The Great Wall - The Official Movie Novelization

13

The Great Hall at night was illuminated by hundreds of pine oil lanterns. The effect of the softly glowing light, reflected in the brightly colored armour of the assembled mass of officers, and of the wavering shadows that rose and fell on the walls like a soft grey tide, gave the vast room a tranquil, almost holy atmosphere. The fact that Shen was reading solemnly from a scroll of parchment spread out on the table, with Lin Mae and her staff silently surrounding him and listening intently to his every word, only added to that impression. Across the room, standing a little apart from everyone else, William and Pero were listening to Ballard’s murmured translation of Shen’s words.

Despite the brusque treatment they had received, the two men had quickly realized they were not in trouble. Indeed, their presence in the Great Hall might even be construed as a courtesy, if not a privilege, extended to them by Lin Mae—though William suspected there was a more specific reason why they were here, one that had not yet been revealed to them.

In the meantime Ballard had revealed that Shen was reading from a nine-hundred-year-old battle report. In a low voice he was now translating the imperial liaison officer’s words.

“…at the Hansha Gate, in the middle of a strong wave of Tao Tei, three beasts mounted the Wall. They killed many men as they came forward, threatening our flanks and raising panic…”

He listened a moment, head cocked to one side, and then he resumed.

“And then, by the Grace of the Ancient Gods, the beasts stopped and sat peacefully, never moving as we slaughtered them…”

Ballard fell silent a few moments after Shen. William looked up, to see that Wang, with Lin Mae and her commanders watching the strategist with interest, was walking determinedly towards them.

Still some twenty feet away he came to a halt and said, “I am the Tao Tei. The river is behind me.” He gestured vaguely over his shoulder. “I will come towards you. I want to know the exact distance that was between you and the Tao Tei when you made your attack.”

All at once William realized why their presence had been required here. This was an experiment. Strategist Wang was trying to recreate the moment when William had killed the first Tao Tei out at the camp in the desert, presumably in the hope of finding out exactly how and why he had managed it.

William nodded and stepped forward. Wang began to walk slowly towards him. When he had halved the distance between the two of them, William held up a hand, indicating that Wang was standing at roughly the right distance.

“And the beast stood its ground as I am?” Wang asked.

“A bit larger—but yes,” said William.

Wang looked more than satisfied—in fact, he looked positively energized. Turning smartly he strode back to the table and picked up an ancient-looking book that was sitting there. As he began to speak to Lin Mae and the assembled officers, Ballard translated his words.

“He says the book is from the Library here. It’s an equipment manifest from nine centuries ago.”

Wang put the book down and turned again to the scroll, which was still spread out on the table, its corners weighed down with smooth, highly polished green stones. Once more Ballard translated for William and Pero as Wang began to read from it.

“At the Hansha Gate was an unusual winch, which had been brought from Yunnan. A lodestone so powerful it was able to pull unbound iron up the rampart walls…”

Wang looked around, allowing his words to sink in. Then, with an understated but nevertheless orchestrated sense of drama, he picked up William’s magnet and held it above his head.

As he began to speak, Ballard muttered, “He believes the magnet is the reason you were able to kill the Tao Tei in single combat. He thinks it has power over the Tao Tei.” He listened to what else Wang was saying with a frown on his face, his lips moving slightly, as though silently rehearsing his translation before giving voice to it. When he next spoke, it was not to paraphrase Wang’s words, but to offer a literal, though halting translation.

“I believe there is… hearing… sound beyond what we can sense… the ears of dogs and wolves… superior to man… the great birds… the owl… the bat… many sounds no man can hear… we know the Tao Tei… we see them listen to a voice we cannot understand…”

His frown deepened as Wang’s words spilled out faster, his voice becoming more strident.

“I think the magnet makes them deaf. Without instructions from their Queen they fall still.”

Instantly he had finished speaking, there rose a tumult of excited speculation. The black stone was passed from hand to hand, and although there was skepticism on some of the faces, there was a great deal of hope too. Lin Mae listened to her commanders discussing the practicalities and implications for a few minutes, and then she raised a hand for silence. Looking at Wang, she said, “How can we be sure that you are right?”

Unsure whether he was breaking protocol, William stepped forward. “Why not try it?” he said.

