It’s not till nightfall that the full reality of what’s happened hits me. 

Since the killing, I’ve been feeling that I’m not really myself, that this is someone else whom I’m watching as he calmly heads in the direction of the long steep path which eventually leads down to the valley floor and Border Town.  Shan and I have hunted round here so I know the country fairly well.  I can’t take the main road down from Qiu City.  By this evening my absence will be noticed.  Tomorrow morning a search party will be sent out.  When the bodies are found there’ll be pandemonium.  I need to avoid anyone who can recognize me.  I only have supplies for a few days, so I'll have to risk going to Border Town for more, but very few people know me there.  I’ll have to avoid the command post and the Lotus Garden.  I’ll need to change my appearance.

It's going to take about three days to get down the mountain this way, because there are places where I can't ride and have to lead the horse.  The going’s slow, but the horse proves sure-footed and well-mannered.  At dusk, the temperature plummets and I find a sheltered place to camp.  I make a fire.  I eat some of the assassin’s supplies.  I catch the grey dog by offering him food, and then I clean up his wound and sprinkle it with healing herbs from my medical kit.  Luckily it’s in a place that he can’t easily scratch.  He settles down to sleep and I try to do the same, huddled in the assassin’s quilts by the fire.

That’s when it all hits me.

In the past three days, my life’s been turned upside-down not just once but twice.  First I’m forced to watch as my friends and companions ride off down the mountain without me, leaving me alone among insolent and scornful strangers.  And then there was today’s killing.  On Xu Yating’s order, I was to be wiped off the face of the earth as if I were some insect.  I wonder how long the assassin’s been hanging about Qiu City waiting for an opportunity.  Not long, I think.  He must have been told that Shan’s troop would be recalled and that I’d be ordered to stay, a goat staked out to be killed.  Only now his fortunes have been reversed too.  He was the one who died and who’ll be buried as the Sixth Prince.  Nobody in Qiu City knows me well enough to tell that the body they’ll find tomorrow isn’t mine.  So that leaves me free to become Zhao Jing, to follow the troop and reunite with Shan.  Or perhaps go to Eagle Rock as planned and have Lord Zhao send a message to tell Shan that I’m still alive.  Because the news will go out tomorrow or the next day, the messengers will be galloping day and night to take the news to the capital and Shan will be bound to hear it somewhere along the road.  He’ll think I’m dead.  My heart quails, because I know how I would feel if I heard the news of his death.

But there’s no helping it.  In a few days, he’ll know I’m still alive.  I just need my luck to hold.

The night’s bitterly cold.  I regret the fur cloak I left behind in Qiu City.  I wake at dawn to find the grey dog huddled up with me, a solid warmth at my side.  I get up with my teeth chattering and brew up some tea from the assassin’s saddle-bags.  He obviously liked his comforts.  I take my knife and hack off half the length of my hair.  Then I braid some of it in imitation of the barbarian hairstyles I’ve seen in Qiu City.  By the time I get to Border Town I’ll have three days’ stubble on my chin.  Hopefully this will fool anyone who’s seen the beautiful Sixth Prince in the past.

I need to get on the road.  By this evening, the back-country will be full of searchers. 

All morning, the horse and I scramble down the rocky path as best we can.  The assassin’s boots are too big for me and make the going difficult.  But by the end of the day, the incline has eased somewhat and the path’s broader, so I can ride.  I haven’t met anyone.  Luckily there’s no-one likely to be coming up here.  Traders will take the main road and hunters are still scarce.  Also the further down we go, the less piercingly cold it is at night. 

By the end of the second day, I can see Border Town in the valley far away.  The weather has held fair – another stroke of luck.  But distances are deceptive in the mountain air.  It takes another day and a half before I’m approaching the town.  It’s late afternoon.  I leave the horse and the grey dog at the stables outside the walls and go in search of an inn where I can get a bath, a meal and a decent bed for the night.  It takes a while to find one, an unpretentious place in the suburbs, but it provides me with what I need.  The room’s clean and warm, the food simple but filling, the wine adequate.  A tub of hot water and a comfortable bed fulfil all my wishes.  I get my first good night’s sleep for days.

I wake up feeling buoyantly confident.  I’ll be at Jiayuguan Pass day after tomorrow and then two or three days further on, I’ll reach Eagle Rock.  What I should do is attach myself to one of the trading caravans that will be waiting at the Pass, for safety and company on the road.  Cheerfully, I pay my shot and leave the inn, heading for the busy market.  No-one glances twice at me.  I buy a warm cloak, boots that fit, various food supplies, medicines and a bag of steamed buns to take on the road.  The news about my assassination has already reached Border Town and is the subject of much gossip and speculation.  I’m tempted to linger and listen, but I really need to be on my way.

Border Town’s some miles behind me when my confidence proves unfounded.  I jog round a corner to find a horseman standing sideways across the road, blocking it.  He’s a big man with a sword on his back.  I think of my bag full of silver pieces and start to unship the bow I’m carrying.  But I’ve forgotten one of Shao Ru’s pieces of advice:  Keep your eyes open, even those in the back of your head.  Before I can get the bow free, I’m grabbed from behind, dragged down off the horse and pinned roughly to the ground.

Fuck!  There are two of them.

