Snake (18 page)

“What's going on?” Malao asked.

“Lion dancers,” the man replied. “You have heard of lion dancers, haven't you?”

“Of course!” Malao said.

“You should have a look, then,” the man said. “The group of acrobats camped over there do the best lion dances I've ever seen. They wear all white.”

Seh's eyebrows rose. That's what Mong had said, too. Seh wasn't eager to join the crowd, but his curiosity was piqued.

“I love to dance!” Malao said. “Come on!” He began to wiggle and shake, twisting his way through the people on the bridge.

Fu rolled his eyes and looked at Seh. Seh nodded.

“Nice talking to you boys,” the large man said with a grin.

“Likewise,” Seh replied.

Fu grunted and began to shove his way through the crowd to keep up with Malao. Seh followed in Fu's wake. As the crowd thickened, Seh paid extra
attention to the scroll in the small of his back and the snake on his arm. He didn't want to lose either.

By the time they reached the southern shore, the crowd had formed a huge circle. Malao wriggled and Fu shoved until the three of them were at the circle's inner edge. In the very center, Seh saw two costume creatures that resembled stylized lions he had previously only heard about. A single person was inside one, and two people were inside the other. The lion dancers were hunched over inside the costumes, their legs covered with material that matched the shaggy fringe of the costume lion.

As Seh watched the performers jump, tumble, and gyrate to the beat of the drums, the pit of his stomach began to tingle in a familiar way. He glanced around, and his attention was drawn to a slim girl in an ivory silk dress with a matching turban on her head. She seemed familiar.

Seh eyed the girl as she worked her way around the inner section of the circle with a large bowl in one hand, collecting donations. She moved gracefully and had pale skin and a long, slender neck. She had obviously been injured recently because her other arm was in a sling and she walked with a noticeable limp. Much of her face was covered by an ivory veil, but Seh knew exactly who she was.

“Hok!” Malao shrieked.

H
ok turned and hobbled away, ignoring Malao's call.

“Hey!” Malao said. “Why did Hok—
mmmpf!
”

Seh clamped one hand over Malao's mouth and whispered in Malao's ear, “Hok probably doesn't want anyone to know who she is. The bandits told us that people think she is responsible for the destruction of Shaolin Temple. Remember?”

Malao nodded, and Seh let go. Seh watched Hok's white turban slowly bob into the crowd as she limped along. She was leaving the circle.

Fu leaned toward Seh. “What should we do?”

“Follow her,” Seh whispered, “and try not to attract any attention.”

Fu began to work his way through the masses. Seh
and Malao trailed behind. Hok appeared to know they were following her because she took her time weaving her way through the group. Once she made it out the other side of the circle, she ambled toward a collection of large carts several hundred paces downstream from the crowd. Hok stopped when she reached the makeshift camp's fire pit. She turned to Seh, Malao, and Fu and smiled.

“Can I talk yet?” Malao asked.

Seh nodded.

“Woo-hoo!” Malao said, and jumped into the air. “You're alive, big sister!”

Hok bowed and removed her veil. Her face was badly bruised. “Hello, brothers,” she said. She straightened her dress and looked at Seh. “I guess everyone knows my secret now.”

“Not everyone,” Seh replied. “Only these two. I'm glad you're okay.”

Hok stared at Seh, unblinking.

“Seh didn't tell us you were a girl,” Fu said. “We found out from that leopard monk Tsung when the three of us were at Shaolin. I'm glad you survived the attack.”

Hok's thin eyebrows rose. “You went to Shaolin?”

“Yes,” Seh said. “How did
you
end up there?”

“I'll have to tell you some other time,” Hok replied. “Right now, I want to introduce you to some people.” She cleared her throat and gave a single sharp trill, like a crane.

A moment later, a tall, beautiful woman drifted toward them from within the circle of people upstream.
She was dressed just like Hok, and she looked Seh, Malao, and Fu over with unblinking eyes before stopping beside Hok. “Yes?” she said in a quiet, peaceful voice.

“Mother, I would like you to meet my brothers,” Hok said. She pointed. “This is Seh, this is Malao, and this is Fu. Everyone, meet my mother.”

Seh blinked. The woman did look a surprising amount like Hok, especially with them both wearing matching head wraps.

Seh bowed.

“Your mother?” Malao said. “Wow! Nice to meet you!”

“Yes,” Fu said. “Nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is mine,” Hok's mother replied.

“Hey!” a young voice shouted. “What are all those
boys
doing here?”

Seh turned to see the outer edge of the circle part. A girl about five years old ran toward them. Jogging next to her was the single lion dancer from the performance, still in full costume.

The girl ran up to Hok's mother, while the lion dancer stopped next to Hok. The lion dancer put his arm—which looked like a lion's front leg—around Hok's waist. Seh felt his face suddenly flush. What did that dancer think he was doing?

The little girl stomped her foot. “Isn't anybody going to answer my question?”

“Mind your manners,” Hok's mother said. She rested her hand on the girl's head, and Seh noticed that the girl's hair was brown. He had never seen
anyone with brown hair before. And although the little girl's eyes were Chinese in shape, their color was light brown instead of dark brown or black like everybody else's.

“These boys are your sister's friends,” Hok's mother said to the girl.

“You have a sister, too?” Malao said. “That's great!”

Hok nodded, smiling.

Seh pointed at the lion dancer. “Is this your brother?”

“Hardly,” the lion dancer replied. At least, that's what Seh thought he said. It was difficult to tell because the dancer spoke with a thick accent Seh didn't recognize. The lion dancer removed the costume head, and Seh did a double take.

