissatisfaction with the Imperial Guard’s discipline. Not often, but even once was remarkable from a woman who had kept her criticisms of government and officers so close … at least back then. Lu Junyi’s untrained eye, however, could see no lack, only a fitted mosaic of well-oiled men.
Whatever her part here, she did not think it would make any real difference. Even without the god’s fangs, the bandits of Liangshan could not win against this.
The same soldier who had gone in to announce her returned and lifted the flap to allow her entrance. She turned and stepped into the Chancellor’s command tent, a colossal structure of heavy material the size of a building. Inside, rich carpets layered the floor, with furnishings equal to an audience chamber in Bianliang. Cai Jing was seated in a grand, carven chair, one of his generals attentive before him. Marshal Gao Qiu lounged off to the side, looking bored.
Lu Junyi missed a step before she caught her balance. Other than the brief appearance of the marshal’s bloody visage in the chaos preceding Ling Zhen’s sabotage, Lu Junyi hadn’t crossed paths with him since before that fateful late-night visit from Lin Chong.
He paid the guards to kill me, she had said. Too calm. Matter of fact.
Lu Junyi realized she had never asked what started this vicious vendetta of the marshal’s, that day in White Tiger Hall after Lu Junyi had left and Lin Chong had been called back to remain. Lin Chong, who not moments earlier had been defending her superior from even the mildest criticism. It had been natural to assume some pointless, fabricated charge by a mercurial official, which surely it was—but chasing her down for assassination? What could Lin Chong have said or done to become dragged as a pariah, targeted for execution and then murder?
“My counsel is for us to wait until dawn,” the general was saying. Guan Sheng was his name, a great fierce lion of a man who was said to be descended from a god of war, famous enough that even a civilian like Lu Junyi knew of him. Strong, dedicated, loyal, well-loved, as far as anything she had ever heard spoken.
“This marsh is treacherous,” he continued. “It would pick off our soldiers before we even make the shore, and if the bandits see us coming, they will wreak worse. We’ll still lose some in daylight, but the tradeoff will be much more favorable to us.”
Gao Qiu snorted. “Spoken like a coward. Do you presume Chancellor Cai doesn’t know this? This is the bandits’ terrain; you want them to see us coming? We’re far better off slaughtering them in their beds.”
“You’re right, of course,” General Guan said, with the patient politeness of a man whose superior is very dull. “If we could be certain of surprising them, I would agree wholeheartedly. Chancellor, by all accounts these bandits scheme well tactically, which is why I recommend as I do. I do not think we can count on a lack of vigilance from them.”
Cai Jing’s hands steepled before him, gazing at his general and ignoring Gao Qiu. It was clear his voice would be the deciding one.
“Your recommendation is noted,” he said to General Guan after a long pause, quiet and deliberate. “My own assessment would be the same, if we had a full accounting of what dark energies these bandits draw on. Recall that they slaughtered a full regiment of men with no survivors, then broke into the Empire’s most secure prison, assassinated your superior the Minister of War, and attempted to strike at the heart of Bianliang and the Emperor himself … These are the people you wish to give the advantage of daylight, General?”
His white eyebrows lifted. Mildly, oh so mildly.
General Guan shifted slightly, sensing the rebuke. “You are wise in your assessment, Chancellor,” he settled on.
Lu Junyi wondered if the Chancellor truly saw the Liangshan bandits as such demons, something imagined out of a nightmare. Lin Chong, Lu Da, even the strange Tactician—they were only humans. Capable fighters, but surely no more than the Empire’s generals.
It was Cai Jing’s own research that had enabled the disaster in Bianliang. He must know it. He wanted the appearance of a crushing victory for his own reasons, and he was shaming his general into giving him one.
“Lady Lu.”
Lu Junyi jumped, worried for a moment that her suspicions were written on her face. “I am here, Grand Chancellor.”
“You bring the elixir?”
“Yes, Honorable Grand Chancellor, but…” She glanced at the others in the tent; wet her lips. “Your Excellency knows I would prefer more time.”
“Now you’d rob me of my god’s fang? Lazy witch!”
It was not Cai Jing who had spoken, but Gao Qiu. He stepped forward to loom into Lu Junyi’s space, raising a fist as if he intended to backhand her. His face was still mottled purple and black with healing bruises.
Lu Junyi couldn’t help it. She shifted to retreat a step, her eyes going to Cai Jing for help.
“Now, now, Marshal. Lady Lu intends no such thing.” Cai Jing turned back to his general briefly. “General Guan, go select your commanders for the crossing. You are to lead the vanguard behind, once a safe path is found. I expect your men to stand ready by midnight.”
Guan Sheng saluted and bowed his way out of the tent.
Cai Jing turned smoothly back to Lu Junyi.
“Lady Lu, as I’m sure you have surmised, Marshal Gao has a determination to test this version on himself. He knows what a breakthrough you have discovered.”
