Dance: Cinderella Retold (Romance a Medieval Fairytale series Book 3) Read online

  Yi stared at her. "You jest."

  She shook her head. "Didn't you enjoy the challenge? So many different styles of fighting, so many different opponents, each thinking and acting differently so that you could lose yourself in a dance so complex you must rely on instinct and training and…" She sighed happily. "I was born for this."

  "You're crazy," Yi said instead.

  Mai laughed again. "Perhaps I am."

  "A man as crazy as you needs breakfast. Shall we see what the cooks have burned for us today?"

  For the first time, instead of stalking off in a huff, Yi joined her for breakfast. It would not be the last time, either.

  Fifteen

  Yi held still while Heng, his manservant, shaved him. Heng's hands were perfectly steady, but that didn't change the fact that he held a sharp blade very close to Yi's face. One slip could be disastrous.

  "I don't know how you can let a man hold a blade to your throat without defending yourself," Mao commented as he bundled his clothing into a sheet from his bed. "If anyone got that close to me with a knife, I'd automatically block and disarm him."

  Yi wanted to shake his head but he managed to resist. Heng wasn’t done yet. "It's a matter of loyalty and trust. Heng and I have campaigned together for a long time. I've killed men who tried to attack him, so he's not going to kill me. I'm useful."

  Heng snorted. "Enemy soldiers see him as a target. Stick near him. No one will bother to attack you, because they see him as a giant trophy they want to take home." He eyed Mao. "My family is noble like yours, but our lands are so small, there was nothing left for a younger son like me. As long as he's around, he makes life interesting. Sometimes campaigning, sometimes in court. It beats ploughing my father's fields with the villagers."

  Mao nodded as if he understood.

  "Are you a younger son, too?" Yi asked.

  Mao laughed. "No, I am my father's firstborn. But I understand the desire to have more to my life than dreary days in a rural village. Ah, but a village does have one advantage." He bundled the sheet into a sack for his clothing and lifted it into the air. "I know who the washerwomen are, and where to find them. Here, I fear I might have to wash my own clothes in the river next time I bathe."

  "Give them to Heng. He can take them and mine, too, before he fetches our breakfast," Yi said.

  Heng faked a happy grin. "See, what did I tell you? Life is always interesting. Today, I become a washerwoman. Wait until some drunken soldier tries to find out what I keep under my skirts."

  Yi laughed as Heng grabbed the bundle of clothing and sashayed out, hips swaying like a prostitute touting for business.

  "He does a good job at shaving, you know," Yi said when Heng was gone. "Any time you want his help, just ask. For we are friends now, are we not?"

  "Yes, we are friends," Mao admitted, "but I still feel strange ordering a man about. Maybe for a prince it is different, with so many servants in the palace, but at home, it was not like that. And I mean it about the blade. My father trained me too well. If I reacted as my training tells me to, I might hurt Heng without meaning to. I don't think we would remain friends after that."

  Yi laughed, but he understood. He itched for battle, too. A siege like this was frustrating.

  Sixteen

  A commotion in the camp outside roused Mai from a deep sleep.

  "Hurry, Mao, or we'll miss it," she heard Yi say. Something heavy landed on her midsection, and her breath whooshed out of her lungs at the impact. "Get your armour on!"

  With Heng's help, Mai managed to don her armour, for Yi was already geared for war, capering around the tent like a court fool. She was still buckling on her sword belt when Yi dragged her from the tent.

  "What's going on?" she mumbled, fumbling with the buckle.

  "Another raid on the blockade. This time, we're sending reinforcements. We get to fight!"

  Yi seemed ghoulishly excited about going out to kill other men. Mai wondered if he might be crazy after all. They joined the column of troops marching toward the city, which was lit by the orange light of flames licking toward the stars at a camp just north of their own.

  When they reached the camp, Yi grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the other soldiers. "This way."

  Screams erupted from the camp gates as the flames leaped higher.

  Mai wasn't sure whether to run toward the sound or away from it. "What's happening?"

