Iron Jaw and Hummingbird (14 page)

Who were these rough creatures, these men and women who had turned their backs on civilization? It was almost as if they
had
surrendered their humanity, as the rumors suggested, and as a result their bodies came less and less to resemble those of decent men and women.

What would become of him, Huang wondered, held prisoner by such creatures?

 

It was difficult to judge the passage of time deep within the cave complex of the Aerie, but Huang thought it must have been near nightfall when the last of the plunder was finally squared away and stored, and the bandits gathered together for their evening meal.

Huang was brought along as well, though with his labors finished the bandits had tied a length of cord securely around his neck and led him like a dog on a leash. His feet were unfettered, but his hands were tied wrist to wrist in front of him. It could have been worse, Huang knew. At least with his hands in front of him, he was able to lift a cup to his lips or feed himself if the opportunity arose.

The bandits came together in a wide chamber with a high ceiling, lit brightly by lanterns strung up on lines secured to the walls. There were three low tables arranged in a horseshoe shape in the middle of the room, with thin cushions ringing the perimeter of the shape on the ground. The bandits seated themselves around these tables, all facing inward, with the bandit chief Zhao and his two lieutenants at the head table.

Two of the youngest bandits went to work ferrying to the table steaming bowls of rice and soup, trays piled high with salted fish, plates of dumplings, and what looked like bits of chicken and pork on skewers. There must have been kitchens somewhere in the Aerie that Huang had not yet seen, as once the tables were heavily laden with food an older man and a younger woman appeared in the chamber, their faces beet red and sweating, no doubt from an oven's heat, their clothes stained with flour, grease, and sauces. They took their place at the end of the table, and then the meal began.

The food smelled delicious, and for all Huang knew, it tasted so, as well. He couldn't say for certain, having been tied to the far wall, out of reach of anything edible. He considered pleading, but remembering what had befallen the drivers who had begged the bandits for clemency—had it really only been earlier that day?—he decided it better to remain silent. He crouched against the wall, and then when the muscles in his thighs and calves began to ache, slid down into an undignified but marginally more comfortable sitting position.

Huang's stomach rumbled, and his throat ached with thirst. The bandits worked their steady way through the meal, laughing and joking, clinking cups in toasts, singing songs, reciting jokes and obscene poems and infantile riddles.

Despite finding himself in this strange mountain stronghold, tied to the wall like a dog, Huang couldn't help but find all of this strangely familiar. Sitting outside a ring of fellowship, on his own. Then he remembered those nights on the convoy, and the jokes and songs and laughter of the guards and drivers. Was this really so different, after all?

Finally the meal came to an end, and Huang thought he could control his hunger no longer. He rose up on his knees as the bandits climbed to their feet, and held his hands out in supplication.

The bandit chief Zhao strolled over, patting his full belly with one hand, carrying a bowl in the other.

“We haven't forgotten you, Hummingbird,” Zhao said, chuckling. Then he bent down and dropped the bowl clattering on the floor in front of Huang. “Eat up, now. You've got to keep up your strength. Tomorrow won't be
near
so relaxing as today, I assure you.”

As the bandit chief strode away, Huang inspected the contents of the bowl. It was half filled with murky water, little puddles of grease floating on the surface around a half-eaten chicken leg, a hunk of stringy pork, and a partially gnawed fish head.

Huang longed for the undercooked rice and rancid fish heads of the convoy dinners, but he held his nose and ate the meager feast as quickly as he was able.

 

Huang was left to sleep tied to the wall in the chamber overnight. He slept fitfully, if at all, sprawled on the hard stone floor, shivering in his thin uniform. The next morning, the scar-faced Jue came and untied Huang from the wall, and put him to work once more. Of all the bandits, Jue seemed the friendliest. Or, if not friendly, then perhaps the least threatening. Perhaps it was the scar that, though ragged and gruesome on its own, in place made the bandit look as though he were always smiling. Taken with his round, almost babyish face, it made Jue seem almost like an overgrown child.

