The Blue Mountain (The Forbidden List Book 2) Read online

  “Exactly. I want to go a little further. I want to get to one of the villages and talk to the locals, if there are any. We have to find out what is going on.”

  “Sounds dangerous,” Liu said.

  “Then the Emperor sent the right people, didn’t he?” Haung smiled. “We will have an apprentice Fang-Shi with us to set wards and keep us safe.”

  “I thought you were a Jiin-Wei? Why do we need a sorcerer with us?” Liu looked at Haung, the question clear in his eyes.

  “The apprentice needs the practice and with rank comes privileges.” Haung indicated the symbol on his uniform. “If I haven’t got to stay half-awake all night just to maintain the ward, I can get a good night’s sleep. The apprentice can suffer - it is what they are for I am told.”

  Liu stayed silent for moment and then said, “Fine. I’ll go and pack.”

  * * *

  The patrol party of fifteen left the wall gate at first light, just as the sun’s rays began to creep across the eastern horizon. Each man, in full armour, rode a horse and across the saddles were bags of supplies. Enough for three days, though the patrol was only intended to last for two. The margin for safety was standard practice in the army. It also lent a degree of flexibility. If we find anything, Haung thought, we can spend an extra day ensuring we have all the information we can gather.

  The normal patrols had found little in the past few months and the longer scouting patrols returned, if they did, with uncertain information. As the last horse passed through the gate it was slammed shut and the sound of a heavy wooden bar falling on the other side had the sense of finality about it. At the front of the column, the lead solider raised an arm in the air and signalled everyone forward. A loud groan sounded behind Haung and he turned in the saddle.

  “I wish I had a cure,” Haung smiled.

  “No cure except a lot more sleep and perhaps a jug of rice wine,” Gang responded.

  Haung shook his head. “Isn’t that the cause of your illness in the first place?”

  “So it is, but while I was drinking I felt fantastic. It was only when I stopped that I felt ill. Seems to me the solution is simple and logical, keep drinking and feeling good.” Gang smiled at his answer.

  Haung stared at Gang, whose smile only grew wider. “We have a long way to go today, just try and stay in the saddle.”

  The route out of the hills was slow, not much faster than walking pace, and there was little to see. They followed the only road through the rolling landscape and did not pass a single soul. The early morning sun rose over the hills, its heat burning away the mist that hung low on the ground, accompanied by the jingle of harness, the creak of leather, breath of horses and Gang’s complaints about the increasing brightness.

  By the midday stop for food, most of the soldiers had stopped listening to the famous warrior moan about his headache and formed their own little group, leaving Haung and Liu to put up with him.

  Haung hooked the feedbag onto his horse’s nose and let the animal eat first. He picked his own meal out of a saddlebag and chewed thoughtfully. For a long time this road had been subject to a mass migration of people, all fleeing an army that no one seemed to have seen. They had flooded into the Empire and to the major cities, especially Haung’s home of Yaart. Every bit of intelligence gathered by the Emperor’s services could shine little light upon it. There was definitely a large army out on the plains somewhere. Enough refugees from different areas had seen troops moving. Small bands admittedly, but so far apart that they must have been coordinated by someone, somewhere.

  “Captain,” Haung called out the troop leader, “how far to the nearest village, deserted or otherwise?”

  The soldier peeled away from the group and wandered over to Haung. “The first deserted one? We could reach that my mid-afternoon if we get moving soon. The first one not deserted? Well now, that is the question isn’t it? As far as the reports show, there isn’t one within a day’s march.”

  “And beyond a day’s march?”

  “The scouts have reported some activity in villages two days distant, but there is little information. They note is that the villages seem empty, but that the fields are being tended and they have seen folks in the fields.” The captain nodded as he spoke.

  “No-one has gone into the villages and spoken with the farmers?” Haung asked.

  “Not that we know of. We have lost a few scouts and, that being the case, we have little knowledge of where they went and who they spoke to.”

  “No patrols have gone out that far from the wall?” Haung looked down the road, towards the north and the rolling grassland plains.

  “Not that far, no. Do you know much about the Mongol people?”

  Haung turned to inspect the captain. An older man, the grey flecks in his hair, the lines around his eyes and weathered skin spoke of a career officer who had risen as far as his talent and connections would take him. “No, not very much.”

  The captain smiled. “Well, they are a mostly nomadic people. They herd cattle across the plains and their camps last only a week or two before they move on, sometimes less. Heard folks say that the Mongols live in the saddle. The villages you speak of are really just small settlements set up by some of descendants of Empire folk who travelled north, or were trapped behind the wall when it was built centuries ago. The nomadic Mongols use them as stopping-off points, a place to buy and sell meat, skins and furs. Think of them as trading posts that also do a little farming. Without the constant flow of people the villages won’t survive long.”

  “But they exist, these villages?” Haung asked.

  “Of course, just there aren’t as many as you’d think. It is a common thing. Folks from the Empire come up to wall thinking to make their fortune trading with the Mongols, except there are few places to trade. No point wandering out into the plains and seeking a tribe. They’d be likely to kill you before you could explain your purpose.”

