I stood and noticed the quietness of the battlefield, save for the groans of the dying and injured. My party and Jengshen’s troops had overwhelmed what remained of the resistance.
After mopping up any surviving enemy troops, we searched the fort, and found the Emperor’s head alchemist locked up in a cage in a cellar. He was a tiny, rail-thin old man who looked like he was at least ninety years old, and his eyes were wide with terror. He took the note I handed him, stamped with the Emperor’s personal seal, with his skeletal, livers-potted hands trembling. After he’d read it, he beamed out a toothless smile and gave as low a bow as he could, his bent back creaking and his knees wobbling.
“God of Death, I owe you my life,” he croaked. “I am Wenxing, Head Alchemist to the Glorious Emperor of Yeng. According to this note from the Emperor, I am to give you anything you ask of me. So, God of Death, simply ask, and it will be so.”
“I need you to show me how to use those wolf’s head weapons,” I said. “And I need some of your gray powder.”
“Of course,” he said. “How much would you like?”
“All of it,” I answered with a grin.
Chapter Six
Wenxing chuckled heartily and shook his head, smiling. “You are very eager, God of Death! It is a blessing that you came to Yeng when you did. In all my long years, nearly one hundred of them, I have never seen such a period of anarchy and chaos as this. Indeed, it seemed as if the Emperor’s dynasty itself was on the verge of collapse, something unheard of in the history of this land. For saving us, you shall have your reward: all the gray powder you can carry, and these new weapons, which I was forced to make for Hengchun.”
Remembering that Hengchun had called me ‘God of Nothing’, I wanted to ask Wenxing a few questions about the warlord before we moved on to the weapons and powder.
“You were Hengchun’s captive for a few weeks. Did you ever see him doing any strange rituals with blood? In his raids, did he ever capture and kill young women?” I asked.
“He did capture many young women when he and his forces raided the countryside, yes,” Wenxing answered. “I don’t know what he did with them, though. He would take them away in the night, and I would never see them again. I shudder to think of what happened to those poor girls.”
The old alchemist had suffered enough trauma; he didn’t need to hear about how Hengchun had likely been slitting the girls’ throats and draining them of their blood. My suspicions had been confirmed: Hengchun had been in league with the Blood God. Now there was only one more thing I wanted to find out about Hengchun.
“Do you know if Hengchun recently sent any of his troops on a mission to Gongxiong Harbor?” I asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact he did, just a few days ago,” Wenxing answered. I don’t know what their orders were, but the troops disguised themselves as civilians and took a lot of gray powder with them.”
I chuckled dryly and shook my head.
“If I’d known a few minutes ago that it was Hengchun who’d sabotaged my ships, I would have made him die a lot more slowly and painfully,” I muttered.
“Sabotaged your ships?” Wenxing asked.
“Never mind. Come, show me how these wolf’s head weapons work.”
Wenxing struggled up the stairs and shuffled across the courtyard, surveying the scene of the battle. He saw the two halves of Hengchun’s corpse and spat on the ground, snarling.
“That evil creature should have suffered a far slower death than that,” he said. “But nonetheless, it is good that justice finally found him.” He shuffled over to the nearest wolf’s head and stroked the steel almost affectionately. “I hope that my creations did not kill too many of your troops, God of Death. At least now they will be used against evil men, not by them.”
“They took out a good number of the Emperor’s troops, but none of mine,” I said. “So, how do these mighty weapons work?”
“The principle is quite simple, but the secret to the weapons’ devastating power is in these red balls,” Wenxing answered. “Grey powder explodes inside the weapon, launching the red ball out. The explosion also sets off a reaction inside the ball, which consists of many layers. Each layer explodes in quick succession as the ball travels, creating a line of powerful explosions that can mow through a mass of troops. If it’s fired into something very solid like a thick stone wall, all the layers will explode together, creating an even more powerful explosion. To use the weapon, you pour a bag of gray powder in, then roll the ball down. After that a fuse is inserted, and the fuse lit to fire the weapon.”
“Or I could just use this,” I said, picking up Hengchun’s Fire spear.
“Yes, much faster than fiddling with fuses,” Wenxing said, nodding enthusiastically.
Yumo-Rezu walked up to us and gave Wenxing a polite bow.
“Wenxing, this is Yumo-Rezu, the Dragon Goddess.”
“It is I who should be bowing to you, Dragon Goddess,” Wenxing said, giving her as low a bow as his geriatric body would permit. “Truly, these are strange times when one of the ancient goddesses walks the earth again!”
“Speaking of ancient deities,” Yumo-Rezu said to me, “that’s the Fire God’s spear. It’s been lost for thousands of years, but Hengchun must have found it in one of his raids. It’s an extremely powerful weapon.”
“I discovered that firsthand,” I said, pointing at the twisted lump of molten metal on the ground that used to be a shield.
I talked more to Wenxing about the wolf’s head weapons, the red balls and gray powder, and he said he’d hand over all the gray powder in the Forbidden Palace to me, and show me how to
