Kai didn’t need to be entertained as he had when they’d travelled in a carriage before. He didn’t ask to play games. When he wasn’t speaking, he seemed content to look out of the window. Ping was pleased they were making such good progress. After putting off the journey for such a long time, she was eager to find the dragon haven as soon as possible. At this rate they would reach the area where Long Dao Xi was marked on the map in a week or two. She hadn’t wanted to travel in a carriage, but now she appreciated the speed with which the landscape was slipping past her window.
During the afternoon, the sun made Ping pleasantly warm. The motion of the carriage was soothing. She was dozing off when Kai jumped to his feet.
“Stop the carriage!” he shouted.
The driver couldn’t understand the dragon, but the sound of crashing copper bowls that he made was so alarming that he stopped anyway. He reined in the horses so suddenly that Ping slipped off her cushion onto the carriage floor.
“What’s the matter, Kai?” she said. “We’re not due to stop to eat for hours yet. Do you need to pee?”
Kai pointed a talon into the distance. One of the soldiers opened the carriage door. The dragon leapt out and ran off across the plain.
“What’s wrong with him, Madam?” said one of the soldiers. “Is he injured?”
“He’s seen something.” Ping scanned the landscape. “Dragons can see much further than we can.”
Danzi had told her that dragons could see a mustard seed from 100 li away. She could see nothing but tussocks of dry grass, but she got down from the carriage and hurried after him. Kai stopped at a particular clump of grass about half a li away. It looked the same as all the others.
“There’d better be a good reason for making us stop,” Ping said. She was out of breath. She’d done a lot of things during her time at Beibai Palace, but none of them involved running. “If I find out it’s just a lizard or a coloured stone, I’ll—”
Ping’s words died in her mouth. There was something behind the tussock. It was a body, a twisted corpse lying face down in the dust. An arrow was sticking out of its thigh.
Kai made sounds like a cracked bell.
The soldiers came up behind them. “We’ve seen quite a few bodies since we left the palace,” one of them said. “Why is he so concerned about this one?”
“Turn the body over,” she said to the soldiers.
The soldiers looked at each other dubiously, but did as Ping asked them. She knelt down next to the body. The face was cut and swollen, caked in dust. There was an old scar that cut through the right eyebrow.
The soldiers stood staring at the dirty, blood-stained body.
“He’s past help,” one of them said. “The burial squad will find him eventually.”
The man was wearing the red leather tunic and leg guards worn by all imperial guards. His chariot would have been marked with red bat and blue crane symbols. His horses would have had yellow plumes on their bridles. There should have been mounted soldiers surrounding him, carrying yellow banners proclaiming his rank, but they were nowhere to be seen. There was nothing to distinguish him from any common soldier.
“Don’t you know who this is?” Ping said.
The soldiers shook their heads.
Kai squatted at her side.
“Lu-lu,” the dragon said softly. “It’s Lu-lu.”
Ping nodded. “It’s the Emperor.”
• chapter five •
HEALING
His right hand was clasped around something.
It was encrusted with dried blood and dust.
Ping remembered the last time she’d seen the Emperor, and hatred seethed inside her like coiling snakes. He had ordered her execution. But worse than that, far worse, was his cruelty to Kai.
“Poor Lu-lu,” Kai said.
“How can you feel sorry for him?” Ping touched Kai’s shoulder. “Did you know it was the Emperor when you saw his body?”
“Didn’t know. Kai saw what he was holding in his hand.”
Ping knelt at the Emperor’s side. His right hand was clasped around something. It was encrusted with dried blood and dust. Even up close, Ping hadn’t noticed it. She reached out and touched the Emperor’s hand, and then pulled away again as if she’d been stung by nettles. After a few moments, she reached out again. This time she uncurled the Emperor’s fingers one by one so that she could take the thing he was holding. It was thin and just a few inches long. It could have been the end of a spear or a fragment of clay pot, but when Ping wiped it with her sleeve, its true colour was revealed. It was purple and as shiny as if it had been made from some sort of gemstone. It was a shard of dragon stone, a piece of the egg from which Kai had hatched.
