Lehmann had split them in two, as neatly as if he had brought an ax down on a log. To the west things looked particularly desperate. There, his own forces were surrounded, cut off and heavily outnumbered now that five of his tonghad gone over to Lehmann. Here in the northeast, the position was nowhere near as bad, yet it was only a matter of time. Once Lehmann had dealt with Wong's western forces, he would turn and the final battle would begin.
"What news is there?" he asked, looking about him.
"This came, Master," one of his men said, bowing low and handing him a sealed note. "It came in from the north, ten minutes back. From Red Gang territory."
Wong Yi-sun laughed, then ripped it open anxiously, his hopes rising. At last, Yun Yueh-hui was coming! At last! But it was not from Dead Man Yun. It was from Li Pai Shung, the new Boss of the Wo Shih Wo, greeting him and assuring him of his friendship and loyalty.
He crumpled the note and threw it down, a wave of bitterness washing through him. The gods were mocking him. Raising his hopes and then dashing them. For Li Pai Shung was already dead, the Wo Shih Wo destroyed. And his old friend and ally Yun Yueh-hui still sat on his ass in his rooms, doing nothing.
"Why?" he asked for the hundredth time that hour. "Why doesn't the Dead Man come?"
But there was no answer, only the dull sound of an explosion close by, rattling the plastic counters on the map.
LEHMANN WALKED slowly through the ruins of the deck, surprised by the extent of the damage. When he had last seen it, this had been a luxurious, orderly place, the balconies festooned with bright red banners and garlands of colorful flowers, the shops and restaurants busy with affluent young Han. Now it was empty, desolate, the great floor littered with debris, the shop fronts gutted, the tables overturned.
The heart, he thought. I have plucked the. heart out of the beast. Yet still it fought on, stubbornly, defiantly, like a badly wounded bear, refusing to die.
He turned, looking down the length of Main toward the bell tower, remembering how it had once looked. Twelve great cinnamon trees had stood along the central aisle, brightening the great space with their broad green crowns. Now the aisle seemed bare. The ornamental bowls were cracked and charred, the trees gaunt, blackened stumps, embedded in ash.
Death, it all said. Death has come.
Lehmann sighed deeply, tired to his bones. The United Bamboo was broken. Once their banners had flown proudly over this place: banners on which nine long, thick canes of bamboo were gripped by a single giant hand, ivory yellow against a bright green background. But now that hand had been hacked from its arm, its tight grip loosened. And he had picked up the canes and snapped them, one by one.
He turned, clicking his fingers. At once his men spilled out from the corridors where they'd been waiting, slowly filling the Main. In the midst of them, six men carried a bulky field communications unit on a litter between them. Setting it down where Lehmann indicated, they got to work. While they did so, Lehmann looked about him, taking advantage of the lull in the fighting to think things through.
His assassins had failed, but then, so too had Fat Wong's counterattack. And now the United Bamboo were backed up into three decks just north of where he stood, all exits from those decks sealed top and bottom. At best they had four thousand men. Half of those were wounded, all of them tired and hungry, but they were no less dangerous for that. When the final battle came, they would put up fierce resistance. Besides which, his own men were close to the limit now. He had tried to rest them when he could, to make sure they were properly organized and supplied with food and ammunition, but it had been difficult of late. Moreover, in the chaos of battle much had gone wrong. Take Hui Tsin, for instance. They had surrounded Fat Wong's "Red Pole" in one of the western stacks, cutting him off and then slowly closing in. Lehmann had taken great care, sure that they had him, but Hui Tsin had slipped the net, audaciously cutting his way through the Kuei Chuan lines with a mere handful of fighters, while his main force struck elsewhere.
A good man, Lehmann thought, feeling something akin to admiration for Hui Tsin's ability. It is a pity he has to die.
He turned, looking across. The rig was prepared. The technicians were standing there, heads bowed, awaiting him.
He went across and stood beside the desk, his tall, white figure standing out against the soot-stained blackness of his surroundings. For a moment he simply looked about him at his men, noting how they looked to him, eager now, unquestioning, their tiredness set aside, and inwardly he smiled, knowing he was close.
"Come," he said, tersely, unsmilingly. "Let's finish the job."
"Gods..." ,
Hui Tsin moved back sharply, a look of disgust, maybe even of horror on his face. Fat Wong's Red Pole had seen many things in his life, but never anything quite so vile as this. The three boys had been trussed up—bound tightly hand and foot—and hung from hooks. Then, while their mother watched, they had been killed, their eyes poked out, their throats slit like pigs.
He turned, looking about him at the empty, blood-spattered floor, his eyes finally coming to rest on Dead Man Yun's daughter. She sat there in the far corner, unnaturally still, her knees drawn up to her chest, her face ashen, her eyes staring into emptiness.
He shuddered, angered and sickened by what had happened here. If he had known he would not have killed the guards, but taken them. Yes, and made their last few hours in this world a living hell. As it was, there was little time. The final assault would begin any time now and Leipzig was two hours distant. If there was any chance of saving the United Bamboo, he had to leave here now. To get this evidence to Dead Man Yun and wake that aged dragon from his slumbers.
Hui Tsin looked about him, then nodded. "Cut them down and bring them," he said quietly. "And be gentle with the woman. What she has suffered here today we cannot even begin to imagine."
No, and yet it was the way of War, the way he had chosen long ago, when he had first uttered the sacred oaths and partaken of the rituals of the brotherhood. How many mothers' sons had he sent to their deaths? How many days of grief and bitterness had his knife hand carved from the whiteness of the years?
The gods help me, he thought, for my earthly soul witt surely sink down into the earth-prison when I am dead, to rot in eternal torment, while my spirit soul roams the upper regions, forlorn, a hungry ghost.
Maybe so. But before that happened, there was one final score to settle; one last, earthly battle to wage.
Lehmann. He would hang Lehmann on a hook and gut him. Or die trying.
IT WAS THE WIND that hit first, pushing ahead of the great storm like a company of outriders, wreaking havoc wherever it struck.
At Nantes Spaceport, it struck without warning, effortlessly ripping the perimeter fence from its foundations and whipping it across the open space like a giant, deadly length of ribbon. Buildings exploded. Small ships were lifted from their pads and thrown about like toys, while in the deeper pits, the big interplanetary craft were rocked and buffeted, their service crews picked up and crushed like ants against the walls and safety doors.