These small efforts exhausted Long. The wound had definitely weakened him. However, he was feeling better about his chances of success since he had found the water, and he decided to press on toward Tun-huang. He used some of the rope in the saddlebag to secure his camel-hair blanket to the back of the saddle, and he climbed onto the horse and steered it toward the pass. Or, more accurately, it steered him. The horse clearly knew the way.
Long settled into the saddle, leaning back against the plush camel hide. He soon fell asleep. When he woke, it was very late. It was dark and the moon was out. He was so weak now that he was concerned he might fall off the horse and never be heard from again.
Using a section of the remaining rope, Long lashed himself to the saddle with the camel-hair blanket draped across his shoulders for added warmth. He still wore his jacket, hat, and heavy gloves, but he figured the blanket more than doubled his chances of survival in the bitter nighttime temperatures.
He drifted in and out of consciousness over what he guessed were the next two days, though he could not be sure. He became so dizzy from blood loss and then dehydration, sometimes he could not even tell if it was day or night. Yet this whole time, his horse continued at a steady pace, never stopping.
On what Long thought was probably the third morning since lashing himself to the saddle, he imagined he heard voices and hooves rushing across sand. Without much hope that this was anything more than a hallucination, he raised his weary head.
Long saw two rough-looking young men ride up to him atop Heavenly Horses. They wore black turbans, which led him to believe that they were thieves. He opened his mouth to speak and put up at least a verbal fight, but even his vocal cords had failed him.
The men began to talk with one another in a language he did not understand. Even so, it was clear that they were deciding what they should do with him. One of the men reached over and removed Long’s gloves. They were going to steal the clothes right off his back!
The thief started talking excitedly to the other man, and Long realized that they were both staring at his left hand. More specifically, at the scorpion ring Xie had given him. Surely they would steal that, too.
Long was shocked when he was addressed in perfect Mandarin Chinese. “We are so glad to have found you, young dragon!”
Dumbfounded, Long focused all his energy and managed to mouth a single word. “How?”
“A Heavenly Horse arrived in Tunhuang two days ago. It was tied to an old Mongolian horse that appeared to have led it there. Both were riderless, and the Heavenly Horse was wearing hoof boots that had filled with sand. It was clear that something was amiss. When the story was reported to Warlord Xie, he thought of you and sent two hundred pairs of men out into the desert to discover what had happened. No one expected to find you alive, but here you are! You look like you could use a lake’s worth of fresh water and several nights by a warm fire.”
Long did his best to nod, and the man smiled warmly.
“We will have you in Tunhuang before you know it.”
Ying circled the bandits’ former stronghold for the hundredth time, as eager to find a bandit as he was to ambush one of Tonglong’s elite soldiers. He had important information to give to one group, and equally important information to take from the other. He did not care which encounter happened first. In the end, he was going to get what he wanted, and that was Tonglong’s head.
Ying glanced down at Grandmaster’s sword, dangling scabbardless from his sash. It glimmered in the moonlight. Its brilliance was likely to give him up to a keen eye, so he had been limiting his patrols here to the nighttime. Even then, he did his best to remain hidden within shadows.
He had come almost a week ago, after ShaoShu had told him about Tonglong’s short-term intentions. He needed to warn the bandits, but had no idea how to find them. He decided that if he were Mong, he would have bandit spies patrolling the stronghold’s outer reaches in search of information about Tonglong’s plans. Find a spy and he could find Mong.
As for Tonglong’s elite soldiers, find one of them and, with a little persuasion, he should be able to find their leader, too. He had seen many soldiers, but none had been wearing the red uniforms ShaoShu had told him about. They had all been Commander Woo’s men, out on routine patrols, and would not have access to the kind of information Ying desired. As tempted as he was to interrogate a few of them, he had let them all pass. When the time came for one of Tonglong’s men—if not Tonglong himself—Ying would be ready.
His grandfather’s sword would be ready, too. He had spent hours refurbishing it to its former deadly glory. He had gotten nearly every speck of rust off the blade with the help of abrasive stones and river sand. He had always been good with metal, having spent years helping at Cangzhen Temple’s small forge. He had even made his extra-long chain whip himself. He knew good metal when he saw it, and this was the best he had ever held. With additional polishing and a proper whetstone, he could rejuvenate the sword’s legendary edge. Even now, it would get the job done.