The Mandate of Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page A

red wild dog, leaping up at the ruined staircase where Yun Shu cowered, just beyond the reach of its snapping, yellow fangs.
    For a long moment boy and dog surveyed one another. Hsiung saw the mother would never abandon her pups or allow Yun Shu to leave without a savage attack. They were trapped. Just as the people had been trapped in this stone square when the Mongols came.
    ‘Aiee!’ he bellowed, leaping at the wild dog, bamboo sword raised above his head.
    Perhaps the creature did not expect so sudden an attack from so small a human. It shrank back. Bamboo smashed onto its skull. At once it rolled away, twisting to leap at the boy.
    ‘Hsiung!’ wailed Yun Shu from above.
    He did not hear. The creature had fixed its jaws round his calf, worrying, biting. In fury he stabbed down with the end of the bamboo onto the top of its head. Again, again. Abruptly the slavering jaws, foaming pink with his blood, loosened. The wild dog’s head fell back. Hsiung wobbled and almost collapsed. Blood was trickling from his leg.
    He lurched back onto a pile of masonry, still gripping the bamboo sword. Glancing round, he realised Teng and Yun Shu were on either side of him. As adrenalin left his body waves of pain followed. The girl wept hysterically, telling a story he could barely comprehend, ‘When I came here this morning I found the puppies! I tried to warn you but you’d gone. Then the mother returned from hunting. For a long time she wouldn’t enter. Then she grew desperate to feed her puppies. That’s how …’
    Ignoring her, he turned in wonder to Teng. ‘I killed it!’ he whispered. A deep exultation opened in Hsiung’s soul like a clenched fist unflexing strong fingers. A hand discovering its force, power. ‘I killed it!’

    Teng splashed Hsiung’s leg with water from the gourd. A bandage torn from Yun Shu’s spare clothes staunched the wound. Once the bleeding had slowed, Teng put an arm round his friend’s shoulders.
    ‘Yun Shu,’ he said, ‘see what trouble you have caused! Go home! And do not mention our names.’
    The two boys watched her. She was kneeling by the dead mother and the mewling pups.
    ‘Did you not hear me?’ demanded Teng.
    ‘No,’ she whispered, tears still wet on her cheeks.
    ‘What do you mean, no ?’
    Hsiung had never seen Teng so angry. It made him want to laugh in a dizzy, exulted way.
    ‘All you think about is yourself!’ cried Teng. ‘Do you intend to live here forever? Where will your food come from?’
    Yun Shu sat back on her heels, one hand resting on the dead dog’s warm body. ‘There must be a reason.’
    Teng examined her in disgust. ‘You’re mad! Go back to your father. He scares me! Just make sure he leaves us in peace.’
    ‘There must be a reason, Teng,’ she repeated, tears welling again. ‘It is fate! It is the Dao!’
    At that word of power they became aware the wind was rising. Bamboo groves swayed and muttered. Sighs like mournful ghosts swept the cliffs.
    ‘It is the Dao,’ she repeated. ‘Can’t you hear it?’
    Teng stepped back, alarmed by the restless wind.
    ‘You are mad and selfish,’ he declared. ‘I found this place, not you! I forbid you to live here and I am no longer your xia .’ He turned to Hsiung. ‘Let’s get home before they catch us. We must hurry.’
    In the shock of his injury and triumphant pride, Hsiung felt no desire to argue. Leaving Yun Shu bent over the wild dog’s corpse, they struggled into the thickening darkness. Hsiung’s blood-stained bamboo sword turned from weapon to crutch. He leaned on Teng’s shoulder for the slow, painful walk home. Half way down the Hill it was necessary to hide. A dozen men with burning torches were climbing the Hundred Stairs, prodding the undergrowth with spears, calling out Yun Shu’s name.

Three

    The pups whined and crawled around the dark interior of the tower as Yun Shu knelt beside the dead mother. Warmth left its body. All she could do was wait until morning.
    Yun Shu took