Up and up the wind drew him. Haoyou could hear the fibres of the rope creaking. Perhaps his kite would burst apart. Perhaps there would be no air to breathe at the top of the sky.

They called him Gou Tian, Sky Hook, the boy who flies.

No one had ever seen anything like it. Crowds flocked to the Jade Circus to see the Bird Boy, the Sun Swallow, Ride-the-Evening-Cloud.

But it's not just being strapped to a kite and sent up into the sky that is dangerous for Haoyou.

Beyond the horizon, an army is travelling east towards the circus, the army of Khublai Khan.

If the show isn't good enough, the Khan will cut his head off.