The crawler was designed for desert maneuvers, with its treads set wide apart, the body slung low. As a result, it was ill equipped for use in the mazelike canyons that stretched beyond the defile and, worse yet for the soldiers, looked too wide even to fit through the passage itself. While it served to shield the marchers behind it from the Fists' snipers, when the crawler reached the defile, its usefulness would be at an end.
Then, of course, the Fists themselves would be put to the test. Which was what Gamine was afraid of.
In such close quarters, rifles would be of little use, and handguns fired on the run would only result in sending the people firing the weapons falling on their backsides. And so the Fists and soldiers alike would be forced to resort to bare hands, feet, and handheld weapons.
There were over two hundred Fists arranged on either side of Gamine on the far side of the defile from the soldiers. These men and women represented the best-trained fighters the Harmonious Fists had at their disposal, most of them battle-hardened miners, farm laborers, and former bandits, but more than a few erstwhile townsfolk and householders who had joined the Fists after hearing Gamine preach. Gamine couldn't help but wonder if any of them were counting on the powers to protect them in the coming battle, and whether she should say anything to them if they did.
A short distance off stood a dozen or so members of the Red Crawler Opera Company. Some held swords, or knives, or other more exotic bladed weapons Gamine could scarcely identify, while others leaned on staves taller than they were. Some carried no weapons at all but wound lengths of leather cord around their fingers, increasing the weight and impact of their clenched fists.
To the other side stood Jue, directing the snipers who now waited with ill-concealed anticipation, their fingers hovering on their rifles' triggers. A short distance off, Ruan spoke with a group composed of former bandits and rough-hewn miners, limbering their arms and legs, discussing some final points of strategy.
At her side stood Huang, his red saber drawn and in his hand, the late-afternoon sunlight glinting off the firebird engraved on the blade. Behind them were gathered dozens upon dozens of Harmonious Fists, looking to their two leaders for the signal.
The military crawler was almost at the defile. Any moment now, the soldiers would come rushing around it on either side, weapons drawn. Some would no doubt fall to sniper fire right away, from the guns positioned on either side of the passage. But the soldiers following behind, provided they moved fast enough, would be able to close the distance quickly enough to attack the snipers with swords and knives and keep them from firing again. Gamine glanced again at the steep cliff walls and wished for the hundredth time there had been a way to scale them and position rifles high overhead, but with the time and resources available to them, it simply hadn't been possible. As it was, the Fists could only hope to fell the first wave of soldiers before their snipers would be forced to put down their rifles and engage hand to hand like the rest of them. Then it would simply be a test of skill, number, and advantage. Did the Fists, a motley and ragtag group of men and women from all corners, trained ad hoc by runaway soldiers, former bandits, and exiled opera players, really have the skill necessary to defeat the soldiers? Or would the Harmonious Fists Uprising end here and now?
Gamine looked over and found Huang looking her way, a strange expression on his face. Then he reached over and threaded his fingers through hers.
“You ready, Iron Jaw?” he said, smiling. Only this time, when he used the name, there was no derision implicit, no mockery.
She smiled and tightened her hand around his. “I'm ready, Hummingbird,” she answered with a determined grim.
Huang nodded and, dropping her hand, turned to face the others. “This is the time, people. Stand ready. When the soldiers attack, don't wait for further orders, but do what you've been trained to do.” He glanced back at Gamine, asking with a look whether she had anything to add.
Gamine took a deep breath and straightened. “Brothers and sisters! Look what we have accomplished, these last seasons. Time and again we have harried the forces of Ouyangâdisrupting supply chains, preventing his ability to torment the mines and farms of the north. Those miners, those farmers, those laborers, they are our friends, our families, our sons and daughters and brothers and sisters. You have followed us this far. Think what more we can yet do, if given the chance. But to continue the struggle, we few must stand awhile, to give the rest of our people the chance to get to safety. We must stand awhile, and fight. And while we might ache, and while we might bleed, you should remember that the powers are always with us, and that with them on our side, we can never be defeated.”
Then, eyes flashing and hair streaming in the wind, Gamine raised her hand in a fist, high overhead. As one, all of those standing before her raised their own fists in response. For some, it was a salute; for others, an invocation for the powers; for others, simply a gesture of defiance to the authorities who had so long oppressed them. But whatever the significance to the individual, as a group they held their fists high and bellowed a loud, wordless shout of challenge to the approaching soldiers.
Gamine glanced over at Huang. He regarded her, his expression a strange mixture of sadness and respect, and then nodded. Turning to the others, he cupped his hands around his mouth like a trumpet. “All right then, you heard her. Let's
fight
!”
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The encounter was short, but it was bloody.
None of the soldiers in the platoons managed to make it more than a few steps through the defile. In the end, each of them had been brought down, whether by sword, or bullet, or knife, or staff, or punch or kick. None of them had succeeded in getting past the ranks of Harmonious Fists and pursuing the caravan into the Forking Paths.
But if the Fists had succeeded in stopping the soldiers' progress, it had come at a heavy price. Because few of the soldiers were felled by the first sword to be turned their way or the first punch thrown at them. These were professional soldiers, highly trained and well armed, and it did not take them long to realize that they were fighting not for the distant objectives of the governor-general and his cronies but for their very lives.
There were some eighty soldiers in all, and more than two hundred Fists standing ready to stop them. And when the last of the soldiers fell, more than half of the Fists had already gone down, never to rise again. Fewer than one hundred remained standing, when it was all said and done, and all of those bruised and bloodied, many of them severely wounded.
Ruan and one of the other former bandits had taken charge of securing the crawler, and after forcing the hatch had found only the driver within. When they emerged, grim and bloodied, Huang refrained from asking whether the driver had surrendered before they “did for him,” as Ruan euphemistically called it, or whether the driver had fought to the last. It hardly mattered, Huang supposed; they all had blood on their hands, one way or the other.
