Iron Jaw and Hummingbird (32 page)

Huang spared a quick glance at his men, who were gathered together a short ways off, warily watching the Bannermen who slouched on Huang's opposite side.

“Ouyang has just announced a new offensive,” Kenniston added, “and it's only a matter of time before all of you go the way of your scar-faced friend from across the canyon.”

Huang tightened his grip on the sword's hilt, and the sword's blade began to vibrate with his tension. “What . . . what did you say?”

Kenniston smiled and rolled his eyes in the direction of the opposite cliff wall. “We spotted them last night and took care of them before coming to this side to see to you. If not for the fact that we spotted your signal light in the darkness, we might not have known you were up here at all.”

Huang gritted his teeth. “What did you do with them?”

Kenniston's smile slid into a sneer. “Hadn't you heard? Governor-General Ouyang has given strict instruction that no insurgents or agitators are to be taken prisoner, but executed on the spot.” The Bannerman's shoulders twitched in the ghost of a shrug. “I was simply following orders, Fei.”

In his imagination, Huang saw the sword plunge down into Kenniston's brain, saw himself driving the life from the body of his oldest friend. He could almost hear the sound of it, of metal wrenching through flesh, could almost smell the metallic tang of blood spurting onto the dry sands.

But while he could imagine it, he could not accept it. Revenge or no, for Zhao or Jue or who knew how many others, it was a price he was not willing to pay.

Instead, he raised his sword and lifted his foot from Kenniston's neck.

The Bannerman smiled, expecting that he was being released. The smile faded as Huang swung his foot in an arc connecting with Kenniston's jaw, shattering the bone and rendering the Bannerman unconscious. He fell back onto the hard ground, alive but insensate.

Then Huang turned and pointed with his blade toward the other Bannermen. “Now, all of you, listen closely.” He poised the blade over Kenniston's heart. “Let us leave in peace, or your leader is only the first of you to die.”

The Bannermen exchanged glances. They scowled but agreed to Huang's terms.

 

The trip back was no longer than the journey outward had been, but to Huang it felt like an eternity. Not only had their plan failed, but they'd lost many good people, Jue chief among them. In the end, they hadn't even bothered to fire the explosives and collapse the northern cliff face, as with the southern cliff untouched it would have been a pointless gesture and, worse, a waste of resources. Instead they had retrieved the explosives, carefully repacking them and carrying them back for use at some later time.

For two days the Fists traveled, descending into the Forking Paths and then making their way back to their hidden camp, careful to elude any pursuit. They moved in silence whenever possible. The Fists hardly minded. Huang had been in a dark mood ever since the encounter with the Bannermen atop the northern cliff, and it was growing darker with every step. If the choices were silence or hearing just what black thoughts swirled behind Huang's smoldering gaze, the Fists were quite content to choose silence.

 

Gamine was performing the revelation when Huang and the others returned from their mission. She was on the scaffold, having finished delivering the homily to the assembled Fists, and now one of the opera players, ostensibly selected at random from the crowd, was helping her demonstrate the divinely powered invulnerability that had earned her the name Iron Jaw.

The player was just in the act of swinging his punch, which would be pulled less than an inch from her jaw, when Huang looked up and met Gamine's gaze. What she saw in his eyes, at that moment, so startled her that she jerked her head up, mouth open in surprise. The movement shifted her position just enough that the player's swing didn't stop just short, but connected with full force, impacting on her jaw like a load of bricks.

Gamine's head snapped back, and she stumbled backward, stars shooting in her eyes. The player rushed forward, urging apologies, while the audience of Fists gasped as one.

Within moments, Gamine had regained her composure. She resolutely resisted the urge to rub her sore and bruised jaw while delivering the final benediction to the Fists, after a brief explanation that the powers had wished to demonstrate her devotion to them by momentarily withdrawing their support from her, and that in standing steadfast and taking the full blow without flinching, Gamine had passed their test. Then she had hurried from the scaffold to hear what was behind the dark look in Huang's eyes.