My assailant takes advantage of my initial shock to straddle me, holding my wrists to the ground.  He’s an ugly man with half an ear missing.  He’s grinning.

“Hey,” he calls to the man on the horse, “He’s really pretty.  Well, pretty boy, want to explain why you’re riding a horse that doesn’t belong to you?”

I’ve got my cover story ready.  Angrily I protest, “He does belong to me.  I bought him off a guy in Qiu City.  And all the gear as well.”

“Qiu City, eh?  And where did this guy get him?”

“There was an assassination up there, all the horses got scattered and he found this one straying.  Get off me.   I paid a lot of money for him.”

He’s staring at me with interest and because he’s sitting astride me, I can tell that he’s taken a fancy to me. 

Oh fuck, not again. 

“I think I want a taste of this piece,” he says to his companion, “What say we do him together?”

The other man grunts indifferently.  “You can’t do him here.  Knock him out and get him on the horse.”

I start to fight.  I use every one of Shao Ru’s dirty tricks and Half-Ear’s taken by surprise and starts to lose his grip on me.  I think, I’ve got to get to my sleeve sword.  I land a blow on his nose and twist my body in an attempt to throw him off.  His combat skills are mediocre.  The grey dog charges over, all the hair raised along his spine, and throws himself snarling and biting at Half-Ear, who flails at him with one arm.

“Hey, you bastard,” he shouts to his companion, “Get down here and help me.”

The man on the horse doesn’t move.  “Your itch, you scratch it,” he says.

Half-Ear swears obscenely.  I land another blow on his nose and reach for the sleeve sword.   As my fingers brush the hilt, another voice breaks unexpectedly into my consciousness.

“Well, well!  Up to no good again, you two?”

Half-Ear and I both freeze.  Then our heads snap round together.  A man’s sitting on a horse about twenty paces away.  I can’t see his face clearly, but there’s a very serious-looking sword in his hand.

“None of your fucking business,” says Half-Ear’s companion.  He grabs the hilt of the sword sticking up behind his shoulder and sweeps the weapon out.

“Wrong,” says the newcomer, “I fancy collecting that reward.”

I don’t know which one of them yells, but suddenly the two horses dash together, there’s a clang and a swoosh, and Half-Ear’s companion is suddenly, shockingly, headless.  There’s a lot of blood.  The horse slows and stops, and the sagging body falls to the ground.  Half-Ear’s jaw drops and his grip slackens.  I sweep out my sleeve sword and cut his throat in one movement, throwing him off so as to avoid the worst of the blood.  The horses dance away, alarmed by the smell, and I scramble to my feet to face the newcomer, who’s calmly wiping his sword clean prior to sheathing it.

“Nice one,” he says, glancing at me.  “We can share the reward.”

He’s young.  He has an attractive, cheeky face and he’s wearing a lot of jewellery:  two earrings, bracelets and a necklace.  The locks of hair around his face are plaited and fixed with gold clasps.  His arms are bare except for his wrist-guards, which are studded with metal.

Friend or foe?

“Pushing you down, was he?” he asks, dismounting. 

I bring the sleeve sword up warningly.  He grins.  “Relax.  I’m only interested in money.  Did you know those two were wanted?”

I shake my head, not quite reassured.

“There’s a nice little reward for the pair of them.  Why don’t you ride along with me to the Pass and we can collect?  What’s your name?”

“Zhao Jing.”

“Well, Zhao Jing, I’m Lang Huo.  Bounty hunter, in case you hadn’t guessed.  Help me get these two beauties onto their horses and we’ll be off.  Is that your dog?”

The grey dog no longer has his hackles up and is sitting watching us with his yellow eyes.  He senses no threat.  This reassures me more than anything else could.  I slip the sleeve sword back into its sheath and move to catch the straying horses.  Together, Lang Huo and I load up the bodies.  Lang Huo collects the severed head and wraps it up in a piece of cloth before slinging it on one of the saddles.

“You hurt?” he asks casually.

“Nothing serious.”  Then I add, “Thanks.  I couldn’t have handled both of them.”

“Very few people could,” he says.  “Let’s go.”

That night, we camp just off the road.  Lang Huo tells me he’s been tracking Half-Ear and his companion for several weeks.  “They stayed a while in Border Town and I picked up their trail today.  And here we are.  How about you?”

“I just had a year in the army, up in Qiu City.  But the troop was ordered back to the capital so I decided to quit.  I’ve got family in Eagle Rock, so I’m heading there to visit them.”

“Then where?”

“Haven’t decided yet.  Maybe head south.”

“I hear the southern lords are recruiting.  Building up their private armies.”

“What’s the pay like?”

“Better than the Imperial army, that’s for sure.”

“Might be worth thinking about.  What about you?”

“Following the money.  There’ll be information at the Pass.  You get some sleep.  I’ll keep watch.  The smell of blood might attract scavengers.”

“I’ll take a watch too.  And the dog will warn us of danger.”

“Deal.  I’ll wake you later.”

He wakes me at midnight and I sit by the fire with the dog asleep by my side, idly poking at the flames and thinking to myself, while the sound of snoring rises from the huddle of quilts on the other side of the fire.  I wonder where the troop is now.  It’s the seventh day since I watched them ride out of Qiu City.  It feels more like a hundred years.