Ming Yue obviously had no intention of running, but she knew that she would only serve as a distraction for Zhao Weisheng if she threw herself into the fight straight away.  Consequently, for the moment, she stayed in the shadows, with her back pressed against the wall and her eyes darting back and forth, taking in every detail of the scene unfolding in front of her.

Luo Jian had drawn his sword and tossed his scabbard to Weisheng, and the two men were now standing back to back to face, ready the enemy.

Luckily, the alleyway was relatively narrow, so the assassins could not all attack at once.  As the first man to reach Weisheng swung his sword, he blocked it with the scabbard and let loose a powerful punch with his right hand.  It connected solidly with the man's nose, and Weisheng heard a satisfying crunch.  A kick to the abdomen sent the man flying into the wall behind, and then into a crumpled heap on the ground below. He then turned to face the next attacker.

Seeing that the prince was still without a weapon, Ming Yue reached down quickly and retrieved the knife from her boot.  Subconsciously choosing urgency over etiquette, she called out "Weisheng!" and, when he turned to look, she tossed the blade towards him.  He caught it nimbly and gave her a quick smile of thanks before he moved forward to meet a new opponent.

Out of the prince's line of sight, Ming Yue moved stealthily towards the prone figure of the assassin on the ground and, with a swift kick to the head, made sure that he would not be getting up and re-joining the fray any time soon.

Weisheng and Luo Jian fought quickly and efficiently, conserving energy where they could. Although the two men were equal in height, Luo Jian was of a slightly bigger build than Weisheng, so his style of swordplay was more straightforward, relying on power and strength, whereas the prince trusted in his speed and technique.  However, both men were equally deadly, and soon the air in the alleyway was thick with the scent of blood.

Ming Yue's role in the proceedings thus far had been pretty minimal, but all of that changed when a man in black approached her swiftly from the right and grabbed her wrist in a tight hold.  Strangely, he had not drawn his sword, leading Ming Yue to believe that capture, rather than killing, was his goal.  No doubt he thought that if Ming Yue was at his mercy, he could force the two men to back down.  Unfortunately for him, she had no intention of making things that easy.

As he pulled her towards him, she twisted her arm to try to loosen his grip and, at the same time, swung her left leg around to knee him in the abdomen.  The man doubled over but did not let go. He straightened up quickly and brought his right arm around to try to grab her by the throat.  She blocked him and aimed the heel of her left hand at his chin.  He staggered back, this time releasing his hold on her wrist, and, pivoting on her left leg, she swung her right in a high kick to the side of the man's face.  The impact sent him crashing into the wall.

Ming Yue turned swiftly to see another man approaching her, this time with his weapon drawn.

Weisheng turned to see Ming Yue trapped between the wall, a wooden cart, and an armed assassin.  He looked down at the knife in his hand and called out to her.  As she looked across, in an echo of her earlier actions he threw the knife over to her, and she caught it with ease.  He watched as she stepped up with one foot on to the cart and somersaulted over it, landing behind the man who had assumed he had the woman cornered.  He turned, but it was not quickly enough, and a slash across the chest with the dagger soon ended his fight.  Ming Yue grabbed the man's sword and tossed it to Weisheng, keeping hold of her knife.  The entire exchange had taken only a few moments.

By now, the three companions had gained the upper hand, and it was short work dispatching the rest of their assailants. As the last assassin fell, they turned to look at each other. Each of them was covered in any number of small cuts and abrasions and, although their injuries weren't serious, they were sufficient to exacerbate the weariness that they all felt from such an intense onslaught.

However, any relief was short-lived, as ten more men appeared in view looking equally as deadly, if not more so, as their predecessors.  The reality suddenly hit Weisheng.  The earlier men were cannon fodder, disposable.  Their job was merely to tire the three people out so that the real experts could come in and finish the job.  He quickly assessed their chances of survival in his head, and decided that the best possible course of action, although not ideal, was to run.

Weisheng reached for Ming Yue's hand and looked across at his right hand man.  He looked up at the balcony stretching the length of the building to their right, and then back at Luo Jian, who nodded.  A quick glance towards Ming Yue told him that she, too, understood the plan.

The three turned and, using the edge of the abandoned cart for momentum just as Ming Yue had done earlier, they used their qinggong to leap up to the upper tier of the two-storey building.  Then, they set off at breakneck speed, quickly turning a corner, then leaping over the edge of the balcony and the narrow alleyway below to the next building, before carrying on their dash to safety.