Eyes turned towards him. Wang spoke a short sentence to the assembled throng, presumably translating his suggestion.

Lin Mae’s question was a challenge. “How?”

“We capture a Tao Tei and see if it works.”

She rolled her eyes dismissively. Wang translated his words and many of the officers snorted in derision; some laughed.

“What’s the problem?” William asked. “Have you never captured one before?”

“No net is strong enough,” said Wang.

“You don’t need a net. You hunt him like a whale.” He addressed Lin Mae. “You know what that is? It’s a water beast. Many times the size of a Tao Tei.” He demonstrated with his hands as he spoke. “I’ve seen it done in Spain. The hunters use a spear that grabs. It hooks the bone. Then they pull him up.”

Now Lin Mae was listening intently, Wang behind her translating his words for the assembled officers. From their body language, facial expressions and tone of voice, William could tell that his suggestion was meeting with a variety of responses—from derision to excited interest, dismissal to contemplation.

There was only one response he was interested in, though. He focused his attention on Lin Mae, the new commander of the Nameless Order.

Her dark eyes stared back at him. She looked thoughtful.

In the corridor leading back to their barracks, the first moment they were alone, Pero grabbed William roughly by the shoulder and spun him around.

“What are you doing?” he hissed, his face furious. “Now you’re involved with this? We need to be free when the attack comes! How many chances do you think we’ll get?”

“I just—” William began, but Pero cut him off.

“No! Just nothing. We’ve already done enough. Get out of this. When the time comes, be injured. Be missing. Be a coward.”

With an aggressive sweep of his arm, he turned and stormed off down the corridor, leaving William to stare after him.

The next morning William found himself up on the battlements, overseeing preparations for his plan to capture a Tao Tei. He had been summoned that morning and given the surprising news that Lin Mae was in favor of his suggestion, and that a strategy had already been discussed and agreed upon. When he emerged from the base of one of the towers, into early morning fog so thick that the world beyond the Wall was nothing but a densely swirling grey mass, it was to find that an assembly line had been set up and was already operating at maximum efficiency.

Shrouded by mist, which not only impaired vision but deadened sound into a suffocating silence, Strategist Wang was carefully pouring yellow powder from a gourd into a large bowl full of liquid. From the fact that he was wearing gloves, and that he turned his head away from the bowl every time he needed to inhale, it was evident that the concoction was pretty pungent stuff, if not downright toxic.

Indeed, William quickly noticed that everyone who came into contact with the stuff was handling it with extreme care. As Wang mixed the yellow powder into the liquid, various assistants, all similarly gloved, were scooping up smaller bowls of yellow paste and distributing them to a long line of Eagle Corps soldiers. The red-armored warriors, supervised by Commander Chen, were busy brushing the yellow paste onto the tips of newly forged metal harpoons, and then passing them on to Bear Corps soldiers, who were transporting them with utmost care to the Eagle nests along the Wall, where they were being loaded and chained to the winches.

It was clear to William, when he arrived, that the process had been going on all night. As he strolled along the Wall, nodding to Lin Mae and her officers, who were alternately monitoring the plan’s progress and nervously peering out into the mist, he realized that the furthermost Eagle nests he came to had already been equipped with poisoned harpoon ballistas, and that all that was left to be supplied were the closest, most central nests.

Although everyone had been assigned a task to do, and was undertaking it with the usual industry and efficiency, the atmosphere on the top of the Wall was one of hushed anxiety—which was hardly surprising considering that the Nameless Order had no way of knowing when and how the next Tao Tei assault would come. After last night’s stealth attack anything was possible. For all William and the rest of them knew, the Tao Tei, under cover of the fog, might even have been climbing the outside of the Wall that very moment. In anticipation of this, archers were positioned at regular intervals along the edges of the battlements, behind whom stood a long line of Deer Corps warriors, lances poised. With no specific job to do, William strolled up and down the length of the Wall, offering murmured words of encouragement and every now and again stopping to test the tension on chains and winches to which the harpoons had been attacked. He tried to appear calm, but under the surface he felt nervous, agitated. His encounter with Pero last night kept playing through his mind. What was he doing here? What did he hope to achieve? This wasn’t his battle, and in a way Pero was right. Once the next big attack came, he needed to be out of there. He needed to be at his friend’s side, helping him put their escape plan into action.

