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used to galloping on open plains, not creeping along cramped mountain paths hardly wide enough for a goat. The confusion gave Tao and Kai a head start. Tao allowed himself to believe that they would lose their pursuers, but the sound of a horse behind them soon burst that small bubble of hope. One nomad had got control of his mount and won the contest to be first after them. Over his shoulder, Tao saw Kai swipe the man with his tail, knocking him from his saddle.
    They kept running. When another nomad came up behind them, Kai pulled back a branch and let it go again, startling the horse. They left the path and ran into the trees, zigzagging to lose any other nomads who might be behind them. Tao had to stop to catch his breath.
    “Get onto my back,” Kai said.
    Tao did as the dragon said. He clung on to Kai’s mane as the dragon ran through the forest, weaving between trees, leaping over rocks.
    They broke out of the trees and onto another path. Tao hadn’t thought about where they were going, but somehow they had wound their way back to the same path. They were at the mouth of the cave. It was the last place Tao wanted to be. He jumped off Kai’s back as he was about to run into the cave.
    Kai was making his agitated scraping knives sound. “Into the cave!”
    Tao didn’t move. “We’ll be like birds in a snare.”
    Kai pushed Tao into the black cave. Tao covered his mouth and nose, trying not to breathe in the fetid smell. He couldn’t believe he was back in this dreadful place, after vowing he would never go near it again.
    Kai pulled an arrow from his tail.
    “Are you all right, Kai? Let me put some red cloud herb on the wound.”
    “No need. My tail is tough.”
    The nomads gathered outside, their horses snorting and stamping.
    “Go on then!” Fo Tu Deng shouted. “Go after them!”
    “In there? But it’s dark and cramped,” one of the nomads said. He sounded terrified. “It’s the horses. They won’t go in.”
    “It’s not the horses I want to go in, you imbecile. Get off your horse and use your legs!”
    Tao could see one of the nomads dismounting. Kai pulled Tao to the rear of the cave. The nomad stepped inside the cave and sniffed the putrid air as his eyes adjusted to the light. Then he saw the bones and he backed out of the cave.
    “It is an evil place of the dead!” he said.
    There was a murmur of panic.
    “The dead won’t harm you!” Fo Tu Deng shouted. “They’re just bones. I will report your cowardice to Jilong.”
    Tao tried to make sense of all this. Kai had already worked it out. “Fo Tu Deng is working for the Zhao,” he said. “He must still be claiming the visions you had were his own.”
    Tao understood now why Fo Tu Deng wanted to capture them. The monk had pretended he could work miracles and see visions given to him by Buddha, but he had no second sight, no visionary powers of his own. When they were imprisioned by the leader of the Zhao, Shi Le, the monk had passed off Tao’s visions as his own in order to impress the nomads. Now it seemed Fo Tu Deng was in the service of Shi Le’s cruel nephew, Jilong.
    “He needs you,” Kai said. “How can he pretend he can see into the future without your visions?”
    The nomads were still refusing to enter the cave.
    “You are more cowardly than the boy and his beast!” Fo Tu Deng shouted.
    “We’ll wait,” one of the nomads said. “They’ll have to come out or starve to death.”
    “He’s right, Kai. We can’t hide in here forever.” Tao could make out the mud nests of the swallows on the cave walls. “
You
can eat the swallows, but I can’t. And even if I was driven by hunger to eat the birds, there isn’t any water.”
    “When I was hunting for swallows, I noticed an opening at the back of the cave that leads to a narrow passage. Can you see it?”
    “No.”
    “The bat dung I ate this morning has started to take effect. I can see it clearly,” Kai said. “The bats do not roost in this cave, they go deeper