Movement III · The Han

I. Han Xin's Guardsman

In this era of the Han, he was a guardsman at Han Xin's side.

(Counting from his rebirth in the Western Zhou, he had now been wandering some eight hundred years; and between him and the last era he had lived through — the Warring States — lay only a few decades in truth: Qin had united all under heaven, and yet died with its second emperor, and the contest of Chu and Han followed hard upon it. He walked into the camps of Han almost treading on the ash of Qin's fall.)

Men called Han Xin "the god of war" — mending the plank roads in the open while passing through Chencang in secret, settling the Three Qins in one campaign, helping Liu Bang found a dynasty. Liu Bang had the stratagems of Zhang Liang, the administration of Xiao He, the soldiers of Han Xin; these "three peerless men of the early Han" held a whole age up. And yet the man of towering merit is seldom long-lived: the Han Xin whom Xiao He had ridden after beneath the moon was in the end the Han Xin whom Xiao He helped Empress Lü bind and slay. But Chenyu knew that the true "martial force" did not reside in Han Xin. For stratagem Han Xin had no equal; for strength of arm he was ordinary, and on several occasions when the assassin came or the danger closed, it was Chenyu who turned it aside from the dark. Where the histories write that "Han Xin took a general's head out of the midst of ten thousand troops," six times in ten it was Chenyu's shadow.

Chu and Han were contending for the world then. Xiang Yu broke the Qin at Julu and let Liu Bang go at Hong Gate; he styled himself Hegemon-King of Western Chu and split the land among kings, and then drove the Emperor Yi out south of the river and secretly ordered him killed, and so the world turned against him in the name of "regicide." Liu Bang entered Guanzhong first and by rights should have been king there, but Xiang Yu forced him into Hanzhong, and he burned the plank roads behind him to show that he had no thought of returning east — it was that play of "retreat in the open, endure in the dark" that Chenyu came in time to see, following the scent. He understood nothing of courts, and yet in Liu Bang he read a temper quite unlike Xiang Yu's: Xiang Yu was fire, burning fierce and guttering fast; Liu Bang was water, formless to look at, able to go round every stubborn stone, and in the end to gather into a sea. He noted it to himself: in a broken age, the one who laughs last is seldom the fiercest.

How had he come to be Han Xin's guardsman? The scent again, as ever. At the feast of Hong Gate, Xiang Yu's moment of hesitation lost him the world, Liu Bang slipped away like a cicada leaving its shell, and Zhang Liang and Fan Kuai guarded him with their lives — that beginning of the contest between Chu and Han he had missed. By the time he followed the thread of scent eastward, the fires in the palaces of Qin had long gone cold, and nothing was left in the ruins of Xianyang but broken halberds. The scent led him from Xianyang to the camps at Hanzhong. There it stopped short, near a torn commander's banner. He stopped wandering, and found himself a vacancy as "guardsman," which gave him proper standing to stay by the banner. The man at the banner was Han Xin — the Han Xin who under Xiang Yu had been no more than a halberd-bearer, who had gone over to Liu Bang and still been given no command, and who in his anger had slipped away in the night, until Xiao He rode after him and brought him back and had an altar raised and made him general, and so the god of war was made. But the thread of scent wound about someone else.

That Han Xin rose from halberd-bearer to the highest place a subject can hold he owed entirely to Xiao He. Unused and unvalued in the camps of Han, he had gone off in anger in the night; Xiao He, without stopping to report, rode some tens of li after him and talked him round; and Liu Bang, at Xiao He's word, raised an altar and made him general, to the astonishment of the whole army. Chenyu stood below the altar and watched the boy who had once been mocked for "the disgrace of crawling between a man's legs" gird on the seal and take up the staff of command, the light in his eyes that of a man remade. He understood suddenly: what they call "the hour arriving" is only that someone was willing to chase a stage of the road for you. He looked down at the jade pendant at his wrist — the one from the Western Zhou, the one from Handan, both still there — and thought: if one day the one on whom the scent fell would also chase a stage of the road for him, how good that would be. But he knew: she never remembered, and so of course she would never chase.

The two he was paired with in camp were Ma Xiao and Han Lie: one kept the equipment, the other the scouts. Like him, they were inconspicuous, honest soldiers in Han Xin's tent. Chenyu said little; only when they were fitting armour on Han Xin or feeling out a road ahead did he quietly put himself in front of the danger.

