Back at camp, Ning Chen sent men out to cut bamboo at once.
Once the bamboo was in, bonfire after bonfire was lit.
Ning Chen set the men to heating the bamboo and bending it into the shapes he needed.
He had also made an improvement to the delta wing: two curved lengths of bamboo fitted underneath the two crossbars, to take some of the shock.
The canvas would be doubled, too.
The mountain beside Mangzhou was a good three or four hundred meters high, far higher than the one they had tested from that afternoon.
Ning Chen was afraid the canvas would tear in the wind up there, so a double thickness was not optional.
If there was not enough canvas, they would take down tents.
Ning Chen meant to take a thousand musketeers and hit Mangzhou by night.
Which meant five hundred delta wings.
In short, five hundred delta wings had to be built before the hour of the Tiger tomorrow.
He meant to launch the attack at the hour of the Rabbit — that is five or six in the morning, when a man is at his sleepiest.
While the soldiers worked, Ning Chen and the others went back to the tent.
Ning Chen began. “At the hour of the Rabbit I’ll take a thousand musketeers and hit Mangzhou.”
“Old Pan and Old Feng come with me.”
Pan Yucheng and Feng Qizheng nodded.
Ning Chen went on. “One hour after we leave, Marshal Mu and Yuan Long bring the army up to Mangzhou.”
“Once we’re inside the city we’ll do everything we can to get the gate open… the moment it opens, not one instant’s delay — you kill your way in. Quarter to any man who surrenders. Any man who resists is cut down where he stands.”
Mu Anbang and Yuan Long took their orders. “Yes!”
“Old Pan, you have a separate job once you’re in the city… the second you’re inside, take a hundred musketeers straight to the north gate. Not one man gets out.”
Mangzhou had only two gates, north and south, and he was afraid the Left Chancellor would see how it was going and slip out through the north one.
Pan Yucheng nodded. “Relax. Leave it to me!”
By the hour of the Tiger, five hundred delta wing frames and the canvas for them were ready.
Ning Chen mustered a thousand men.
These thousand were the same men who had gone with him against the North Royal Court.
Ning Chen handed the job of assembling the delta wings over to them.
“Brothers! The time has come again for you to show what you can do.”
“Once before, you rode a thousand li at my back, cut clean through the North Royal Court and took the King of the Left Court alive.”
“Today I want you to come with me into Mangzhou, open the gate of Mangzhou, kill every rebel in it and take the Left Chancellor alive. Have you got the stomach for it?”
Every word of it rang.
“We have! We have! We have!”
“We’ll follow General Ning to the death!”
“Mighty General Ning… Mighty General Ning… Mighty General Ning!”
The thousand of them were fired up, and the spirit came off them in waves.
“Good! Whoever opens that gate and lets the army in, I’ll give a thousand taels of silver out of my own purse… and when we’re back in the capital I’ll go before His Majesty myself and ask that he be rewarded and made a Captain of a Thousand!”
“Now — move out!”
The delta wings were not assembled.
The things were too big and they caught too much wind. Assembled, they would be miserable to carry.
Ning Chen had the frames tied into bundles and taken along with the canvas, to be put together at the top.
A thousand men mounted up and left the camp under cover of night.
Scouts went ahead to guide them.
Ning Chen had sent scouts out to find the way up the mountain as soon as he got back that afternoon.
With the scouts leading, they went around behind the mountain.
There was only one path up, narrow as a sheep’s gut, and it was under ice and snow. A horse could not take it at all.
They had no choice but to dismount and climb it carefully.
Luckily these were the men who had ridden a thousand li and gone into the North Royal Court, and they had had their share of snow… there were some bad moments on the way and no real danger, and they got to the summit without trouble.
Ning Chen gave the order.
The soldiers began putting the delta wings together.
“Lash them tight, all of you. If one comes apart in the air, that’s the end of you!”
They worked in pairs.
Whoever finished first went to help the others.
Before long all five hundred delta wings were assembled.
Ning Chen said, low and hard, “Go over them again. I want it certain that every last place on every one of them is lashed tight.”
The soldiers went over them again, and once they were sure there was nothing wrong Ning Chen gave them his last word before the drop.