She looked at the Emperor’s dirty, bruised face. He had been her friend once, but he had betrayed their friendship. She could have easily walked away and left him for the burial squad. It was what he deserved. But she knew she’d regret it if she did.
Ping grasped the arrow sticking out of the Emperor’s thigh and pulled with both hands. She could feel the flesh resisting. The soldiers watched in horror, wondering what sort of person would pull an arrow from a corpse. The barbed head of the arrow was designed to penetrate flesh, not to be pulled out. Ping took her bronze knife from her pouch and made an incision in the Emperor’s leg. Dark blood oozed from the wound. As she drew out the arrow, a low groan escaped from the Emperor’s mouth. Ping threw the bloody arrow aside, undid the Emperor’s shoulder buckles and pulled off his leather armour. She slit open his clothing, revealing his other wounds. The spear wound in his stomach was the worst. It was deep and ugly.
“Did Ping know Lu-lu was still alive?” Kai asked.
Ping nodded. “I knew when I took the shard from him. His hand was warm.” She turned to the dragon. “You didn’t know?”
“No.”
Ping looked up at the soldiers. “We must carry him back to the carriage.” She instructed them to cut down a small, dead tree and make a stretcher. She was getting quite used to ordering soldiers around.
The driver was still staring at the gaping wound. He was young and had probably never seen a spear wound before.
“Find some staunchweed,” Ping said. “Pick as much as you can.”
“I … I don’t know what it looks like,” he stammered.
“Kai will show you.”
The driver looked at the dragon doubtfully.
“Hurry,” Ping shouted.
Kai ran off and the soldier followed him. Ping was glad she had learned the uses of herbs from the Duke’s herbalist and taught Kai to recognise some.
“Be gentle,” Ping said, as they lifted the Emperor onto the stretcher, then stumbled over the uneven ground. They put him down next to the carriage.
She turned to the soldiers. “Light a fire. Heat up some water.”
The soldiers hurried off to collect firewood. Ping filled a cup with wine, supported the Emperor’s head and dribbled the liquid into his mouth.
The soldiers built a small fire, and placed a pot of water on top. As soon as the water was warm, Ping cleaned the Emperor’s wounds. She found her jar of red cloud herb ointment and smeared the sticky balm over the gashes on his face, arms and legs. When Kai and the driver returned with the staunchweed, she packed the wounds with some of the leaves. The rest she threw into the pot of hot water—tea made from the herb helped keep fever at bay. Ping hadn’t expected to need knowledge of healing herbs on the second day of their journey. She pulled the nightgown from her bag, and tore it into strips which she used to bandage the Emperor’s wounds.
When the tent was erected, the soldiers gently moved the Emperor inside. Ping put one of Kai’s cushions under his head and brought rugs from the carriage to cover him. She sent the soldiers off to hunt for food, and they soon returned with a rabbit and a pheasant. The driver made stew with the meat and flavoured it with kitchen herbs that Kai had found. They ate the meal in silence.
A cough woke Ping during the night. She knew
it was neither of the soldiers. Even though one of them was supposed to be on guard at all times, they were both snoring outside the tent. The driver was asleep in the carriage. Kai was sleeping as well. Ping threw off her bearskin and went over to the Emperor. He coughed again. She lifted his head and gave him some of the staunchweed tea sweetened with a little honey. He swallowed and opened his eyes. Ping wasn’t sure whether she was pleased or disappointed that he had revived.
“Are you dead too, Ping?” he asked.
“No,” she replied sharply. “Neither of us is dead.”
He tried to turn his head to see where he was, but even such a small movement made him groan with pain.