His reverie was interrupted by a sharp cry from over near the battlements. He looked that way, heart jumping, half-expecting to see a man missing from his post, perhaps plucked from his perch by some unseen horror below. But the archer who had cried out was still there, hand raised for silence, his head cocked towards the billowing wall of fog. Clearly he had heard something—but what? For several moments all activity ceased and the silence became so profound that not even a breath could be heard.

Then there came an almighty crash, which caused everyone to leap out of their skin and whirl round. The shamefaced culprit was the young Bear Corps warrior, Peng Yong, who, his hands perhaps shaking with nervousness, had dropped a china bowl containing yellow paste to the ground, where it had shattered into a thousand pieces, spattering the noxious concoction everywhere. Now he was blanching and trying to stammer out an apology as Commander Chen stalked towards him. Chen thrust his face into the young soldier’s and hissed a string of furious words. Although William didn’t understand what Chen was saying, the way Peng Yong lowered his eyes and nodded miserably suggested he had been dismissed. Sure enough the young soldier left his place in the line and began to trudge through a silent gauntlet of his fellow warriors, shoulders stooped and head down. When his walk of shame brought him parallel with William, William said, “Psst.”

Peng Yong glanced up with an abject expression.

Winking, William whispered, “I used to throw up my supper before every battle. At least what you did isn’t that bad.”

It was clear that Peng Yong didn’t understand him, but he recognized the note of sympathy in William’s voice and gave a thin, grateful smile in response. Then he walked on by, lowering his head again as he passed through the door of the tower and out of sight.

In the corridor below, Pero heard someone coming. Grabbing Ballard’s loose-fitting robe, he dragged him through an arched doorway, then into the black wedge of shadow against the inside wall.

They stood, motionless, hardly daring to breathe, Pero peering through the narrow crack between door and frame. He saw the young man who had mislaid the keys to the stockade a couple of days before trudging past, his oversized armour seemingly weighing heavily on his body.

The two of them waited until the Bear Corps warrior had rounded the corner at the end of the corridor, Ballard looking after him curiously. Then Ballard turned his attention to other matters. Waspishly he asked, “Where is William?”

“I don’t know,” said Pero, raising his hands placatingly. “But he’ll be here.”

Ballard looked at him sourly. “He’d better be.”

William was watching Strategist Wang, who had stopped mixing the yellow paste and was now listening attentively. William listened too, and was able to discern a faint hiss coming from the fog.

What’s that? he wanted to ask, but he didn’t dare speak.

Many of the archers perched on the outer battlements now had listening devices pressed to their ears, which to William looked like long battle horns.

For several minutes there was almost complete silence, all eyes fixed on the men with the listening devices. One of them screwed up his face and leaned a little further out, as if trying to pin down an elusive sound…

Suddenly a shadow loomed from the mist beyond him, and an instant later he was snatched from his perch.

He screamed, and as he disappeared from view his listening device flew out of his hand and went spinning away through the murk. Next moment, like a massive shark breaking the surface of a grey sea, a huge red mouth appeared, snatched the listening device out of the air and swallowed it whole!

William had barely taken that in when a number of huge green claws tipped with black talons suddenly appeared over the top of the Wall, gripping on to the stone ledges like grappling hooks. Next moment several Tao Tei heaved themselves up out of the mist and over the Wall.

Instantly Eagle Corps archers began to fire at the Tao Tei, enveloping them in a blizzard of arrows. But although one of the creatures was knocked back immediately and sent tumbling over the battlements to plunge down through the fog to the earth below, the others were only marginally affected. Indeed, the arrows merely angered them rather than disabling them, and before the archers had time to reload the creatures were lashing out with their massive claws. They cut a swathe through the archers, ripping them apart, snatching and grinding them in their jaws.

As more Tao Tei appeared, the Deer Corps soldiers leaped to the fore, thrusting at the creatures with their long lances, aiming for the eyes. Simultaneously Bear Corps warriors ran forward with lines attached to their left wrists, the trailing ends of which they tied swiftly and expertly to hooks on the inner rim of the Wall. The tethered Bear warriors then climbed up on to and over the parapet, the lines enabling them to stand horizontally on the outside of the Wall. Armed with huge axes, they slashed and hacked furiously at the ascending Tao Tei, fighting with such frenzied and fearless purpose that it took William’s breath away.