Their days, the four of them together, were a rare warmth in the camps of Han. Zhao Hao wielded a long spear; his arms were thick as bowls, and yet he was unhurried, and always gave the best of the baked cakes to Ma Xiao and Han Lie; his tongue spared no one, and yet each time he came back from scouting he would brush the dust from Chenyu's armour before his own. Ma Xiao kept the equipment and Han Lie the scouts, two honest men, as unremarkable as Chenyu himself. At night around the fire Zhao Hao told of the harvests back home and set them all laughing; Chenyu said little, and took that laughter for rare provisions from beyond the battlefield. It came to him then that beyond seeking a scent there could also be this way of living: shoulder to shoulder.

On this stretch of the road there was one more person at his side — Zhao Hao, a great thick man of the camp, who thought little of his own life and much of his obligations, the sort of man who, having fixed on someone, would stand in front of a blade for him. Neither Chenyu nor he could have said who trusted first; only, after that, whenever they scouted a road or tested armour, the two silent men went one behind the other. Once Zhao Hao clapped him on the shoulder: "Brother Chen, you guard a man like a beast guarding its young." He smiled and did not answer — he did not say that what he guarded had never been a young one, but a thread of scent.

That night the assassins came harder than he had expected.

After the land of Chu was destroyed, three of its sworn men, scattered into banditry, slipped into the central camp on a night of rain, and their target was Han Xin. Chenyu was in the habit of walking three circuits of the tent before Han Xin slept, his nostrils faintly working; he could smell the killing intent hidden in blood. When the first poisoned short blade came down from a roof beam he had already turned aside; his hand went back, took the blue-steel sword from the commander's table and swept it upward — the dagger fell with an arm still attached to it, and beads of blood spattered the commander's banner. Zhao Hao, hearing it outside, snatched up his spear and crashed in; the shaft swept across and knocked the second man's blade flying. The third tried to withdraw, and the point of Chenyu's sword was already at his throat — one cold flash, and there was one more red line. Between them, in three passes at most, the assassins were finished. Chenyu stooped and drew once at the neck, taking that body's blood together with his provisions of "three days without hunger." Zhao Hao thought only that his sword was fast, and covered the corpses for him. Han Xin turned over on his couch, and never knew how near death had passed him.

Once the corpses were covered, Zhao Hao wiped the blood from his spear-point and said with a grin, "These madmen — daring to put a hand to General Han's own tent." Chenyu crouched and, with the point of his knife, turned back the assassin's collar, and said coldly: "Sworn men of Chu. They still have their old lord's name embroidered on them. King Xiang grows madder with every defeat." He quietly took the assassin's short blade and hid it behind his armour. He knew better than anyone that this would not be the last wave. In the contest between Chu and Han, assassins were only the most visible blade; what would truly take Han Xin's life was the phrase "merit that shakes the lord," and a court with no room in it for men of merit. He looked toward Han Xin sleeping soundly in the commander's tent, and for the first time felt a dim worry take hold of him on this "god of war's" account.

II. Meeting Heng · The Woman Beneath the Banner

In the end the scent led him to the mending shed behind the central camp.

Heng was the woman who mended the banners. The first time Chenyu saw her was on a rainy evening: he had just turned aside an assassin for Han Xin and was coming back to camp covered in blood, and from a distance he saw a figure in the mending shed, the scent clearer in the rain than ever. His steps stopped, as they always did — his heart missed a beat, and he forced it down again.

Heng looked up and saw this young guardsman standing outside the shed in the rain, and beckoned: "Come in out of it. That wound needs binding." Her eyes turned, and their colour was a river in winter. Chenyu went in and let her wash him and wind the cloth. Her hands were very light. "Do you always come back like this?" He made a sound of assent, and did not say whose the wounds were, or whose the blood. Half-finished commander's banners hung in the shed; when she bent over her stitching she would hum a song of Chu under her breath, a tune sorrowful but not wounded. Listening to it, he thought that this cursed age had after all left one warm corner standing.

Heng kept longer hours in the mending shed than anyone. At first light she lit the lamp and, by the morning light, mended banners and stitched armour; her fingertips were often pierced by the needle, and she did not mind, only wiped the blood on the hem of her coat and went on flying the needle. She loved to hum the songs of Chu, tunes sorrowful but not wounded, as though she were singing a river of home she could not go back to — Chenyu could hear in it the pain of a lost state, and the toughness of the living. Once she was mending late into the night and the lamp oil was nearly gone; he stood beside her and added oil, and she looked up and smiled: "You, a guardsman, are more like a man who watches a lamp." He said, "It was on my way." She asked no more, only spread out the banner she had finished for him to see; the character for *Han* was embroidered straight and true. "When this banner is planted all over the world," she said, "you and I will have seen a dynasty founded." He made a sound of assent, and did not say that he had seen "dynasties founded" he no longer knew how many times.