Friendly or not, though, he was a taskmaster when it came to assigning the bandits' prisoner chores, and Huang found himself run ragged through the course of the day, doing great piles of reeking laundry, cleaning the kitchen after meals—pots and utensils as well as floors and counters—and helping a pair of mechanically minded bandits move spare engine components out into the hangar where the airship was parked. It was during this last task that Huang was taken to the place where the breather masks and thermal suits were stored when not in use, a locked cabinet not far from the airlock corridor. He made careful note of the cabinet's location and watched attentively as the bandits unlocked and then relocked the cabinet door.

Huang's thinking was that, if he were able to get hold of a breather mask and thermal suit, having somehow slipped his bonds and eluded recapture, he might be able to make it out into the hangar and from there into one of the innumerous passages that opened onto it. With a considerable amount of luck, he might be able to find the old disused mining tunnel through which the cave complex had originally been discovered. If he found the tunnel, he might be able to get past the obstruction at the other end, and from there escape the mountain and the Aerie altogether.

But in the hours leading to the evening meal, Huang found a much more pressing need for a breather mask when he was given the task of cleaning out the Aerie's inefficient latrines. Hours spent up to his knees in offal and muck, trying unsuccessfully not to gag. When he was finally through, he was allowed to clean himself off as best he was able, but after dumping bucket after bucket of water over his head and changing from his soiled uniform into a set of ragged bandit cast-off clothing, he was still unable to get the stench of it from his nostrils. And when he ate the picked-over leavings and table scraps that evening, it all tasted of bile and dung on his tongue, so much did the lingering smell pervade his senses.

That night, he slept once more tied to the wall, shivering in his ill-fitting cast-off rags.

 

The following days passed much the same, with Huang greeting the day lying cramped and uncomfortable on the stone floor, spending the day doing various noisome and distasteful tasks, and ending with a bowl of scraps and greasy water.

As his body was busied with mindless, repetitive tasks, Huang's mind often wandered. He entertained elaborate fantasies of rescue, of a battalion of Bannermen rapelling down the Aerie's skylight, guns and swords in hand, to arrest or kill all the bandits—depending on Huang's mood when fantasizing—and liberate their lone prisoner.

Of course, in his calmer, more reasonable moments, Huang knew full well that it was likely that no one knew that he was the bandits' prisoner, since the hog-tied guards and drivers—if they'd survived even
this
long—would not yet have been found by a passing convoy. And even if anyone
did
know that he was their prisoner, the bandits' mountain stronghold was evidently entirely secret, and if its location
was
known, it seemed well enough fortified, naturally and by design, to withstand most any attack.

No, if Huang was to be freed from captivity, it would have to be by his own hand.

 

One night, when delivering the customary bowl of greasy water, leftover rice, and half-eaten scraps of meat, the bandit chief Zhao lingered in front of Huang. He still wore the red saber at his side and fingered its hilt appreciatively. Across the room, Jue and a few other bandits still sat around the table, finishing a jar of wine.

“Hummingbird,” he said, like a man addressing a dog, “I must admit that this is one fine sword you've given me. I can't help but wonder where a simple solder of the Green Standard might have obtained such a blade.”

Huang's fingers tightened around the edges of his bowl. As if he had
given
the bandits
anything
.

“Well, speak up, Hummingbird.” Zhao nudged him with a booted toe. “How did you come by this sword, eh?”

When Huang spoke, it was in a voice barely above a whisper, as he always used when answering the bandits. “A gift from Governor Ouyang.”

“Did you . . . Did you say . . . Ouyang?” Zhao tightened his fist around the sword's hilt.

Huang looked up, meeting the bandit chief's eyes for the first time in the exchange. He nodded.

“Ouyang?” Zhao repeated. His lips drew into a tight line, and his eyebrows narrowed. “That
wretch
? That foul pile of
dung
?!
That
Ouyang?”

Huang answered instinctively, without thinking. “No, the governor-general is an honorable man.”

Zhao's face flushed red, and his eyes widened. “Honorable?
Honorable?!
” He turned and snapped his fingers at those still seated around the table. “Jue, turn your head this way.”

Jue shrugged but turned to face them.