  "They brought fire lances," Yi said. They rounded a section of wall and found the next section had been burned to ash, leaving them a clear view into the camp and the massacre at the gate. "Big bamboo tubes that explode and take down whole sections of wall, like this one, or many men all at once."

  Mai's stomach churned. This was not the sort of fighting her father had taught her. She pointed at a box four men were wheeling toward the gate. "What is that?"

  Yi stared intently in the direction she was pointing. "A cart, I think. I don't – "

  A great gout of flame erupted from a pipe on top of the cart, dousing everything in its path in fire.

  Mai looked on in horror as men caught in it screamed, then fell to the ground, writhing as they burned. Whatever the box was, it was monstrous.

  "First fire lances, now fierce fire oil, and a box that sprays it," Yi said, awed. "So that's why the General has not attacked. If they're willing to risk one of these in a raid, they must have many more. All along the walls, ready to burn anyone and anything that comes close to the city."

  "Not just ready to do it. It's doing it now!" Mai snapped, charging toward the box.

  "What are you doing? They'll kill you!" Yi hissed.

  "Not if I get to them first," Mai said grimly. She took the first man low in the gut, knocking him over so that his head hit the wheel of the cart, rendering him unconscious. Second, she tripped the man directing the nozzle spitting flames. The liquid spilled over his clothes instead, and Mai had to back away in a hurry as he became a flaming torch.

  A third man stopped working the pump to stare at his fiery compatriot, so he didn't even see Mai's kick coming. He was unconscious before he hit the ground. Mai turned to deal with the fourth operator of the deadly box, only to find Yi extracting his sword from the man's belly.

  "Your first battle, and you kill three men in the time it takes me to kill one. Did one of your ancestors sleep with a barbarian war god or something?" Yi asked.

  "I didn't kill anyone," Mai defended herself. "Those two are just unconscious and that one set fire to himself."

  "You'll be everyone's hero tonight," Yi muttered, before raising his voice. "This camp belongs to the Emperor, and anyone who is not loyal to him will burn like a torch!" he roared.

  "It's the Prince of Swords! He holds the fire machine!" someone shouted.

  Mai drew her sword as a group of men rushed toward them, only to recognise them as General Li's men.

  "They're running back to hide in Dean now," another man said. "Look at them go!"

  In the light of the still burning barricade, Mai could see men streaming back into a small city gate, before they barred it behind them.

  Cheering erupted around Yi and Mai.

  Mai couldn't understand it. She could still smell fuel and burning flesh, and there were corpses underfoot. What was there to cheer about? Men had died here.

  Yi slung a comradely arm around Mai's shoulder. "I bet you feel like a big man now, your first battle and all." He looked just as deliriously happy as the others.

  Mai couldn't seem to find the words to express the horror and guilt and sheer desolation she felt right now, so she just nodded and let Yi take her back to their camp while the others cleaned up what was left of this one.

  Seventeen

  By dusk of the next day, the wrecked camp looked almost as good as new, with the walls replaced already. A large barracks tent had become a hospital, filled with piteous groans from those who'd survived the burning touch of the flamethrowing machine or one of the fire lances. There were a lot of men not in the hospi
tal, though, who seemed to be drinking everything in sight, but they raised their cups to toast Mai whenever they saw her. It seemed that Yi had spread the story that she'd disabled the flamethrower, and they looked at her like she was some kind of hero.

  A hero who wouldn't be able to sleep tonight without having nightmares about the man she burned alive by accident. Already, she saw him whenever she closed her eyes, and his screams still rang in her ears, though they had only lasted a few seconds before the flames had silenced him forever.

  For the first time, she noticed women roaming around the camp, instead of in their own little enclave on the far side of the cookfires. Mai knew they were camp followers, the women who served the army in various capacities in times of war. Not all of them were prostitutes. Some of them were soldiers' wives, like her mother had been, but the women she saw now made it clear they were not married…yet.

  After seeing a steady succession of swaying hips, batted eyelashes and blown kisses as the women walked past her, she turned to find Yi grinning beside her. "So which one do you like?" he asked.