Sometimes, as she mended, Heng would speak quietly of old things in Chu. She said there was a river back home that in spring filled with water-caltrop flowers, and she and her sisters gathered caltrop from a boat, their singing carrying half a li; then the generals of Qin took the city, and the river was still there, but the people who gathered caltrop were scattered. As she spoke she began to hum that song of Chu, the tune sorrowful but not wounded, as though saying goodbye to a river she could not return to. Chenyu stood beside her listening, and it came to him suddenly that this woman's "pain of a lost state" and his own pain of not finding her were of one shape — both were a not-being-able-to-go-back. He wanted to comfort her and did not know where to begin; he could not even say plainly who he was or where he came from. He could only add oil to her lamp in silence, gather up her thread, and hide that soreness of heart inside every stay that was "on his way." Many years later he understood that it was these stays he could not speak aloud that let the two words *protect her* slowly grow into the shape closest to love on the whole of that road.

After that, whenever he came back to camp he always "happened" to go round by the mending shed. Heng thought him a somewhat lonely man, and each time handed him hot water and told him to be careful. Once she asked: "Where do you come from? Who is there at home?" He thought for a moment and answered: "From a very long way away. There is no home." She asked no more, only handed back the mended coat, her fingertip touching his palm for a moment, as one soothes a beast with nowhere to go. She did not fall in love with him — in her eyes he was only a silent, dependable good companion, worth having as a friend. Chenyu asked for no more. He kept that scent, kept this peace in which they both happened to be there, as one keeps a lamp that ought not to be blown out.

Heng was not without her worries. Every time he came back to camp in blood and filth and she washed him, her fingers would hover about his wounds, as though to make sure the wound was real and the man alive. Once she could not help asking: "All these wounds — who are they taken for?" He thought for a moment and answered: "For the people I ought to protect." She pressed no further, only handed him back the mended coat, her fingertip touching his palm for a moment, as one soothes a beast with nowhere to go. He kept that warmth, and learned to set *protect her* too among "the people I ought to protect" — but he did not dare think further: former lives had taught him that coming too close only made it hurt more. He was only the one who was always there, and hid his heart in the jade pendant at his wrist.

III. The Retaking of the Three Qins · The Siege of Feiqiu

The first great matter after Han Xin was made general was the retaking of the Three Qins.

Zhang Han, Sima Xin and Dong Yi were surrendered generals of Qin, planted by Xiang Yu in Guanzhong and called "the three kings of Qin"; they blocked the mouth by which the armies of Han would go east. Han Xin mended the plank roads in the open and passed Chencang in secret; Zhang Han was caught unawares, lost several engagements in a row, and fell back to hold Feiqiu. Chenyu guarded Han Xin's carriage and came with the great army down beneath the walls of Feiqiu.

"Mending the plank roads in the open, passing Chencang in secret" was the first master-stroke after Han Xin was made general. Zhang Han's ambush held fast to the burned plank roads, not knowing that the army of Han had secretly gathered labourers and struck out by the old road at Chencang. Chenyu guarded Han Xin's carriage and crossed mountains and ridges with the great army, and watched the road that "could not be walked" turned by Han Xin into a road of life. Zhang Han was caught unawares, lost battle after battle, and fell back to hold Feiqiu — this former general of Qin, who in his day had buried surrendered soldiers alive and ground Guanzhong beneath his heel, in all that swagger, was now driven into a corner by a boy once mocked for "the disgrace of crawling between a man's legs." Chenyu stood beneath the walls of Feiqiu and thought suddenly: the wheel of history turns faster than he had imagined; he who was burying others yesterday is today driven into a corner himself. He guarded Han Xin, and he guarded the scent — Heng's mending shed travelled with the army and stood not far from the commander's banner.

That month of the siege Chenyu drew bloom nearly every night. The walls of Feiqiu were high, the soldiers of Qin held them to the death, and the scaling ladders of Han were thrown back again and again. One night Zhang Han sent sworn men down the wall on ropes, meaning to hack at Han Xin's commander's banner. Chenyu knew it early and stood still beneath the banner — the first man's blade had only just gone up when the flat of his sword cracked down on the bone of the wrist; at the sound of it the blade fell to the ground. The second came in from the side and behind; Zhao Hao drove his spear in and the point took him in the throat and pinned him to the banner-pole. The third tried to run, and a sweep of Chenyu's sword finished him. When the three were being cleared away Chenyu stooped and drew once at a neck, enough to serve a day. In the end Feiqiu was broken by water and Zhang Han cut his own throat. Chenyu stood by the hill of corpses and thought suddenly of the night Handan fell — that was how Zhao Heng had died too, in a stray arrow. He shook his head: on this road he had seen too many deaths like this one.