Despite their bravery, however, it was clear that the Nameless Order were fighting a losing battle. The enemy was simply too plentiful and too strong. Many Tao Tei fell, pierced by lances and arrows, or smashed into oblivion by axes. But for every one that died, another was immediately there to take its place.

The same could not be said of the Nameless Order. Their fighting force was impressive, but it was not infinite. And as the battle raged on, more and more Tao Tei began to break through, to cause devastation in the ranks.

William saw Bear Corps soldier after Bear Corps soldier, like a series of tempting worms for hungry fish, snatched from their moorings and devoured. He saw Eagle Corps and Deer Corps soldiers, their specialist weapons less effective in close combat, being trampled and ripped apart. He saw Lin Mae screaming orders, blue Crane Corps warriors darting about like dragon flies, stabbing and slashing at the enemy.

Every single one of them fought bravely. But it was not enough. It was never going to be enough. And although he was no coward, William thought of Pero and Ballard waiting for him below, of their plan to escape and take as much of the black powder as they could carry with them—and he decided it was time to go.

Pero was in the room he shared with William, grabbing his weapons and stuffing them into his belt, into his boots. Even here, this deep within the complex of corridors, tendrils of fog had infiltrated the interior of the Wall, and were curling and probing, hazing the air. As Pero armed himself he watched Ballard, who was prowling back and forth like a caged animal, his eyes blazing with rage. In the distance the war drums were pounding incessantly, a background beat to the sounds of battle: the clash of metal; the impact of flesh on flesh; screams both human and inhuman.

As an extra loud crash reverberated through the corridors—the unmistakable sound of shattered and tumbling masonry—Ballard whirled towards the doorway, as if half-expecting to see the green bulk of a Tao Tei standing there.

Spit flying from his mouth, veins standing out on his forehead, he snarled, “What curse have I provoked so deeply it plagues me thus?”

Calmly Pero said, “He’ll be here.”

Ballard rounded on him. “When? When it’s over?”

Pero batted away his invective as if it were a troublesome fly. “We’ll make a start. He’ll find us.”

“Start?” Ballard pivoted on his heels, eyes rising to the heavens as if he had never heard anything so idiotic. “As if what? As if we were descending a flight of stairs and might turn back if the fancy became us? We’re jumping from a cliff here!” He waggled his head and began speaking in a simpering falsetto, mocking their earlier questions. “‘Do I have keys?’ ‘Do I know the way?’ I have everything! Keys! Powder! Tools! Maps! It’s all hidden and arranged along the route! Once we start there’s no turning back! Understand?”

Within the machine-like workings of the inner Wall, Tiger Corps soldiers were busily moving rows and rows of blade carts into position. As levers were pulled and slits opened in the Wall, so each cart was pushed forward until the sharp, broad blade mounted on the front slid neatly through the slit and into the open air on the outside of the Wall.

“Blades ready!” Commander Wu barked, his order being relayed up and down the line. “Left! Right!”

Like a highly trained rowing team, Tiger Corps soldiers began to work oar-like levers rapidly back and forth, causing the lethal blades to slash from side to side. Several ascending Tao Tei, caught between the huge blades, were instantly hacked to pieces, their dismembered parts, trailing green blood, spinning down through the fog to land with assorted thuds on the desert sand below. Those Tao Tei climbing the Wall that were still beneath the level of the blades were now unable to continue, their route blocked by the lethal, constantly moving barrier.

With the blade barrier erected and operational, more Tiger Corps soldiers now began to once again load the trebuchet chutes with spiked cannon balls dripping with boiling oil. As before, the balls were set alight just before being released. Within moments the trebuchets were launching fiery balls of death through the fog-shrouded air at the thousands of Tao Tei milling on the desert sand. Although the Tao Tei had drawn first blood in this particular battle, the Nameless Order were now fighting back.

