River of Stars

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  She likes when she sees evidence of forethought. It reassures. It declares that not everything men or women do need be careless, uncertain, ill-judged. Perhaps tonight, this winter, this New Year’s eve, she needs to find, or claim, indications of order and intelligence.

  She feels alert, and fearful. Daiyan intends something beyond escape, but she doesn’t know—can’t know—what it is. She has been sleeping in a way, closing herself off, since her father died. As if to shut her eyes and deny what is happening, the way a small child does. She remembers doing that. If you can’t see someone—or some shuffling spirit creature in the dark—they can’t find you.

  Daiyan taps twice above his head, standing on the bench. He pushes upwards with both hands, hard, but the door shifts more easily than he’s expected. She hears him swear, feels, with that, a clutch of apprehension.

  Then a voice. “I know you aren’t very strong. Thought we might help.”

  “If you brought a horse for me, as promised, I will have it trample you first,” says Daiyan. “Help us up.”

  A horse for me.

  Shan says nothing. He helps her onto the bench. Hands reach down and pull her up from the tunnel into—she sees, as they set her on her feet—a forest grove.

  Bamboo trees. It is hard to see clearly, they have lit no torches. No moon, of course, it is New Year’s eve. Heavy sky in any case. It is snowing. It is unexpectedly quiet, they are indeed a long way past the walls. They are out from a city under attack.

  Daiyan had tried to save Qi Wai, too. Wai had refused. They’d bowed to each other and she’d walked away. She has an image of him, right now, this moment, as she stands in a night grove, snow on branches above: her husband before their warehouse, gripping an old sword awkwardly, watching fires. Waiting for barbarians.

  “My lady,” says a voice she thinks she should know. A figure bows to her.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I cannot see who you are.”

  “Commander Zhao, my lady. We have met, in your home, and I escorted your husband from Shuquian in summer.”

  “Yes,” she says. And then adds, “You shot an arrow at me. Are you going to do it again?”

  He coughs. Someone laughs softly—Daiyan, coming up behind her.

  “You will want to be careful, friend. She has claws when she needs them.”

  “Then I will do all I can to make her a friend,” says the man named Zhao Ziji. “There seem to be no tigers, by the way. You need not be frightened.”

  She thinks he’s speaking to her, but he isn’t. Daiyan laughs again. “Remind me why I missed having you with me?”

  “Because everything goes wrong when I’m not?”

  It is meant as a jest, she realizes, but Daiyan doesn’t laugh this time. “That’s true enough,” is all he says. “Tell me what we have.”

  “Twenty men here. Too close for more. Three thousand cavalry west about thirty li, concealed, though the Altai aren’t patrolling. I left orders they are to remain hidden but to kill any horsemen that find them.”

  “What’s happening at the walls?”

  “They were going in through the north gates, then some of them reached this side from inside, and the south. All the gates are open. They are in. You can see.” His voice is quiet.

  “See the city?”

  Daiyan walks past his friend and the other men—Shan can see their shapes now. He moves to the edge of the grove. She follows. She stands beside him and looks at Hanjin as it burns. A glow against the sky. Fire and snow.

  Fire and snow, she thinks. And hates herself a little in that moment, because the phrase is already lodged in her head, and she even knows which old song’s tune she can work with to make something new about the calamity of this night.

  What is she, that her mind can turn this way in the midst of terror and flight and people dying? The snow keeps falling. She says, “My father’s spirit will be happy he did not live to see this.”

  Daiyan says nothing. He turns to Zhao Ziji. “Three horses? Good ones?”

  “Yes,” the other man says. “Do I have any hope of persuading you this is folly?”

  “No,” says Daiyan.

  He turns to Shan. He doesn’t touch her. “I am coming back, if the gods allow it. If they do not, Ziji is the one you trust, and Ming Dun, who was with us in the tunnel. They will take you south of the Wai, or across the Great River, if it comes to that.”

