Snake (Five Ancestors #3)(26)
Author: Jeff Stone

AnGangseh grinned.

As Seh reached for the final scroll, a voice caught his attention.

“Well, well, well,” a soldier said from the doorway. “What do we have here?”

AnGangseh hissed, and Seh turned toward the soldier. Seh blinked several times and shook his head. He saw a group of soldiers run past.

My brothers, Seh thought. He lunged at the soldier in the doorway, but AnGangseh got there first. The soldier stumbled backward and screamed as AnGangseh’s fingernails dug into his temples.

Seh slipped past them and headed for the back door of the banquet hall.

“Wait, ssson!” AnGangseh called out, but Seh didn’t bother to turn back. His brothers might need him. As he ran, he slid the last scroll along the small of his back up under his robe, beneath his sash. That was still the most secure place for it if he had to fight.

Seh arrived at the banquet hall’s rear door and stopped in his tracks. Something didn’t look right. He scanned the area in the dim moonlight and realized what it was. The ground was perfectly smooth. Too smooth. There wasn’t a single footprint in the sandy soil.

Someone must have recently passed over it using the Invisible Step technique. With every step forward, the person’s back leg sweeps the ground behind him, covering his tracks. Seh knew it was very advanced kung fu. He also knew Ying was an expert at it.

Seh slid up to the back door and began to open it slowly.

Seh stuck his head through the banquet hall’s back door. Inside, it was pure pandemonium. The front door was open at the opposite side of the hall, and both bandits and soldiers were pouring in and out. Inside the hall there must have been about fifty bandits and one hundred armored soldiers. Several soldiers had qiangs.

Seh felt his head begin to cloud from all the activity. He fought it and moved forward.

The instant Seh stepped through the back door, the wide blade of a soldier’s broadsword slashed through the air in search of Seh’s forehead. Seh dropped to one knee and rolled, and the blade sank deep into the doorjamb.

Seh jumped to his feet, stumbling on something. He glanced down and saw a large, elaborate silk hat lying in the middle of the floor. Irritated, he kicked it out of the way.

The pale head of a well-groomed man rolled out of the hat, turning end over end across the floor.

“Captain Yue!” Seh’s attacker gasped.

The soldier went after the head and Seh backed up against the wall. Seh heard someone retch, followed by Hung’s voice sounding wet and sloppy. Seh looked in the corner and saw Hung hunched over. Fu was next to him.

“Do it!” Hung growled. “You need to empty your stomach to fight. Don’t make me shove my finger down your throat, too.” Hung shook a bile-covered finger at Fu. Seh saw bits of food clinging to the back of Hung’s hairy hand.

Fu extended his finger.

Seh turned away.

“Seh, over here!” Malao shouted. He was standing on top of the banquet table, kicking plates of food into soldiers’ faces. Gao was jumping frantically around on all fours next to him. Gao’s tongue was hanging out, and his eyes rolled around crazily

A soldier climbed onto the far end of the table and ran toward Malao and Gao. Gao responded with an unorthodox maneuver that was half dog roll, half foot sweep. The soldier’s legs flew out from under him and he toppled to the floor. Woof! Woof! Woof!

Seh heard several small bones crunch behind him, and another man cried out. Seh looked over at the back door and saw NgGung waddle through it into the banquet hall. NgGung laughed in the face of the soldier who had just punched him in the stomach, then knocked the soldier unconscious with a hammer fist. NgGung turned toward the center of the hall and began to spin, cutting a wide swath through the combatants. Seh followed him with his eyes until NgGung passed a soldier with an extraordinarily long ponytail braid. It was Tonglong.

Tonglong was pitted against several bandits, and he wielded his straight sword with great skill. So much so, three of the bandits facing him ran off.

KA-BOOM! A qiang fired near Seh.

Yip! Yip! Yip!

“NOOO!” Malao shouted.

Seh looked back at the table. Blood began to squirt out of a wound in Gao’s arm. Malao’s upper lip curled back, and he pulled the monkey stick from the folds of his robe.

Seh was about to jump onto the table to help Malao when the pit of his stomach began to tingle. He glanced out of the corner of his eye and saw Tonglong staring straight at him.

Tonglong raised his sword and charged toward Seh.

Seh lowered himself into a horse stance and raised one fist to protect his face. He lowered his other fist in front of his midsection as Tonglong attacked.

Tonglong swung his straight sword at Seh’s head and Seh ducked, only to realize too late that Tonglong’s swing was just a ploy. Tonglong already had one of his legs cocked, and he unleashed a mighty kick toward Seh’s chest. Seh brought his forearms together in time to block the kick, but the powerful impact sent Seh tumbling backward to the ground. As Seh scrambled to get to his feet, Tonglong jumped on top of him.