William, poised on the stone exit ramp that led down to the nearest guard tower, was in an agony of indecision. Thick fog was swirling around him, hampering his vision, reducing the action on this part of the Wall into a kind of hazy chaos. Mingled with the ever-present pounding of drums were yells and screams as soldiers desperately fought those creatures that had managed to breach the parapet before the blade barrier had stymied their advance. But among the sounds of conflict William could also hear the rumbling of iron wheels and the clanking of heavy chains as the harpoon ballistas were wheeled into position. To attempt to capture a Tao Tei had been his idea, and there was a part of him that was desperately anxious to see it come to fruition.

On the other hand, this moment right now, while the Nameless Order were fully occupied with the Tao Tei attack, was the perfect opportunity to do what they had come to do—steal the black powder and make their escape.

What should he do? Stay or go?

As William hovered, unable to decide, he glimpsed a flash of blue armour through the fog to his right.

Lin Mae, in the thick of the action, her green-smeared sword clutched in her hand, ran forward to the edge of the parapet and peered over the Wall. She was satisfied to see that the blades had done their work, stemming the Tao Tei advance—for now at least.

As the huge harpoon ballistas were hauled into position, she turned and yelled, “Raise the harpoons! Prepare to fire!”

Her orders were relayed up and down the length of the Wall, Commander Chen running the line to check that everything was in order. Eagle Corps soldiers were manning the huge crossbows, swinging them into position on their pivots. Behind them, Tiger Corps soldiers were loosening the winches with a jangle of heavy chains. As the harpoons, coated with yellow paste, were angled downwards into the fog, Strategist Wang, perched atop one of the command towers, shouted, “Make it count! Aim for the body!”

All they needed was one harpoon to find its target.

One captured Tao Tei on which to test their theories.

Pero strode towards the sounds of battle, Ballard at his heels, snapping like a vicious dog.

“Do you possess even a shadow notion of what it means to carry out an endeavor this challenging? What I’ve put into it? What I’ve endured? Or is that beyond your miniature, animal powers of conception?”

Pero swung round on him, hand moving instinctively to the sword at his belt. Ballard scuttled back, eyeing him with a mixture of outrage and wariness. For a moment Pero glared at the smaller man, whose eyes seemed to glint redly in the gloomy, fog-greyed corridor. Then he turned and strode on.

Lin Mae, still standing at the edge of the parapet, looked up and down the line as crossbow strings on the huge harpoon ballistas were pulled taut, creaking with tension. The metal harpoons, attached to chains, were arrowed down into the sea of fog.

“Fire at will!” she yelled.

The noise as multiple bolts trailing iron chains were released—ZZZPPPTTTT!—rang through her head and vibrated in her jaw, making her teeth tingle. Perched on what felt like the edge of the world, she watched as the harpoons looped out and down, bypassing the barrier of hacking blades, before disappearing into the fog. Some of the harpoons simply paid out the full length of their chains and then hung there, having encountered no resistance. Others thudded into what she could only assume was Tao Tei flesh, judging from the screeches of pain that rose up from the fog below.

As each harpoon came to a halt, whether because it had hit its mark or missed it, Tiger Corps soldiers immediately began to crank the winches, tightening the chains and hauling the harpoons back up.

“Put your backs into it!” Commander Chen shouted, though his order was unnecessary. Utterly devoted to the cause, the warriors manning the ballistas were working as hard as they could.

Suddenly Lin Mae jumped back with a cry as one of the taut chains snapped and flew back up and over the Wall at great speed, like a striking metal snake. The soldiers manning the ballista scattered as the chain lashed towards them. But Lin Mae had barely registered that when another chain snapped—and then another!

Moving back to the parapet, and leaning over to peer down through the fog, Lin Mae could see nothing at first. Then a section of fog thinned, broke apart, and blurrily, beyond the blade barrier, she saw a cluster of Tao Tei clinging to the Wall, their bodies punctured by harpoons. They were thrashing and writhing, trying to dislodge the metal bolts by tearing at their own flesh, causing the chains to whip wildly from side to side even as the men working the winches tried to pull them taut. Then she saw one of the Tao Tei, a harpoon sticking out of its belly, lean forward and bite the bolt in half, causing the chain to snap and whip upwards with lightning speed.

She ducked again—and then again as another chain snapped. Their plan was failing. The Tao Tei were chewing through the bolts before Wang’s sedative, powerful though it was, could take effect.

