Part 13

The bandit's base camp was exactly as the sentry had described: a long gash into the rocky earth where the base of the mountains had met the more pliable soil, creating an open tunnel structure with large overhangs that provided protection against the elements. The entire length of it was two hundred yards, growing in depth from the entryway to the north, and culminating in a set of recessed wings at the south where the captured food, weapons, and riches had been gathered.

With so few bandits on site, Lian and her crew were able to sneak right up to them, approaching from the west and standing over them on the lip of the overhang, watching. Three of them were playing some sort of card game on a poorly constructed table, one was sleeping next to the remnants of a fire, and one was hauling goods into one of the adjoining caves. The sentry guessed the sixth was out tending to some of the horses on the plateau that stood just to the north, directly on from the mouth of the camp.

"Ok, here's what we're going to do," Lian gathered everyone about one hundred and fifty yards from the edge of the gash, keeping her voice low. "Li Jie, you take the villagers down about a hundred yards, near where the fall into the crack isn't so high. Keep away from the edge until you hear me start trouble, then I want all of you to jump into the tunnel and stop anyone from running away. Hopefully once they see they're outnumbered they'll just give up."

Li Jie just nodded. He had little of his brother's fearlessness and his face was as tight as the grip on his spear. Lian wasn't worried however. She'd developed a good sense of people's potential for bravery in her years, and Li Jie was no coward. The fear he showed was the healthy one: of dying.

"What will I do?" Fen asked, without any fear, healthy or otherwise.

"You," Lian explained, "will take the bow and arrow we took from the sentry, and guard him with it. If he so much as whispers, you shoot him, right in the chest."

Lian handed Fen the bow and arrow from off her horse and stared at both her and the bandit to let them know she was serious. The former sentry, his arms bound together behind his chest, clenched his jaw tight. She wasn't worried he'd make a sound.

"What about me?" It was Quan's turn to inquire.

"You're with me. It'll be more imposing if they see a Keeper and a Shuli Go together. Just stay close."

They all moved into position, silent enough to avoid detection over the raucous laughter and taunts of the card game. Once Li Jie and the peasants were in place, Lian inched to the edge of the opening, directly above the bandits. She crawled forward on her stomach so that she could poke her head over and determine a safe landing site. Quan inched up next to her.

There were only five feet of open space behind the card players, beyond which the overhangs came together completely to form a cave. The drop into that space was almost twenty feet. Easy enough for Lian, but she worried about Quan.

"It's a deep fall," she whispered to him. "Find a handhold and drop down the extra few feet, ok?"

"I'll be fine," he whispered back. "Let's go."

"You will not be fine. You are not getting hurt before the fighting even starts."

"I won't get hurt. I promise."

"Just do this, ok?"

"No, I can make the jump. It's not that high."

"It's too high. You'll get hurt."

"Oh ok, so I'm not allowed to get hurt protecting innocent people from bandits, but I'm allowed to sleep with women."

"What? What are you talking about? How is that a bad thing? Sex is awesome. Breaking your leg is not awesome. How can you possibly compare the two?"

"You can make babies from sex, and that is not awesome. Not when you're sixteen years old."

"You only make babies if you're an idiot. Are you an idiot? No! Gods, those Zhosians gave you all these weird neuroses about sex."

"Well I'm sorry I think sex is something special that you should share with the person you love!"

"There's nothing wrong with that except you don't have to be twenty-eight and married with a house on the edge of the city before you find out if you enjoy fucking the person you love!"

"I don't see how it's any business of–" but Quan stopped when Lian touched his arm. Her eyes were on the bandits below. The card game had ended. He looked down and saw their eyes were all up at the two of them, curious. At some point their whispering had gotten a little out of hand.

"Fuck," Lian stood up, "just don't break anything," she told him before she jumped down. The thrill of free fall and the air whipping her braid about focused her attention back to the task at hand. She landed on both feet and collapsed into a squat, her legs managing to absorb all the energy of the fall. As she rose up to face the bandits Quan landed next to her. His legs did not absorb the fall, and he toppled over onto his ass and then his back, his legs suspended in the air for a long moment. Lian shook her head.

