The Cloud Maker

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Just before the bend, he stopped.

The noise he’d heard was like an animal crashing through the bamboo thickets and, thinking it might be just that, the young novice monk halted in his tracks. Then he heard sharp voices barking out orders in Mandarin. Veering off the path, he dropped low behind a dense thicket, his face only inches from the frozen ground.

A few seconds later, four uniformed soldiers burst on to the path, rifles slung over their shoulders. They were talking fast, gesticulating with swift stabbing movements at something higher up the valley.

Rega could see a pair of battered military boots just in front of him, tiny crystals of snow frosting the muddy laces. A few more steps and they would be on him. He could hear the soldier’s breathing, the sticky sounds of his mouth working as he chewed on tobacco.

‘Zai Nar!’ shouted another voice, further away, and the boots paused for a moment and then crunched off in the other direction. Rega let out a ragged breath, his relief mingling with horror as he realised what had just happened.

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