The walls of Feiqiu were high and its moat deep; Zhang Han held it to the death, and the army of Han drowned the city in water and at last broke it. Seeing that his cause was gone, Zhang Han drew his sword and cut his own throat — this general of Qin kept whole by dying the last shred of dignity that belongs to a general's stock. Chenyu stood by the hill of corpses and watched Zhang Han's head hung from the banner-pole, and thought suddenly of the night Handan fell: that was how Zhao Heng had died, in a stray arrow; while Zhang Han died by his own hand. Two ways of dying, and both of them the ash of a broken age. He shook his head: on this road he had seen too many deaths like this, and every one of them still stopped him for a moment. He stooped and drew once at the neck of a soldier of Qin, enough to serve a day — provisions had to be renewed, a life had to be guarded, and this chaos was a long one yet.

IV. Chencang in Secret and Jingxing · Battle with Back to the River

The night they passed Chencang in secret, the army of Han had to cross a plank road burned to stop pursuit. The fires had not gone out; the charred timbers lay across the way; and Zhang Han's ambush lay in the mouth of the valley. Chenyu guarded Han Xin's carriage; Zhao Hao went ahead with his spear, and every time the point of it flicked out, one man of the ambush tumbled from the cliff; Chenyu kept to the wall of the mountain to feel out the road, and turned back to signal with his hands, so that the army of Han might avoid where the ground had caved. In the confusion, when an enemy soldier went down, Chenyu stooped and drew once at the neck; red bloom went down his throat, enough to serve a day; where they came in squads he would draw one man dry, and buy three days of steadiness. The army of Han thought this guardsman "fierce," and none of them knew that what he drew was not wine. Mending the plank roads in the open, passing Chencang in secret — Zhang Han was deceived by the stroke, the whole land of the Three Qins fell into Han's hands, and the balance between Chu and Han tipped from that hour. That night, when the point of Zhao Hao's spear flicked the seventh man of the ambush out of the air, he turned and grinned at Chenyu: "This work — with you, it's a pleasure."

The night of Chencang the mountain wind was like a knife; the burned timbers lay where they had fallen and the fires lit half the valley mouth red. Chenyu guarded Han Xin's carriage, walking the blood-road that the point of Zhao Hao's spear opened. Chenyu kept to the wall to feel out the road and turned to signal with his hands, so that the army of Han avoided where the ground had caved — the two of them working as one body. When an enemy soldier fell he stooped and drew bloom, once at the neck, enough to serve a day; where they came in squads he drew one man dry and bought three days of steadiness. The army of Han thought this guardsman "fierce," and none knew that what he drew was not wine. That night he felt, rarely, something like pleasure: Zhang Han was deceived by the stroke, and all the land of the Three Qins came into Han's hands; and he and Zhao Hao became brothers who had truly been through death together.

After that came Jingxing. Han Xin drew up his line with its back to the river — the great taboo of the art of war, and yet exactly the dangerous stroke of his "set them in a place of death and they will live." Chenyu stood on high ground behind the line and watched the army of Han pressed to the water's edge by Chen Yu's men of Zhao, with no road back, and every man of them turn and fight as one who means to die. Once the Zhao line wavered, Han Xin sent picked troops to take the camp of Zhao, tore down their banners and raised his own; the soldiers of Zhao thought their camp had fallen and scattered where they stood. In the mêlée a general of Zhao drove his spear straight at Han Xin; Chenyu touched his toe and skimmed across the front of the line over a field of bobbing heads, turned over in mid-air, and slapped the flat of his sword against the spear-shaft, forcing the general, horse and all, back three paces; the general wheeled and thrust again, and he was no longer where he had been — the point of his sword went in under the man's armpit, and in one pass it was finished. The soldiers of Han about him saw only "Han Xin's guardsman" flicker like a ghost, and the enemy general was down from his horse. He did not take that blood: this was a battle the histories wanted Han Xin to win fairly and in the open, and so he only guarded, and did not draw. With Jingxing taken, the name of the army of Han rang out; the histories would call it "one battle that settled the rivers and mountains."

The battle of Jingxing was the extremity of Han Xin's single word, *danger*. Chen Yu held the mouth of Jingxing with many troops and many officers, and yet clung to the old methods and would not risk the unorthodox; Han Xin, for his part, drew up his line with its back to the river, cut the army of Han off from retreat, and forced his soldiers into a corner where they turned and fought as men who mean to die. Chenyu stood on the high ground behind the line and watched the army of Han pressed to the water's edge until every man of them had a beast's light coming into his eyes — driven into a corner, a man becomes like a qiongqi, with only the one thought left in him: *stay alive*. The men of Zhao saw the army of Han go wolfish, and their own line broke first; Han Xin sent picked troops to take the camp, tore down the banners and raised his own; the soldiers of Zhao thought their old camp had fallen and scattered where they stood. In this battle Chenyu saw clearly for the first time: this "set them in a place of death and they will live" is nothing but driving men into beasts, and then using beasts to devour men. He guarded Han Xin, and quietly noted the stroke — later, in Yue Fei's army, he would see one more fight-to-the-death of the *beiwei*.