Zhao looked down at Huang, stabbing a finger toward Jue. “See that scar? Do you? That's what Ouyang's
honor
is worth.” He held up his own left hand, and for the first time Huang saw that Zhao's ring finger on that hand was missing after the second knuckle, ending in a knobby lump of flesh. “And my finger, in the bargain.” He turned and pointed to a bandit who sat opposite Jue, one of his arms twisted into a crab's claw. “And his arm.” He pointed to another of the bandits, who sat with a cup held frozen halfway to his lips. “And his sons.”

Zhao turned his gaze back to Huang. But while Huang didn't answer, his expression no doubt made evident the lack of credence he held for Zhao's words.

The bandit chief narrowed his eyes. “What do you know of mines, Hummingbird?”

Huang shrugged, not even bothering to speak. It was easier to say what he
didn't
know about mines, which was essentially “everything.”

“Miners work tirelessly,” Zhao went on, his hand still on the hilt of the red sword, “day and night, season after season, to extract all the substances society needs to function.” He held up his left hand, and began extending fingers one at a time, counting off. “Everything from heavy metals with which to fabricate buildings and vehicles, to hidden pockets of frozen water at the poles, to the chemical constituents of the very air we breathe. And it isn't only with the sweat of their brow and back that miners pay. No. Some miners lose limbs in mining accidents, some lose sight in an eye or the ability to hear, some bear scars from faulty machinery or badly mended broken bones. And nearly every miner has lost a family member down in the mines, whether father, brother, or son, mother, sister, or daughter. They work hard and are rewarded only with pain and misery.”

Huang couldn't help himself. He scoffed and answered instinctively again, scarcely above a whisper. “What would
thieves
know of hard work?”

Zhao's hand on the sword's hilt was a white-knuckled fist, and he snarled while drawing the blade partway from the scabbard, eyes flashing. Huang tensed, expecting a killing stroke to fall at any moment.

“
I
worked in a mine.” The bandit chief spoke slowly, deliberately, like he was talking to a child or an imbecile. “That's what I know of it. I was a miner until Ouyang forced me from it.”

Huang's eyebrows shot up. “What?”

Zhao raised an eyebrow of his own. “You're
surprised
? How little you know.” He glanced over at the bandits seated around the table, who were now following their chief's conversation with mounting interest, their expressions dark. “Most of those living in the Aerie were once miners.” He motioned to Jue and the others with a dip of his head. “And the rest were cargo loaders, airship mechanics, and so on—skilled laborers every one. And all of us driven from our homes and jobs by the oppressive tactics of your
honorable
Governor Ouyang. The great governor-general, who harasses businesses that don't pay his bribes and favors those that do. And may the ancestors protect any miner or mechanic who makes the mistake of trying to organize his fellow laborers against the unfair bosses who paid the governor-general's bribes and haven't the money left over to meet the payroll. Those of us who survived encounters with the governor-general's strikebreakers still bear the scars, and we were the lucky ones.”

Huang glanced over at Jue and the others, and saw that their eyes were half-lidded, as with remembered pain. The bandit holding the jar of wine slammed it down forcefully onto the table, sending a thin stream of liquid sloshing from the jar's neck.

“May Ouyang rot in hell,” one of the bandits cursed in a harsh voice, and around him the other bandits dipped their heads in agreement.

Zhao drew the sword from the scabbard and held its red-tinted blade horizontally in front of him. The light glinted on the firebird engraved there so that it seemed to dance. Again Huang tensed, fearing the killing stroke, but instead Zhao just studied the blade closely, as though finding secret messages written on it.

“If I'd known this was once the governor-general's blade, I might not have picked it up.” He glanced to Huang. “And had I known you carried
his
blade, I might not have spared your life, after all.” He glanced to the other bandits and then back to Huang on the floor. “But I find I like the feel of the sword at my hip, and you've proven useful in doing the tasks none of us care to perform, so perhaps you both have your uses, at that.” He lowered the point of the sword, directed at Huang's chest, and narrowed his eyes. “But if either you or the sword cease to be useful, Hummingbird, know that I've no compunction against snapping either of you in half and tossing you in the latrine.”