Chapter 454 — The Captain Who Said Nothing

CHAPTER 454

The Captain Who Said Nothing

Eleven ore wagons stood in a line before Shimen Pass, and none of them could move.

Shi Feng sat on the board of Gray Ear's cart, no longer curled around anything, and counted them. The carters had unhitched their mules and were squatting by the road, smoking and looking at the sky. A ragged line of Wujin miners had come down on foot to see whether the news was true.

It was. Across the narrow stone gate of the pass hung a thick rope, and behind the rope stood a double rank of guards. The front rank wore the green tabards of the Qiao house. The back rank wore black, with a clenched iron fist on the breast. High on the wall, in a crimson row, stood the Martial Palace.

“Wujin ore goes through this gate or it goes nowhere,” Zhu Liu said anxiously. He had a roll of paper under his arm. “Elder Qian Mo says the forges have eleven days of iron. I counted twelve, but he says to be cautious.”

“Twelve days or eleven, we'll run out,” Lin Langtian said from beneath his hat. “Even a clever housewife can't cook without rice. Look at who's blocking the road. That's more useful than counting our last ingots.”

Sima Lan got down first. She smoothed her skirt, went to the front of the line, and stopped before the rope.

A broad man with a scarred jaw stepped forward from the green tabards. Shi Feng knew him. Zhai Kun, enforcer chief of the Qiao house, had last been seen leaving Qingtong with eight men and a bill for damages.

“Pass closed,” Zhai Kun said. “By order of the Palace.”

“Which order?” Sima Lan asked.

“Wartime,” Zhai Kun said.

“Saying wartime isn't an order,” Sima Lan replied impatiently. “Article six of the Mutual Passage Accord gives every sect's carters free road to its own ore. Show me the notice that suspends it.”

Zhai Kun grunted. A black-tabarded guard unrolled a sheet with a crimson seal and held it up. It was real. It was also dated yesterday, and addressed to no one.

“It names no wagon,” Sima Lan said.

“It names all wagons,” Zhai Kun said.

“Then you're stopping our wagons without naming a single one,” Sima Lan retorted. “Where's your authority for that?”

“Go home,” Zhai Kun said. “Those who throw eggs at rocks only break their own eggs.”

“I'll go home when the wagons do,” Sima Lan said, firmly enough to make three guards step back.

Shi Feng got down from the cart. He looked up at the wall.

The pass tower rose over the gate in three grey storeys, with a flat roof and a stone parapet. Archers stood along it. At the centre of the parapet, in half-armour dyed crimson, stood a man with a captain's token at his belt and a black sword at his hip. His eyebrows had grown back unevenly. His hair had not grown back as thick as it once had been.

It was Hou Ping.

Hou Ping was in Golden Core now. He stood proudly with his chest out and chin raised. Shi Feng could guess what he'd been waiting to say. Every meeting with this fool began with “Trash.”

His eyes met Shi Feng's.

Hou Ping's mouth opened.

On the road, three carters stopped smoking. One of the green tabards began, quietly, to edge away. Hou Ping looked ready to shout an insult. The guards waited for it.

Hou Ping closed his mouth.

Hou Ping said nothing. For a count of five, he stared at Shi Feng. Sweat ran from under his helmet, and his confidence vanished. Then he turned and walked to the far end of the parapet. He gripped the stone and stubbornly stared at the horizon, refusing to look down again.

“...” said the carters.

“Did the captain just run?”

“He walked.”

“He walked fast.”

“Hou Ping,” Sima Lan said, and wrote it in her ledger. “Silent. No charge.” She underlined the old balance beside his name, twice, with relish.

“Junior Brother,” Lin Langtian said softly, lifting his hat. “Don't look at the captain. Look at the tower.”

Shi Feng looked.

Below the parapet, a narrow door in the base of the tower had opened. Four soldiers in crimson were carrying out a long iron-bound box on poles, with a fifth man walking beside it with a ledger. They carried it across the guard yard, past the gate, and down a short flight of steps into a stone room with a heavy door and a lock the size of a fist. A sentry took up position in front of it.

“That box needs four men to carry it,” Lin Langtian said with interest.

“Forward war chest,” Zhu Liu whispered. “It's what an army pays its men from. Elder Qian Mo says it's the most guarded thing on any border.”

“It's guarded by a man who just walked away from you,” Lin Langtian said, with enormous pleasure. “Junior Brother, I think this war is going to be very educational.”

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“I haven't said anything,” Lin Langtian protested, looking far too pleased.

“You were going to,” Shi Feng replied, watching the sentry take his post.

“Then stop watching my face,” Lin Langtian said, stretching out with his hat over his eyes. His grin remained visible underneath.

Behind them, the Qiao house guards slowly coiled the rope back up. The wagons did not move.