'Yes,' Ting replied, taking the polearm and examining the red blade. 'Tomorrow, we shall find the intruder and finish the job.'
She glanced at Ju-Hai, then asked, 'I wonder why he picked tonight to come?'
'It is a moonless night,' Ju-Hai answered. He focused his eyes upon the dead guard, but was thinking of Wu. If she were wounded, she would need help and, come morning, protection. He had to leave Ting's house and assign a contingent of the emperor's guard to protect the Batu household. He stepped toward the gate. 'I should return home,' he said. 'My presence here tonight will generate quite a scandal.'
Ting signaled her guards to block the gate. 'I won't hear of it,' she said, eyeing Ju-Hai with an emotionless, calculating gaze. 'Whoever killed this guard is still free, and for all we know he was after you. You aren't leaving the safety of my house.'
'I really must return-'
Ting lifted her hand. 'I insist,' she said. Holding her jaw set firmly, she studied her mentor with narrow, menacing eyes. 'You will go nowhere until I find the intruder.'
11
On the Shengti River, as in the summer palace, the night was humid and black. Despite the warm drizzle, the General of the Northern Marches remained on deck with his ship's first mate. The wiry riverman hung over the gunwale with a lamp in his hand, watching the dark waters for any hint of trouble. The man's shirtless torso glistened with what might have been rainwater, but was more likely a nervous sweat. Periodically, he called out an instruction that another boatman promptly relayed to the helmsman.
The hull bumped something pulpy, and Batu inhaled sharply. 'What is it?'
When the mate did not answer promptly, Batu feared they had hit a sandbar. The summer flood season had ended two weeks ago, and the river had since returned to normal, exposing hazards that had not previously troubled the general's fleet. Already tonight, a dozen ships had run aground. Batu was beginning to regret his decision to continue up-river in darkness.
'What did we hit?' Batu repeated, laying a hand on the mate's bare back.
The man did not look up. 'I don't know, General, but there's no cause for worry. If it was anything dangerous, it would have slowed us down.'
The mate's reassurance did little to make Batu breathe easier. The moonless night was stifling and ominous, silencing even the owls that lived along the riverbanks. Only the sloshing of the fleet's oars disturbed the quiet.
Behind his own junk, Batu could see another dozen bow lights twinkling in the drizzle. An additional four hundred and seventy boats followed the twelve he could see, but the weather was so close that it obscured the rest of the fleet completely. Had the other ships not been behind him at dusk, the general would have found it difficult to believe that they were there now.
Two more pulpy thumps sounded at the ship's waterline. Swearing at the river dragon, the mate pulled himself back onto deck. His eyes were opened wide, and his face was as pale as ivory.
Another soft bump sounded against the hull.
'What?' Batu demanded. 'Is something wrong?'
The mate pointed at the river. 'Spirits. They're blocking the way.'
Batu took the man's lamp and peered over the gunwale. The smell of rancid meat assaulted his nose. He retched and nearly dropped the lamp. A bloated white form with stiff arms and puffy legs drifted into view. It bumped the hull and slipped away into the darkness as suddenly as it had appeared. Though he had glimpsed the figure for only a moment, the general had seen and smelled too much death to mistake it for anything but a decaying corpse.
Another half-dressed cadaver came into view, bringing with it the renewed stench of rotten flesh. Batu steeled himself against the awful odor and examined this body more closely. It had once been a woman, but the flesh was so gruesome and pallid that he could not say of what age or appearance. She lay tethered in a bed of dark weeds.
The vegetation alarmed Batu more than the dead woman. Pulling the mate back to the gunwale, he said, 'Weeds! It's getting shallow.'
The wiry man peered over the side, but remained unconcerned. 'The plants are nothing, General,' he said. 'This close to Yenching, the river is slow and broad. There are many weed beds, but they won't stop our junks.'
The boat pushed past the woman's corpse, but another came into view immediately. The mate tapped the gunwale like a drum, a gesture that supposedly attracted the attention of the thunder god Lei Kung, whose duty it was to escort reluctant spirits to the Law Courts of the Dead. 'It's the river spirits we must worry about,' the riverman said.
'Those aren't spirits,' Batu replied, waving a hand at the river. 'They're nothing but corpses.'
The shirtless man looked doubtful. 'Where'd they come from?' he demanded.
'Do you have relatives in Yenching?' Batu asked.
The mate raised an eyebrow. 'My father's brother lives there with all his children.'
'Then you don't want me to answer your question, especially if we are as close to the city as you believe.'
The man fell silent, considering the meaning of the general's words. Finally, he frowned and firmly clasped Batu's shoulder. 'If I say we are near Yenching, General, we are near Yenching. I just pray you remember these bodies when you catch the barbarians.'
Batu did not object to the mate's familiarity. Like the rest of the boatmen crewing the fleet, the man was a merchant sailor and lacked military discipline. Fortunately, the mate and his fellows made up in expertise for what they lacked in discipline. Counting the twelve junks that had run aground that night, the fleet had lost only seventeen ships and a handful of men.
Considering the circumstances and the pace of the last six weeks, Batu was more than pleased with his hired boatmen. For much of the journey up the Shengti, they had struggled against the heavy runoff waters from the distant mountains. To make matters worse, in order to hide the fleet from onlookers and spies, the wu jens from the High Ministry of Magic had kept it buried in a cloak of bad weather. Even with these precautions, the ships had often dropped anchor while the cavalry masqueraded as Tuigan scouts and drove riverside villagers from their homes.
Despite the hardships and delays, the rivermen had maintained a steady pace. Working in shifts and aided by Batu's soldiers, they had kept their boats moving twenty-four hours a day. Thanks to their skill and tireless effort, the general was arriving at Yenching nearly a week ahead of schedule. When he returned to the summer palace, Batu decided, he would recommend to the Divine One that he consider recruiting commercial boatmen as officers in the imperial navy.
The merchant rivermen were far more superstitious than their military counterparts. The first mate still had not returned to his post. Instead, he was casting frightened glances over the side and tracing mystic symbols in the air.
'The bodies in the river are just corpses,' Batu repeated. 'They're not going to hurt you. On the other hand, if we hit a sandbar or rock …' The general touched his sword hilt meaningfully.
The gesture reminded the riverman of his duty. 'Forgive me,' he said, resuming his position as guide. Batu stood nearby, eyeing the weed bed with as much suspicion as the mate eyed the corpses.
As the boat continued forward, the bodies came into view with increasing frequency. After several minutes more, it seemed the river was choked with corpses. The smell of rotten flesh grew stronger. Even Batu, who considered himself to have a strong stomach, found each breath a sickening experience. Several pengs came topside under the mistaken impression that the air would be fresher. Soon, the junk was buzzing with subdued discussions of the terrible smell and speculations as to why so many bodies were in the river.