  "I'm not in the market for a wife," Mai grumbled, picking at her tasteless dinner.

  Yi laughed. "Not a wife. Just one night. After your first battle, it's tradition to take a woman. You being such a hero and all, they all want that honour. If you don't pick soon, the other men will get impatient and the best ones will be busy."

  "It's the first battle for all of them?" Mai asked. When Yi laughed even louder, she wished she hadn't said anything.

  "Of course not, but can you blame them? Men died today, and when you remind a man of his mortality, he remembers what he likes most in life. Good food, and the company of a good woman." Yi took a mouthful of his food and grimaced. "When all we have is women, and willing ones at that…well, why not?"

  Mai could think of half a dozen answers to that, none of which she wanted to tell him. As if to illustrate her point, one woman climbed into the lap of a man sitting not far from them, pushed his chest until he lay down flat, and began riding him like a horse. "What does she think she's doing?" Mai muttered.

  Yi stared at her. "You've never had a woman before."

  Of course not, Mai wanted to say, but knew she couldn't. "Have you?" she asked instead.

  "Of course," Yi said. "My first battle was a long time ago, and when I was younger…" He trailed off, then cleared his throat and began again. "But it is different for me. I am the Emperor's son, my children will have royal blood no matter who their mother is. A bastard child could make trouble for my family's succession. Not something you need to worry about, though. You should enjoy tonight."

  "All I want to do is sleep," Mai said, watching several more couples start rutting, as if they didn’t care who saw them. Perhaps they didn't.

  "Mao – " Yi reached for her, but Mai shrugged away from his grasp.

  "Enjoy celebrating this victory. I'm sure there will be many more," she said, loud enough for the other men to hear her. A ragged cheer rose up, the sound following her all the way back to her tent.

  The sounds of celebration continued long into the night, but her heart was heavy. Men had died because of her, and because of the strange box that now sat in the camp outside her tent. As long as these things existed, there could be no victory, for too many men would die in the most horrible of ways.

  By the time the sun rose, Mai had not slept, but she had thought of many ways in which the boxes might be destroyed. Most would not work, but she only needed one that would.

  She staggered out of the tent. Half a dozen men, looking much like she felt, stared back at her. Including Yi and Heng.

  "Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," Yi greeted her.

  Mai took that to mean she looked worse than the hungover men beside him. "It will be if we have a fire lance, and someone who knows how to use it," she said.

  Yi frowned. "Why?"

  Mai jerked her head toward the flamethrower. "Help me take that to an empty field and I'll show you."

  Eighteen

  It took four fire lances before one managed to hit its target. The results were better than anything Yi could have expected, though. The explosive ball landed on top of the cart, blossoming into an orange flower that ignited the liquid pooled on the cart beneath it. Yi held his breath as the pool caught fire. A loud boom made him duck for cover as a wave of heat blasted over their hastily dug earth rampart. When Yi dared to raise his head above the rampart, there was nothing left to see except some twisted pieces of metal where the cart had once been.

  Yi seized Mao's arm. "That's it! The way to break the siege. You must tell the General." He hauled the boy to his feet, and pulled him toward the General's house.

  Mao resisted. "I am inexperienced in war. Surely the General knows all this already."

  "If he did, he would have attacked and the siege would be over. He's a fool who might know how to train men, but he is lost when it comes to war. But you…you see things so clearly you were born for battle. To command troops in battle. To victory. More than Li, or even me."

  Mao turned bright red. Evidently the boy was not used to praise. "You're mistaken. I'm not…"

  "You are." Yi marched Mao to the General's house and shoved him through the open doorway.

  As Yi had expected, a strategy session was underway.

  "What is it?" Li asked irritably. "We are in the middle of a strategy meeting. Whatever the boy has done, it can wait. Or discipline him yourself."

  "General, Mao has done nothing wrong. He says you are wrong about the city's defences. You must listen to what this boy has to say," Yi insisted.

  "Who are you to criticise the General?" General Li boomed, annoyed.

  "I’m Yeong Mao, sir," Mao said. "My parents were Yeong Fu and Da Ying. I have studied the art of war all my life. My mother insisted up on it."

