Dragon (5 page)

ShaoShu watched Tonglong apply a steady, even pressure in order to make the seal stand out clearly, and something unexpected happened. The seal crumbled to dust between Tonglong’s fingers.

Tonglong hissed and reached across his desk with one hand, grabbing the Emperor by the throat. “How dare you play games with me!”

“No games,” the Emperor somehow managed to say. “It may still have worked. Look closely.”

ShaoShu looked at the paper from across the room, but all he saw was a blob of black ink and clay powder.

Tonglong took the paper in his free hand and tilted it sideways, shaking it. The powder drifted from the decree, and ShaoShu saw that the seal was somewhat smeared but still identifiable, even from a distance. He did not know a thing about official documents, but this one looked authentic to him.

Tonglong released the Emperor’s throat. “It was designed to disintegrate like that, wasn’t it?”

The Emperor nodded and coughed. “It is a safeguard against unauthorized use. It is meant to break and destroy the seal’s mark as well. You must have an extraordinarily soft touch.”

“We will see how soft my touch is when I start breaking more of your fingers. Where are the real seals?”

“That seal was real.”

“I mean, where are the ones you use on a regular basis? I doubt you use those clay versions.”

“The royal set is back at the Forbidden City, in Peking.”

“Do you have more clay seals?”

“No.”

Tonglong stood and pounded his fist on the desk again. He glared at the Emperor. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“It means that you will have to keep me alive longer than you expected. You will never be able to execute another initiative like this conscription without the
seals, and you will not be allowed inside the Forbidden City without me.”

“Plenty of new emperors have entered the Forbidden City with the old Emperor’s head on a spike.”

“But not you,” the Emperor challenged. “At least, not yet. You still have the substantial Western army to contend with. From what I have overheard among your men, Xie is alive and well. If he makes it back to his homeland, he will take the role his father held as Western Warlord, and his people will crush you. They are a powerful, merciless lot. And they have horses. There are also the imperial forces under my direct supervision within the walls of the Forbidden City.”

“Your Forbidden City forces are more susceptible than you think,” Tonglong jeered. “A little bit of treasure and the promise of power have gone a long way right beneath your nose.”

“My men are loyal to the death.”

Tonglong laughed. “Why? Because you pay them well? I will pay them more. In fact, I already have. I have one key individual who has made me confident that I will win the rest over soon enough. He will convince the others to join—or kill them. With your own imperial forces turned against you, combined with my current Southern and Eastern armies and the men I will recruit, even the mighty Western army will not stand a chance.”

“Do not forget about the bandits and their Resistance,” the Emperor said. “They will declare all-out
war against someone like you. They have been a thorn in my side for years.”

“Let them try. I crushed them once and took their stronghold, and I will gladly do it again. Their life span is coming to an end. As for
your
life span, you are correct. You will walk this earth at least a little longer. Signatures are easy enough to forge, but that seal is far too complicated to reproduce without an original to copy. If you cooperate, I
may
let you live once we reach the Forbidden City.”

Tonglong picked up the decree and stared at the seal, shaking his head. He carried the document to the far side of the room and placed it on top of a long table, then glanced at the mess he had made on the desk and the scrolls he had knocked to the floor. “ShaoShu, tidy up this place. I am taking the Emperor back to his private pigsty now.”

ShaoShu swallowed hard. “Yes, sir.”

Tonglong headed for the door, and ShaoShu hurriedly unlocked it, holding it open. Tonglong passed through it with the Emperor in tow, and ShaoShu risked giving the Emperor a quick wink. The Emperor nodded slightly, as though he understood that he and ShaoShu were on the same side, and ShaoShu locked the door again.

ShaoShu hurried over to the desk area, scooping up a handful of scrolls from the floor. He tried to open the desk’s topmost drawer, but it was locked. He tried a second drawer, and this one slid smoothly open. It was empty, and he managed to carefully place half of
the scrolls into it before it was full. He found another empty drawer and set the remaining scrolls in it. He had begun to walk away to find some rags to wipe up the spilled ink and powder when curiosity got the better of him.

He walked back to the desk and checked the remaining drawers. All were unlocked, and most were empty. Those that were not empty contained things you would expect to find in a desk—blank scrolls, ink, writing brushes, writing quills.

ShaoShu tugged at the desk’s only locked drawer again, wondering what might be hidden inside. Maybe it was something that could help Long and the others? Having lived alone on the streets most of his life, ShaoShu had developed skills to help him survive. One of those skills was picking locks.

He reopened a drawer containing writing quills and selected the largest, most rigid one. The end had already been sharpened to a thin point, and he stuck the point into the desk drawer’s lock. After a few careful pokes and a turn of his wrist, ShaoShu gave the quill a gentle push and the lock disengaged.

He pulled the drawer open to find more scrolls. Two of them looked very old and battered, and he couldn’t help taking a peek. While he could not read, he recognized immediately what they were. Alongside the words he saw detailed sketches of people standing in complex body positions combined with different movement sequences. All of the people had their hands held out in front of them like dragon claws. One
of the scrolls even included a series with weapons. It depicted a figure with a sword in one hand and a chain whip in the other.

These were some of the dragon scrolls from the destroyed Cangzhen Temple. Ying had been after them, and ShaoShu recalled Ying once telling him how Tonglong had managed to steal several right out from under his nose.

ShaoShu grinned and slipped both scrolls into the folds of his robe. Maybe they would prove useful to his friends.

O
ver the next week, Long’s condition improved noticeably, but not as much as Hok would have liked. While he could sit up on his own now and go a full day without drifting off into an exhausted slumber, he was still unable to stand. He blamed it on the tumultuous seas and rough weather. Hok blamed it on her herb bag.