Ping looked at his bruised and bloodied face. He would have other scars to go with the familiar one that cut through his right eyebrow. His hair was hanging on his shoulders in tangled clumps. He didn’t look at all imperial. She could see conflicting emotions in his dark eyes—pain from his wounds, relief at being alive, confusion at finding himself with his head resting on her lap.
“Have you saved my life, Ping?”
“It wasn’t me who found you. It was Kai.”
“Kai,” he whispered.
He drank more tea and sank into sleep again.
Ping stayed awake.
The first time she’d met the Emperor on the banks of the Yellow River, he had been a cheerful boy of 15 years. They had become good friends and she was truly sorry when she had to escape with Danzi against the Emperor’s wishes. The second time they met, circumstances were different. She was under arrest for stealing the imperial dragon. It was less than a year later, but the Emperor had changed. He’d become preoccupied by a desire to live a long life. That desire had gradually become an obsession to live forever, at whatever cost—even if the cost was Kai’s life. All his energy had gone into working with scientists and shamans to bring this about. But their schemes and elixirs had produced the opposite effect. Beneath the grime of war, his hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes made him look much older than his 17 years.
Later in the night, the Emperor woke again and told Ping what had happened. After his defeat, the Xiong Nu had allowed him to retreat until he was far ahead of his troops. Then they had circled around him and his squad of personal guards. There were only six barbarians against his 20 soldiers, but his men were confused by the enemy’s constant circling. They had been taught to shoot while on one knee. This technique wasn’t very effective against a moving target. One by one the Xiong Nu had picked them off. The Emperor had been forced to flee with the only two guards who had survived.
“My driver was dead,” he told Ping. “I drove the chariot myself. They shot me in the leg. I couldn’t even stop to remove the arrow. I forced the horses to gallop for hours until I was sure I had left the barbarians behind.”
He paused to catch his breath; just speaking about his ordeal tired him. “But they followed me. They shot at my exhausted horses, killing one of them. The other horse kept running. The chariot overturned. I was tangled up in the wreckage and dragged along the ground. When the horse finally stopped, they speared me to finish me off.”
“Didn’t your men come to your aid?” Ping asked.
The Emperor made a small movement with his head.
“I watched them flee. At first I thought they had gone for help. After a time, I realised no one was coming back for me. They had left me to die. I found the strength to stand, and stumbled in a direction I hoped was away from my enemies. But I had lost too much of my life’s blood. I don’t remember falling.”
He looked at Ping.
“The next thing I knew, you were at my side.”
Ping avoided his eyes. She didn’t want to feel sorry for him. She scooped up a cup of broth from the stew that was still warm over the dying embers of the fire. He couldn’t sit up. She had to support his head and hold the cup to his mouth.
Kai turned over in his sleep.
“I’m sorry for what I did to Kai,” the Emperor said. “And to you.”
Ping finally looked into his eyes. “You’re sorry now as you lie here in the darkness, far from your servants, close enough to death that it might still reach out and take you.” Her bitterness spilled out. “You won’t be so repentant when you return to your imperial life.”
She waited for anger to flare in his eyes. It didn’t. He winced as a salty tear ran into a gash on his face.
Ping remembered how he had bled Kai until the little dragon was too weak to stand, just so that he could use the dragon blood in his elixir of immortality. She remembered his eyes as he blamed her for everything that he had brought upon himself.
“I don’t believe you can change that much. You are the Son of Heaven, everyone bows to your will. You tax your subjects heavily to pay for your search for immortality, even though they’re already struggling to feed their families because of the lack of rain. You think you have the right to use people as if they are tools, then you throw them away like broken arrows.”
Most people were forbidden to speak directly to the Emperor. Speaking to him in this way could have resulted in a death sentence—if there had been anyone to hear. She waited for him to defend himself. He said nothing.
“The people of the Empire are your subjects, but to get the best out of them you must treat them well. Even the humblest gardener knows that he has to feed and water his plants to make them thrive. Give them any less than what they need and they’ll yield less fruit. If you want your people to serve you well, you must nurture them—with food and with thanks. Punishment and ill-treatment will never make them achieve their best.”