V. Breaking Wei · Crossing on Wooden Jars

The King of Han sent Han Xin to break Wei. Bao, King of Wei, held Puban and blocked Linjin, gripping the crossings of the Yellow River. Han Xin made a noise in the east and struck in the west: he gathered boats at Linjin with great pomp, making a show of forcing the crossing, while secretly moving troops north to Xiayang and ferrying them over on *muying* — wooden jars, big-bellied and narrow-mouthed, lashed to wooden frames.

Chenyu went with these picked troops and lay in the reeds at Xiayang. The jars went into the water and rocked like gourds; he and Zhao Hao each held to one and slid across to the far bank without a sound. The main strength of Wei was all at Linjin; Xiayang was empty, and the army of Han came ashore as into a country with no one in it. By the time a sentry of Wei noticed him, Chenyu had already flitted to his side with the point of his sword at his throat; he drew once at the neck and swallowed the cry of alarm together with the blood. Han Xin came through from the rear and pierced the camp of Wei, and Bao, King of Wei, was taken. In this battle Chenyu saw for the first time what "war is the way of deception" meant — not brute force, but the lie. He noted the stroke; later, on battlefields without number, he would think back on the night they crossed on wooden jars, and on the water of the Yellow River, cold enough to go into the bone.

The night they crossed on wooden jars, the water of the Yellow River was cold enough to go into the bone. Chenyu lay in the reeds at Xiayang and watched the army of Han carry its men over on wooden jars, sliding to the far bank without a sound, like a troop of ghosts drifting downstream. Bao was still waiting at Linjin for the army of Han to "force the crossing," not knowing that his camp had been broken behind him — and this was what they called "make a noise in the east, strike in the west." Han Xin took Bao, King of Wei; Chenyu looked at the bound king and thought suddenly that he had seen this same play in the Warring States: Li Mu luring the Xiongnu, Bai Qi deceiving Zhao Kuo, all of it the one word *lie*. He noted the stroke; later, on battlefields without number, he would think back on the night they crossed on wooden jars, and on the water of the Yellow River, cold enough to go into the bone — and on this too: the one who wins is never the one with the greater force, but the one who lets the enemy see what he wishes him to see.

VI. The Wei River · Water Against Long Ju

With Qi taken, Xiang Yu sent his great general Long Ju with two hundred thousand men of Chu to its relief. The two armies faced each other across the Wei River. Han Xin played his old trick again: he had his soldiers fill sacks with sand by night and dam the river upstream, and when the men of Chu were half across, they cut the sacks and loosed the water, and the torrent of the Wei cut Long Ju's army in two in an instant.

Chenyu stood on the rocks at the breach and watched the men of Chu tumble in the current, men and horses overturned and swept away. Long Ju, furious, drove his spear into the water and charged; the water stood at his horse's belly and the point of his spear was still cold and bright. Chenyu touched his toe to the water and came on as though walking the waves; the flat of his sword turned Long Ju's spear aside, and borrowing the push of the current he toppled this general of Chu, horse and all, into the rapids; Zhao Hao came behind with his spear and the point went in at the small of Long Ju's back — one of the two or three fiercest fighting men beneath Xiang Yu's banner was gone under the Wei. When the men of Chu saw their commander go down into the water, their whole line broke. Chenyu stooped and drew once at the neck of a drowned soldier of Chu; the red bloom was mixed with river water, and had a harsh taste to it. With this battle all of Qi was settled; Han Xin was made King of Qi; his name and his power reached their height. Chenyu stood on the bank of the Wei and watched the water grow level again, and thought suddenly: water can carry a boat, and water can capsize it — the same thing as the hearts of men in a broken age.

The death of Long Ju was a great grief to Xiang Yu. This general of Chu was a fellow-countryman of Xiang Yu's and had long held his trust, and yet he came to grief on Han Xin's water. Chenyu stood on the rocks at the breach and watched Long Ju drive his spear into the water and charge, the water to his horse's belly, the spear-point still cold and bright — that ferocity was cut from the same mould as the general of Qin beneath the walls of Handan in that other year. But water does not recognise ferocity: let the current take you, and the sharpest spear will not pierce a wave. Long Ju was gone under the Wei, and Chu had lost the last great general it had who could fight. As Chenyu stooped to draw bloom, he found himself grieving for Xiang Yu: a man who could turn the world upside down, and yet the generals about him were taken from him one by one by this water. He shook his head and drove the thought off — he was here to hunt a scent, not to weigh the Hegemon-King's gains and losses.

