six

Tunghai Wang had slept well all his life, even as a soldier on campaign. Especially, perhaps, as a soldier on campaign, when his bed was a blanket if he was lucky, under a roof if he was lucky, more often on ground that was dry if he was lucky, under a sky that—if he was lucky—might not rain on him.

As a general he had rated a tent, a wagonload of furniture and men to erect it every night, take it down and pack it up next morning. His bed was a rice-straw pallet on a frame, and he had still slept well.

On the long march from the Hidden City, the year-long chase across the empire, when sometimes they were so close to their quarry that there was no time to pitch a tent and he had simply lain down among his men for what few hours’ rest they could afford to snatch—then, yes, with all the noise of an army camp around him and all the tension of the hunt, then he had slept exceedingly well.

Now, though? Now that the chase was over, now that his hopes were in abeyance, now that he had four close walls and a solid roof, a good mattress on a good bed, warmth and comfort and company too if he chose it, a guard outside the door to ensure that he was not disturbed whether he was alone or not?

Now he slept badly, those nights that he slept at all. The doctors said his body was out of balance with his soul; they prescribed teas to drink and prayers to recite, gifts to various temples, exercise and particular foods.

Nothing helped, which surprised him not at all. He thought it was the dragon in his dreams. Certainly he had slept well before the dragon came, even the night the beacon flared, the night he sent the fleet.

The dragon destroyed the fleet, and Tunghai Wang had not known an easy hour since.

He consulted the doctor on the ridge, but that fool was no better than any other. It was his assistant, the girl working as his servant who offered hope, but not there. She would need to study, she said, certain books, certain scrolls that might be in the city, in the palace he occupied himself, if she might have his consent to search …

Anything, of course. He had hopes of that girl, though none of her master.

THE MORNING of the beach raid, he had heard its noise and smelled its smoke before any man thought to come and tell him. Sound and smoke both travel, far and fast; they can outstrip any news of war, to find a wakeful soldier.

Walking on one beach after another, amid sprawled bodies and smoking ruin, the stinks of blood and ash intermingled in the sand beneath his boots, he said, “This was desperation, no more. They saw our fleet and knew they could not stand against it; they knew we would build again, come again; they came to do what they could to forestall us, to delay us a season if they could. No more.”

“The dragon, though, general,” an aide murmured, his eyes shying at the sky. “They dared the dragon, to do this …”

“I said. It was desperation. What else?”

NOW, THIS morning, he knew what else.

He had been sure, so sure they would not come again; and now they had.

The typhoon had come and gone, the endless storm that was said to be the dragon’s temper. He had taken that as assurance that they would not come again. If their first raid stirred up such a fury, a second must bring destruction on their heads.

Besides, there was nothing more to raid. It would take a year to build another fleet; they would know that, knowing how much damage they had done, how many craftsmen slain, how many hulls stolen, how many burned. Why should they chance the dragon again until they had to?

But now they had. He was called again, privately from a sleepless bed; he had ridden up to the headland. In the clear light of an early sun, he saw a stain on the water to the east, a stain to the west. Boats, his runners and riders told him; ships, they said. Fleets. Invasion. Oh, he was bold suddenly, this emperor boy …

PERHAPS HE had reason to be.

High on the wind above, drifting from one fleet to the other as they parted, rode the dragon. A weapon, a conscript, an ally …?

Whichever one, it really made no difference. She made all the difference in the world.

Already the men here, his most reliable men, were wanting to retreat up the river valley out of Santung, to head inland as fast as they could go. They might have fought an army here, even depleted and anxious, as startled and unready as they were; but who could fight a dragon? Who would dare?