The Lamb and the Gray Battle

September 21, 1447

For the first time in almost a week, Nianzang was swimming through the land of dreams. BoBo and the army hadn't returned yet.

Diyiren's brain was calm. He slid the door of his room shut and went down to the dungeon. A dozen soldiers and at least as many servants clambered to their knees and kowtowed. Some called out to their King, begged mercy, praised his kindness and patience. "I'm wrong," they sang out. "Please punish me." They knew as well as everyone within a thousand miles that their king's heart had finally slowed to an even rhythm.

In one cell, the cook and the servants were caged. Diyiren didn't flaunt his abilities before Satan's death. Now, his strength had multiplied by hundred. He still didn't flaunt them.

He took the iron bars, let his black skin smoke as they burned into him. He bent the bars and ripped the door off the hinges. Some of the kowtowing prisoners glimpsed the door flung across the bowels of the Fortress. Diyiren no more knew who his cook was than who cleaned the fireplaces. He ordered him to rise.

"My King," the cook said, his bald head bowed.

As Diyiren had with the princess turned servant girl, he cut the cook's head off with one squeeze of his fist.

Diyiren said to the rest in the cell, "Rise."

A few ran for the open door, but Diyiren called the water to make a barricade behind him, so thick none of the servants could force their way through. As punishment, he killed those who ran last. He held them by the neck, looked them in the eye, his lips still, his lashes unblinking.

He considered leaving the soldiers to suffer an additional day, but Diyiren didn't trust himself. He tore the door of their cell away. The soldiers were an assortment of men and women from every region of the Earth and Hell. They rose and lined up, awaited their death. Diyiren walked down the line, all the bodies strewn on the ground when he left.

Diyiren was alone in the Fortress except for his sleeping son. He got buckets of water for a bath, washed out his clothes, hung them out himself as he would have as a child. No blood remained on his skin by the time his army returned.

Much screaming occurred in the dungeon. He thought his soldiers were made of sturdier stuff. Diyiren sank to his desk in his study. The proper papers needed drawn up. BoBo was the one who approached him.

"Is it done?" Diyiren said, a calligraphy brush pinched between his knuckles.

"Yes, My King."

"Stack the bodies for a funeral pyre. I trust Nianzang is still asleep?"

BoBo pursed his lips, but joy danced in his eyes. "I've never seen him sleep so heavily, My King."

Diyiren adjusted his crown. A waste to get up so soon, but he took the lead.

"Sutekh was impressed," BoBo murmured as Diyiren strode to the courtyard.

"Sutekh can rot for all I care."

"You are very much like my brother today," BoBo said, his smug smile lengthening his lips.

"Shove that smile up your arse," Diyiren said. "My mother is the one who taught me to do what is necessary."

Bodies were tossed one on top of the other, men, women, even children. BoBo nodded to the general to light the fire. Yellow light reflected on Diyiren's face. Some hours later, the fire smoldered to a dark orange glow. A faint stir rustled from the second floor of the Fortress.

Diyiren said, "Make sure everyone knows what occurred here."

He went up to Nianzang, who sat up and smiled when his father slid open the door.

"It smells like sweet bread. Is the cook making bao buns for me?"

"I'm sorry, no. We will have to engage a new cook and servants."

When the fire died down, BoBo did a water color painting in the Chinese style, flames licking in orange and red. The piece was copied and hung in every street in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. In China, books were filled with the image. Generations later, that picture of King Ao Guang watching an Dorcha and their conspirators burn still turned up in history books and biographies.