The first rule of captivity, Xu Hao decided, was to remain alive long enough to complain about it.
The second was not to complain where his captors could hear.
He'd learned that distinction after Big One laughed at his explanation of unlawful detention and Big Two came over to check whether something was wrong with his mouth.
Now he sat against the tree, watching the two men build up the fire. The vines around his wrists had enough give to let him move his fingers, but not enough to free his hands. He'd already tested them. Whoever tied the knots had done it with the confidence of a man who'd never expected his prisoner to be strong enough to pull them apart.
Unfortunately, that man had been correct.
Big One rose, stretched until his shoulders cracked, and picked up his sword. He said something to his companion. Big Two answered without looking up from the fire.
They argued for a moment. Big One pointed towards the trees, then at Xu Hao. Big Two shook his head and gestured towards the pots beside the shelter.
Finally, Big One snorted and walked off into the forest, carrying his sword.
Xu Hao waited until the sound of his footsteps faded.
"For the record," he told Big Two, "I would have voted for whichever option involved untying me."
The giant looked over. Xu Hao smiled. Big Two looked away.
A promising exchange. Neither of them had hit the other.
With little else to occupy him, Xu Hao studied the camp. The cloth shelter had been patched several times, but the stitching was neat. A rack of thin branches held strips of drying meat. Firewood was stacked under a sheet of bark to keep it dry, and a narrow path had been worn between the shelter and the stream.
These men weren't passing through. They knew this clearing well enough to have made a home of it, even if their idea of home didn't extend to providing chairs.
He'd spent years examining settlements where the inhabitants had been dead for centuries. Reading the habits of two living men ought to be easier. Their equipment was well cared for. They kept watch. They ate together. And Big Two had loosened the vines around his ankles when they began cutting into his skin.
That last detail troubled Xu Hao almost as much as the club.
A man who intended to kill him had no reason to worry about his circulation. A man who intended to sell him might.
He looked towards the pile of bones beyond the fire and decided not to consider a third possibility.
* * *
Big One returned before sunset with several animals hanging from a rope over his shoulder.
Xu Hao thought they were rabbits until the giant dumped them beside the fire.
He leaned forward.
"What on earth..."
The animals had long ears and soft grey-brown fur. A short spiral horn grew from the centre of each forehead. That was strange enough, though he'd seen similar creatures drawn in medieval bestiaries. The oddest feature was their hindquarters.
He counted the legs.
Four at the back. Two at the front.
Six.
The extra pair folded beneath their bodies like the spring-loaded limbs of grasshoppers. Xu Hao stared at them, then looked at the trees as though expecting somebody from the biology department to emerge and explain the joke.
Big One noticed his interest. He lifted one animal by its ears and spoke at length, punctuating his explanation by tapping the horn.
"Yes," Xu Hao said. "I see that part. It's the legs I'm having trouble with. Your rabbit appears to have ordered a spare set."
Big One frowned.
Xu Hao pointed at the creature. "Rabbit?"
The giant repeated a word. It had two distinct sounds, neither of which Xu Hao could reproduce on the first attempt.
He tried again.
Big One burst out laughing and shouted something to his companion.
Big Two looked up from the fire, listened to the imitation, and laughed too.
"Very good," Xu Hao muttered. "An entire new species, and I'm the entertaining one."
Big Two drew a short knife and began cleaning the animals. His hands were enormous, but he worked with surprising care. The blade followed the joints neatly, and he kept the edible portions separate from the offal. When he asked Big One for the wooden cup, Xu Hao heard a sound he'd noticed earlier: short, sharp, followed by an open vowel.
Big One passed it to him.
A request, perhaps. Give me. Hand it over.
Xu Hao mouthed the syllables and stored them away.
He couldn't ask where he was. He couldn't ask why he was tied to a tree. But he could listen. His work had often meant piecing together a language from damaged inscriptions, fragments of correspondence and the occasional furious complaint preserved in a tax record.
At least these two spoke in complete sentences.
The disadvantage was that they could hit him if he got a word wrong.
Fat began to drip over the fire. A rich smell spread through the clearing, and Xu Hao's stomach answered with a noise loud enough for both men to hear.
Big One turned and grinned.
"I had hoped we could keep that private," Xu Hao said.
He pointed towards the roasting meat, then touched his mouth. The giant watched without moving.
"Food," Xu Hao said slowly. "You eat it. I eat it. Ideally today."
Big One looked towards Big Two and said something. Big Two gave a short reply and continued turning the meat.
Xu Hao lowered his hands. He'd made his request. Repeating it in a louder voice would not improve the translation.
He was trying to decide whether sleep might distract him from hunger when Big Two approached with a broad leaf piled with roasted meat and a wooden cup of milky white liquid.
The giant drew his knife.
Xu Hao recoiled before he could stop himself.
"I wasn't asking for a last meal."
