Mark Morris - The Great Wall

The tunnel filled with debris and dust. For a minute or more, lying on his belly, he couldn’t see anything. He sat up gingerly, coughing and spluttering, waving his hands in front of his face. He brushed at his clothes, which were covered in rubble and fine white powder.

Somewhere close to him, through the haze of dust, he heard Lin Mae and Wang coughing too. The sound was muffled, as though his ears were packed with sand. Still coughing, he clambered to his feet and walked a little way back down the tunnel, towards the site of the explosion. As the dust settled and the air became clearer, he realized that the grated section through which they had passed earlier was now completely blocked by a dark mass of pulverized stone. He listened hard, but though his ears were still throbbing he was pretty sure that the bellowing cries of the Tao Tei had now been silenced. He couldn’t even hear scratching or scuffling from the other side of the rockfall.

Peng Yong had done it. By sacrificing himself he had given them the most precious thing of all.

Time.

William staggered past the carts and saw two dark figures standing upright, albeit a little unsteadily, in the murk. As he approached them, they looked blearily up at him, their faces and clothes greyed by stone dust.

“Are you all right?” he asked Lin Mae.

She frowned and pointed at her ears.

He raised his voice. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, yes,” she said, though she still seemed a little off-balance.

Wang coughed and wiped his eyes, then peered back through the settling curtain of dust. “Are they…?”

“They’re gone,” William said simply.

Wang nodded, though he looked dazed, as though he couldn’t quite process what William was telling him.

“What now?” William asked, and then, more sharply, hoping to get Wang to focus, “What now?”

Wang blinked. Equally sharply, he said, “We free the beast. We let it feed.”

William nodded and ran across to the meat cart, which he dragged, inch by straining inch, across the floor of the chamber to the foot of the steps on the far side. Glancing up the steps he saw that they culminated in a small stone landing, on the far side of which was a large wooden door.

“Does this open on to the courtyard at the foot of the Palace steps?” he asked.

Wang nodded. “Stand back.”

He waved a hand, gesturing that William should stand with Lin Mae behind him. William did so, and noticed another narrow opening that he had not previously seen in the gloom. Glancing through it, he saw a winding wooden staircase, which he realized must lead up to the various levels of the multi-tiered pagoda.

Wang moved across to the cart on which the Tao Tei still slumped, oblivious to everything that had been going on around it.

“Ready?” he asked.

Lin Mae drew her sword and William nocked an arrow into his bow and pulled the string taut, aiming it at the Tao Tei. Both nodded.

Wang gave a small smile and leaned forward, stretching out his hands towards the creature. “Here we go.”

Moving slowly and carefully, he lifted the magnet from the pouch attached to the creature’s chest, then backed quickly away to stand beside William and Lin Mae. Freed from the magnet’s influence, the Tao Tei jerked awake and scrambled upright, its dulled eyes suddenly glinting with malevolent life. William, Lin Mae and Wang all held their breaths as the creature suddenly became aware of the harness attached to its body. If it tore off the harness and its cargo of black powder weapons their plans would be in ruins. But to their relief, after giving its body an experimental shake, the creature seemed to forget about the harness, its attention turned to more immediate concerns: food.

Sniffing the air, the Tao Tei turned its massive head in their direction. Then it leaped down from the cart and start moving towards them. William raised his bow, ready to unleash two swift arrows into the creature’s eyes, but Wang, holding up the magnet like an offering, hissed, “Wait! Do not shoot!”

The Tao Tei took a couple of steps closer—then abruptly it stopped. Reaching the periphery of the magnet’s influence, it flinched back. It turned away as if it was no longer aware of their presence and began sniffing the air again like a hungry dog. Suddenly its body quivered. Denied fresh, living meat, it had found the next best thing. It bounded across to the meat cart, leaped up on to it and began to devour the huge stack of bloody, dust coated carcasses, gobbling up entire pigs in two bites, swallowing mouthfuls of chickens whole.

William, Wang and Lin Mae watched and listened to the Tao Tei eating its fill, Wang wearing a small grimace of distaste.

“You have no real idea where that beast is going when it’s done, do you?” William muttered.

Wang looked affronted. “It will go to the Queen.”

“You know this for certain?”

“It will,” he declared. Then a note of doubt crept into his voice. “It must.”

Once it had devoured every last scrap of meat, and even lapped up the blood from the bottom of the cart with its barbed tongue, the Tao Tei leaped down from the cart. Then, as if responding to some unheard signal, it bounded across the stone floor and up the steps on the far side of the chamber.

All three of them heard a crash from above, and then saw the still-drifting dust in the chamber disturbed by an eddy of air.

“Is it clear?” William asked.

Still brandishing the magnet like a trophy, Wang hurried across the chamber and moved nimbly up the steps, his energy restored now that his plan seemed to be coming to fruition. He halted at the top, then half-turned and gestured for William and Lin Mae to join him.

When they had done so, all three moved to the now open door into the courtyard. “Careful now… Slowly…” William said, and cautiously pushed the half-shattered wooden door all the way open. Peering out into the courtyard that adjoined the Palace steps, they saw immediately that it was swarming with Tao Tei. It was an eerie feeling to be so close to such a huge number of the creatures, only to be completely ignored. William was all too aware that if the magnet should, for whatever reason, suddenly lose its effect, he and his two companions would be torn to pieces in seconds.

Still treading softly, as if that would make a difference, they edged further out into the courtyard until they could see the steps themselves. They too were a mass of green, but whereas they couldn’t see the Queen among the bustling throng of Tao Tei, they did see their ‘own’ creature, with its harness of deadly weapons, snuffling through the crowd. On the wide mezzanine area at the top of the steps, they could also see a circle of larger Tao Tei with fan-like shields on the sides of their heads that were standing shoulder to shoulder, effectively creating a protective enclosure.

Wang murmured something to Lin Mae, who nodded. William looked at him quizzically.

“The Paladins,” Wang said, pointing at the circle of creatures. “The guards that protect the Queen. She’ll be there, in the center.”

William quickly assessed the distance and angle to the target. “It’s an almost impossible shot. We can’t risk it from here. We may have only one chance.”

Wang nodded in agreement, then glanced up at the huge structure beside them. “Climb the pagoda. Fire from above. But you must hurry. Go!”

William turned away. Lin Mae asked, “What about you?”

“I’ll keep us safe with this,” Wang said, holding up the black stone magnet.

William and Lin Mae raced up the winding wooden staircase inside the pagoda, multi-colored light from its stained glass windows washing over them. At the fifth floor William halted.