VII. The Defeat at Pengcheng and the Holding of Jing and Suo

When Xiang Yu heard that all of Qi was lost, he left his generals to hold Qi and took thirty thousand picked horse back with him, striking at Pengcheng. The army of Han numbered five hundred and sixty thousand and was called a million, and yet Xiang Yu broke it at one drum, and it crumbled like a falling mountain. Han Xin gathered in the broken soldiers and fell back to hold Jing and Suo, and only barely stopped the edge of Chu.

That day at Pengcheng, Chenyu saw Xiang Yu's ferocity for the first time. The horse of Chu came into the camps of Han like a hurricane, and where it passed, men and horses were broken to pieces. Chenyu guarded Han Xin's breakout, and where his sword flashed the riders of Chu fell — but the army of Chu was like a tide: one wave beaten back, and another surged up. For the first time he felt that his own strength had an end to it; had Zhao Hao not opened a road with his spear and Chenyu not held the rear, they would very nearly have been buried among the routed soldiers outside Pengcheng. Falling back to Jing and Suo, Han Xin raised his stockade along the high ground, and several charges of Chu were all choked at the gate of the stockade by Chenyu and Zhao Hao. The moon over Jing and Suo that night was very cold; Chenyu wiped his sword and thought: so there is in this world one before whom even he must give way. Xiang Yu was that one.

The defeat at Pengcheng was a worse thing than the army of Han had ever known. Xiang Yu left his generals to hold Qi, took thirty thousand picked horse, came out by Huling through Lu, and struck the army of Han at Xiao in the morning; by the time the morning meal was eaten he had broken their walls and was driving straight on Pengcheng. Five hundred and sixty thousand men, called a million, were knocked to pieces by thirty thousand horse of Chu — and Chenyu saw for the first time what the word "Hegemon-King" meant. The horse of Chu came into the camps of Han like a hurricane; where it passed, men and horses were broken to pieces, and even Han Xin's command flags were knocked crooked and aslant. Chenyu guarded Han Xin's breakout, and where his sword flashed the riders of Chu fell; but the army of Chu was like a tide — one wave beaten back, and another surged up — and for the first time he felt that his own strength had an end to it. Had Zhao Hao not opened a road with his spear and Chenyu not held the rear, they would very nearly have been buried among the routed soldiers outside Pengcheng. Falling back to Jing and Suo, he wiped his sword and looked toward Xiang Yu's torches, and there rose in him for the first time something he could not name — not fear: respect. That in this world there should really be a man whom even he could not stop.

Through the days of the stand-off at Jing and Suo, the army of Han raised its stockade on the high ground, and several charges of Chu were all choked at the gate by Chenyu and Zhao Hao. Zhao Hao opened the blood-road with his spear; Chenyu stood at the very front and held the edge of the Chu horse with his own single strength. The moon over Jing and Suo that night was very cold; he wiped his sword and looked toward Xiang Yu's torches — and the might of thirty thousand horse of Chu was stopped at last by this small stockade gate. He understood suddenly: what they call "holding" is not necessarily a passive thing; to hold the ones you ought to hold is the hardest answer a man can give an age. This saying he would remember again, at Zhuxian Town with Yue Fei, in every city he ever held; only by then what he held was no longer a stockade gate, but the chance of meeting her again on that day in West Kowloon — on this whole road, what he had held had always been one and the same thing.

VIII. Gaixia · Songs of Chu on Four Sides

At the encirclement of Gaixia, the songs of Chu on four sides. He could have taken Heng out with him — with his strength, it would have been as easy as turning a hand. But he saw that Han Xin meant to stay: because the histories said that Han settled the world here. He kept the rule; he did not alter history. He only kept Heng in the dark place behind him, and watched Xiang Yu's torches go dim one by one. In the tent a woman called Yu Ji drew her sword and danced, and then laid the blade across her own throat — the Hegemon-King parts from his lady, a hero at the end of his road, and even the soldiers of the enemy camp fell silent. Chenyu stood not far off and understood suddenly: prince or minister, common man or woman — on this road, what the age grinds to powder never picks and chooses.

In the last battle at Gaixia, a general of Chu rode a chestnut horse out against the line, his long halberd making straight for Han Xin. Chenyu touched his toe and skimmed across the front over a field of bobbing heads, turned over in mid-air, and slapped the flat of his sword against the halberd-shaft, forcing the general, horse and all, back three paces; the general wheeled and thrust again, and he was no longer where he had been — the point of his sword went in under the man's armpit, and in one pass it was finished. The soldiers of Han about him saw only "Han Xin's guardsman" flicker like a ghost, and the enemy general was down from his horse. He did not take that blood: this was a battle the histories wanted Han Xin to win fairly and in the open, and so he only guarded, and did not draw. The army of Chu scattered along its whole line; Xiang Yu cut his throat at the Wu River. The Han had settled the world.