“Remember. Ten squads, the same as before.”
“Once you’re in the city, the first squad goes straight for the north gate. You take your orders from Pan the Gold Coat, and you hold that gate for me.”
“Everyone else, the second you’re in the city, straight for the south gate. That gate has to be opened and the army has to get in, or every one of us dies in there.”
“And here’s the most important thing I’ll say. Don’t be sparing with your ammunition or your bolts… if you can put a man down with a musket or a crossbow, you do not touch your sword. Not unless there is no help for it. Understood?”
A thousand soldiers nodded as one.
They were on a mountaintop, but a thousand men answering out loud might still carry to the enemy, so a nod was all they could give him.
Ning Chen walked to the cliff edge, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, and looked down over the blackness of Mangzhou.
Then he raised his hand slowly and brought it down hard. “Ten delta wings to a wave. Go!”
The soldiers ran their delta wings forward to the edge of the cliff and threw themselves off it.
After a moment Ning Chen waved again, and the second rank started to run, sprinted, and went out over the edge.
One after another the delta wings glided out into the dark like nighthawks and dropped away toward Mangzhou.
When the last rank had gone out, Ning Chen looked at Pan Yucheng. “Old Pan. Frightened?”
Pan Yucheng made a short, scornful sound.
The two of them ran their delta wing off the cliff.
The wind roared past their ears and pulled their faces out of shape, and the cold of it went across the skin like a knife and straight into the bone.
Christ!!!
I should have made a flight suit out of the canvas. I should at least have covered my face.
It was coming up on the hour of the Rabbit by now, the hour when a man is at his drowsiest.
The rebels on the wall were propped on their spears, every one of them bobbing his head like a kowtow beetle, dozing where he stood.
One rebel soldier seemed to have noticed something.
He rubbed his eyes and stared up into the night for a while. There did seem to be something up there, flying, but he could not make it out clearly.
He turned his head to another soldier who was dozing.
“Hey. There’s something in the sky, isn’t there?”
The other man opened his eyes blearily, looked up, nodded and said, “Yeah. There’s something.”
“What is it? Can you see it?”
“I can see it plain as day. It’s your father, jumping off the mountain.”
“Say that again, God damn it.”
“Disturb my sleep again, God damn it, and I’ll run this spear through you.”
The soldier finished shouting, wrapped himself around his spear again and went back to dozing.
At that moment a series of crashes came up out of the city, like something hitting something.
“Holy shit… Old Pan, hold on, whatever you do don’t let go.”
There was a bang like an explosion and Ning Chen’s voice was swallowed whole.
Their delta wing had gone straight through somebody’s roof.
The roof had a great hole punched in it and nearly every strut of the delta wing’s frame was snapped, the wreck of it wedged into the roof.
Luckily Ning Chen had fitted the two extra lengths of bamboo, and they took some of the shock. The two of them hung off the one crossbar that had not broken, their faces screwed up with pain.
The force of the impact had nearly shaken everything inside them loose.
“Old Pan. Are you all right?”
“I’m all right. You?”
“I feel like I’m coming apart at every joint…”
Ning Chen had not finished speaking when a scream nearly went through both their eardrums.
They looked down. Below them was a big bed, with a man and a woman clinging to each other and shaking. The scream had come from the woman.
“Don’t be frightened. We’re not good men…”
Crack!
Before Ning Chen could finish, the one remaining crossbar snapped.
As it went, Pan Yucheng swung lightly across and caught hold of the roof beam beside him.
Ning Chen dropped straight down and landed on the bed.
There was a crash.
The bed collapsed.
Why doesn’t it hurt?
Ning Chen was still wondering about it when a groan of pain came from underneath him.
He looked down. There was a man under him, rolling his eyes up at him… no. Rolling his eyes back because he had been landed on.
“Aaah…”
The woman beside him let out another scream at the top of her register.
Ning Chen scrambled up in a hurry and turned on the screaming woman. “Shut up. Scream again and I’ll have Old Pan rape you and then kill you.”
The skin of Pan Yucheng’s face twitched, and he nearly came off the roof beam.
(End of Chapter 244)