Dragon (2 page)

Long pulled his head inside. “What if they have snipers on the rooftops?”

“We will have to take our chances. They may not have had time to do that yet. It is my guess that Tonglong is busy with other things. Locating us is secondary to his larger objectives. He will deal with the Emperor first.”

Long heard tension in Xie’s voice, and he thought again about what he had seen earlier. Tonglong had killed two people in cold blood.

Long shivered. “I am sorry about your father.”

Xie gnashed his teeth. “Tonglong is the one who will be sorry.”

Long did not doubt Xie. He leaned through the doorway again and felt his
dan tien
begin to quiver. There was someone out there. He attempted to scan the rooftops and found that his vision was blurring from fatigue and blood loss. He strained to focus in the moonlight, but it was no use.

“Do you see anything?” Long asked. “My eyesight is fading.”

Xie carefully stood and leaned over Long, looking outside. “Yes!” Xie replied. “I see something on one of the nearby roofs. It appears to be a …” His voice trailed off.

“Appears to be what?” Long asked.

“Call me crazy, but it looks like a monkey jumping up and down, waving its arms.”

Long felt a glimmer of hope. “Is the monkey alone?”

“I believe so. It is partially in shadow, and … wait! There
is
someone else. A woman, or maybe a tall girl. She is wearing a white dress and a white turban. She glided out of the moon shadows beside the monkey for the briefest of moments, then nodded in our direction and retreated. If I were superstitious, I would have guessed that she was a ghost. I have never seen a human move that gracefully.”

Long smiled, his own world now draped in shadows. “Pick me up and run to them as quickly as you can. It seems there is hope for us yet.”

And then Long blacked out.

“S
haoShu!” Tonglong snapped. “Where have you been? I was about to send a search party after you.”

ShaoShu hurried out of the Shanghai Fight Club tunnel and stopped before twenty-nine-year-old Tonglong, who was standing inside the fight club’s main rear exit. ShaoShu struggled to catch his breath. “I got lost, sir,” he lied. “I am very sorry. Are we going somewhere?”

“We are indeed,” Tonglong said. “All the way to the Forbidden City. Come with me.”

Tonglong flipped his extraordinarily long, thick ponytail braid forward over his shoulder, securing its tip to his sash. He headed toward a group of four soldiers waiting outside the exit door. The men wore the
red silk robes and pants of Tonglong’s elite Southern army uniform, and they carried a large object wrapped in a blanket. ShaoShu realized that there was a person inside it, wrapped up like an egg roll.

“Is this how you plan to transport the cargo?” Tong long asked as he stepped through the doorway, into the night.

“Yes, sir,” one of the soldiers replied.

“Well done.”

ShaoShu reached the exit door and saw a donkey attached to a cart. Next to the cart was a filthy rectangular wooden crate. Ventilation holes had been drilled at regular intervals along the upper section of each side, and large hinges were affixed to one of the sides and a heavy hasp to the opposite. Judging from the smell, ShaoShu guessed that the crate had once held pigs.

“I believe it is large enough,” the soldier said to Tonglong, “but not everyone agrees with me.”

“Find out,” Tonglong said. “Open it.”

The men did as ordered, and Tonglong stepped around to the far side of the crate to get a closer look inside. The soldiers stepped around, too, and began to manhandle their squirming parcel to see how it might fit inside the crate. A section of the wrapping came loose, and ShaoShu saw a flash of brilliant yellow silk. This confirmed what he had suspected. Only one person in all of China was allowed to wear the color yellow, and it was the Emperor. Yellow symbolized the Emperor’s divine connection with the sun.

ShaoShu felt no great devotion to the Emperor, but he did feel sorry for anyone who was being mistreated. He turned away from the spectacle and noticed something moving very fast and low to the ground in the distance. On first glance, it appeared to be a large shadow. However, after staring hard, ShaoShu realized that it had to be Xie and Long!

He watched out of the corner of his eye as they crossed the open ground and slipped undetected behind a building. ShaoShu glanced back at Tonglong and the soldiers, but they were still occupied with the Emperor.

ShaoShu risked looking over toward Xie and Long once more. He saw a figure appear to float over to the edge of the building’s rooftop. It was Hok! She turned toward him, and he pointed to the wrapped captive. Hok seemed to nod, then she simply disappeared.

ShaoShu grinned and looked back at the group of soldiers. One of them glared at him. “What is so funny?”

“Uh, nothing, sir,” ShaoShu replied nervously. He realized that his arm was still outstretched, and he lowered it.

Tonglong looked at him from the far side of the pig crate. “What were you pointing at?”

ShaoShu’s eyes fixed upon the patch of yellow showing from within the captive’s wrapping, and one of the soldiers laughed out loud.

“That
is
pretty funny, isn’t it?” the man said. “We confiscated the Emperor’s robes, which means even
his underpants are yellow!” The soldier chuckled, and he quickly rearranged the blankets to cover the yellow cloth. Even Tonglong grinned.

ShaoShu turned away. He really did not feel much like laughing. Behind him, he heard the Emperor being loaded into the pig crate, and something that sounded like a huge padlock being put through a hasp.

A commotion within the fight club caught ShaoShu’s attention, and he looked over to see two soldiers running toward Tonglong and the soldiers. Unlike the four soldiers standing next to the cart, these men wore black silk robes with blue pants. They were the Eastern Warlord’s soldiers.

