In front of them, incautious, running back and forth,

a boy who’d said he could lead them

to one of the city’s granaries:

thousands of survivors,

little food,

winter not yet over.

“Hurry up! Over here!”

The boy jumped, and tripped,

the ground tilting—

—Odd, how that instant stretched,

the boy screaming, high-pitched, as he tumbled.

—Odd, how the ground shifted,

rolled like a wave beneath King Xau

as he dropped, lay face down.

—Odd, the loose, grinding, creaking,

splintering of the debris under him.

Xau blinked back dust, looked right:

two of his guards, Dao, Li, prostrate,

Li staring at him,

Dao’s eyes squeezed tight.

Xau looked to his left:

the three soldiers and Tsung,

captain of his guards.

—Odd, the wave tilted left,

Xau slid downslope

where no slope had been,

coughing, dust choking him, in his eyes.

Stopped.

To his right, uphill now: Dao, Li.

Left—a chasm.

—Xau stared down,

ten, twelve feet down into a pit.

Where the three soldiers had been.

Where Tsung had been.

—The ground steadied. Settled.

Xau pushed himself to hands and knees.

He saw Li walking toward him, testing each step,

saw the boy running away

along the ridge of the new slope.

Li stopped just above Xau,

gripped onto a plank with one hand,

grabbed Xau’s arm with the other hand.

“Tsung’s down there,” said Xau.

Li nodded. “First we get you to safety,

then we fetch help.”

From below, from out of the pit,

an animal groan, horrifying, inhuman.

“Tsung!” Xau shouted. “Tsung!”

No answer.

No movement in the pit.

Li’s hand anchored to Xau’s arm.

Xau looked at Li. “Let go of us.

Fetch ropes, men, digging equipment.”

Li let go,

called to Dao, “Fetch help.”

Xau swung his body down,

dangled over the edge, dropped.

Li beside him.

Xau and Li scrabbled

through brick and mud and wood,

time running out like air under rubble,

like a man’s blood,

stuff shifting loosely beneath Xau

as he dug with his hands—

no shovels,

shovels with the soldiers—

Xau shouted and dug and lifted

and dug and shouted and scraped—

his fingers left bloody imprints

on the planks he twisted free,

the bricks he lifted away.

Blue cloth—blue, a soldier, not Tsung—

Xau and Li dug the man out with their hands,

the man groaning like a wild animal

as Li checked him for bleeding,

as Xau groped in the rubble,

found the shovel, tried to remember

how the men had been positioned

before the ground fell. Moved left.

What chance of air under this stuff?

This stuff that shifted,

filled in holes as he dug them?

He shouted, “Tsung! Tsung!”

Over and over.

He dug. A boot.

Xau dropped the shovel,

scraped with his hands, feeling for flesh,

Li beside him again:

a man’s head, crushed in, not Tsung—

Xau grabbed the shovel, moved on, dug,

shouted and dug and lifted and bent.

Black cloth—Tsung—

Xau dropped the shovel,

scrabbled with his hands, Li with him,

touched a knob, an elbow,