The Great Wall - The Official Movie Novelization

17

Still crouched behind the workbench, fingers in their ears, Pero and Ballard waited.

And waited.

Eventually Pero lifted his head slowly and peered over the top of the bench. Seeing nothing he nudged Ballard, who glanced irritably at him. When Pero raised his eyebrows and pulled a ‘What’s happening?’ face, Ballard said laconically, “Why not take a look? See if it’s gone out?”

“Is it safe?” asked Pero.

“Of course it’s safe. Just—”

His words were interrupted by a massive explosion, which buffeted the bench and threw both men backwards. Pero felt as if his skull had been smashed between two sledgehammers. His brain was shaking like a dice in a cup and his ears felt simultaneously to be stuffed with soil and leaking blood. The air was full of smoke and dust and debris; when he breathed in, the air was hot and seemed full of splinters. He clawed at the bench in an attempt to pull himself up on to his knees and peer over the top, but he couldn’t see a thing. His eyes were blurred and smarting.

In the kitchen the floor shook and the pots and pans hanging on hooks from the ceiling began to sway, clanging against one another. Peng Yong gripped the side of the sink to steady himself as a heap of metal bowls slid to the floor with a clash of metal on rock.

When the tremor had passed he looked up. Where had the explosion come from? Though muffled it seemed too close to have echoed down from the top of the Wall. Could it have come from the courtyard then? Somewhere closer? And who could have caused it?

Then he remembered seeing the foreign soldier…

The air was still full of dust and debris, but it was slowly settling now. Coughing, eyes still stinging, Pero clambered to his feet. He felt bruised and battered, but a little pain was nothing new to him; he was used to carrying injuries.

He was not used to being deaf, though. Not used to feeling as if his head had been squeezed in a vise. He opened his mouth, rotated his jaw from side to side, and was pleased to find that the pressure in his ears eased a little.

Ballard had already scuttled out from behind the bench and was now crouching beside the door. He was a dark, blurred shape behind a curtain of floating grime. The explosion had blown many of the torches out, transforming the room into a realm of shadows. Flapping at the dust, Pero realized that where the stout wooden door had been was now a charred hole, around which lay pieces of blackened wood, some of which were still burning.

Ballard’s head snapped round. His thin face was a soot-smeared mask of savage triumph.

“Shake it off, soldier!” he barked. “To work!”

William was going round in circles. Somehow, after passing the kitchen, he’d lost his way, got turned around, and was now standing outside Ballard’s suite. He banged on the door, then opened it and looked inside. Empty, as he’d suspected. So where—

The BOOM! of an explosion, not too far away, caused the flames of the lanterns in the corridor to flap momentarily and the floor to shudder beneath his feet. William didn’t exactly stagger, but he put out his arms to steady himself, like a tightrope walker, and turned his head in the direction the explosion had come from.

After a few seconds a waft of warm air barreled down the corridor and rolled over him, causing the lantern flames to shiver again. He caught a faint odor of charred wood. He felt dread seeping through him, curdling his insides.

Oh no, he thought, and began to sprint back the way he had come, homing in on the sound of the explosion and the still lingering smell of burning. He had an awful suspicion, though, that no matter how fast he ran, he was going to be too late.

Peng Yong was frozen to the spot, his mind churning. Should he investigate the explosion, confront the foreigner—if that was who had caused it? But what if the foreigner was armed? In fact, there was every likelihood that the foreigner would be armed. He was a soldier, after all, and a good one at that. He would doubtless think twice about cutting Peng Yong’s throat if his plans were compromised.

But what were his plans? What could he be blowing up inside the fortress? Surely he couldn’t secretly be working to undermine the Nameless Order? The Tao Tei were a threat not only to Bianliang and the rest of China, but to the entire world. No matter how ruthless the foreigners were, Peng Yong couldn’t believe they would be so foolhardy as to aid the Tao Tei, not even for their own gain. Then again foreigners were inscrutable, unpredictable. Who knew what dark and twisted thoughts went through their minds?

If it was unwise then to confront the foreigner directly, Peng Yong must inform the Order what was happening. But would they listen to him after his previous misdemeanors? He scrunched the bottom of his wet, filthy apron in his hand. He would make them listen. And who knew, if he acted quickly enough and thus helped prevent the foreigners from committing whatever heinous activities they were currently engaged upon, he might even be reinstated as a Bear Corps soldier. He might even be honored with—

The foreigner ran past the doorway again—and in the same direction he had been heading last time. Which meant, as far as Peng Yong could tell, that he was heading towards the explosion, not away from it. Which further meant that he couldn’t have caused it—unless, of course, he had used a very long fuse.

But where had the foreigner been since Peng Yong had last seen him? Had he been running in circles? For what purpose?

Curiosity getting the better of him, he hurried across the kitchen floor and found himself turning not right, towards the route that would lead him up through the fortress, but left, after the foreigner. If he was careful, and kept out of sight, he might be able to ascertain the foreigner’s plans. It would be better to give General Lin Mae as much information as he could when the time came.