The two newcomers stepped into the moonlight and bowed before Tonglong. One of them said, “We have news, sir.”

“Yes?” Tonglong said.

“Let me start by saying that it is an honor to serve you, sir. We have been informed that our Eastern Warlord has relinquished his command to you.”

Tonglong nodded, and the man continued.

“I regret that I must report that we have been unable to locate Golden Dragon or Xie’s body. In fact, evidence has been found that leads us to believe Xie may still be alive.”

Tonglong’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Still alive? What evidence?”

“There was an attack in the tunnels, sir. Two of our men were found dead. The site was littered with footprints the size of Xie’s.”

“But I shot him in the chest.”

“Yes, sir. Xie was known to wear body armor beneath his robes.”

Tonglong ground his teeth. “I see. I presume you have men looking for him, as well as Golden Dragon?”

“We do, sir. More than a hundred of our soldiers are combing the fight club at this very moment.”

“Keep me apprised.”

“Of course, sir.”

Tonglong spat, and some of his spittle hit the second Eastern soldier’s boot. The man jumped back, a look of disgust on his face.

Tonglong glared at the man, and the man’s expression changed to one of fear. He began to shuffle his feet nervously.

“Is there a problem?” Tonglong asked.

The second soldier straightened. “No, sir!”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I believe there is,” Tonglong said. “If you flinch like that over a little spit, how will you react when blood begins to spill?”

“Excuse me, sir?”

Tonglong’s eyes narrowed. “How many battles have you been a part of?”

The man looked confused. “None, sir. We have had only peace in this region for more than a hundred years.”

Tonglong gripped the hilt of his straight sword. “Then perhaps I need to help you Eastern soldiers grow accustomed to bloodshed.”

“I apologize, sir,” the soldier said. “I—”

The man’s words were cut short by the sound of Tonglong’s straight sword slicing through the air. His blade moved faster and more powerfully than ShaoShu could have imagined. It breezed clean through the soldier’s head as though it were nothing more than an overripe peach, splattering blood across the torso of the first soldier.

The second soldier dropped in a lifeless heap, and ShaoShu fought back a shriek. Tonglong’s sword had gone from sheath to killing blow in the blink of an eye.

Tonglong turned to the first soldier, and the man dropped to his knees.

“Please spare me, sir,” the soldier said in a quivering voice.

“Shut up,” Tonglong said. “On your feet.”

The soldier stood.

“Tell your Eastern comrades what you have seen here. Show them the stains on your uniform. Let none of them say that they have never seen another man’s blood.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Now get out of here and find those fugitives!”

The soldier hurried away, and Tonglong knelt beside the fallen Eastern soldier. He calmly began to wipe his blade on the dead man’s robe. He worked with the emotionless precision of an insect, reminding ShaoShu of a mantis cleaning its forelegs after a kill.

ShaoShu shivered. Who could possibly stop Tonglong?

F
our hundred
li
southwest of Shanghai, Ying sat alone beneath a mountain pine tree, his eyes closed tight, his mind open wide. Legend said that it took more than three thousand years for a dragon to grow to realize its deadliest potential. Ying guessed that he had about a month.

Tonglong would be on the move soon, and he needed to be ready for him.

With his legs folded beneath him and his hands upon his knees, Ying meditated. He focused his attention on his
dan tien
, the mysterious
chi
center in his lower abdomen, and began to breathe in a specific rhythm that his mother had taught him. In no time, he felt
chi
circulating through his body, rippling in waves,
warming everything from the tips of his long fingernails and toenails to the pigmented scar tissue carved into his face. He had to admit, it felt good.

Ying exhaled slowly, enjoying the sensation, and found himself thinking about his mother. She was resting nearby at a friend’s house. He had come out here at her urging so that he could prepare himself for his inevitable confrontation with Tonglong. As so often was the case, her idea had been a good one. Thanks to the breathing exercises she had taught him and the powdered dragon bone he had been consuming, he now truly felt like a dragon instead of the eagle his name—Ying—implied.

Ying opened his eyes and felt his inner
chi
flow begin to dissipate as he eased himself out of his meditative state. Mountains filled his vision in every direction, and he grinned. He was at home. There were several different types of Chinese dragons, and they ruled everything from the seas to the rivers to the skies. Some dragons even protected treasure hordes like the one Tonglong had stolen from Ying’s family. Ying, however, was a mountain dragon through and through.

Mountain dragons, like all Chinese dragons, were impressive creatures. They were made up of the strongest elements of many different animals, which is what made them—and dragon-style kung fu—so powerful. Dragons were primarily serpentine in shape, but they possessed four legs, each ending with a set of talons. These talons came from an eagle, but the pads of the feet were those of a tiger.

Chinese dragons also had spindly whiskers like a carp, plus a long beard that was more like a mustache. The longer the mustache, the older the dragon. Some people even believed that a very thick mustache meant the dragon was extraordinarily wise. Finally, Chinese dragons possessed the antlers of a deer and, most striking of all, the eyes of a demon.

Ying fixed his eyes on the forest floor and stood. He rubbed his chilly bare hands together to get his blood flowing and set his mind to thinking about Tonglong. It was time for some physical training.

Tonglong was a master of the straight sword, and if Ying had any hopes of defeating him, he would have to fight fire with fire. Tonglong’s guards would never let anyone get within pistol or even musket range of Tonglong, but Tonglong would welcome a straight sword challenge from anyone, including Ying. He was that good.