The mountain road was hard going, and with the heavy snow that had fallen a few days before, a road that was hidden to begin with was harder still.
Luckily Wu Tiezhu hunted up here all the time and knew the ground well.
Two hours later, Wu Tiezhu stopped short.
“Little Chen. Over that mountain ahead and we’re there.”
Ning Chen nodded, then had Yuan Long pass the word for every man to hold where he was. He and Wu Tiezhu and Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong… they would go up first and scout it.
The four of them climbed to the top.
Wu Tiezhu pointed at the big mountain across from them and said quietly, “They’re down in that valley. There’s no telling what it is they’re digging for.”
The mountain was under snow, and Ning Chen could not make anything of it either.
Without thinking he put out a hand. “Give me the spyglass.”
Feng Qizheng looked at him, at a loss. “What glass?”
“Uh… never mind!”
Ning Chen shook his head and had to laugh at himself. Force of habit.
A spyglass was not a hard thing to make, though. When he got back to the capital he would find a way to have one made.
“Somebody’s coming out!”
Chen Chong dropped his voice all at once.
Ning Chen fixed his eyes on the place and saw a crowd of men come out carrying logs.
Between the two mountains ran a river, muddy and fast.
They threw the logs into the river, and the logs went off downstream with the current.
Feng Qizheng said, curious, “What are they throwing logs in the river for?”
Ning Chen shook his head.
Some valuable kind of timber, maybe?
Ning Chen studied the lay of the land.
Then he took the others back down off the mountain.
“Feng Qizheng. Chen Chong. Take a hundred men and follow the river down. Find out where those logs are floating to.”
Feng Qizheng and Chen Chong nodded.
“Careful.”
The two of them made a sound of assent, took a hundred men and slipped quietly away.
Ning Chen looked at Wu Tiezhu. “Brother Zhuzi, is there a way to get around to the far bank without their knowing?”
Wu Tiezhu nodded. “There’s a mountain upstream. The river runs out through it. There’s a track over the top we can take.”
“Good. Lead the way.”
With Wu Tiezhu leading them, every man came over to the far bank without a sound.
“Brother Zhuzi, is there any other way out of that valley?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
Wu Tiezhu nodded. “Pa and I went in there once. It’s sheer cliff on three sides. A man could hardly climb it.”
“Good. Then we’ll take the turtle in the jar.”
Ning Chen swept a hand forward, and they went for the valley.
At the mouth of it he left a hundred men on guard.
The rest of them all went in.
They had not gone far inside before another crowd of men came out carrying logs.
The man saw Ning Chen and the others, dropped his log and took to his heels back the way he had come.
“Take every one of them!”
Ning Chen gave the order and went first himself. He pulled the crossbow off his back, loosed a bolt with a flick of his hand and put it into a man’s leg.
With a scream the man went down.
“Yuan Long. Take every one of them. Any man who resists, cut him down where he stands!”
“Sir!”
Yuan Long took men and went after them.
Ning Chen went over to the logs and looked at them a long while. They were ordinary logs.
“Bring him here to me.”
Two soldiers dragged over the man with the bolt in his thigh.
Ning Chen looked him over. “What men are you? What are you doing here?”
“Spare me, my lord! We’re just people from hereabouts. We came to cut some timber to build our houses.”
Ning Chen was angry enough to laugh.
“The mountains out there are nothing but timber. You passed all of it by and came the long way around here to cut wood… Do you believe that yourself?”
“It’s late in the day for this. The truth would do you some good.”
The man said, his face twisted with pain, “My lord, we really are people from hereabouts. We only came to cut some timber to build our houses.”
“Oh,” Ning Chen said. He went over, squatted down, took hold of the bolt in the man’s thigh and drew it out a little at a time.
“Aah— aaah—”
The man screamed like a pig on the block.
Ning Chen said, smiling, “Do you have another answer for me?”
“My lord, this humble commoner really is from here—”
“All right, all right…” Ning Chen waved him off and turned his head to Wu Tiezhu. “Are these the men who hunted you and Uncle Wu?”
Wu Tiezhu’s fists clenched. His eyes were red, and he nodded.
“Are these the men who came into the village and burned and killed and looted?”
Wu Tiezhu nodded and said through his teeth, “It was them. He was one of the men who came into the village that day and burned and killed and looted.”
“Oh,” Ning Chen said.
“Cut him down.”
“Sir!”
A soldier drew the service sword at his waist.
Terror came over the man’s face. “My lord, I’ll talk. I’m willing to talk—”
“You want to talk. I don’t want to listen anymore!”
Ning Chen snatched the sword out of the soldier’s hand. The blade went up and came down.
Thuck!!!
The edge opened the man’s throat… and with too much force behind it, it bit hard into the log beside him, and the sound that came off it was metal on stone.
Ning Chen made a small sound of surprise. He pulled the sword free and found a notch chipped out of the blade.
“General Ning, this log is hollow.”
Ning Chen made a sound of assent. “Here. Break it open for me.”
Two soldiers lifted one length of log and slammed it down on another.
Crack! The log split open, and inside were golden stones of every size.
Ning Chen started. Gold ore.
“Little Chen, is that gold?”
“It’s gold ore. Gold is refined out of it… So there’s a gold mine here.”
Ning Chen marveled at it. Clever. Hide the ore inside the logs, throw the logs in the river and let the current carry them down… out of sight and no work at all.
Fury filled Wu Tiezhu’s face. “They killed Pa and Ma for this gold? And Chuntao, and all those neighbors of ours?”
“A gold mine belongs to the court. They were digging it in secret and you walked in on them… so they killed the men who knew and closed their mouths.”
“You men, hold here… The rest of you, come in with me!”
Ning Chen took his men into the valley.
From a long way off he could hear metal ringing on metal, and screams coming one after another.
It was not until they were close that he saw there were a hundred or two of them.
And most of them could handle themselves.
Bodies lay sprawled every which way across the ground, and the smell of blood was thick in the air.
Luckily the ones on the ground were all the enemy’s.
Ning Chen took off the crossbow and the quiver and tossed them to Wu Tiezhu. “Can you use it?”
Wu Tiezhu nodded.
“Keep yourself alive… All of you, with me!”
Ning Chen drew his blade and went into the fighting.
One stroke hacked an enemy down.
Then a hard whipping kick swept another off his feet as he came in, and Ning Chen went after him and took him through the throat before he could get up.
An enemy swung a blade down at Ning Chen.
Ning Chen turned aside from the stroke and took half the man’s face off with one of his own. The scream went up and rang against the sky.
The dagger in Ning Chen’s left hand went straight into the man’s throat, and the scream stopped short.
“Put down your weapons and surrender, or I’ll kill you where you stand!”
Ning Chen roared it.
These men knew something about fighting, but against trained soldiers they got nowhere at all.
Close to two hundred of them, and in the blink of an eye more than half were dead or down.
“Fall— fall back!”
All at once somebody bellowed it.
Ning Chen cut down a man coming at him and turned his head to look.
The man giving the orders was a big powerful man with a full beard and a face thick with meat.
The men were falling back and fighting as they went.
One look told Ning Chen what they wanted. They were pulling back toward the mine shaft.
“Little Chen, that’s him… that’s the one who killed Pa. That’s the one who raped Chuntao…”
Wu Tiezhu came running up, howling in his rage, the crossbow in his hands leveled at the bearded man.
Whip!!!
The bolt went out like a splinter of light, straight at the bearded man.
And the bearded man snatched one of his own men and hauled him around in front of him, and stopped the bolt with the man’s life.
(End of Chapter 144)