Taming Poison Dragons Read Online Free Page B

throat. Our crowd throws the pursuing archers into disorder. Horses rear and collide in confusion, rallying round a flag bearing General An-Shu’s symbol. Though I protest that we should help the wounded, Eldest Son drags me away from the road, up the hillside, our silk robes tearing on thorns and brambles.
    I catch a glimpse of the mounted archers through the trees, milling in the road below. I know their kind from my youth. Barbarians, mercenaries from the steppes. They wheel and gallop back the way they came.
    I have failed. My attempt to purify the village an utter misfortune.
    Three children trampled by the mounted bowmen loyal to General An-Shu, and two peasants killed by their arrows. One of them was Wudi’s middle son. A boy who grew to manhood alongside my own. His loss pierces my heart.
    Worse must surely follow. The mounted bowmen abandoned their pursuit of the Imperial cavalry, perhaps believing the village ahead was hostile, and turned back to Chunming. If they tell General An-Shu that Wei is in revolt against his rule, we can expect swift reprisals. Of the Imperial cavalry, there is no news. They galloped further up the valley and disappeared, their presence a mystery in itself.
    From my room I hear faint cries and wailing in the village below. Perhaps the villagers hate me for my failure.
    Xia-Dong and Devout Lakshi made off as soon as General An-Shu’s horsemen fled. No one speaks to me or meets my eye. Oddly, only Thousand- li -drunk decides to stay, and goes so far as to beg an audience outside the gatehouse.
    ‘Lord Yun Cai should be happy!’ he cries, in his deranged way. ‘All the demons have left the valley. The ceremony was a complete success!’
    I regard him angrily. Is he mocking me? He winks.
    ‘Thousand- li -drunk knows more than you!’ he cries.
    ‘Lord Yun Cai will be glad of saving a certain officer’s life.
    All the demons are gone. Look around, can you see any?
    Ha! That is why Thousand- li -drunk is so happy!’
    ‘What is your real name?’ I demand. ‘Stop your games!’
    ‘Ah, no more games.’
    His glee hardens into a sly smile.
    *
    ‘General An-Shu will never become the Son of Heaven,’ he says, suddenly sober. ‘The people have not turned against the Emperor. The Mandate of Heaven has not been withdrawn from His Imperial Majesty. Remember that, in your dealings with the cavalry who escaped.’
    ‘Who are you?’
    Taking a grasshopper from his basket, he pops it into his mouth and slowly chews. Gathering his small bundle, he wanders off without another word.
    The wine-coloured light of dawn seeps through the shutters and paper curtains. My head spins from all I have drunk. Over half the jar still undrained. Yesterday seems far away – the horsemen and their cries, hooves sparking on the flinty high road, Wudi’s middle son falling, a feathered shaft protruding from his throat.
    I fumble into my outer garments and listen at the chamber door. No one hovering for a change, not even Daughter-in-law. I hide the wine jar behind a painted screen, in case someone punishes me by removing it.
    The short corridor to the back entrance is deserted. I hear arguing and urgent voices elsewhere in the house, but these fade as I slip the latch and step outside, hurrying along a path bordered by stands of sprouting bamboo.
    The path winds up towards our ancestral shrine, yet I will not go there. The dead stare as well as the living.
    Instead I follow a trail leading further up the valley, resolutely keeping my back to Three-Step-House and the village below. If I do not look they may as well not exist, for a moment, for eternity, such distinctions a dream. The path climbs round huge, lolling boulders whiskered with lichen, then crosses a stream over mossy planks.
    I pause, soothed by the trickling water as it runs over stones and trailing ferns. When I scoop a handful, it tastes cold, flavoured with peat.
    Further down the hillside, the path meets the road.
    Pines surround the highway,