with its widespread use of steel beams and reinforcment bars.
The capital of ancient China, Baver decided. He groped for the name: Beijing, that was it. Now an army was barracked there, in scores or maybe hundreds of long, single-story stone buildings. Nearby were farms, their mud-brick buildings clustered in hamlets. There
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was wheeled transport, both wagons and carts, and the road was rutted from the last wet weather, but dusty now from drought.
From Beijing the troop turned north, the midday sun at their backs, and after a while they were in forested hills again—the Yan Mountains, though Baver didn’t know their name. Late the next day they came to a town of perhaps twenty thousand, in a valley of farms; an un-walled town. A large hill rose above it, with large buildings surrounded by a defensive wall. Atop the hill was what Baver thought must be the imperial palace. From a distance its size impressed him, and as they came closer, its beauty. They rode into the town on a road paved with stone blocks, till they came to a great gate that swallowed the road.
It was at the gate that Baver saw his first Yunnan ogres. He’d never heard of them before, and they both awed and astonised him. Each was well over two meters tall, looked enormously strong, and wore an indigo uniform with buttons and trim of copper. Their helmets were steel, though he didn’t know it, for the steel was plated with polished bronze. Each held a great sword at shoulder arms, while on his other shoulder was slung an enormous bow. Baver doubted he could do more than lift the sword, and was sure he couldn’t begin to bend the bow. The creatures looked intelligent and alert, their eyes on the coming cavalrymen and particularly on himself, an obvious prisoner.
At the last minute, one of them stepped in front of the troop’s commander. And spoke! Its speech sounded to Baver not unlike that of the soldiers he’d been traveling with, though the voice had a different timbre, with a sort of “hard-napped fuzz” to it unlike any human voice he’d ever heard.
Then the column waited calmly. No one dismounted or spoke. Almost the only sounds were the occasional clop of a shod hoof on stone, a slight snort, the buzz of horse flies and swish of tails.
One of the ogres had planted himself in the gateway,
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sword loosely ready in one long hand. The blade was one-and-a-half-edged, Baver noticed, one edge sharp the whole length, the other only half. The long hand had an opposable thumb, and thick nails that might be thought of as blunt claws. The feet were bare, and their claws curved strongly enough for traction.
From inside the gate came the sound of shod feet marching in step. Then a squad of human guards came out. Like the ogres, they wore uniforms of indigo and copper. With them came what was clearly an officer, by both uniform and bearing. He seemed to be senior to the cavalry commander. Haughtily he rattled off several sentences, then two of his men strode to Baver and lifted him down. These were large men, larger than most of the troopers, and with hands beneath Baver’s arms, they walked him through the great gate and into the palace grounds.
Baver had visited the national garden on New Home. The palace grounds were at least as beautiful, and exotic to boot. He realized this even as he was hustled along a graveled path to a building, lovely on the outside, which inside proved to be a prison. At least the cellar was. They took him down a corridor and pushed him into a cell, where one of them untied his hands.
They left him standing there and slammed the barred door behind them. A key or keys seated massive bolts. The only light was that from the corridor, and from an airshaft with a barred opening.
Baver stood bemused, not willing to sit, as if sitting would make the situation more final, more irrevocable. Well, he told himself after a long couple of minutes, they didn’t go to all that trouble just to lock me up. Something’s bound to happen before long.