It was a teenage boy with very pale skin— even paler than Hok's. He had small red dots and splotches across his nose and cheeks, and his hair was almost white, like rice. Stranger still were his eyes, which were almost completely round, like the moon when it was full. And they were blue. Like the sky. He was so … ugly.

“You're a
guai lo!”
Malao said in Cantonese.

The boy didn't respond.

“You're a
ghost boy,”
Seh said in Mandarin, and the boy's round eyes narrowed. He took a step toward Seh.

Hok put her hand on the ghost boy's shoulder. “This is Charles,” she said.

“What's a ‘Charles’?” Fu asked.

“Charles
is his name,” Hok said. “He's my friend, so be nice to him.”

Charles stared hard at Fu. Fu growled.

The pit of Seh's stomach began to tingle, and the snake on his arm shivered. Seh focused on Charles, but he didn't sense anything. Something else was wrong. There was a commotion behind them.

The boys turned toward the river, and Seh noticed that five of the dragon boat teams that had been practicing had beached their boats on the southern shore, about two hundred paces from Hok's camp. The team members were coming ashore quickly, and they were lining up in ranks—like soldiers. People in the crowd began to stare and point.

A solitary dragon boat remained in the water behind the men in formation. The steersman stood up and removed his silk hat ceremoniously. A long, thick ponytail braid flopped out and bounced off his chest. He smiled at Seh and shouted across the space between them, “Remember me?”

Seh stared at the man but didn't respond. The man felt extremely familiar.

“Tonglong!” Fu said.

“Very good, Pussycat,” Tonglong shouted. “Now it's the serpent's turn to talk. You have something that I want. Give it to me and we'll be on our way. Deny me and—”

Tonglong snapped his fingers. The twenty costumed men in his boat each raised a
qiang
and pointed it at Seh.

T
he entire southern shoreline erupted into chaos. The crowd dispersed in a thousand directions like an exploding firework. Women and children screamed and men cried out as they slipped and fell and were trampled by hundreds of fleeing feet. Desperate voices of every pitch and volume implored the heavens to protect them from the
qiangs.

Seh scanned his immediate surroundings. Next to him were Fu, Hok, Hok's mother, Hok's little sister, and Charles. Malao was gone.

Seh began to scan farther out. Most of the people were heading away from the river onto the main thoroughfare, ducking into the side streets that intersected it. At the same time, a group of five individuals was heading in the opposite direction—directly
toward him. Seh turned his focus on them. It was Mong, Sanfu, Hung, Gao, and NgGung.

“Don't give up that scroll!” Mong shouted to Seh, his deep, booming voice overpowering the shrieks and cries of the panicked crowd.

Seh's eyes narrowed, and he turned back to face Tonglong. Though they were greatly outnumbered, Seh felt invigorated by the arrival of the bandits. “I didn't plan to,” he shouted.

Tonglong tucked his long ponytail braid into his sash. “I had a feeling you would say that,” he shouted. He raised one arm high, then let it drop. “FIRE!”

Twenty
qiangs
rang out from Tonglong's dragon boat, and scrambling bystanders howled as
qiang
balls tore into them. Seh blinked several times and glanced around. No one he knew had been hit, though he wasn't sure about Malao. The screaming of the bystanders intensified, and the snake shimmied up Seh's arm. It tightened its grip as the ranks of soldiers surged forward from the riverbank and the men in Tonglong's boat began to reload.

“Crane Defends the Nest!”
Mong shouted, and before Seh knew it, the bandits had formed a ring around him, Fu, Hok, Hok's sister, and Charles. Seh stared wide-eyed when he noticed Hok's mother had joined the bandits in the ring formation.

“MaMa!” Hok's sister shouted. “No!”

“Shhh,” Hok said to her. “MaMa is going to be all right.”

Hok's mother didn't respond. Seh watched her stand shoulder to shoulder with the bandits as the
first rush of soldiers hit them. Hok's mother fought with the deadly precision and smooth flow of a crane-style master. She delivered an endless barrage of elbow strikes and crane-beak blows to shocked soldiers, leaving them bloodied and broken at her feet. The pile soon grew so large before her that the bandits had to rotate to give her more room.

The other bandits did their fair share, too. Hung swung his mighty war hammers while Sanfu swung his huge tiger-claw fists. Gao barked and kicked, and NgGung taunted his attackers by daring them to punch him in the stomach before following through with vicious spinning back fists. Mong simply waited for an attacker to step within his reach, then squeezed the life out of them.

“Let me fight!” Fu roared.

“NO!” Sanfu said.

Seh turned and saw Fu attempt to rush out of the ring of bandits, between Hung and Sanfu. Fu's eyes were fixed on Sanfu, and it appeared as though Fu never saw Hung's huge, hairy elbow coming. The elbow slammed into the side of Fu's head, and Fu dropped to the ground, out cold. Seh cringed. That was going to leave a mark.

As the bandits fought off wave after wave of attackers, Seh began to worry. The soldiers with the
qiangs
would finish reloading soon. And there was still no sign of Malao. Seh turned to Hok. “I need to know what's going on.
Snake Slithers Up the Tree!”

Hok bobbed her head once and dropped into a shallow horse stance. Seh stepped onto one of her legs
and shimmied up her narrow back until his knees rested on her shoulders. Hok straightened her legs and stood—on her tiptoes.

“Hey!” Charles said. “You're going to hurt her!”

“I doubt it,” Seh said. He felt Hok fumbling with something and looked down. Hok's turban had come unraveled. She pulled the entire wrap off her head, and Seh nearly tumbled off her shoulders. Hok's hair was brown! Just like her little sister's!