Ying nodded. Hok rushed on, and Ying followed her. They caught up to Gao and Malao, and Gao raised his nose into the breeze, sniffing loudly. His face twisted, and his big brown eyes filled with fury. “Gunpowder! Someone is loading firearms.”
Shots rang out, and the white monkey shrieked above them.
Malao shrieked, too. “The camp is under attack! Fu! Seh! We have to help them!” He raced into the leafless treetops and disappeared, the white macaque leading the way.
Gao and Hok broke into a run.
Ying did his best to keep up with them, but it was no use. Gao dodged between trees and bounded over obstacles with the agility of a wolf, while Hok had always possessed the unnatural ability to glide through the forest faster and more silently than any human Ying had ever seen. Malao was long gone, leaping tree to tree like a rabid monkey.
Ying was able to follow Gao’s tracks easily enough, though, and he did not slow his pace until he heard shouting and saw clouds of black smoke. The camp was burning.
Ying came to a small clearing and stopped. What he saw before him was utter chaos. Not only because of the number of firearms, but because of the horses. Close to one hundred soldiers sat atop war stallions, firing pistols and muskets at the bandits and their recruits, who were scurrying about, wielding only spears and swords.
The soldiers were well trained, firing their single-shot weapons in coordinated waves so that one group was always firing while the others reloaded. A few of the recruits were able to connect with their lengthy weapons, but many more were falling to the bullets or being trampled beneath the horses’ hooves. It was a massacre in the making.
Ying sank back into what little shadow the leafless trees provided and watched a soldier methodically torching the few bandit tents that were not already ablaze. The bandits were clearly outclassed.
Ying began to circle the clearing, searching for a way to help, and found a handful of bandits doing some significant damage. Ying recognized some of these individuals alongside his former temple siblings. They were well organized and fought in pairs, one adult bandit with one young person. He could not help but admire the way in which they worked together.
Mong, the bandit leader, fought with his back to his son, Seh. Seh was spinning a spear with deadly precision, while Mong fought with his bare hands, pulling soldiers off horses. Hok was with a beautiful woman who Ying assumed was her mother, Bing, or Ice. Both Hok and Bing battled empty-handed, their lightning-fast crane-beak fists dealing with the soldiers unseated by Mong and Seh.
Fu was there, too, fighting back-to-back with a large bandit known as Sanfu. Fu was holding a pair of tiger hook swords, ripping soldiers from their mounts, while Sanfu followed up with mighty swings of a gigantic broadsword. Malao and the white monkey attacked from the trees, the monkey clawing at soldiers’ faces while Malao knocked them from their horses with his carved Monkey Stick.
Ying also saw Hung, the bandit known as Bear, whirling a pair of immense war hammers. Hung fought alongside Gao, who brandished no fewer than five pistols. Together they kept a group of relentless soldiers away from a regal-looking man who Ying knew to be the governor of the region.
Gao had apparently run out of loaded weapons, and Ying watched him hurl one of his pistols at a mounted soldier in obvious frustration.
In response to Gao’s action, someone called out, “Gao! Over here! I have something for you!”
Ying saw that the speaker was a bandit in tattered clothes sitting atop a magnificent warhorse thirty paces from Gao. The man pulled a pistol from his sash. “It’s loaded! Come and get it!”
Gao ran over to the man. Reaching up for the pistol, he said, “Nice horse. Who did you steal it from?”
The man smirked. “No one. Tonglong gave it to me.” Then the man aimed the pistol at Gao and fired.
Ying’s eyes widened, aghast. He watched as the bullet struck Gao in the chest. Gao coughed up a mouthful of blood, then dropped.
Fu and Sanfu roared in unison, and they raced toward the mounted bandit. Fu shouted, “You were supposed to relieve my watch at the stronghold last night! Instead, you led Tonglong here!”
The man laughed and nodded. He pulled another pistol from his sash and aimed it at Fu, but did not get a chance to fire. Hung attacked the man from his blind side. One swing of the mighty hammers crushed the rider’s skull.
The monkey shrieked overhead, and Ying looked up to see Malao beside it, pointing with his blood-streaked Monkey Stick toward a wall of smoke across the clearing. “Tonglong is coming!”
“Bandits, retreat!” Mong shouted.
Bandits began to race into the trees from every direction, with mounted soldiers close on their heels. Ying turned toward the smoke and saw a rider barreling forward across the open ground, a line of additional horsemen behind him.