Weisheng looked behind, but he could only sense, rather than see, their pursuers.  Realising that the threat may come from above, he reasoned that it would be better if they weren't running blind, even if it meant they were more exposed.

"Get up to the roof," he shouted.

Luckily, all three of them were sufficiently skilled in martial arts that it was an easy leap to grasp the edge of the roof with one hand then swing up onto it.  The tiles weren't as steady beneath their feet as the wooden boards of the balcony, but at least now they had a better idea of their surroundings, and where the assassins were.

To Weisheng's relief, the closest man was still a few buildings behind them.  Obviously, they had expected the group to engage them in combat, so the quick decision to run had come as somewhat of a surprise.

Scanning the city skyline, Weisheng assessed their situation.  He saw the palace walls diagonally across to his left, maybe a dozen more buildings away.  They could not stay high above the streets for the entirety of the run, as there was a large open area of ground before the gates, where city folk and the guards would congregate during busier times.

Also, one of the buildings, just a couple of streets away from the palace entrance, was significantly taller than the rest.  Four storeys perhaps, with a wall surrounding it.  It would take too much time to skirt around it.  They would just have to go up and over.

Weisheng's mental assessment of their situation took only seconds and, having made a decision, he nodded firmly in the direction he had chosen.  Luo Jian and Ming Yue narrowed their eyes and, immediately seeing the prince's intention, nodded in reply, and the three of them set off once more.

It did not take them long to reach the most challenging part of their run, as the tall building loomed in front of them.  At this point, tiredness was beginning to show, and their pace had slowed.  A quick glance to either side told Weisheng that their pursuers were gaining on them, and any slip up now would be potentially lethal.

Weisheng let go of Ming Yue's hand, suddenly realising that he had been grasping it ever since they first decided to flee.  They would all need both hands if they were going to scale the structure in front of them.

After pausing to catch their breath, the three runners made a sprint for the edge of the building they were currently on, and leapt into space, landing lightly on the narrow boundary wall just below.  Without stopping and losing momentum, each engaged their inner qi and took another leap towards the very top storey of the structure in front of them.

What should have been a relatively easy feat for each of them was now a bit of an exercise in faith.  They were all carrying injuries and had been running at pace over difficult surfaces for some time now.  Consequently, Weisheng was beyond relieved to see Luo Jian and Ming Yue landing lightly on either side of him on the uppermost balcony.

He went to jump up, using the same technique from earlier to swing himself onto the roof but, just as he reached above his head, an arrow thwacked into a wooden beam just inches away from his moving fingers.

"Damn it!" he thought to himself.  This was new.  He was sure none of the original assassins had been carrying bows.  From the look of the arrow and the angle of its flight, at least one of their pursuers was armed with a crossbow, and now they were close enough to the fleeing group to use it.

"Quickly, go!" he whispered, and the three of them swung up and began to make their way across the roof, trying to move swiftly while keeping low.

On reaching the edge, Weisheng looked down.  The roof overhung the balcony, and it was quite a number of metres to the boundary wall on this side.  Unfortunately, a garden feature of large, rather sharp looking boulders stopped them from descending to ground level in just one leap. However, a large, sturdy tree halfway between the building and the wall would give them the extra lift they needed to make the transition between the two, particularly as they were all now panting heavily, especially Luo Jian, who had sustained a number of blows to his ribs.

Weisheng turned back to the other two and took a quick look at each of their faces, to make sure their senses were still sharp even if their bodies were suffering.  To his relief, although she looked tired, Ming Yue's eyes were still bright and fixed on his.  She raised the corners of her mouth in a brief, small smile,  but Weisheng was stopped from responding when he felt a sudden, sharp pain in his upper right shoulder and, without any warning, he found himself out in mid-air, falling.

Ming Yue had seen the prince hit from the front by an arrow and, whilst her immediate thought was that the injury itself was not too serious, it being closer to his shoulder than any of his vital organs, she was horrified to see the impact of the strike propel Weisheng out over the edge of the roof and tumbling towards the ground and the lethally sharp rocks scattered below.

Without any thought, Ming Yue cried out, and threw herself forward onto the roof tiles as her hand stretched over the edge towards the man now falling helplessly away from her.  Suddenly, just as she had so many years ago, she saw a bright flash of light, and the barrier in her mind that she had ignored for so long came crashing down.

And, just as before, something heard her call and responded.