Ping tried to rush to Kai, but Tun and Jiang held her back.
“You have to stop him!” she yelled. Hei Lei dug his talons into Kai’s wound. The little dragon howled with pain. Hei Lei threw Kai again. This time his aim was better, and Kai screamed as his body was dashed against the rock. The pain weakened the shield around Kai’s mind. Clasping the dragon-stone shard, Ping saw into areas of his mind that she’d never had access to before. Reading his raw thoughts that hadn’t formed into words, she knew he’d broken a bone in his left foreleg. He sank back beneath the surface of the water with a groan.
Hei Lei waded around the pool. The more Kai evaded him, the more furious Hei Lei became. Ping realised that Kai had chosen to fight in the yellow pool for another reason. It was the healing pool. He had known Hei Lei would hurt him. He was gaining time, allowing the healing waters to soothe his wounds. But the yellow waters couldn’t mend bones, not in a few minutes anyway.
The surface at the other end of the pool rippled. Hei Lei plunged into the water. He thrashed about. Kai had lured him into the deepest part of the pool. Hei Lei tried to find a footing, but the water closed over his head. He flailed and splashed. He couldn’t swim. Kai dived under again. Ping knew dragons couldn’t drown, but Hei Lei hated the water. He was trying to stop himself from sinking. Ping couldn’t see Kai, but she knew he was darting around underwater like a fish, biting and scratching the black dragon as he floundered like a drowning man. Hei Lei finally found his feet and pulled himself into the shallower water again.
This time he used his huge tail to sweep the pool. Ping held her breath. The dragons’ attention was fixed on Hei Lei trying to find the little dragon. Kai could have hidden in the deep part of the pool where Hei Lei couldn’t reach him, but that wasn’t his plan.
Ping had penetrated the shield around Hei Lei’s inner thoughts as well. She glimpsed a young man and a younger black dragon on Long Gao Yuan. She grasped the shard with both hands. Her second sight was growing stronger. She saw deeper into Hei Lei’s mind. She knew why he hated humans so. Lao Longzi had told her about a young Dragonkeeper. He had been Hei Lei’s keeper. The black dragon had loved and trusted the young man. Together they had flown off on adventures that the other dragons disapproved of.
Hei Lei’s trust had been misplaced. His Dragonkeeper had left him, run away after a pretty young woman he’d met in an inn on one of their escapades. Hei Lei had learned that humans couldn’t be trusted. The betrayal had left him bitter. His anger had turned hard and sharp and had lodged in his heart like a splinter of steel. He’d decided that dragons were better off without humans. He couldn’t trust his Dragonkeeper to keep the secret of their hideout. He decided he had only one choice. He had tracked down his Dragonkeeper and killed him.
Ping was roused from this second-hand memory when the black dragon suddenly spoke.
“The contest is over,” he announced. “Proclaim my victory.”
The other dragons stood in stunned silence.
But Ping could read Kai’s thoughts. He wasn’t defeated, not yet. Beneath the surface of the water, he was calming himself, getting rid of his anger so that he could shape-change. He shape-changed into a rock and then slowly raised himself out of the water, a hairbreadth at a time. His movement was so slow that even the keen-sighted dragons didn’t notice it. When Hei Lei’s back was turned, Kai took on his true shape and pulled himself up onto the rocks on the opposite side of the pool. He made a rude sound with his lips that sounded like someone farting. He waggled his head and stuck out his tongue like a cheeky child. Hei Lei was incensed. The black dragon had many skills, but shape-changing wasn’t one of them. The huge dragon suddenly launched himself across the pool towards Kai. It was too far for him to leap and he didn’t want to fall into the water again. He unfurled his wings and flapped them once. The other dragons, who had been perfectly silent until now, all cried out together. Hei Lei had broken the rules of the challenge.
The black dragon fell on Kai, digging his talons into the little dragon’s neck. Ping shook off the other dragons and ran around the edge of the pool. This time no one stopped her. She launched herself at Hei Lei but he knocked her aside with a sweep of his tail as if she were no more than an irritating fly. Hei Lei still had Kai in his talons. But Ping’s charge had given Kai time to think. He suddenly shape-changed into a vase. Hei Lei wasn’t expecting it. The shock of unexpectedly touching a shape-changed dragon made men pass out, and though it wasn’t enough to knock Hei Lei out, it made him stagger. His grip on Kai loosened.