  “They are not a friendly people?” Haung waved back towards the wall. “All those I met in town seem to be friendly enough.”

  “They’ve had to learn to be. They came to wall with nothing. The villagers and traders had nothing but the clothes on their back. The nomads had, if they were lucky, a tent or two plus some furs.”

  “What happened to their herds?” Haung asked.

  “They lost them. Most said a band of soldiers came out of nowhere, and you’ll know how hard that trick is to pull off once we get out onto the plains proper, and stole their cattle.”

  “They didn’t put up a fight?”

  “I’m sure some of them did. Most of the folks who turned up were women, children and the elderly. Some groups had men amongst them, but not as many as you’d think.” The captain shook his head. “The nomadic groups aren’t big. A few families, or even just one, that stick together and look after the herds. Those trading posts also provide a place to arrange marriages and deals between families. Most of them, least the ones we know about, are a kind of sacred ground to the Mongols. They don’t fight there.”

  “They fight elsewhere?”

  “Born for it, I think. They live, fight and, for all I know, fuck in the saddle. Each man has a few horses or he’s not considered a man. They are a tribal people too. If you know the villagers well enough, they’ll tell you about the battles fought between tribes and the grudges that outlast death.”

  “And we built the wall,” Haung said.

  “We built the wall,” the captain agreed. “Of course, it hasn’t been tested in centuries and maybe that’s the point. It does its job. The tribes used to gather together in the lean times and ransack the towns and villages in the Empire. The wall keeps them out and reminds them that our army is not too far away. They are much more concerned, these days, with fighting each other. What you have to remember above everything, is that the Mongols are not the Empire. These are not people who settle down, farm, mine and pay taxes. There is no government out there, no laws except those of tradition and the sword.”

  �
��So, how do you keep track them?”

  The captain turned a look on Haung that he found hard to read. “We don’t. It is why we don’t patrol further out than a day’s ride. No point. One day you’ll see,” the captain paused and then corrected himself, “you used to see a herd of cattle go past, east to west, or west to east, and the next it will be gone. The grass will be lower, but that will be the only evidence that any living soul had been there. A day’s patrol gives us enough warning to prepare on the wall, but there hasn’t been anything to worry about since before I was born. There is the occasional run in with a tribe, but nothing more than a few dead soldiers and Mongols. And we get on… got on,” the captain shrugged, “well with the trading posts. Up till the refugees started flooding south there was nothing to worry about. We patrolled a little further out in the early days, but in the end we had to pull back to the wall just to handle the influx of folks. Truth be told, I didn’t reckon there would be as many folks as have turned up, on the whole of the plains. Anyway, the scouts were always more reliable.”

  “Scouts? I have read the reports but not met one,” Haung said.

  “Solitary fellows, scouts. They spend weeks out past the wall. Many used to leave reports in the villages to be collected by others or brought in by traders. You won’t meet many of them.”

  “Thank you for the information. Do you think we could visit the village, the deserted one? I’d like to see what they look like and maybe get an idea of scale,” Haung asked.

  “Scale? Have you seen the maps of the plains? Not worth the paper they’ve been drawn on. Nothing to map except the odd river, and there aren’t many of them, and the villages. We don’t even know what is on the other side of the plains. No one has made it all the way across and back again to tell us. We know more about the islands to the south and the east of the Empire.”

  “But we can get to the village?”

  “It is your patrol. I am only here to keep the soldiers in line.” The captain smiled at Haung. “I’ll get the men ready. You think you can get Master Gang back on his horse?”

  “He got on it this morning without too many complaints,” Haung said.

  “That’s only because you don’t speak horse, Captain Haung. His horse was complaining more than Master Gang throughout the whole of the ride this morning.” The captain walked off with a wave and began to shout at the men, gathering them together and explaining the route.

  Haung looked around for Gang and found him lying on the floor. The sound of his snoring drifted over the grass.

  * * *

  “Captain Haung,” the patrol leader called out, “the village is just over the next rise.”

  “And this is the deserted one?” Haung pulled his horse up next the captain.

  “Of course. Still, we will go in with caution.”

  Haung nodded in agreement and trotted over to Gang and Liu. “We are going into the village in a few moments. Are you both coming?”

  Liu nodded and slid of the horse to land lightly on his feet. The tall man took his axes from the horse and hooked them onto his belt. Gang grumbled for a moment and then followed suit. His landing, against all probability, was gentler than Liu’s and he dragged his large hammer off the horse and rested it on his shoulder. It seemed to Haung that Gang’s horse stood up a little straighter.

  The patrol captain detailed two men to gather the reins of the horses whilst the others formed up. Three men were handed crossbows and made their way to the top of the rise where they laid down, peering over the brow and giving cover. The others gathered around the captain, checking their armour and weapons.

  “Corporal, as before, keep your group ten paces behind mine and be ready. I’ll have Captain Haung with me, and Masters Gang and Liu. The village has been deserted for months, but that’s no reason to get sloppy with procedure and tactics.” The assembled men nodded and separated into their assigned groups.