"I didn't break anything," he said defiantly as he scrambled up next to her. "I'm ok."

Lian ignored him and stepped towards the bandits, who were so confused at this point they hadn't even raised a weapon or even considered sounding an alarm. The one who had been hauling goods stared at them from the mouth of a cave. The one who had been sleeping had propped himself up on his elbows, but was otherwise unperturbed. She withdrew her Shuli Go sword and moved into a defensive stance, then spoke.

"My name is Zhao Lian. I am a Shuli Go, and I'm here to arrest you all for crimes of banditry. If you set down your weapons now, you will be treated humanely and tried in accordance with Imperial codes. If you don't, you will die."

The biggest bandit – a man who reminded Lian of Xue Kang at once – took a look at her, a look at Quan, and then asked. "And him? Who's he?"

Quan stepped forward and introduced himself. "I am Zhao Quan. I am a Keeper of the Zhosian Tiendu Shu. And this is my mother."

The bandits looked at each other, unable to process all this information or make any sense of it. But Lian could read their faces well enough to tell they were leaning towards disbelief. Since she didn't want to kill anyone she didn't have to, so she took this opportunity to provide more visual evidence of their situation.

"And they!" She shouted, loud enough for Li Jie to hear. "Are with us as well." She pointed behind the bandits, who turned to see the villagers and Li Jie jumping down into the tunnel, their makeshift weapons pointed at the bandits. They weren't numerous enough to spread across the entire width of the tunnel, and they weren't that imposing either, but they were unexpected and more numerous than the bandits. And they were effective. The bandits reacted quickly, panicking and looking to one another for someone to make a choice.

Of course it was the big one who made that choice, and he chose incorrectly. He picked up the heavy axe at his side and rushed towards Lian, bellowing and telegraphing his every move. Lian feinted in one direction, he moved to meet the feint, and she darted around him and cut off his head in one slice. Blood showered out as he fell to the ground and the air turned still. Lian looked at the rest of the bandits and their decisions had all been made as well.

The villagers approached and helped tie up the bandits as Lian and Quan started exploring the network of caves that shot off from the main tunnel. Most were empty, but space had been cleared and even a few characters had been carved into the stone, indicating that a room was to be used for food, weapons, horse supplies, and so on. The two largest caverns were half-full though – one with basic stores, and the other with loot. Considering they'd been raiding mostly small farming villages, the loot was not extensive or particularly rich, but there was some silver, family heirlooms, fine clothing and delicacies like sugar and wine. For a poor rural area, it was quite the wealth they'd amassed.

Lian pulled out the items she thought would be of use in the coming days and started distributing them to the villagers: weapons to replace the more ridiculous substitutes they'd carried thus far, quality food to celebrate their first victory, and some of the wine so they could drink themselves into a good sleep that night. Then she pulled Fen aside.

"I've got something for you," Lian pulled out a pistol she'd found at the very back of the fine goods room, hidden amongst a few other valuable pieces: obviously the Keeper's personal stash. "You know what this is?"

Fen nodded but said nothing. Lian extended it to her and waited for her to take it. "It's loaded and the charge looks good. Just don't get it wet and it'll fire once. Just cock that back," she showed the young woman how the hammer moved, "and then aim and pull the trigger. I'd wait as long as you can to use it – it's probably only accurate about ten or fifteen feet in front of you, so wait until you feel like they're right on top of you. Ok?"

Fen nodded absent-mindedly and ran her fingers over the weapon. The handle was steel with a wooden grip, and the barrel was elaborately carved: a pair of dragons curling around with their mouths open where the sparks and bullet would fly. She looked up at Lian and nodded her appreciation.

When the camp had been adequately prepared, Lian gathered her son and Li Jie.

"I'm going to meet my officer friend. The soldiers will be back here tonight."

"Do you want me to come?" Li Jie offered. "It's my village they'd be helping."

"He's not helping anyone but himself," Lian confided. "You stay here. Quan and I will ride out and meet him. And we'll grab the last bandit on the way."

"What about the two sentries left out there?"

"We'll get them tomorrow morning before the sun comes up. I'll wait until we know how many soldiers we have to work with, but I have the start of a plan forming."