  Da Ying? Yi's ears pricked up at that name. Of all the warrior women he'd heard of, Da Ying was the most legendary of the lot. A general's daughter, she'd married a junior officer and helped him through victory after victory until he rose to the rank of general. Then, she went into combat beside him. Yi had heard a tale about how her husband had fallen in battle, so she commanded the army in his stead, all the while carrying his unconscious body on her back. He itched to ask Mao if the story was true. And if he had any sisters. If he had to marry, a daughter of Da Ying might be his best chance of finding a woman he could tolerate.

  "Well, then, Yeong Mao. Tell me what I am wrong about." There was a dangerous edge to Li's tone.

  Mao evidently caught it, too. "It's not that you are wrong, sir. Those are Jun Yi's words, not mine. I merely made a remark about the fire lances and flamethrowers, and how they might be turned against the city."

  General Li rose to his feet. "How?" he demanded.

  For the first time, Mao seemed afraid. "Well, they are hollow, their tanks filled with explosive material. The one at the skirmish this week was a tank of liquid, which caught fire once sparked. The ones on the walls are filled with projectiles, like those you fire from a trebuchet. If you were to ignite the fuel before they could fire, then they would explode, burning away whatever fuel was inside them and rendering them harmless to us. If we took them out all at once, we might even set fire to the city, driving the people out through the gates. It would be an almost bloodless victory, sir."

  General Li's eyes narrowed, but then he seemed to relax. "And how do you propose we set fire to them? We just climb over the walls and sneak into the city, hoping their troops are so poorly trained they don't see us or our flaming torches as we set their city on fire?" He laughed at his own joke.

  Mao's gaze hardened. "I see no reason to fight inside the city at all. Why enter terrain so familiar to them when we can flushing them out to the battle ground of our choosing? We can send flaming missiles over the walls. Your trebuchet operators will need to know their range perfectly, because they must all act at once in order to create sufficient panic in the city that the city troops will not regroup. We attack their
strategy. That is how we can win."

  General Li's eyes widened. "If we knew the location of all their fire weapons, that might work. But we do not."

  "We would know if we could get a few men inside the city, who could then send that information back to you." Mao wet his lips. "I believe I know how to sneak in without anyone seeing me. If I can mark the locations of all the lances in the city, your men could pick them off easily."

  Yi's heart jumped into his throat. "The two of us will go," he said. The thought of Mao alone in the city, where anything could happen to him…

  Li slammed both hands down on the table. "Yes. Yi, you take the boy into the city. I will command our troops outside and lead them to victory."

  It was on the tip of Yi's tongue to refuse. Left alone our here to his own devices, Li would surely lead his army to nothing but defeat. They were good men who didn't deserve to die in a bungled battle. But he couldn't let Mao go off alone, either.

  "Yes, sir," Yi found himself saying.

  The rest of the meeting passed in a blur, where Li described details that Yi knew he wouldn't remember. Not that it mattered. He and Mao would be inside the city, not preparing to attack it.

  It wasn't until the General dismissed them that Yi found Mao tugging him aside. When they were out of earshot of everyone else, Mao hissed, "What were you thinking? How do you expect me to get both of us into the city? You stride around like you own the world – no one will think you are some lowly worker, if you even make it inside the walls! You should have let me go alone."

  Yi glanced down, to find Mao's hand still firmly gripping his arm. His skin tingled under the boy's fingers in a way that wasn't at all unpleasant. Why, if the boy had been a girl, Yi might almost…

  Yi shook his head. He didn't want to kiss Mao. He wanted to keep him safe. "I know more about the city than you do. I have been inside, on many occasions. They weren't always hostile to the Emperor. Two of us can watch out for each other. It is no harder to get two men than one inside the city. It is not as though we were ten in full armour. Besides, your plan involves us either sneaking out of the city – much harder than sneaking in, as you've already mentioned – or shooting an arrow from the walls all the way to one of the camps. You are a formidable fighter, but you don't have the strength to draw a big enough bow. I do."