  “What are you going to do?” she asks, and she is able to keep her voice calm. Her hands are trembling. It is cold out here, she tells herself. She is wearing her foolish double-hat.

  He tells her. He does tell her. Then he goes, still not touching her, riding out of the shelter of the grove with one man, into night and falling snow.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Some things were kept simple on the steppe, had been for hundreds of years, all tribes.

  As one of those who’d endured that terrible, unexpected defeat north of Yenling (he’d survived by fleeing, how else would he have lived?), Pu’la of the Altai understood why he and others from that humiliated army were on guard duty in the camp tonight, rather than being allowed to share in finally sacking the city.

  His leader was a decent man, and knew Pu’la’s father. Pu’la’s father was important, close to the war-leader and the kaghan—or emperor, as they were told to call him now.

  Their leader had promised to send back riders with Kitan women later tonight, for the guards left behind. Thoughtful of him, and prudent. One didn’t want to anger horsemen, and Pu’la and the other three posted with him here were blood-born Altai, not conquered tribesmen recruited for this assault. Belonging meant everything on the grasslands. Your tribe was your home.

  Even so, anticipating diversion later and drinking kumiss now, it was difficult to stand outside a yurt and see, not far away at all, what his people were doing to the arrogant Kitan and their city. See it, and not be a part of it.

  There were said to be an amazing number of singing-girl houses in Hanjin. Surely there’d be women to bring out? Pu’la was young. He wanted a girl right now more than he wanted gold.

  He watched the fires. Another had started, towards the west, near the city wall on that side. He counted a dozen good-sized fires. Hanjin was going to be a pyre. The Kitan would rebuild it for their new masters. That was how these things went, Pu’la had been told.

  It was a glorious beginning to a new year, reversing generations of humiliating deference. Even after the Kitan court began sending tribute north they’d called it a gift, insisted the Xiaolu emperor name himself a son, or at best a nephew, of Kitai’s.

  Well, everyone knew what had happened to the emperor of the Xiaolu. Bai’ji, the war-leader’s brother (Pu’la’s hero), drank kumiss from his skull.

  And the Kitan emperor wasn’t going to be lord of anything after tonight. The intention, Pu’la knew, was to take him and every one of his sons and daughters north. Bai’ji had vowed to bed the empress of Kitai with her husband forced to watch. That was a man, Pu’la thought. He drank from his flask.

  He didn’t expect a perfumed princess to be brought out for them tonight, he wasn’t foolish. But you could still imagine things in darkness, couldn’t you? Smooth skin, scent.

  He’d never admit it to anyone, but he had been ready to go home after that battle west of here, when a part of the Kitan army had proved not to be so helpless, after all. He’d been sure he was going to die. But it was only that one army, all the others here had broken before the riders, they had fled much as ... well, much as Pu’la had fled, though you didn’t have to let that memory spoil tonight.

  He didn’t like being left here, but it was long established that the division of spoils included camp guards at full share. Someone had to guard the horses and treasure and prisoners.

  And back here he wasn’t going to meet anyone wielding one of those two-handed swords, not the way he might have, racing through some city lane lit by flames. There were still soldiers in Hanjin. Better to be here in the open, Pu’la t
hought. It was always better in the open. And he was, after all, performing an important task among the yurts.

  He died on that last thought, not the one about fearing a sword. That had come a moment before, while the man who ended his short span of days (Pu’la of the Altai was seventeen years old, his father’s only son) had been levelling a bow.

  It was a similar death—on guard at night, an arrow—to that of another young rider two summers before. O-Yan of the Jeni, fourteen years of age, had been killed by an arrow loosed by Pu’la’s own skilled and deadly father on the night the Altai attacked the Jeni camp, beginning their assertion of themselves upon the world.

  There might have been a lesson, a meaning, in this, or not. Most likely not, for who was there to learn of it, and what would the teaching be?

  Kang Junwen was to live an unusually long life, most of it south of the Great River, most of it in good health.