  Haung crested the rise and took his first look at the village. It was a bit of a disappointment and the captain’s descriptions of Mongol life came back to him. The village was small and linear, spread along the small valley floor between the two sets of hills. From his position on the hill, he could see the main building, the trading post, he guessed, in the centre. It was built of wood which must have been brought in from somewhere, perhaps the Empire itself, as they had passed few trees and certainly no forests on the way. Either side were large canvas tents. At least that is what they had been. None of them were still standing in any way that suggested they would be waterproof or fit for habitation. Unlike the square tents he had seen around Yaart, or the tents the soldiers used as temporary barracks, these were circular.

  “We’ll go down first, Haung,” the captain said. “The corporal will follow. I don’t expect anything to happen, but it keeps the men ready. If the village were inhabited, we’d probably go down in three groups. Just to be safe. The Mongols aren’t always friendly to large armed groups.” He waved Haung and the two fighters forward.

  “Captain, the tents. They look like permanent homes,” Haung said.

  “You’d be surprised. A Mongol could drop that tent inside an hour, pack it away and onto a horse or three and be gone. I’ve heard it only takes them two hours to rebuild it. The construction is incredible. I’ll show you.”

  The captain led his troop down the hill towards the closest tent. The door faced the south, the direction from which they were approaching, but the collapsed roof made it hard to see inside. The western side had fallen inwards but the curve on the eastern still stood and hinted at the true size of the tent.

  “A whole family of eight, or so, will live in one of these. When folks lived here, the floor inside would be covered with rugs, furs and skins. You’d find similar hanging on the walls. Even in the dead of winter you’d go into one and be sweating before you’d had a chance to say hello. In fact, we had some engineers out here one year to take a look at the construction. Not sure that anything happened with that though.” The captain shrugged.

  Haung pushed aside the torn fabric of the door and let in a little of the afternoon light. The smell of rotting cloth wafted up his nose, a sickly, damp odour. The centre of the tent had collapsed and he could not see across the whole width. The fire pit in the middle was barely visible under the fallen roof but to the right, where the roof rose up to meet the still upright walls he could see the rugs which covered the floor and a wooden chest. There was a thick wooden chair close to the chest, but little else of note. Whoever had owned the tent had clearly decided that the chair was no longer needed when they had cleaned out.

  “How long has this village been empty?” Haung asked.

  “About eight months or so, maybe nine,” the captain said. “Look at the inside walls. You see the wooden mesh? That’s what makes these tents so special and quick to erect. The walls are in sections that fold and squeeze down to almost nothing. Better than that though, you can see how, because they are made of thin slats that rotate around the screws that join them, the sections bend round forming the curve. I’ve seen them build a tent before, takes two people to bend the section and tie it to an upright but the walls are strong because of it.”

  “Interesting.” Haung ducked back out of the tent.

  “It is too easy to think of the nomads as simple folk, but they have some technology we could learn from.” The captain pointed towards the main building. “Let’s go and look in there.”

  “You sound like you admire them, Captain,” Haung said.

  “In some ways, I do. Life on the plains can’t be easy, but they have adapted to it well and I’ve never seen a folk fight on horseback so well. Even we, for all our technology and martial skills prefer to dismount to fight. Our horse cavalry units are only useful in open battle and our chariots are only good on flat ground. When they used to raid the Empire towns and villages, it was always in small bands, hitting quickly and fading away. We could never catch them, hence the wall.”

  “That sounds a lot like the attacks o
n the villages,” Haung said.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that lots of Mongols had joined the enemy. They have no reason to love the Empire and lots of reasons to settle scores amongst the tribes.” The captain looked at the village and the surrounding land. “Corporal, deploy the men to the perimeter. Let’s make sure we are not surprised by anything.”

  As the soldiers moved into position, the captain led Haung and the two masters over to the trading post. From the top of the hill it had looked a well-constructed, permanent building made of solid brick walls and a slate roof. Certainly, the upturned sweep of the roof was reminiscent of empire architecture. However, as they came closer, the truth became apparent.

  The bricks were not the industrially made, uniform bricks of the Empire. Instead, they were clearly hand made from mud and rough cut straw. Each one different to the next, the courses were uneven and the only evidence of mortar was a thin smear of mud. The wooden door frame looked as though it had been made for a different building and the roof was not smooth slate but painted canvas.

  “Mud is in plentiful supply round here,” the captain said.

  “It is not what I expected,” Haung agreed.

  “I think they used whatever they had to hand and easy to repair.” The captain stepped towards the doorway. “The family that owned this used to keep a stock of empire foods in, just for the patrols. Good people. I think they moved deeper into the Empire when they left. They certainly didn’t hang around.”

  “Captain.” The shout came from one of the troopers on the hill. Haung turned to look. The soldier was pointing over the roof of the trading post. A quick glance around showed Haung that the other soldiers had seen the cause for alarm. They were setting shields on arms, drawing swords, and readying spears.

  Haung ran towards the shouting trooper and, as he did so, heard the hollow sound of horses’ hooves pounding the ground. Gang and Liu moved as he did. The tall man drawing axes from his belt and Gang, hammer in both hands, moving to find enough space to swing. Ahead, the trooper sprouted feathered shafts and fell to the ground, crying out in agony.