The Book and The Sword - Yong Jin (лучшие книги .txt) 📗

Chen hastily grabbed some large rocks from around the cave mouth and threw them down, forcing some of the wolves to back away, then dropped the rope down again. Huo Qingtong was afraid that in her weak condition, she would be unable to hold on long enough, so she transferred the sword to her left hand, and tied the rope round her waist as she continued to fight off the wolves.

"Right!" she yelled. Chen yanked on the rope and she flew into the air just as two wolves threw themselves at her. One of them bit deeply into her boot and refused to let go. As Princess Fragrance screamed in fright, Huo Qingtong bent over in mid-air and chopped it in half across its belly. The top half of its body accompanied her up to the cave mouth.

Chen helped her inside and tried unsuccessfully to pull the half-wolf off her boot.

"Did it bite into you?" he asked quickly.

"I'm all right," she replied. She took the dagger from his hand and cut open the wolf's mouth, revealing the serried ranks of teeth sunk deep into her boot. A small trickle of blood oozed out of one of the holes in the leather.

"Your foot is wounded," Princess Fragrance said. She helped her sister remove the boot, and ripped a strip of material off her gown to bandage the wound. Chen turned his head away, not daring to look at her bare feet.* (* In traditional China, feet were considered one of the most erotic parts of the female anatomy.)

When she had finished the bandaging, Princess Fragrance looked down at the thousands of wolves amongst the buildings below, and wagged her finger at them angrily. "You evil wolves, biting my sister's foot! I won't feel sorry for you any more," she scolded them as Chen and Huo Qingtong smiled.

They turned to look into the cave, but all they could see was pitch-blackness. Huo Qingtong took out her tinderbox and lit it, and immediately jumped in fright: they were sitting on a thin ledge and next to them was a drop of nearly two hundred feet down to the floor of the cave, which looked even lower than the ground outside the mountain.

"There has been no fresh air in here for a long time," said Chen. "We can't go down yet." After a while, when he thought most of the stale air would have dissipated, he said: "I'll go down first to have a look around."

"Once we're down it won't be easy to get back up again," said Huo Qingtong.

Chen smiled. "If we can't, we can't," he said. Huo Qingtong blushed and looked away.

He tied one end of the rope round a rock outcrop and started to slide down into the abyss, but when he reached the end of the rope, he was still a hundred feet from the bottom. Abandoning the rope, he climbed down the cliff face for a way, and then jumped lightly to the floor.

"Throw down the tinderbox!" he shouted and Huo Qingtong did so. He struck a light, and under its glow, he saw he was in a chamber carved entirely out of white jade furnished with several sets of wooden tables and chairs. Chen looked up and saw the two girls peering down from the ledge, and shouted: "Come down!"

"You go down first, sister," Huo Qingtong said. Princess Fragrance took hold of the rope and slid slowly down to its end. She saw Chen standing beneath her with his hands opened wide, closed her eyes tightly and let go. Almost immediately, she felt his strong arms catch her and place her lightly on the ground. Huo Qingtong jumped down in the same fashion and as Chen embraced her, she flushed deep red with embarrassment.

By now, the howls of the wolves outside the mountain were becoming faint. Chen looked at their shadows dancing on the white jade walls, and then at the two beauties beside him. Under the glow of the reflected light, they looked even more exquisite. Here they were, the three of them, in the bowels of a mountain, not knowing what was in store for them. Of all the strange things that had happened to him in his eventful life, this was the strangest.

Chen snapped off a chair leg and lit it with the flame from the tinder-box. Princess Fragrance exclaimed at the beauty of the chamber they were in, and taking the torch from Chen began walking about. He broke off another seven chair legs and the three began to walk off along a long tunnel which turned out to be a cul-de-sac. Chen wondered how they would get out. Then in a corner of the tunnel, he noticed something sparkling under the torchlight. He walked over and saw it was a gold suit of armour containing a pile of old bones. The suit of armour was exquisitely-made, and the three marvelled at the fine workmanship.

"He must have been a nobleman," said Princess Fragrance. Huo Qingtong noticed that there was a winged camel engraved on the breast plate and added: "He may even have been the king or a prince. I've heard that in ancient times, only kings could use winged camels as their emblem."

"It's the same with the dragon in China," replied Chen. He took the torch from Princess Fragrance and began to examine the end wall of the tunnel for some trace of a door or an opening mechanism. Raising the torch, he saw a huge ring door knocker with a long-handled axe lodged in it.

"There's a door," Huo Qingtong exclaimed joyfully. Chen passed the torch over to her and tried to pull the axe away, but it had rusted onto the iron ring and was immovable. He took out his dagger and scraped away the rust, then with an effort, managed to pull the axe free. He found it very heavy.

"If this was his weapon, then His Highness was a strong man," he said with a smile.

On closer examination, they found there was an iron ring fastened to all four corners of the stone door. Chen took hold of each of the rings and gave them a mighty tug, but the door did not move even a fraction. He tried pushing it instead, and with load squeaks, it slowly began to swing open. They saw the door was at least ten feet thick, and in fact was more like a huge boulder than a door.

The three looked at each other with expressions of jubilation on their faces. Chen raised the torch high and with the dagger in his other hand, led the way through the door. One step inside, something crunched under his foot, and he saw a pile of bones on the floor. Looking ahead, there was a narrow tunnel leading off into the darkness, just big enough for a person to walk along. Skeletons and swords were scattered all about them.

Huo Qingtong pointed to the back of the great stone door. "Look," she said. Under the torchlight they saw deeply scored lines obviously scratched out with swords.

"These people must have been locked in here by the king," said Chen in a startled voice. "They tried the best they could to get out, but the door was too thick and the jade rock too solid."

"Even if they had had ten blades as sharp as your dagger, they would still never have broken through this door," replied Huo Qingtong.

"They must have considered every alternative, and finally one by one died as hope faded…"

"Don't! Don't go on," Princess Fragrance pleaded. The scene was too tragic. She could not bear to hear any more.

"Why did the king stand guard on the other side of the door instead of escaping?" Huo Qingtong asked. "I can't work that out at all." She pulled out the map and looked at it for a moment. Her face brightened. "At the end of this tunnel there should be a great hall and other rooms," she said.

Slowly, they walked forward, treading on human bones as they went. They turned two corners, and emerged into a cavernous hall as Huo Qingtong had predicted. They stood at the entrance and looked about. The floor of the great hall was filled with skeletons and weapons lying about at random, evidence that a furious battle had been fought here.

As they walked into the hall, Chen's dagger suddenly shot out of his hand and fell to the floor with a clatter. At the same instant, the belt supporting Huo Qingtong's sword around her waist snapped, and the scabbard fell heavily to the floor. The three jumped in fright. Huo Qingtong bent down to pick up her sword, but as she did so, the darts in her pocket flew out with a whoosh and dropped to the ground in the same manner.