Kai ripped himself from the dragon’s talons, tearing his hide. He dropped to the ground, landing on all four paws. As soon as his paws hit the ground he ran behind Hei Lei. Blood was pouring from his fresh wounds, but he didn’t falter. The black dragon shook his head to clear away the dizziness.
Kai ran up Hei Lei’s huge tail and clambered up his back. The moonlight reflected off his scales in a way Ping had never seen before. The tips of the scales were glowing with a new iridescence, like the feathers of a peacock. They gleamed green, red, white, black and yellow. All the colours shimmered, even the black, which flashed like polished ebony. The dragons cried out in wonder. Ping couldn’t believe this magnificent creature was her own little dragon. She moved closer.
Hei Lei reared up on his hind legs and struck out with both front legs. But he couldn’t reach behind him. Kai clamped the talons of his hind legs around Hei Lei’s neck. No matter how much he shook his head or reared up, Hei Lei could not dislodge Kai. His front paws could swipe at him and his talons could dig into Kai’s hide, but he could do little more that scratch him.
“What’s happened to Kai’s scales?” Ping asked Jiang.
“He is a dragon of five colours.” Her voice was full of awe. “I have never seen one before.”
Hei Lei tried to reach Kai with a back leg, like a dog scratching its ear. Kai swung his weight from side to side to put him off balance, so that Hei Lei was forced to put his paw down to steady himself.
“What does it mean?” Ping asked
“Kai is born to lead,” Jiang replied. “If a dragon of five colours claims the leadership of a cluster, no one can challenge him.”
• chapter twenty-two •
RED DAWN
The little dragon’s sharpened talons glittered
in the moonlight, his iridescent scales gleamed.
Ping gasped in horror.
Kai was gloating over having got the better of Hei Lei, despite the blood pouring from his wounds. Ping was horrified by the blood lust she saw in his eyes. What the seer had said when he’d written out the final line of the divination flashed into her mind. “Read it only when you are faced with your greatest difficulty, when you experience your worst moment.” She’d thought her worst moment was when Tun had taken Kai away from Long Gao Yuan, but it wasn’t. This was it. Things couldn’t get any worse. Only if Kai died. And that could happen at any moment. Ping ran to her cave. She pulled everything out of the saddlebag. She found the calfskin crumpled at the bottom and opened it out with fumbling fingers. The six readings were on one side. She turned over the calfskin and read the single line of characters again. The ink strokes had faded over the months and she could barely make them out in the moonlight. A cluster of dragons without heads. Great good fortune. Ping angled the calfskin this way and that. The words still made no sense.
Kai could hurt Hei Lei but he couldn’t kill him. In the black dragon’s fury he might kill Kai and the other dragons. He might tear off their heads in his rage. But how could that be deemed good fortune? Ping remembered the terrible pile of bones at Long Gao Yuan. If Hei Lei killed them all, there would be no more dragons in the world. Surely that wouldn’t bring good fortune. She didn’t have time to ponder the details. It didn’t matter what the Yi Jing said, she couldn’t bear the thought of a world without dragons.
The other dragons were standing like statues on the rocks, watching the combat, but not daring to try and stop it. Ping ran towards the fightin
g dragons. Hei Lei was shaking his great head from side to side, roaring and raging, bashing his head against the rocks in an attempt to dislodge Kai.
Kai reached his front paws around in front of Hei Lei’s face. The little dragon’s sharpened talons glittered in the moonlight, his iridescent scales gleamed. Ping gasped in horror. She felt Kai’s pleasure as he dug his talons around Hei Lei’s eye sockets. Hei Lei cried out in pain and terror. Kai was about to rip out the black dragon’s eyes.
“Stop!” shouted Ping.
