“No!” cried Fu. “You can't! I'm the one you want. Take me, and leave them be.”
“Shut up, fat boy,” Captain Yue scowled. “You're coming with me, and so are all your little friends.”
“Who are you calling fat?” somebody said. Fu recognized the voice. It was the Drunkard.
“Who said that?” Captain Yue demanded.
“I did,” said the heavyset Drunkard, stumbling forward as the crowd parted. He pushed his tangled hair from his eyes and stared hard at Captain Yue. “The boy may be stout, but at least he can lose some weight if he wanted to. You are a fool, and there is no cure for that.”
“Watch your mouth, Drunkard,” Captain Yue said. “I suggest you leave now before I let my horse trample you to pieces.” The horse neighed loudly and rose up on its hind legs, pawing at the air with its deadly front hooves. Its nostrils flared savagely.
The Drunkard laughed. “You ask a horse to do your dirty work for you? I see what kind of man you are. You are weak.” The Drunkard swayed from side to side, crashing heavily into the cage. If not for the stout bamboo bars, the large man would have fallen over completely.
“You try my patience, Drunkard,” Captain Yue said.
“Oh, really? What does that mean? Aside from your horse, I see that you are equipped with a sword, and my ears tell me that you are also equipped with a tongue. You wield your tongue clumsily. I doubt you can do much better with your sword—or your horse.”
“Ayyyaaaaa!” Captain Yue shouted as he jerked back on the reins. The horse reared up again, then came crashing down, its front legs pawing wildly at the Drunkard. For an instant, the heavyset Drunkard seemed as nimble as a cat. He darted to one side of the large, angry beast, only to stumble into the horse's side. Fu saw the Drunkard's thick right hand shoot forward to catch himself, his palm tapping the horse's rib cage before he stumbled backward. For the briefest of moments, Fu could have sworn he saw the Drunkard rooted firmly to the earth.
“Come here!” shouted Captain Yue. “You—”
The horse suddenly fell over. Captain Yue went down with it.
“ARRRR!” screamed Captain Yue as the full weight of the horse fell upon one of his long, skinny legs.
“Get this thing off me!”
Fifty soldiers rushed forward, and an entire village ran backward. An entire village, that is, except for the Drunkard, the Governor, and Ma.
Get out of here!” the Governor shouted at Ma, his eyes fixed on the advancing soldiers. “This is no place for you.”
“Sure it is,” Ma said stubbornly “I know how to fight.”
“Listen to me,” the Governor said. “This is not a game. Leave, now!”
“NO!”
With the soldiers nearly upon them, the Governor did what he knew in his heart was best. He turned and kicked Ma in the backside as hard as he could, sending him flying out of harm's way. Ma sailed all the way to the outer edge of the group of villagers, and several village men grabbed him tightly to keep him from joining in the attack. Ma thrashed about violently, but found he could do nothing more than watch as the Governor ran to the cage to free Fu while the Drunkard stood his ground in front of Captain Yue and the horse. The soldiers divided into two ranks. Twenty-five men ran after the Governor. Twenty-five swarmed the Drunkard.
“Have you ever seen Drunken kung fu?” asked the Drunkard with a grin as he began to stumble around within the surging mass of soldiers. His attackers lunged inward—two and three at a time—with swords and spears. The Drunkard responded by wobbling and hobbling this way and that, bouncing unpredictably off the soldiers, one at a time. To the soldiers' complete surprise, the Drunkard's erratic movements were impossible to hit with spear or sword, and every time he stumbled into a man, that man was hurled to the ground with tremendous force. One of the soldiers even fired his qiang at the large, swaying target but missed cleanly. The soldiers were so occupied with trying to subdue the staggering Drunkard, none of them noticed that his seemingly random movements led the group farther and farther away from the villagers.
Unlike the Drunkard, the Governor didn't fare so well. In fact, he didn't stand a fighting chance. In the blink of an eye, he was beaten down by the second mob of ruthless soldiers and left barely conscious. A key swung loose from behind the folds of his robe, and one of the soldiers snatched it away, snapping the cord that held it. Unsure of what to do with the Governor, the soldiers called out to Captain Yue for direction.
“I don't care about him!” Captain Yue shouted. “Get this stupid horse off me! Then get me into our sedan chair, grab the cage with the boy, and GO! We've got to get the scrolls back to Major Ying. We'll let him decide whether or not this is the right boy. Move!”