A few ballistas away to her right, however, the chain was still taut, the soldiers there straining every sinew to winch it and its cargo in. Keeping her head low to avoid being decapitated by a flying chain, she ran across to help, arriving at the ballista at the same time as Commander Chen. Together the two of them helped haul on the winches, the clanking of the chain increasing as it rose a little faster. Then other soldiers were there—big, hefty Bear Corps warriors, who had abandoned their own failed ballistas—and Lin Mae moved aside, deferring to their greater physical strength. As the soldiers hauled the harpoon and its weighty cargo in, she rushed to the parapet and peered into the fog below. On the end of the chain, its abdomen impaled by a harpoon, was the vast green bulk of a Tao Tei, still struggling, but only weakly now as the sedative took effect.

Perhaps due to the fog, it hadn’t been noticed by its fellow creatures, hadn’t been torn or bitten free from the hooked barb in its flesh. She watched with trepidation as it rose higher with excruciating slowness, half-expecting at any moment for a gaping maw to rise up out of the fog and bite through the chain.

“Twenty-five years!” Ballard exclaimed. “Twenty-five years I’ve been braiding this together. Twenty-five years of smiling and scheming and burying my intentions in this forgotten graveyard.”

Pero halted again. Took a deep breath. Although Ballard had backed away when he’d swung round on him earlier, it hadn’t taken more than a few seconds before the skinny little man had been scurrying along behind him again, jabbering in his ear as if he was the one jeopardizing their plans.

If he didn’t need Ballard’s help…

If it wasn’t for the black powder…

Pero was not a patient man, but he forced himself to stay calm. Though gritted teeth he said, “I’ve told you, I’ll find him.”

“And I’ve told you—forget him!” snapped Ballard. “Your friend would rather die trying to bed the new General than grab the key to every counting room and brothel in the world!” He darted around Pero to look briefly into his face, as if to check that he was listening. “Good God, man, the time is now!”

Pero’s dark eyes flashed, holding Ballard’s little ratty ones for a second. Obstinately he said, “We can’t go without him.”

Ballard’s voice was suddenly sly, silky. “The more spoils for us should we live.”

Then he quailed at the cold, murderous look that Pero gave him. “We need his bow.”

Before Ballard could respond, a high, wailing screech came ricocheting down the corridor.

Pero started to run.

The wailing sound, eerie and high-pitched, almost child-like, had come from the harpooned Tao Tei. Still fighting the sedative, it was squirming on the end of the chain, making a last desperate bid to escape. Peering over the parapet, Lin Mae saw the blades protruding from this section of the Wall retract to allow her men to haul the creature up the last stretch of stone. She wondered whether the creature’s wail was a cry of pain or anguish (she had thought the Tao Tei possessed no real emotions), but when she saw a swarm of green shapes rising swiftly up the outside of the Wall towards it, she suddenly realized what it really was—a distress signal.

Sure enough, instead of scaling the Wall towards their human enemies, the Tao Tei surrounded the impaled creature and tried to release it, their huge jaws biting at both the harpoon and the chain. Lin Mae turned and yelled at the winch bearers to hurry, knowing that within moments their potential catch would be lost.

But already the extra weight on the chain as several Tao Tei leaped and clung on to it was too much for the winch bearers to cope with. Try as they might to hold on, their contorted faces sweating and straining beneath their helmets, the chain which they had taken such pains to reel in slowly but surely began to unravel, sparks flying up as metal scraped squealingly over metal.

Suddenly she sensed someone beside her and turned to see the foreign soldier, William, his bow and a quiver of arrows over his shoulder. He glanced at Lin Mae and then peered over the parapet to see what was happening. To his right the chain was scraping and shrieking over the lip of the stone Wall as it continued to unravel.

As William moved across to the chain, Wang, still standing on top of the command tower, shouted, “What are you doing?”

William glanced up at him. “I’m going over. It’s the only way.”

He was aware of Lin Mae’s eyes widening, of Commander Chen looking at him as if he was crazy. Then Chen turned to Lin Mae, as if silently asking her what the protocol was for this situation, whether the foreigner could do what he intended without her permission.

Lin Mae looked at William, and a moment passed between them—of respect, perhaps of understanding.

Then she gave the barest of nods, and the next moment William leaped up on to the edge of the parapet, wrapped his legs around the unraveling chain and plunged headfirst towards the ground.