Hok was able to make him blood-enriching tonics and infection-inhibiting ointments, and he did benefit greatly from vast quantities of sleep and the nutritious food Charles had stowed aboard. However, Hok said that she lacked a few rare items that she was certain would speed his recovery even more. She had hoped to make a stop along the way to pick up the necessary
ingredients, but Charles would not allow it. He was justifiably concerned that Tonglong might have already spread word overland that they were to be captured on sight. Additionally, the winds had not been favorable for docking in any of the ports they had passed. While it would have been easy to sail into any one of them, the prevailing winds would have prevented them from sailing back out. Moreover, once they had left the sea and begun to head up the Yellow River, Charles’ determination to stay away from the waterside towns had only grown stronger.

Hok had to settle for the next best thing, which was stopping somewhere both she and Charles knew to be safe that also had the supplies Hok wanted. She knew the perfect place: the home of an elderly healer called PawPaw, or Grandmother. It was along their route to the Jade Phoenix in the city of Kaifeng, and from Charles’ estimation they would arrive very soon.

As Charles’ sloop cut a smooth swath up the Yellow River’s fast-moving current, Long sat with his back against the boat’s side rail. Like the others, he spent most of his time scanning the area for trouble. There was plenty of scenery but very few people, and consequently no conflicts. Steep banks of yellow earth shouldered both sides of the river in this region, covered with a matting of dead grass and dried, broken reed stalks. The trees were nearly leafless, their skeleton frames shaking in the chilly breeze. Fortunately, Charles had several blankets in his sea chest to keep them all warm. They would have to acquire jackets,
boots, hats, and gloves once they reached Kaifeng. They were now in the north, after all, and snow was not unheard of this time of year.

They rounded a bend in the river, and Charles pointed to the shore. “There it is,” he said, his finger aimed at a small house perched atop the riverbank. “It looks different now that the leaves have fallen.”

“It sure does,” Hok said. “I see smoke drifting from the chimney, though. It seems someone is home.”

“That’s g-g-great,” Malao stammered from the mast top, his teeth chattering. “I c-c-can’t wait to warm up!” He quickly untied a few ropes and coiled them up, then scurried down the mast, onto the deck, stopping next to Charles. “All c-c-clear, C-C-Captain.”

“Thanks, Malao,” Charles said, looking up at the mast top. “I couldn’t have done better myself. Can you give me a hand with the mainsail?”

“S-s-sure,” Malao replied.

Charles nodded and turned to Hok and Xie. “When the big sail starts to come down, could you two do your best to grab it?”

“Of course,” they replied.

“Very good,” Charles said. He turned to Fu in the bow. “Are you ready?”

“Aye, Captain,” Fu said, and he gripped the head of a large anchor.

“On my mark, then,” Charles said. “Ready … and … anchor away!”

Fu heaved the heavy anchor overboard with a loud grunt, and Long watched as Malao and Charles began
to pull furiously on a complicated series of ropes attached to the mast. The sloop’s mainsail dropped like a billowing cloud, and Hok and Xie scrambled about the deck, doing their best to scoop it into their arms before it slipped into the water.

“Hang on!” Fu warned.

Long turned to watch the anchor’s thick rope playing out quickly through Fu’s hands over the side of the sloop. The rope slackened for an instant, and Fu hurriedly wound it around a cleat. An instant later, the rope went taut and the boat stopped its forward progress with a violent jerk. The sloop then began to drift backward with the current until the rope went taut again, the boat stopping altogether with its nose still facing upstream.

“Well done, everyone,” Charles said as he glanced around the boat. He began to untie his robe sash, and Long asked, “What are you doing?”

“Someone is going to have to get wet,” Charles said. “It might as well be the captain.”

Charles slipped off his robe, and Long saw for the first time that he had a pair of matching pistols in holsters strapped across his pale chest. Charles removed the pistols and holsters, as well as his boots.

“Malao, the bow rope, please,” Charles said.

Malao handed Charles a section of sturdy rope, and Charles placed it between his teeth. He grinned, nodded to the group, and dove overboard.

Long watched as Charles surfaced in the muddy water with a loud gasp, the frigid temperature doubtless
a shock to his system. He did not complain, though, and swam powerfully to shore before scrambling up the riverbank. Once he reached the top, he took the end of the rope from his teeth and tied it to a thick tree trunk, then waved.

Long was surprised to feel the boat begin to move. He glanced toward the bow and saw Fu pulling the opposite end of the rope, his face red with exertion.

“Use the winch, Fu!” Charles called out, but Fu ignored him. Instead, Fu continued to heave on the rope hand over hand until the boat’s keel scraped the river’s bottom close to shore. Fu stopped heaving and tied the rope off.

“Well done, you stubborn pussycat,” Charles called out. “A winch would have made for a lot less effort. Malao, toss me the stern line!”

Malao did not obey, either. Instead, he threw a coil of rope over his shoulder, jumped onto the boat’s side rail, and made a tremendous leap ashore. He landed well clear of the water and played out rope as he raced up the bank, handing the coil to Charles.

“Show-offs,” Charles said, shivering in the cold breeze. “You did remember to tie the other end of this line to a cleat, right?”

Malao giggled. “Of course.”

Charles tied the stern line to a second tree trunk, and he slid back down the bank through the yellow mud. Long watched him step back into the water and wade over to the sloop, the water reaching above his waist.

“Xie,” Charles said, shivering more violently now. “Help Long down onto my shoulders.”

Long wanted to protest, but knew there would be no point. He allowed Xie to lower his legs onto Charles’ cold, wet shoulders, and Charles quickly waded to shore, depositing Long on solid ground. Malao helped Long up the bank, and when they reached the top, Long looked back to see Hok and Xie leap directly onto the shore as Malao had done.