Dragon (13 page)

GuangZe began to gallop away from the pass, and
whoever was on those other horses had not made it out of the rocks yet. Long thought he was doing well until he heard a strange, drawn-out bellowing, and an arrow zipped past his ear. He glanced over his shoulder to see two black-turbaned archers on horseback clear the pass and come at him from his left flank. A third man cleared the pass and came at him from the right, only this man sat high atop a double-humped
luotuo
. A
camel!

A second arrow whizzed past Long’s head. The archers were on stout, stubby-legged Mongolian horses, which Long knew were relatively slow on normal ground but appeared to be better adapted to running through the sand than GuangZe. GuangZe was now wearing the hoof boots, which had filled with sand and were making it difficult for him to keep in a straight line. The two horsemen were gaining on him.

As for the camel, it was faster still. Its gigantic foot pads spread its weight over a much greater surface than the horses’ hooves, and it loped effortlessly after him, complaining loudly as its rider swayed wildly back and forth atop it like Malao atop the mast of Charles’ sloop. The camel rider was the one who had dropped the net, and he had a large musket slung across his back. Fortunately, he was moving around so much there was no way that he would be able to unsling it, let alone fire it accurately.

A third arrow zinged past Long’s left shoulder, and one of the archers called out, “Stop! These are only
warning shots. Give us your horse and we will leave you with your life. Attempt to flee and we will hunt you down!”

Long was not about to stop for anyone. He looked back over his right shoulder and was shocked to see the camel nearly upon him. More surprising, the rider was now standing precariously between the camel’s massive humps. The fool was going to jump! Long’s eyes widened and he steered GuangZe away from the camel, but it was too late. The camel rider leaped through the air, his shoulder hitting Long square in the back.

Long sailed off his horse into the cold sand; the man landed on one side of him, and Long’s water skins slipped off the horse to the other side. The sand was deep here, and it softened Long’s fall. He heard the camel scream and caught a glimpse of the beast tumbling end over end. The force of the man’s jump must have caused it to stumble.

Long looked over and saw that GuangZe had stopped.

The camel rider shouted beside him, and Long turned to see him staggering to his feet while reaching behind his back for his musket.

“I don’t think so,” Long hissed. He jumped to his feet and spun toward the man, snapping his fist outward and catching the camel rider on the chin. The man went down hard on his backside and Long leaped at him, but the man was still alert enough to turn away so that Long ended up landing on his back. Long
ripped the musket from his attacker’s sling and stood, backing away.

“Face me,” Long commanded, and he heard a shrill whistle.

Long risked a glance in the direction of the sound and saw that one of the mounted archers had stopped roughly thirty paces from him with his bow drawn and an arrow nocked. The arrow was aimed directly at Long. Long glanced over at GuangZe and saw the second mounted archer take the horse by the reins and begin to lead him toward the first archer. GuangZe went along without a fuss, and Long’s heart sank.

As the rush of battle began to wear off, Long noticed something else. There was a pain-filled bellowing in the frigid afternoon air. He looked over at the camel and saw that it was trying to stand, but it kept falling over because one of its front legs no longer worked. The leg dangled limply from its shoulder, obviously broken.

Long lowered the musket. He wasn’t sure who he felt sorrier for, the camel or himself.

The camel rider took a step toward him, and Long raised the musket once more. “Keep your distance,” he said.

“If you kill me,” the camel rider replied, “my friends will kill you.”

Long thought back to the standoff the night before. He looked at the man who held GuangZe’s reins and saw a scabbardless curved sword dangling at the man’s side. Long could clearly make out a large nick in the blade.

Long scowled at the man. “You tried to steal my horse last night! You must be working with Ding-Xiang’s apprentice. That is how you knew to ambush me in this particular pass.”

The archer with the nicked sword laughed and tied GuangZe’s reins to his own horse’s saddle. “You should have sold me your horse last night,” he said. “Consider yourself fortunate to have lived this long. We would have killed you last night, had DingXiang not arrived. That apprentice of his would sell his own mother for a few taels of silver.”

Long heard a noise behind him and turned his head. The camel rider was beginning to circle.

“You have no intentions of letting me live, do you?” Long asked.

“Not anymore,” the camel rider replied. “Not knowing the truth about DingXiang’s apprentice. The young man is too valuable to us.”

Long shook his head. “That is what I thought. I am sorry.” He turned the musket toward the archer with the drawn bow and fired.

The barrel erupted with a terrific
BOOM!
, the musket ball flying true. It passed clean through the first archer’s chest. The man dropped out of his saddle, but not before releasing his arrow. Long heard a quick buzz rush past him and a sickening
thwack!

Long turned to see the arrow shaft protruding from the camel rider’s right ear. The man fell, stone dead.

GuangZe whinnied and snorted loudly, and Long
heard the second archer curse. Long remembered that Cang had said that GuangZe was afraid of loud noises.

Long spun around to see GuangZe rear up. He pawed at the air with his booted front hooves and shook his head from side to side, trying to free his reins from the second archer’s saddle. The saddle rocked wildly, and the man was thrown to the ground.

GuangZe decided to run. The second archer’s horse had no choice but to go with him. Both horses disappeared into the pass, tied together.

As Long turned to watch them go, he heard a second
thwack!
and felt white-hot pain sear his side. He glanced down at the right edge of his abdomen, amazed to see a bloody wooden shaft tipped by an arrowhead protruding through the front of his coat. He looked over his right shoulder and saw the arrow’s fletching flapping in the breeze behind him.