“What is this?” Pero asked, peering over Ballard’s shoulder at what lay behind the door. He’d hoped it would be an escape route out of the fortress, perhaps a secret passage to the stables, but in fact it appeared to be nothing more than a huge cupboard containing many shelves, each of which were packed with a cornucopia of objects: weaponry, scrolls, tablets, notebooks, various instruments whose use Pero couldn’t even begin to guess at…

Granted, there were jars of black powder here too, but surely it would not be too difficult to work out the correct proportions of each ingredient from the powder they already had in their possession, and therefore to make more?

“It’s a treasure trove,” Ballard said. “Contained here are the fruits of Strategist Wang’s studies. It’s an invaluable resource. And all for the taking.”

Pero shrugged. He wasn’t much of a one for learning—though he couldn’t deny that some of the weapons Wang had collected over the years looked interesting, and would no doubt prove useful. At Ballard’s bidding, he opened the sack he’d been carrying and withdrew the folded-up saddlebags he’d crushed into it. As Ballard began to ransack the shelves, taking what he needed, Pero held the saddlebags open so that Ballard could fill them. Moving between the cupboard and the opened saddlebags, Ballard outlined his plan to Pero. One saddlebag was full and the second beginning to bulge when Pero heard the scuff of a footstep on the gritty dust behind him. He spun round—then smiled.

“Compadre.”

His greeting caused Ballard to turn too.

William was standing there, his body, mostly in silhouette, wreathed in dust. He stared at Pero, saying nothing.

Impatiently Ballard said, “So you’ve come to your senses at last, eh?”

When William still failed to reply, Ballard flapped a hand in irritation. “Well, good God, man, come on, make haste! Grab a bag!”

But William ignored him. He kept his eyes locked on Pero.

Smiling, Pero said, “Ballard has explained it all. He’s planned well. The horses are strong. Getting out will be easy. There’s a gate twenty miles west. We take that and we can dodge the hill tribes. We can make it, amigo.”

Still William said nothing.

Glancing at him, Ballard said, “Where’s your bow?” Then to Pero, “Where’s his bow?”

But Pero didn’t reply, didn’t even look Ballard’s way. Instead his welcoming smile was fading, becoming a frown. Almost wistfully he said, “Last chance, amigo.”

William spoke for the first time. His voice was blunt. “They need us here.”

Pero threw back his head and laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. “Oh, they need more than us. These people are doomed.”

Still crouched in the doorway of Wang’s secret cupboard, Ballard backed up Pero’s words. “Don’t be a fool, man!”

For the first time, William registered Ballard’s presence. He swung round on the little man in his stolen Bear Corps armour, his eyes blazing.

“I’ve been a fool!” he thundered, causing Ballard to recoil. “And I’m done with it!”

Pero raised his hands. “Brother, please…”

“Bouchard called it,” William snapped. “We’ve been fighting for nothing. Fighting for greed and gods, and all for shit! This is the first war I’ve ever seen that was worth it.”

“Nothing?” sneered Pero. “Nothing is what we leave behind when we die.” He took a breath, made one last appeal. “Come on, let’s take our prize and whore away the days we have left. Together.”

William shook his head. “I can’t do that now.”

Pero looked at him a moment, as if trying to find the man he had once known. Spreading his hands expansively, he cried, “William! My filthy bastard friend! Think of it! What wall, what city, what land could we not take with black powder in our saddlebags? Who would dare to stop us?” He had tears in his eyes now. For him, this was the culmination of a long, hard journey, the fulfillment of his wildest dreams. “We win, amigo. After all the pain and cold and blood and shit, we win!”

He looked at William hopefully. Had he persuaded him? Had he managed to bring him to his senses? William looked as though he was pondering Pero’s words. But so intent on each other were the two men that neither of them noticed Ballard slip into Wang’s cupboard and grab a knife from the shelf. Neither of them noticed him creep across to a rope that was stretched taut, holding upright a huge bookcase that was standing directly behind William. Pero only noticed him, as a flash of movement in his peripheral vision, when Ballard suddenly slashed down with the knife.

But by then it was too late. Too late to find out what William’s decision might have been. Too late to attempt to persuade him further should he still say no.

Because the bookcase was falling, scrolls and bronze instruments already sliding out of it, raining down on William as he half-turned. Pero saw William’s eyes widen, saw him half-raise a hand…

…then the bookcase crashed down, smashing William down with it, pinning him to the floor.

Once again, dust rose in a great cloud, the crash reverberating through the length and breadth of the high-ceilinged room. Shielding his mouth and nose with his raised arm, Pero moved forward. He felt regret, but also relief that the problem had been taken out of his hands. He saw blood on William’s forehead, his closed eyes.

“Is he dead?” asked Ballard.

Pero didn’t know, but he bluffed, “It’ll take a lot more than that to kill him.”

He looked at Ballard, whose eyes were glinting, and who was still holding the knife in his hand. He knew what the skinny man was thinking, and although Pero was disappointed that his friend had proven himself a weak and lovesick fool, even now he couldn’t bear the thought of William being finished off in his sleep by this cowardly weasel of a man.

Dismissively he said, “Leave him. Let them kill him.”

Ballard gave him a long, hard stare. Then he nodded and threw away the knife.