The Emperor licked his dry lips before he spoke.
“Before I woke, I was dreaming of a golden dragon descending from the sky to take me to Heaven. I would be dead if it weren’t for you, Ping. My search for immortality was pointless. Heaven decides the time to live and die—even for me. I am truly sorry for what I did to you and Kai.”
Ping’s raised voice had woken Kai. He got up to pee and then came over to see how the Emperor was.
“Lu-lu looks better,” the dragon said, making happy tinkling sounds.
“Can you forgive him after what he did to you?” Ping asked.
The dragon nodded his head. The Emperor couldn’t understand the dragon’s sounds, but from Kai’s soft tone and the look in his brown eyes, he knew that he had been forgiven. Kai yawned and went back to his bed.
Ping turned the dragon-stone shard over in her hands. She had washed it and it shone in the lamplight.
“Why were you carrying this?”
“I thought it would bring me luck,” he said.
A mirthless smile twisted Ping’s mouth. “It didn’t.”
She felt the sharp end of the shard with a fingertip.
“I don’t expect you to forgive me, Ping,” the Emperor said. “Not yet anyway.”
He reached out and took her hand in his.
“The shard did bring me luck. I am alive and I have changed. If Heaven grants me a safe return to Chang’an, I will abandon my quest to live forever. I already have. I am content with however many years of life Heaven chooses to give me. I will call back the expedition searching for the fungus of immortality. All my attention will be on ruling the Empire well, for the good of all my people.”
Ping pulled her hand from his and checked the bandage on his leg wound.
“I hope that in time, when you see that I have truly changed, you will forgive me. Death has breathed in my face. I have learnt the value of true friendship. It is precious. I won’t discard it again. Not ever.”
“You’ve given me your friendship before and then snatched it back.”
“I’m offering you more than friendship, Ping.”
She put fresh staunchweed on his stomach wound.
“I don’t want an imperial position, it’s not my destiny.”
The Emperor smiled. It made his lip crack and bleed.
“I’m not offering you a job either. I’m offering you my heart.”
 
; Ping looked at him in surprise.
“You are strong and good,” the Emperor said. “The only true friend I’ve ever had. Will you come with me, to be at my side for life—however long that might be?”
Ping tried to hold on to her hatred, but she couldn’t stop images forming in her head—of the time she had spent with Liu Che at Ming Yang Lodge. He was just a boy then, with a beautiful smile and eyes that sparkled with the pleasure of life. They had walked together as the petals of spring blossom drifted in the breeze. He had given her unexpected friendship, something no other person had ever given her before then. For the first time, she admitted to herself that her feelings for the Emperor had been more than friendship. Now he was offering her a place at his side. Not as an Empress, of course—an ex-slave could never sit on the imperial throne—but he was offering her his love for his lifetime.
She gently squeezed his hand and smiled at him for the first time in a long while.
“Once I would have been filled with joy at such a proposal,” she said softly. “I did love you once, Liu Che, but not anymore. I can never forget what you did to Kai. I am taking him away from the world of men. You might no longer wish him ill, but there will always be others who do.”
“Isn’t it time you did what you want to do, Ping? Haven’t you served others long enough?”
“This is what I want to do.”
“Are you refusing my offer?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t argue. He closed his eyes. The conversation had drained away the little strength that he had. He slept. Ping felt suddenly very tired. It was not long until dawn, but an hour or two of sleep would be better than none. Kai’s scales were glowing faintly in a band of moonlight. She went to him, touched his scales gently and he stirred.
“Is Lu-lu all right?”
“Yes, he’ll get well again.”
Kai turned over and went back to sleep. Ping pulled her bearskin around her. Sleep dragged her into unconsciousness, like the powerful pull of the tide.
• chapter six •
NEW HORIZONS