Long was unsure what to do. The arrow wound hurt more than any of his previous injuries but did not appear to be bleeding too badly.

The second archer reached for his quiver, and Long recovered his wits. He was not about to let that man skewer him again. He reached into his sash and grabbed the knife, ignoring the violent surges of pain that racked his torso. As the archer nocked another arrow, Long snapped his right hand back and then forward, sending the knife through the air and deep into the man’s throat.

The second archer dropped, dead as the first archer and the camel rider.

Long was determined to not have his life end here in the desert. He needed to get moving, but he also needed to do something about his new injury. He knew better than to pull the arrow out and open the wound. The arrow was serving as a plug. However, if he was to travel, he had to take care of the long shaft sticking out from either side of him.

While he still had his strength, Long grasped the arrow with both hands and snapped off the arrowhead in front of him. Then he took a deep breath, grasped the fletching, and snapped the tail off the arrow behind him.

Flashes of blinding light exploded behind Long’s eyes. He staggered and fell to the sand. He forced himself to roll onto his left side in order to try to lift the right half of his coat and robe to better assess the damage done to his body.

Long managed to lift his jacket and robe up to his waist before he passed out from the pain.

L
ong woke many hours later and found himself still lying on his left side in the sand, his right hand clenching his jacket and robe. He groaned and sat up in the evening sun.

He looked down at his jacket, and, while it was bloody, he had expected it to be much worse. The pain in his side had subsided significantly as well. He lifted his jacket and robe and saw the broken arrow shaft in the far right side of his abdomen. He felt his back and found that the shaft had passed to the right of his right kidney, just below his rib cage.

He was fortunate. The arrow had missed his vital organs. It had not even cracked a single rib. It was a painful wound, to be sure, and he had bled a fair
amount, but he would not die from the injury. He might, however, die from exposure. It was too late to attempt any more travel today, and he needed to find shelter.

Long glanced around and was pleased to at least see the first archer’s horse. It had walked over to the rocks and was using them as a shield against the cold wind. Best of all, it did not look like it had any intention of running off like the other two horses had.

Long pushed himself to his feet and staggered toward the stubby Mongolian horse. He remembered the attacker saying the previous night that his horses knew their way to Tunhuang blindfolded. Long hoped this was true. While it would certainly be a shorter journey for him to ride the horse back to DingXiang’s outpost, he was determined to complete his goal of meeting with Xie.

Long reached the horse and found it to be quite friendly. He led it to a rock outcropping that provided better protection and secured it. He was about to look for his water skins when he heard a low moan. It did not sound like anything he had ever heard before, and he remembered the camel. It was still alive.

Long frowned, hating what he had to do next. He checked the thief’s saddlebag and found the pistol that had been pointed at him the previous night. It was loaded with a single shot, and he used it to put the poor camel out of its misery.

Next he walked over to where he had last seen his water skins, and his heart sank. The containers had all been trampled, their contents emptied.

Averting his eyes from the three dead thieves, Long sighed and looked at the sky. It would be dark sooner than he had realized. Powerless to do anything more, he walked back to the rocks and curled up next to the horse, willing himself to sleep. However, with the darkness came a cold unlike any he had experienced.

The rocks did little to keep the frigid swirling winds at bay, and by the time the moon rose, Long was shivering uncontrollably. He knew that if he did not do something, he would freeze to death. He needed better shelter, but the only thing he could think to use was the camel.

Long stood and stretched his tight muscles as best he could with his injured side before heading over to the carcass. The camel had only been dead a few hours, but it was already as rigid and cold as the stone Long had been lying on. He had heard stories of desperate people who had gutted an animal and slept inside its body cavity to protect themselves from sandstorms or insurmountable winter winds, but there was no way he could bring himself to do that.

This left Long with only one option—skinning the beast. Or at least, skinning a section of it. He doubted he would need the entire hide.

Long reached for the knife in its sheath, then remembered that it was no longer there. He swallowed hard and headed for the fallen second archer. He removed the knife from the man’s throat, trying hard not to think about what he had done, and returned to the camel.

He had never skinned an animal before, and the hide was much tougher than he had expected. Working by moonlight made the task even more tedious. It took him nearly an hour to remove an area from the camel’s back and sides large enough to wrap himself in. One benefit of all this activity was that he had warmed enough to at least stop shivering. On the other hand, his wound began to drip blood again, sapping his strength.

With the section of hide cut free, Long proceeded to scrape as much fatty tissue as possible from the skin with his knife. Then he carried his heavy camel-hair blanket over to his earlier resting place beside the horse, spread the hide out skin side down upon the rock, and collapsed into it.

The camel hair was dusty, but it was surprisingly soft and thick. He eased over to one end, gripped a corner, and rolled himself into the hide, taking great care to not disturb his wound. Warmer and more secure than he’d thought possible, he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

The sun was high the next day when Long emerged from his camel-hair wrap. He checked the arrow shaft in his side and found that the area was incredibly sore but scabbing over. He was thirsty and began to seriously consider heading back to the outpost. After all, trying to cross a section of desert in two or three days without water could easily mean death. There were also the horse’s water needs to consider.

He thought of the Supreme Rule of Three. A person can survive three weeks without food, three days without water, and three minutes without air. The question was, how far did he want to push his luck?

Long remembered pulling the pistol from a saddlebag the day before, but he had not bothered to pay attention to whatever else was inside the bag. He opened it, and to his astonishment found two small water skins tucked beneath a bag of pistol bullets, the man’s powder horn, and a coil of rope. He discarded the bullets and powder and raised one of the water skins to his lips.