happening so fast that Chang must choose blindly where to parry—and with the short-bladed knife, there was not the slightest margin for error. He would have to make one parry—he could not hope for more—and then dive forward, slashing and stabbing before the soldier could land a second blow.
Chang stepped forward until he was just at the far reach of the saber, the hunting knife held before him. “You will have much to answer for with these villagers.”
In response, the man feinted once at Chang's legs and then hacked upwards at Chang's face. Chang stopped the blow but was caught flat-footed by its strength and could not charge. The man swung again, this time the overhead slash that Chang had dreaded. Chang moved his knife and felt the ringing of steel at his correct guess. On sudden impulse, he twisted his wrist. The brass hilt of the hunting knife pinned the saber blade and for just an instant held it fast. The soldier grunted in anger and ripped the saber free, but Chang followed the saber as it pulled back and sent the tip of the hunting knife lancing straight for the soldier's eye. At the last moment the man's left hand seized Chang's wrist and the knife went wide. Chang lowered his shoulder and tackled his opponent to the ground.
The soldier landed hard but flailed his sword's brass pommel into Chang's back. Chang swore aloud and clubbed his forearm across his opponent's throat, but then let pass the chance to bring the hunting knife down into the man's heart. He knew he should take him alive— as proof to the village and to learn their true peril—so instead snapped his fist into the soldier's face. The brass guard left a cruel red mark, but to Chang's surprise the soldier arched his back and flipped Chang over. The man clawed to get away. Chang seized his boot and dropped him facedown in the leaves. He stabbed the knife at the back of the man's knee, but the soldier rolled again and the edge cut across his leather boot. Chang snarled with frustration, aching to simply kill the man, and chopped the hunting knife at the soldier's ribs, hoping for a bloody wound that would break his spirit without piercing any organs. But the soldier stopped it with a desperate parry, the metal ringing through the trees. Both pulled free—Chang on his knees, the soldier on his back—gauging their next blows. But Chang knew he had his opponent. As soon as the soldier swung, Chang would deflect the blade and leap forward, the knife against the man's neck. As if he too was perfectly aware of his peril, the soldier cried out with effort, sweeping the saber with all his strength at Chang in a wild slash. Chang threw himself just clear of the blow, ready to attack—but his rear foot slipped straight over the edge of a five-foot drop. The rest of him followed, landing only to roll through fallen branches and leaves for another ten yards, where the woods began to give way to the sea.
Chang shook his head and looked up. There was no sign of the soldier.
CHANG STOPPED, bent over and gasping. The leaves had given way to a muddy clearing spattered with prints. He saw one line of hooves, and then—wide apart and deep, as if made at a run—the prints of a man. Was the soldier trailing his own horse? They would worry for him back at the village, no doubt, but the man's knowledge was too great a danger. Chang paused long enough to drink muddy water from the pooling bootprints.
He had followed as quickly as possible, hoping the man had lost his horses, or lost enough time in recovering them to allow Chang to catch up. By the time Chang was sure the soldier had regained his mount, the village was far behind him. He recalled from Svenson's torporous talks with Sorge after supper that the next town to the south, Karthe, was a mining settlement, with a distant spur of the train line. If the soldier was part of a larger force, their search would be headquartered there. It was also possible, given the town's isolation, that the trains ran on an irregular basis. If so, Chang might catch up with the soldier in town—no matter if he'd arrived a day earlier by horse— and take him, along with whatever fellows were there, before the news could spread south to their masters.
The forest gave way to tall grasses and hard, gnarled shrubs. The land began to rise, and Chang reached the tall blackened rocks as darkness fell, deciding it would be as good a place as any to stay the night—continuing on was idiotic, given his eyesight and ignorance of the area. He'd no means to make a fire, nor food to cook. Chang curled himself to the most wind-protected nook of rock. He stared up at the sky, starless, shrouded in black cloud, waiting far too long for sleep.
When he woke the ground was wet with dew. Ten minutes after opening his eyes Chang was on his way.
IT TOOK him another day to reach Karthe. There had been no further signs of the soldier, though as he had spent so much time cutting across open country and then still more lost amongst identical piles of rock, this was no surprise. Chang trudged up the last turn of the road into the town, assuming the worst, that his enemies would be fully prepared and waiting for revenge.
Chang's battered red coat blended in with the brown dirt road and the grey rock houses, rendering him all but invisible in the twilight. The doors of Karthe were closed and its shutters drawn. As he stalked its length Chang heard snatches of talk, the ringing of pans, the high voices of children, but everything remained hidden behind layers of wood and stone.
He passed the village's only inn—a ramshackle wooden building that filled Chang with a palpable longing for a bed, warm food, and several pints of ale—in favor of going directly to the train. Knowing whether the soldier had already escaped would dictate everything.
He looked up at the sound of footsteps and saw a young boy in a pale canvas coat racing toward him without heed.
“You! Boy!”
The boy stopped short, eyes widening at Chang's appearance, and began to edge backwards. Chang calmed him with an open hand.
“I am a traveler in need of the train. Where is the train yard?”
The boy backed up another two steps and pointed over his shoulder, to where the road wound from sight beyond the last few buildings.
“When did the last train leave—to the south?”
“Not for these two days.”
“Two days? You're sure?”
The boy nodded, his eyes darting between Chang's red coat and his black glasses.
“And when is the next?”
“This night, sir. As soon as they finish loading the ore—it'll be some hours.”
Chang looked behind him, back toward the inn. It could not be more than five o'clock now, by the light. Would the soldier be there?
“Where were you running—”
But the boy had dashed back to where he'd come from—a tall wooden structure that from its wide, high double doorway must be the village stables. One door was open, yellow lantern light pooling through it across the muddy yard. Chang strode after him. If he did not need to reach the train at once, the stable was an excellent way to discover if the soldier had arrived by horseback, and if he might have any companions with him at the inn.
THE BOY was nowhere to be seen as Chang walked in, one hand loosely on the hilt of the hunting knife in his belt, though he could hear scuffling from a tack room in the rear. The last stall held a white horse he knew he'd never seen. The horse snorted, sensing his gaze, and pawed the straw. It was obviously spent, still wet with perspiration, nostrils pink and flaring, and shifting its feet with an unsettled, stumbling fearfulness. Was the animal ill, or had it been driven mad from mistreatment? Chang stepped away, uncomfortable as ever in the presence of infirmity, and crossed to the tack room.
The boy he'd seen in the street stood in the doorway. He looked up to Chang as he entered, his face already turned to a grimace of nausea. Curled at his feet lay another groom—breath ragged and face pale—the planking before him pooled with vomit. Near the stricken groom's hands—shaking and compulsively clutching together—lay a dagger-sized spike of blue glass.
Chang took the young boy's shoulder and turned the boy's face to his.
“What is your name?”
“Willem, sir.”
“Willem, your fellow is sick from that piece of glass. Bring me water.”
Chang scuffed a wad of straw into the vomit with his foot and stepped carefully around it, scooping up the groom and dragging him to a rolled straw pallet, which lay beneath a row of pegs dangling bridles and stirrups. Chang very carefully picked up the wedge of glass and laid it on the seat of a wooden stool. Willem reappeared with a wooden bucket and a cup. Chang dipped the cup and without ceremony splashed the water in the older groom's face, then refilled the cup as the man coughed and snorted.