 

Seated around the table in the command center, the inner circle listened attentively as Huang related the story of the last five days, of what had befallen them above the Grand Trunk junction, and what had happened to Jue and the Fists in the other team.

Gamine listened carefully, occasionally prodding the tender spot on her jaw, where the flesh was already purpling into a vicious bruise.

Finally, Huang related what his former friend had told him about the troop buildup and siege engines, about the new offensive, and finally about the standing orders that no Fists were to be taken alive.

“Do you believe him?” Mama Noh asked suspiciously.

Huang nodded. “Whatever else he is, Kenniston An is not a liar. He may have exaggerated somewhat, but what he said is essentially the truth.”

“And you're sure that you weren't followed back?” Temujin put in nervously.

Huang shook his head. “We took special care, and there was no sign of pursuit.” He paused and placed his fists on the table before him. “But we can't hide in here forever. It's only a matter of time before an airship passes overhead or a soldier stumbles into the canyon, and then they'll be upon us.”

“And then they'll just kill us all,” Ruan said, his brow knit, his mouth drawn into a tight line, leaving him looking even more like a skeleton than ever. Of all of them, save perhaps Huang, he seemed to be taking the news of Jue's death the hardest.

“Yes.” Huang gave a curt nod and flicked a glance at the skeletal bandit. “And then they'll kill us all.” He let out a ragged sigh. “Some of us might manage to escape again, at the cost of still more of our people's lives. But then they would find us again, and some would escape, at the cost of still more. And on and on. We can continue to play cat and mouse with them from here to the Great Southern Basin and back, but like Kenniston said, it's just a matter of time. The governor-general, with the emperor at his back, has an effectively inexhaustible supply of men and arms to send after us. And what have we got?”

“We've got righteousness,” Gamine said, speaking for the first time since they'd gathered together. “We've got the hope for harmony. And we've got the powers.”

“Ancestors, not this again,” Ruan said, rolling his eyes.

Huang gave her a hard look. “You talk a lot about special destiny, Gamine. Was Jue bleeding out his life far from any home he ever knew
his
special destiny?”

Gamine opened her mouth, then shut it again. She took a deep breath, then let it out gradually through her nostrils. “Jue's death was a tragedy. I . . . I don't know, perhaps he
did
have a special destiny, but your friend Kenniston—”

“No friend of mine!” Huang seethed.

Gamine nodded by way of apology. “But when
Bannerman
Kenniston killed him, he prevented Jue from fulfilling his destiny. Maybe destiny isn't just something that happens but is a plan we're supposed to
make
happen.” She paused and looked around the table at the others. “I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't think it's
my
destiny to be hunted and killed by Ouyang and his thugs, do you?”

Huang pressed his lips together and splayed his hands palm down on the table, inadvertently accentuating the missing digits.

“So just what do you plan to do about it, my little sprite?” Temujin scratched his neck thoughtfully.

“I think we need to stop running, stop hiding, and take the fight to Ouyang, where it belongs.”

Across from her, a smile began to spread across Huang's face, and he inclined his head slightly. “Iron Jaw, for the first time in a long time, you and I are in complete agreement.”

 

There were twelve of them crowded into the red crawler, all together, as it trundled down onto the Grand Trunk from the west. They were taking a chance passing through the same junction Huang had tried to attack the month before but held out hope that any forces in the area would only give the crawler a cursory search, should they be stopped. As it happened, they reached the city walls of Fanchuan before encountering any authority, and by that point they were on familiar ground.

Mama Noh rode in the cab, with Temujin in the driver's seat beside her. Ruan scowled from a seat in the rear, while Gamine and Huang sat on cushions on opposite sides of the converted cargo hold, which the Red Crawler Opera Company had for years used as a makeshift living room, storage area, and rehearsal space. In addition to the five surviving members of the inner circle, there were four of the original opera players and three former plantation laborers who had picked up enough tumbling or could sing well enough that they could pass for performers in a pinch. An even dozen who had left the relative safety and comfort of the Fists' camp in the Forking Paths and come to Fanchuan, capital of Fangzhang province, on a last-ditch attempt at final victory.