She stood in front of Hei Lei. The black dragon couldn’t see because Kai’s paws were covering his eyes. He reached out, feeling for Ping. She moved closer, within his reach. The black dragon grasped hold of her, digging his talons into her flesh. She cried out in pain.
“Ping.” She heard Kai’s voice in her head for the first time since the combat began.
“A dragon leader needs wisdom, not the ability to kill,” she said. “Get down, Kai. Hei Lei will release me if you stand aside.”
Hei Lei loosened his talons.
“But the challenge, I have to defend Father.”
“Forget the challenge. I would rather Hei Lei kill me than see another dragon die. You are so few. Every dragon is precious. Don’t do it for my sake. Do it for the Dead Ones. They wouldn’t want any more dragons to die.”
Kai unhooked his talons from Hei Lei’s face and climbed down the black dragon’s back.
Hei Lei put Ping down.
Ping turned to Kai, expecting him to be angry that she had prevented him from making his first kill, but the battle anger had drained from him. Weak from blood loss, he collapsed into the pool.
Ping waded into the water. Whether the pool was sacred or poisonous she didn’t know or care. She had to get to Kai. The young dragon floated on the surface of the yellow water. His scales had lost their iridescence. She took him in her arms.
Hei Lei’s huge body had sagged. The ring of puncture wounds around his eyes were bleeding. It looked like he was weeping tears of blood.
Ping could still see into the black dragon’s mind. She saw him killing his Dragonkeeper with one blow, so the young man died instantly. But there was something that he was still shielding—something even more terrible. Something he didn’t want anyone to know about.
Holding the dragon-stone shard, Ping saw through Hei Lei’s final shield to his innermost thoughts, a dark place full of despair. Killing his Dragonkeeper hadn’t been enough. Before he died, Hei Lei’s young Dragonkeeper had taken the woman up to Long Gao Yuan. He had shown her the hidden way up to the plateau behind the Serpent’s Tail falls. She had kept the secret for many years, but in her old age she had told a dragon hunter where many dragons could be found, in exchange for three pieces of gold.
The hunter hadn’t rushed up to Long Gao Yuan. He had laid his plan carefully. He sent messages to other dragon hunters he knew. They were rivals before, but with the prize of so many dragons in their sights, they agreed to band together.
Ping looked into Hei Lei’s eyes. The red glow had faded. The black dragon met her gaze. He knew that she had read his secret thoughts and bowed his head in acknowledgement.
“You are indeed a true Dragonkeeper. An exceptional one.”
His anger had been replaced by sadness. He had been so proud of his mischievous young Dragonkeeper. The only other Dragonkeepers he’d known were old and dull. He had loved his cheerful attitude, his playful pranks. The massacre at Long Gao Yuan was the fault of his Dragonkeeper. And he had chosen the man.
Tears filled Ping’s eyes, and they weren’t for Kai. She knew he was strong enough to survive his wounds. They were for Hei Lei.
Ping tried to lift Kai out of the water, but couldn’t. The other dragons gathered around. Tun came forward and pulled Kai out.
“Kai can walk,” the little dragon said.
Ping helped him to his feet. The dragon moon had disappeared from the sky. The day was dawning with a blood-red stain on the horizon. Slowly Kai limped along, his broken leg dragging behind him. He looked small and weary and wounded. His scales weren’t gleaming with the five colours now, they were dull. He didn’t look like a leader of a dragon cluster. Instead of returning to his bed in the main dragon cavern, he limped to Ping’s cave.
The other dragons wouldn’t enter. There was barely room for one of them anyway. They quietly brought things to the cave mouth for Kai—straw for a bed, animal skins, meat. Sha brought two of the jade healing stones from the treasure cave and Ping placed one at his head and one at his tail, just as the yellow dragon instructed.
“I’m going to light a fire,” Ping said. “I need to make a herbal remedy for him.”
None of the dragons objected. Ping lit a small fire and made staunchweed tea. She bathed Kai’s wounds with water from the healing pool. They were not as bad as she had expected. The yellow water had already stopped the bleeding and cleansed the wounds. Ping took out the remains of her nightgown, washed it in the yellow pool and tore it into broad strips. Then she bound them around Kai’s wounds. The one where Hei Lei had gouged a chunk out of his right flank would leave a nasty scar, but the other wounds would heal well enough. Then she set the broken bone in his hind leg and asked Sha to find a good straight stick to use as a splint. The young dragon understood her. Ping could speak to all the dragons with her mind now.