The night of the songs of Chu on four sides, Chenyu stood outside the camps of Han and listened to the songs of Chu leaking out of Xiang Yu's tent, every line of them a tune of Jiangdong. In the tent Yu Ji drew her sword and danced, the sleeves of her robe fluttering like a butterfly, and when the dance was done she laid the blade across her own throat — "the king's spirit is spent; what life is left for his poor concubine?" By dying she took the last thing that tied the Hegemon-King to the world off his hands. Chenyu watched from a distance and understood suddenly: prince or minister, common man or woman — on this road, what the age grinds to powder never picks and chooses; even a woman of such fierce temper as Yu Ji was in the end only a streak of blood at the Hegemon-King's road's end. Xiang Yu broke out at last to the Wu River, refused the crossing, and cut his own throat, leaving to the histories a back seen from behind, of a man who would not cross back east of the river. Chenyu watched the torches go dim one by one and thought: this man who could turn the world upside down was, in the end, only a mortal who wanted to go home and could not. He, like the women he had guarded, had lost to *not being able to go back*.

With the world settled under Han, Chenyu sank back among the common people. Passing through Chang'an once, he saw several *fangshi* gathering the strange tales of the four quarters — of mountains and rivers, of gods and prodigies — and binding them volume by volume into a book they called the *Classic of Mountains and Seas* — though the book was not the work of one time or one man, but was added to generation after generation by the *fangshi* of successive reigns, and only in the late Western Han would Liu Xiang and his son Liu Xin collate it and fix it in eighteen chapters. In it was written of a "Torch Dragon": a man's face, a single eye, the whole body scarlet, neither eating nor resting, a thousand li in length, its eyes opening to make day and closing to make night. Chenyu listened, and his heart sank for no reason he could name — he had heard tell of the god with eyes standing out from his head and of the tree Jianmu long before, in the Western Zhou, in the strange talk of an old man beyond Mount Long, and he would hear them again from the mouths of the *fangshi* of the Warring States; and he did not, of course, know that all these scattered marvels pointed to the same old business Zhuo Sheng had buried beneath the basin of ancient Shu. On this stretch of the road he took it only for another of the folk's tall tales, and shook his head and walked on.

IX. Zhao Hao · A Matter of One Mouthful of Blood

The year of the stand-off at Chenggao, the army of Chu raided Han Xin's central camp in the night. Zhao Hao took an arrow in the chest defending the commander's banner; the head of it came out through his back, his bowels were showing, and the man was already half cold. He gripped Chenyu's wrist, his breath thin as a thread: "Brother Chen ... my mother died early, the wife went last year, no son, no daughter ... The time I felt most alive in this life was fighting shoulder to shoulder with you. Take me with you. Don't let me rot here."

Chenyu was not quick to answer. First he laid Zhao Hao's hand gently back on the bedding; then he crouched down and, for the first time, opened out before his sworn brother the thing he had kept hidden a thousand years: "Zhao Hao, do you know what I am? I am not a man — I draw the red bloom of my enemies to stay alive. I do not age, I do not die; I have been like this for more than a thousand years. If I pass one mouthful of blood to you, you will become the same: your wounds will close at once, your life will have no end — and from that moment you will not be able to eat the food of mortal men, but must live on red bloom, and watch everyone about you grow old and die, and be left alone in this endless night. This is not a kindness. It is a shackle. You cried out just now, 'take me with you' — but you do not know that the road I would take you down is this one."

Zhao Hao listened, stunned — he had taken Brother Chen for a very great fighting man, and had never imagined a history like this. After a while he grinned, not caring that it pulled at the wound: "I don't understand any of this undying business. I only know that fighting at your side is a hundred times better than rotting here. Shackle or chain, I'll take it."

Chenyu looked at that honest face — on this whole road he had wanted more than anything one person who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him and would not draw back because he was a monster. He thought of A Niu, the first brother to whom he had ever given blood, who had afterwards lost his true nature and had been finished by Chenyu's own hand. But Zhao Hao was different: Zhao Hao had asked for it of his own accord, out of fear of being alone, and out of fear of Chenyu being alone. He hardened his heart, opened a cut at his own wrist, and fed the blood into Zhao Hao's throat. Zhao Hao's wound closed at a speed the eye could follow, and the light in his eyes that had been about to go out lit again — he became, on the whole of this road of Chenyu's, the first and the only one of his own kind who stayed.

