Nicander stroked in time with Marius and the boat swung to face downstream.
They began to move out and away. Wang found the main channel and soon the banks were slipping past. Dare they hope?
Nicander did not have Marius’s brute strength but with his best efforts he pushed and heaved, his lungs bursting, the ill-balanced oar a burning weight.
As they slid around a curve in the river, to their horror, they saw a squadron of cavalry on the bank. A challenge came to pull in.
Orders cracked out ashore. Half the soldiers reined in, extracted their crossbows and opened fire while the others kept pace. Bolts hissed past, some skittering in the water nearby. Two made a solid thunk into the hull.
‘Keep down!’ Marius gasped. Wang steered the boat away but another squadron came into view on the opposite bank. There was nothing for it but head midstream.
The river widened; they were out of range. But the cavalry squadrons either side cantered along effortlessly, waiting for their chance.
Nicander felt sickened. They would never lose their pursuers, and at some point the river would narrow or become shallow enough for horses, and then…
‘The Four Pheasants Gorge – we cannot go around now!’ Wang said grimly.
‘What do you mean?’ Nicander gasped.
‘Ahead, around the bend the river narrows through a cliff chasm, goes over rocks. We cannot go on!’
They would be forced to land the boat.
On the banks the two squadrons slowed to a trot, the glitter of unsheathed steel appearing as they waited to see which side their prey would choose.
They heard the first dull roar of the gorge, a dark cleft through an escarpment of broken rocks that stretched across from either side. Flecks of white showed at its maw.
‘We must go through – who’s with me?’ Marius roared.
Kuo spoke for them all. ‘Better death in the cataract than at the hands of Wen Hsuan!’
Marius elbowed Wang aside and gripped the steering oar tightly. His eyes fixed on the approaching terror, calmly judging distances, angles.
Small whirlpools appeared and their onward velocity increased as they were gripped by the current. ‘Get the oars in,’ he rapped. ‘Everyone, low as you can get – we’re going through!’
Angry shouts came from the banks.
The thunder of water increased but even in the rising moon the narrows were in shadow – there could be anything waiting for them.
Nicander glanced at the shore. ‘Look!’
On either bank the horses were being reined in, baulked by the craggy escarpment across their track, their riders brandishing weapons in frustration.
He peered into the darkness ahead in cold fear. They had escaped from one fate but were hurtling to another.
The sides of the gorge whipped past and a heavy roar battered their ears in the confined space. As his eyes got used to the gloom Nicander made out the figure of Marius, standing on the afterdeck, heroically straining to keep the boat from splintering against some lethal rock.
Their speed was now dizzying – vague black masses flicked by and the odour of churning water and pungent weed rose up.
Kuo and Wang crouched with Nicander in the middle of the boat. Ying Mei and Tai Yi huddled in the little shelter.
They plunged on. It was impossible to make out much ahead; the very next instant could see them smashed to their deaths.
The gorge seemed endless, the darkness near impenetrable. White lathering over deadly rocks showed as Marius slewed the fragile craft this way and that to avoid them. Nicander could only imagine the burning pain in his body.
The lip of the chasm was still relentlessly high. How much further?
Then a massive buttress jutted out from one side, obscuring what was ahead. It was also constricting the waters – and the little craft gathered speed into the roaring chaos.
Nicander knew it was beyond even Marius to take them through alone and hauled himself up beside him, grabbing at the oar.
‘Tell me!’ he yelled against the noise.
Marius nodded. ‘Left!’
They thrust against the shuddering haft, the frightful strength of the shooting water transmitted directly to them.
‘Right!’
It was working: they were slipping past the vicious hazards in the narrowing channel, but then the buttress loomed close. There was no sight of the river ahead which seemed to be curving around it.
‘We take it in the middle!’
In a nightmare of speed and terror they shot past and into the void beyond – it opened up wide but just ahead, spreading right across their track was a continuous chain of white.
There was nothing they could do except scream a warning.
The boat hit and reared up before dropping with a rending crash on the other side: Nicander felt himself flung into the air and then plunging into the water. He was rolled and tossed, choking and helpless until it quietened and he managed to get his head above water. Thrashing about he saw that the boat had entered a broad patch of placid water and Marius was levering it towards a sandy outcrop.
He struggled towards it and was hauled in as the others scrambled, damp and trembling, on to the sand.
‘Got to check the boat,’ Marius croaked.
The craft was fast filling from a splintered plank. Without tools there was no possibility of repair.
‘We can’t wait here,’ Kuo said through chattering teeth. ‘The soldiers will find a way around before long – we must leave!’
‘Then get in and bail – every last bastard!’ Marius ordered.
They found whatever they could to use and when the boat was refloated even Kuo, feeling for the gunwale, bailed as hard as he could.
‘Oars again,’ growled Marius at the steering oar.
Nicander and Wang took up their labour once more. They were keeping pace with the leak – they had a chance!
The night wore on until, imperceptibly, delicate light stole in to lift the darkness.
Ahead, Wang spotted a familiar fork in the river. ‘Heaven be praised!’ he gasped. ‘Ye Ching!’
At a rickety bamboo landing place their little craft came to its rest and they scrambled thankfully to the shore.
Wang made off quickly down the river path to the village while Kuo, clinging to his staff with weariness, called the rest together.
‘It has been a cruel experience for us all, but as so often in our mortal existence, with a hidden gift. In the usual way we should have disembarked before the gorge, made our way across country to the tributary and in another boat followed it down the longer way to this conjunction. Instead we went by a more direct, and you will no doubt agree, a faster route.’
He straightened painfully. ‘By this, we have broken through the search cordon and have arrived here at Ye Ching well on schedule. They have no proof that a single fleeing boat held their quarry and therefore they cannot afford to relax their pursuit in other directions. I’m certain that if we move without delay we will stay ahead of them.’
Wang met them at the inn. ‘Sir, we are desired to wait in the private room while our transport is prepared.’
‘We have little time to waste,’ Kuo said briskly once they were inside. ‘Thus I will tell you now what must be done.
‘You will head as rapidly as possible for the north-west. You will be safe there after crossing the mountains at the Wu Tsen Pass; on the other side you will reach the Yellow River. From there it is a simple journey to Chang An and the rest of your adventure.’
‘And you, sir?’
‘Master Wang and I will be taking horse in the opposite direction, to Shaolin.’
‘Then…’
‘Yes,’ Kuo said with infinite gentleness. ‘It is therefore here that we must part.’
Ying Mei’s features remained blank.
‘First, I give over to you the chest. It contains sufficient means to get you to Chang An, together with required passes and documents.’
Tai Yi firmly took it in charge.
‘Next, I ask my daughter to accept this staff of mine that has done me such service.’
‘F-Father…?’
‘I do so for a reason. It is this.’ From inside his robe he brought out an extraordinary object, a thick length of black hair, shiny with lacquer. He looped it over the tip of the staff.