Since the crawler was too large to fit through the defile, Huang had ordered it driven into the passage, wedged between the cliff walls on either side, to block other, smaller vehicles from following. Then they had disabled the crawler's engine and smashed the axle underneath to pieces.
The soldiers they left lying where they'd fallen, but the Fists' own dead were gathered together at the center of the passage and arranged as neatly as possible; then Gamine read the funeral rites over them.
Huang, who had directed the efforts of the Fists throughout the battle, found himself almost completely incapacitated in the aftermath. He was not seriously wounded, having gotten only a few grazed knuckles and some shallow cuts and scratches, but his arms and legs felt like they were made of lead, and there was a gnawing pain at the pit of his stomach. He retched, leaning against the canyon wall and vomiting and vomiting and vomiting until there was nothing left to come back up, and then was wracked with dry heaves until he thought his abdomen must be a single giant bruise.
His hands were dirty, caked with the red sands, but were surprisingly free of blood. He realized that it would be perhaps more fitting if they were stained red, like a character in a revenge drama in one of the Red Crawler Opera Company's performances. Then those around him would be able to see externalized the mark that Huang now felt darkened him from within.
He had killed before, of course. Since the night when his hesitation had cost Zhao his life, Huang had never shrunk from taking another's life, if it meant preserving his own life or those of his friends. He had in the past year defeated any number of soldiers in single combat, had fired off detonators when Bannermen were close enough to be caught in the blast, and on, and on. But those had been one or two deaths at a time, half a dozen at the most, and each time Huang had felt the sting of those deaths just as keenly, and had been forced to spend long nights reminding himself that the safety of his friends was worth the cost, however high.
Now, though, Huang was forced to revisit the equation, and had difficulty making the cost balance the gain. Thousands of the Harmonious Fists would sleep in safety tonight, hidden within the mazelike canyons of the Forking Paths, because he and the others had prevented the platoons from following. But not only had their safety been purchased at the price of the soldiers' lives, all eighty of them cut down in an afternoon, but the lives of more than one hundred Fists had been paid in the bargain. More than one hundred Fists, representatives of the same people whom Huang had dedicated himself to protecting. But in leading them in this charge, he'd not done well by that one hundred, had he? How well had Huang managed to protect
them
?
Huang struggled to regain control of himself. He dusted his hands on his trousers and straightened. Gamine was concluding the funeral rites for the fallen, and the others were preparing to move out. With luck, they would catch up with the rest of the caravan by morning, and then they could get busy finding a more secure hiding place, one that would be more permanentâat least until the military found them again.
Standing and listening to Gamine, Huang was surprised at how level and confident her voice was. She stood straight, her gaze level and her voice strong, and seemed to bear no ill effects of the carnage they'd just witnessed.
When she had finished, she turned and caught Huang's eye, and gave him a wide smile. Huang did his best to smile in return, but the most he could manage was something nearer a grimace.
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A few days later, while the others busied themselves establishing some kind of order in the campânow set up in a box canyon with high, steep walls, hidden at the center of the Forking Paths labyrinthâGamine sat in the command center, lost in thought. Before going off to supervise the Fists establishing a picket around the canyon's entrance, Huang had asked the other members of the inner circle to convene after the midday meal, but so far Gamine was the first and only one to arrive.
Never simple or straightforward, her relationship with Huang had been even more strained than usual these last days. Ever since rejoining the caravan after the encounter at the defile, Huang had been withdrawn, sullen, slow to respond when she addressed him and silent when she didn't. Given that their normal mode of interaction, at least in close company, was sniping and bickering, she hardly minded the change. But he had pulled away from her in the night as well, sleeping well over on his side of the bed, making no advances on her and rebuffing any advance she made. And without the heat and exhaustion of passion, there were no quiet, tender moments to follow, and no baring of souls and sharing of thoughts. Gamine felt more alone than she had since the days before she met Temujin, when she had been forced out into the streets of Fanchuan, friendless and abandoned.
Now she had thousands who hung on her every word. And, with the success of the past days, her followers were even more convinced that she was anointed by the powers. Certainly the Fists were grieved by the loss of a hundred of their brothers and sisters, but the fact that their two leaders, Hummingbird and Iron Jaw, had escaped the encounter unscathed served as inescapable proof of their beliefs.
And did it? Gamine couldn't help but wonder. She was not invulnerable, of course. It was ridiculous to think otherwise. She could fall and be hurt just like any other young woman. But even with years of self-defense training by the tutors of the Chauviteau-Zong household, she was ill prepared for actual combat, so how had she managed to make it through a pitched battle against professional soldiers with scarcely a bruise or scratch to show for it?
Had Wei been right all along?
Were
there powers who spoke to and through her, and who shielded her when her cause was righteous?
Her train of thought was interrupted when the hatch opened, admitting a shaft of blinding light and a cloud of dust. Then Temujin stumbled in and closed the hatch behind him.
“Drunk already, old man?” Gamine said, a touch of scorn in her voice.
Temujin shook his head, and a smile peeked from behind his mustache. “Not yet, more's the pity. I'm sorry to report that one of the casualties of the recent unpleasantness has been our supply of wine, inexpertly stowed in a rush by lackwits and nick-ninnies who wouldn't know a good job of packing if it crawled up and bit their privates clean off. So in our mad dash from ravine to canyon, the jars were jostled and tossed rather too violently, and as a result the whole of our wine supply ended up as nothing but a few bits of broken crockery and a mess of soggy straw.” He slumped his shoulders and let out a ragged sigh. “Oh, by the Eternal Blue Sky, what I wouldn't do for a
drink
.”