When the herbal tea was ready, she started preparing some broth with the meat that the dragons had brought, adding more medicinal herbs that she had picked on the plateau.
Ping sat at Kai’s side, spooning the herbal tea into his mouth. Sha poked her big yellow head into the cave.
“I would like to learn about human ways of healing,” she said. “I can see why dragons allowed humans to be their keepers long ago. Your hands are dextrous and you have useful knowledge of the world.”
Ping smiled at the shy dragon.
After Kai had eaten a little of the broth, he slept. Ping went outside and breathed the morning air. The sky was pink now. The other dragons had all gone to their caverns, except for Tun.
“Do you believe that Kai is your true leader?” she asked. It was the first time she’d spoken to him.
He nodded his great yellow head. “He is a dragon of five colours. No one can dispute it.”
“But he is too young.”
“He will not take on full leadership until he is 500 years old. Until then, the council will help him make decisions. Gu Hong will advise him. But his opinion will still carry the most weight.”
It was a great responsibility for such a small dragon.
Ping went back into her cave and lay down next to Kai. Her mind was swirling with thoughts. Kai had been arrogant, but he had survived. Why did the Yi Jing reading say there would be cause for regret? Kai had been revealed as the dragons’ true leader. Hei Lei had released the secret that had been poisoning him for so long. Kai’s arrogance had actually led to good things happening. Ping thought that her buzzing mind would prevent her from sleeping, but the terror of the night and the strain of reading the dragons’ thoughts had exhausted her.
When Ping woke, the morning was well advanced. Kai was still sleeping. It wasn’t until she had eaten a little food and made herself some ginger tea that she looked again at the crumpled calfskin. She could read the characters clearly now. She hadn’t made a mistake. In the daylight, the six characters were as she had seen them in the pale moonlight the night before. She sipped her tea. What a night it had been. Now she knew why it was so important for Kai to have come to the dragon haven. He was their leader, their future. Overnight, he had transformed from a juvenile green dragon to a dragon of five colours, the leader of the last cluster of dragons in the world.
Ping looked at the calfskin again. She hadn’t misread the characters, but she had misinterpreted their meaning. A character could have more than one meaning. Wu shou could mean ‘without heads’. It could also mean ‘without a leader’. A cluster of dragons appears without a leader. Great good fortune.
The
cluster had struggled without a leader for many years. They had become weak and purposeless. Now they had a future leader. That was good fortune.
Jiang was the only dragon who had emerged from the cavern.
“Where’s Hei Lei?” Ping asked. “I’ll tend to his wounds as well.”
“He has gone,” Jiang replied.
“Gone where?”
“He failed to defeat Kai. He also broke the rules of the combat. He has flown away to live alone. He’s too proud to live under Kai’s leadership.”
Ping found that this news didn’t give her any pleasure.
“Now we are eight again,” said Jiang.
Eight was a very inauspicious number.
For three days Ping cared for Kai in her cave. She made food and herbal remedies for him. She tended his wounds. She told him stories as she had done when he was a dragonling. The dragons visited one by one, sitting outside the cave mouth and speaking to Kai with their strange chinking sounds. Ping was relieved that she had employment again. On more than one occasion, she had to stop herself from feeling glad that Kai had been injured.
Ping hoped that the dragons would realise that she could be useful and allow her to have a role in the dragon haven. Perhaps they would accept her as a member of the cluster. She could communicate with all the dragons now. No other Dragonkeeper had achieved that. She liked the idea of having eight dragons to care for. As far as she knew, no other true Dragonkeeper had cared for more than one dragon. She would complete the nine.
On the fourth day, Kai got up and limped outside. The females chattered like starlings as he emerged. They each reached out to touch him. He went to the purple pool to wash. Then he spent the rest of the day moving from the yellow healing pool to the white rejuvenating pool.