Huo Qingtong suddenly said. "The master of this mountain certainly planned things very carefully."
"What?" asked Chen.
"He used this magnet to draw the enemy"s weapons away and then his guards finished them off with the jade swords."
Princess Fragrance pointed at a skeleton wearing a metal breast plate. "Look! Some of the attackers were wearing armour. i"ll bet they couldn"t get on their feet."
"But what I don"t understand," Huo Qingtong continued, "is if the guards with the jade weapons killed all the attackers, why did they also die here as well?"
Chen had also been considering that problem, but could think of no explanation.
"Let"s go further in and explore," said Huo Qingtong.
"No," Princess Fragrance said. "Let"s not, sister."
Huo Qingtong saw the anguished expression on her face and squeezed her arm. "Don"t be afraid. Perhaps there are no skeletons over there."
They walked to the other side of the hall and looked into a smaller chamber. But the scene there was even more terrible than in the first hall. Dozens of skeletons were piled about the room, most of them still standing as if alive. Some had weapons in their hands, some didn"t.
"Don"t touch anything!" said Chen. "There must be some strange reason for them dying like this." They continued on, and passed out of the chamber into a tunnel. After a couple of bends, they came upon a small swing door. As they pushed it open, their eyes were assailed by a bright light. Sunlight poured in from a crack in the ceiling hundreds of feet above into an excuisite jade room which had obviously been carved out of the mountain at this spot to take advantage of the natural lighting.
Although it was only a single shaft of sunlight, the three were very excited at the sight of it. The room they found themselves in had a jade bed, a jade table, jade chairs, all beautifully carved. A skeleton reclined on the jade bed, while in one corner of the room, there were two other skeletons, one large and one small.
Chen extinguished the torch. "We"ll rest here," he said. They pulled out their dry rations and water and had a small meal.
"I wonder how long the wolves will wait outside the mountain for us?" said Huo Qingtong. "This has became a contest between us and the wolves, so we will have to make the food and water last as long as possible."
For the past several days, Chen and the two sisters had not had a moment in which they could relax. Now, in this silent jade room, an immense exhaustion came over them and before very long, they fell into a deep, deep sleep.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Book and The Sword
Copyright Graham Earnshaw 1995
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PART EIGHT
** 1 **
Zhang and the Three Devils watched the wolves swarm after Chen and the girls with great relief, although they felt a tinge of regret at the thought of two such beautiful girls being ravished by the animals. The four men sat down to rest for a while, then roasted and ate one of the dead wolves left behind. Gu noticed that the supply of tree branches was almost exhausted, and too lazy to go and get more, he threw piles of wolf"s dung onto the fire to stoke up the flames. Before long, a column of thick, black smoke was rising towards the heavens.
Just as they had eaten their fill of wolf meat, they noticed a dust cloud approaching from the east. Assuming it to be another wolf pack, they frantically jumped up and ran for the horses. Only two horses were left, both of which had been brought by the Three Devils. Zhang stretched out his hand to take the reins of one of the mounts, but Hahetai lunged in front of him and grabbed them first, shouting: "What do you think you"re doing?"