It was not common knowledge that the Red Crawler Opera Company was a part of the Harmonious Fists Uprising. From the beginning, Gamine and Huang had recognized the potential usefulness of having a small number of Fists who could come and go through towns and villages without raising undue suspicion. And since the red crawler had been a familiar sight in the Tianfei Valley and the outlying provinces alike for years, it was not difficult to establish identification with the authorities, if need be.

The plan was the simplest yet, brutally so, but with the largest risk and the most significant potential benefit. And it depended upon the twelve people within the crawler convincing the authorities in Fanchuan that they were precisely what they appeared to be, a group of opera players returning to the capital after several years performing in the outer provinces.

Temujin had been selected to sit beside Mama Noh because, in his long years working various grifts, he had successfully passed himself off as everything from a bureaucrat to a peddler and all points in between. He was likely the most skilled liar in the bunch, though Mama Noh insisted that her skills were somewhat superior, but that she called it acting.

Huang felt certain that Gamine could out-lie both of them if the need arose, but he didn't see anything to gain from pressing the issue.

The guardsman at the city walls, after questioning Mama Noh and Temujin for three quarters of an hour, finally stamped his chop on their admittance papers, and the crawler was cleared to enter.

The easy part was behind them. Now things would get
difficult
.

 

It had taken several weeks to put the early stages of the plan into motion. One of Mama Noh's most trusted people, who had been with the opera company for long years, had been sent out on foot to Fanchuan. The woman had joined a caravan of travelers passing through the Grand Trunk conjunction, and on reaching the Tianfei Valley had stolen away in the night to circle Fanchuan and approach from the east, to allay any suspicion. Once within the city, her task had been to establish contact with those who had employed the Red Crawler Opera Company in years past, and to arrange for a suitable engagement for the players.

The realities of their circumstances meant that no communication had been possible with the player between the time she left the box canyon and the time that the red crawler arrived in Fanchuan, but Mama Noh's faith in her had not been misplaced. By the time that Gamine, Huang, and the others climbed down the hatch into the bustle of the capital city, the player had arranged a suitable booking for the company, beginning less than a week away.

The player's instructions had been short and simple, but everyone was endlessly impressed that she'd carried it off. After all, it could not have been easy to book an engagement where the only criterion dictated who was to be in the audience. But with a broad smile, the player was able to report success. She had managed to convince the agent to commission the performance without ever raising suspicion. The following week the Red Crawler Opera Company was engaged to perform at the Hall of Rare Treasures, the residence of Governor-General Ouyang himself.

 

Huang knelt in the forecourt, working the edge of his red-bladed saber back and forth across a lightly oiled whetstone. The blade's leading edge shone mirror bright, reflecting the daylight that streamed around the edges of a shuttered window. It'd already had the keenness of a razor when he'd started sharpening, hours before, and now he was doing little more than polishing the blade. But it gave him something to occupy his hands, though sadly the same could not be said of his thoughts, which still raced in tight circles in his mind.

He'd scarcely walked through the front door in several days, preferring to remain indoors, but in this he was not alone. Mama Noh's envoy had been able to secure lodgings for the company in the less fashionable district at the extreme south of the city in Southern Gate District, and the ersatz players all tended to remain inside and keep to themselves as much as possible. Even when there wasn't strategy to be discussed, plans to be reviewed, or maneuvers to be carefully practiced, Huang and the others preferred to keep out of the public eye as much as possible. Still, they could not remain indoors forever, and from time to time they were forced to go out into the city, either singly or in pairs, to fetch provisions or scout their routes to and from the governor's palace, or simply to indulge vices left too long unsated.