Chapter One

The Chinese junk pitched and rolled in the pounding surf, its ancient timbers groaning under the heavy load. The boat lay low in the water, cold spray blowing over its rails with each gust of the frigid autumn wind. Hidden below a tattered tarpaulin on deck, ShaoShu—Little Mouse—wondered what he’d gotten himself into.

He shivered. The damp sea air had soaked through his thin skin, deep into his tiny bones. He had only been aboard one day, but he already yearned to have his feet back on dry land.

ShaoShu had little experience on the water. True, he’d just spent more than a week traveling down the Grand Canal with his new friends, Hok and Ying, but that ride was nothing like this one. That was fun. This was agonizing. The sooner he was off this ship, the better.

The boat lurched suddenly on the choppy seas, and a wicked crosswind lifted one corner of the tarp. ShaoShu quickly snatched it back down, catching a glimpse of General Tonglong’s long ponytail braid swaying just a few paces away. ShaoShu shuddered. Tonglong—the Mantis—was uncomfortably close.

As a homeless street urchin, ShaoShu had a lifetime of practice hiding in small, inconspicuous places. He had an unnatural ability to bend and twist his small body into all sorts of strange shapes, and he put these skills to use stowing away here on Tonglong’s Chinese man-o-war in order to steal some information for his new friends. This, however, had been more than he’d bargained for. Perhaps he’d pushed his luck too far.

ShaoShu shifted his position ever so slightly, and he felt the weight of the shiny cylindrical object resting on his lap. It w