Big Two reached for his wrists and cut through the vines.
The sudden release left Xu Hao staring at his hands. Red grooves circled both wrists. He flexed his fingers, then looked up.
Big Two pushed the leaf at him with an impatient grunt.
"Right. Thank you. I mean it."
Xu Hao took a piece of meat and examined it. He had no idea whether six-legged rabbits were safe to eat, but the men beside the fire had already helped themselves. He took a cautious bite.
He'd intended to chew slowly. That intention lasted approximately three seconds.
The meat was tender, smoky and unexpectedly sweet. He swallowed, took another piece, then remembered his manners and stopped himself from shovelling in the rest.
Big Two watched him.
"I've not eaten since yesterday," Xu Hao said. "Or whenever yesterday was. Time has become a little difficult."
The giant pointed at the leaf and spoke a word.
Xu Hao looked down. "Meat?"
The word came again, slower.
He repeated it as best he could.
Big Two tilted his head, considered the effort, and gave a brief nod.
Xu Hao smiled despite himself. "That's one. Only several thousand to go."
He drank from the cup. The white liquid was cool, thicker than milk, with a faint sweetness. He considered asking where it came from, then decided there were limits to the number of surprises he could bear before bedtime.
A warmth spread through his stomach.
He thought at first it was the relief of eating. Then it travelled into his arms and legs. The stiffness from his day in the forest eased. More remarkably, the pounding ache behind his ear, where Big One's club had struck him, began to subside.
Xu Hao set the cup down.
He touched the swelling carefully. It was still tender, but the pain had diminished enough to make him suspicious.
Food didn't cure head injuries. His mother had been quite emphatic about that, usually after his father tried to send her to bed with a bowl of soup instead of admitting he ought to take over her evening shift.
Xu Hao glanced at the empty cup.
He wanted to know what he'd just drunk.
He wanted a notebook, a clean table and the means to test it. Most urgently, he wanted someone who could answer a question without laughing.
Big Two took the cup, inspected it, and held out his hand for the leaf.
Xu Hao surrendered both.
"I appreciate the dinner," he said. "I would appreciate my freedom even more."
Big Two caught his wrists, gathered a fresh length of vine and tied them again.
Xu Hao watched the final knot settle into place.
"A firm no, then."
* * *
After eating, the brothers moved into the open ground beyond the fire.
Big One set down his sword and threw a punch at Big Two's shoulder. Big Two caught the blow on his forearm and shoved him back. Big One came forward laughing, and a moment later they were trading punches fast enough to make Xu Hao forget his headache.
It wasn't a quarrel. He could see that much. The movements were practiced, their footing precise despite their size. Big One attacked in bursts, trying to push his companion backwards. Big Two gave ground, waited for him to overreach and struck at the opening.
When they took up their weapons, Xu Hao became less comfortable.
The club hit the broad sword with a crack that sent birds exploding out of a nearby tree. Big Two turned the blade, stepped aside and caught the next swing on its flat. Big One missed, recovered and swung again.
Xu Hao pressed back against his tree.
Neither man spared him so much as a glance. If one of those blows went astray, he doubted they would notice until it was time to clear the camp.
Then Big One planted his feet.
He lifted his right leg and stamped down.
The ground rose.
Xu Hao stared as soil and stones surged up in front of the giant, forming a rough wall taller than a man. It moved forward with a grinding rush, cutting a deep furrow through the clearing.
Big Two didn't run.
He stamped his foot too.
A second wall burst from the earth and charged towards the first.
They collided with a sound like a cartload of rock being dropped off a cliff. Dirt flew across the clearing. Xu Hao ducked as stones rattled against the tree behind him, then looked up through the dust.
Both giants were laughing.
Xu Hao stared at the broken ground. He could see the torn roots, the exposed stones, the deep trenches where the walls had travelled. Whatever he'd witnessed, it wasn't a trick of the light.
He looked at the horned rabbits beside the fire. At his own smooth, younger hands. At the patch of earth Big Two had moved as casually as someone kicking a loose stone aside.
The explanations he'd been collecting since waking in the forest had begun to look embarrassingly inadequate.
He had been drugged. He was dreaming. The animals were unusual but natural. His age was a mistake of memory. Each possibility had seemed worth considering on its own.
None of them accounted for a man stamping a wall out of the ground.
Xu Hao had spent his life studying the stories people once told about impossible things. He knew how frequently those stories began with an ordinary witness who had misunderstood what he'd seen. He'd been proud of his ability to separate the account from the evidence.
The evidence was scattered all over the clearing.
Big One stamped again. A smaller ridge rose near his foot. Big Two broke it apart with a careless kick, showering them both in dirt.
Xu Hao watched, remembering the red wax seal on his desk.
If that manuscript had brought him here, he had made the worst professional mistake of his career by opening it.
And if the manuscript hadn't brought him here, he wanted very much to know what had.