Was Lu Junyi imagining it, or did a small smile play around the Chancellor’s lips? He had to know how dangerous this was, how untried. To select a high-level military officer for such experimentation …
Lu Junyi had already known she must not fail here, for a multitude of reasons. If the elixir did not have sufficient efficacy to keep the god’s fang from destroying its host—if that host was someone of Gao Qiu’s stature—
If he died, someone would have to answer. For his assassination, she would be summarily executed. It wasn’t even a question.
Instead of being executed for your failure, or for your sedition, or for your role in allowing Fan Rui and Ling Zhen the access for their treason? Incongruously, she wanted to laugh. How many times could they condemn her?
It was a type of freedom.
She gave the marshal as deep a bow as she could over the pot and spoke calmly. “Grand Marshal, I beg your pardon. I only wish for your gain here to be smooth and free of complication. As you see, the Chancellor chastises me for being too cautious—it is only my own weakness, and no comment on your valor.”
Gao Qiu snorted something that sounded suspiciously like “women.”
Lu Junyi wondered, somewhat ludicrously, how he could say that here, now, standing on this shoreline with ten thousand troops to back him.
She did not point it out. “May I give you counsel on the elixir?”
Gao Qiu waved her ahead, but dismissively, turning away. Lu Junyi wanted to ask if he harbored a death wish, but again refrained.
“Please continue, Lady Lu,” Cai Jing supplied. “I, too, have studied some of these matters. Marshal, I will tell you if I find her judgments accurate.”
He smiled at her. As if they conspired. As if she was his partner in a joke, telling Gao Qiu what he wanted to hear so that he’d listen to her. Her hands tightened against the warm pot. Cai Jing was not her benevolent friend. Had never been, no matter how she had fooled herself into forgetting.
A ruthless, rebellious hope rose in her that the bandits might win.
She did not see how, and such a victory would likely kill her too, but she would consider it worth the price.
She coughed. Spoke. Her words came out unruffled, summarizing the material she now knew by heart.
“Marshal, it is my belief that the most efficacious method for protecting yourself will be ingestion.” All feeling receded from her, burnt away until she fluttered free, unable to be hurt. “This elixir is one made to draw out hot energies from the body, and it should allow you a balance with the god’s fang instead of being consumed by its heat. I must warn you that given what we know of these forces, it is impossible for this balance to be a peaceful one. The elixir will not calm the god’s fang to a comfortable median, but rather constantly pull against it while it pulls back. I expect the effect to be less like coming to rest in a valley and much more the experience of being atop a steep hill with forces pulling from both sides, barely staying atop. It will be fatiguing, and with no way to unbond you unless you pass the artifact on to a willing heir.”
Despite himself, Gao Qiu seemed to be listening. Cai Jing certainly was, with a disconcerting intensity. “If the marshal finds adjustment difficult, can the dosage be modified?” he said.
“In fact, it must be,” Lu Junyi answered. “This elixir wears off after a time, so you will need to continue taking drafts of it, and I expect it will take practice to find a timing and amount that provides evenness. Depending on how you respond to the god’s fang, Marshal, the potency can also be adapted.”
“It takes half a day, doesn’t it, to reach full potential,” Cai Jing pressed.
“Yes, but you will largely feel its vigor right away. I would certainly counsel taking that delay into account when making your adjustments, however.”
“Perfect,” the Chancellor said. “Treat Marshal Gao now, and be back at dawn to observe the bonding. Marshal, this will be the ideal timing for the vanguard to go ahead of you and dispense with any initial messiness. By dawn we shall have a path through the swamp, and you can lead us to glorious victory.”
Lu Junyi opened her mouth to clarify that she had not actually suggested a delay.
But if the Chancellor wished to, why fight it? Nor, she realized, did his words match what he had just told General Guan about obtaining a crushing and clean victory instantly in the night … not to mention that a newly minted wielder, particularly someone with the temperament of Gao Qiu, would surely not be expected to have precise control immediately even if this worked …
Cai Jing must want a dawn timing for his own reasons.
Reasons she had no desire to know. She swayed on her feet, so very tired.
The marshal began ordering her to get on with it, his impatience plain. She thought about stressing to them, one more time, that no one had ever tried this before. That she had neither the expertise in these potions that a Grand Marshal might wish nor any confidence in the outcome. That they ran headlong into the unknown, plunging toward the temptation of power without seeing the equal parts danger.
They knew. She’d spoken her warnings. Cai Jing had some agenda of his own, and Gao Qiu wanted to grab at godhood in any way he could. They knew everything she could say, and they demanded it anyway.
With a strange tranquility, Lu Junyi placed the pot on a table and measured out a small cup of its contents.
She tried not to let any vindictive feeling show on her face when Gao Qiu sputtered and spat it out before choking it down.
In the space of a night, he would either gain ultimate power, or he would be dead. Despite all the possible consequences, Lu Junyi could not be sure which she rooted for.