Chenyu asked: "Do you regret it?"

Zhao Hao pushed himself up and grinned: "A lifetime of fighting at your side. Regret my arse."

But Chenyu knew in his heart: most of the turned, given time, find their old temper thinning, like wine cut with water. He could only charge Zhao Hao to remember who he was. This mouthful of blood was "asking for a companion" — the first time he had ever turned anyone, and not out of pity, but so that he would not have to go on alone.

The night Zhao Hao became his own kind, no one in the camp knew. He only felt his body grow light, his wounds gone entirely; even the sound of the wind at night was clearer by a degree. Chenyu charged him: "Remember who you are. Don't learn bad ways." Zhao Hao thumped his chest: "This Zhao Hao walks straight." After that, the two of them going shoulder to shoulder was not only comradeship in war, but the same "way of living" — a beast that had hunted a scent for two thousand years, and a simple man the beast had kept. Zhao Hao came gradually to see Chenyu's "not ageing," and never asked; he only screened him when he drew bloom, and clapped him on the shoulder when he stood dazed. For the first time Chenyu felt that not being alone was a solider thing than finding the scent. He even thought that if that day in West Kowloon really came, at least Zhao Hao would be there beside him, to keep watch on the world outside that fire.

X. The Execution of Han Xin · And She Too Scatters

Han Xin's end is written in the histories as an execution by Empress Lü and Xiao He. Made by Xiao He, ruined by Xiao He — the man Xiao He had ridden after and brought back beneath the moon was in the end led by Xiao He himself into the Bell Chamber of the Changle Palace. Chenyu had known that the day would come — he could have saved him, but to save him would have been to alter history. He chose to watch: through the coup at the Changle Palace he deliberately "came one step too late," let Han Xin be taken and killed, and hid himself in the dark. When the cunning hare is dead the running dog is boiled; when the flying birds are finished the good bow is put away. He had heard that ending too many times; this once, the turn had come round to the man he guarded.

At the coup of the Changle Palace, Chenyu hid in the roof beams and saw it all clearly. Xiao He came himself to invite Han Xin, saying, "though you are ill, force yourself in to offer congratulations" — the man who had ridden after him and brought him back was now with his own hand leading him into the place of death. The moment Han Xin entered the Bell Chamber, the men-at-arms took him. Chenyu could have leapt down and carried Han Xin away by his own single strength, but he had sworn an oath: not to show himself, not to alter history. He set his teeth and let Han Xin be taken. In the Bell Chamber Han Xin left behind only one sentence — "I regret that I did not use the counsel of Kuai Tong, and so have been deceived by a woman and a child" — and was killed. Chenyu clung to the beam, his nails driven into the grain of the wood, blood running down his wrist, and not one drop of it went down to save him — he had guarded this man the whole way, and in the end could not pass him so much as one drop of blood. Only when the guards had dispersed did he leap down and lay his hand on Han Xin's still-warm body, and feel for the first time that the two words "god of war" were heavy enough to crush a man.

In the turmoil Heng sickened and died. He could not, and dared not, make her into a qiongqi — the lessons of former lives were too bitter: everyone he had not been able to keep himself from wanting to keep had in the end slipped out of his hands in the cruellest way; and that undying body had never been a kindness, but another sentence. He crouched before Heng's grave and swore to himself for the first time: apart from Zhao Hao, who had long stood shoulder to shoulder with him, he would never again turn anyone out of pity, and least of all would he lay a hand on "them" — for fear that the undying body would disturb the chance of meeting her again on that day in West Kowloon. This guardianship that asked for nothing back and never said itself aloud was the only proof he had of the whole road he had walked.

The Han fell; he took with him a torn banner Heng had mended and, following that scent, went on. In this era he had at last driven it into his bones: apart from Zhao Hao, no more of his own kind. But fate, on the very next stretch of the road, had arranged for him to meet a woman most like her, and the one who would deceive him most cruelly.

The Han had settled the world, and yet the lamp in Chenyu's heart burned darker than it had before the dynasty was founded. Heng was gone, Han Xin was gone, even Zhao Hao had become, like him, one who walked in the endless night. He took the torn banner Heng had mended, and Han Xin's old jade ladle, and following that scent, went on. In this era he had at last driven it into his bones: apart from Zhao Hao, no more of his own kind. And yet fate, on the very next stretch of the road, arranged for him to meet a woman most like her and the one who would deceive him most cruelly — a woman who would laugh, and would wait, and at the moment he was least on his guard would send a dagger into his heart. He did not yet know that that life would be, in two thousand years of hunting a scent, the closest he ever came to "it is her," and the one that hurt the most.

*The end of this movement. Continued in Movement IV · The Three Kingdoms.*