  He became, in his later years, a follower of the Sacred Path, grateful for his gift of days. He did regard his existence as a gift, not something earned or merited, though he’d been courageous many times in his youth and honoured his ancestors always. He had many stories, but the one he told most often, because it involved Ren Daiyan, was of the night Hanjin fell—what the two of them had done under the falling snow and clouds that hid the stars.

  After emerging from the tunnel that led out of the burning city, he and the commander—just them, leading a third horse—had ridden from the grove where their soldiers had been waiting.

  Before departing, Commander Ren had removed his tunic and over-tunic, leaving himself only a fur vest. The commander unbound his hair, like a barbarian’s. Junwen had done the same, clothing and hair. He’d looked—couldn’t help himself—to see if he could spot the words of the tattoo the commander was said to have on his back, but it was dark, and the vest would have hidden it anyhow.

  He didn’t know what they were about to do, or try to do. He didn’t permit himself to feel the cold. When a man is young, he can decide such things.

  He didn’t want to die, but he fully expected to be with the spirits of his father and older brothers before the sun rose. He wasn’t going to let himself be captured and enslaved.

  He was a Kitan from one of the lost prefectures, had lived under the barbarians all his life, subject to them. He and his family had been farmers, paying harsh taxes to the Xiaolu who ruled them, regarded as something between servants and slaves.

  Then one night in a summer years ago his father and two older brothers had been caught and executed—an example being made—for smuggling tea and salt. Junwen, not yet a man, had been made to watch, along with everyone in their village. His mother had collapsed to the ground beside him when her husband and children died. The Xiaolu hadn’t bothered beating her, had only laughed. One of them spat on her as he rode away.

  Lives can flow into and out of a moment.

  His mother died within the year. Junwen and his sister and her husband kept their farm going, barely. Then taxes were raised.

  He fled south in the turmoil that followed the Altai rebellion in the east. He joined the Kitan army north of Hanjin. He was old enough by then, was given a sword and boots, no training. A small man, but wiry, from the occupied lands. Spoke with an accent. People underestimated him.

  Junwen had been among those in the army sent to attack the Xiaolu’s Southern Capital—and so among those who’d failed to take it, crushingly defeated. He’d been part of the retreat, sheathed in his rage, and then he’d been in the army sent north to hold back the Altai when they came down in force.

  He had fled again, with the survivors of that disaster. Most had scattered, seeking to get as far away as they could. Junwen had gone straight to Hanjin. His shame had been very great. He was not a coward, and he hated the steppe riders—as a Kitan and for his family. A boy had been made to watch his father and brothers killed, and had heard the riders laughing.

  During the siege of the city he’d identified the one commander who seemed to be a leader of the old sort, as from the days of glory when Kitai had subjugated the steppe, forcing tribute and humility. He’d managed to get himself attached to the company of Ren Daiyan, and then to speak directly with the commander, make him understand that Kang Junwen, son of Kang Hsao-po, was ready to do anything necessary, or possible, against the barbarians.

  He’d explained that he spoke the language of the steppe because of where he’d grown up. A Xiaolu accent, their quick, slurred vowels. He understood everything said to him, and would be understood.

  So it was that he came to find himself leaving the city down a long tunnel on the New Year’s eve when the Altai burst through the gates of the city. And then—now—he was wearing only a vest in the winter night, his hair falling free, riding towards the enemy camp.

  To their right the city was on fire. They could hear the hooves of Altai horses and the harsh, wild shouts of triumphant men as riders swept around the walls and continued to burst through the western and southern gates.

  Surely this night, Kang Junwen thought, was a calamity that would never be forgotten. A black moment in the telling of the world.

  Commander Ren was silent as they rode. They were trotting the horses, not galloping—the ground was uneven, visibility poor. They came to a cluster of oak trees, too few to be named a grove. The commander gestured and they dismounted. They tied the horses and left them there. They walked now, carefully, peering through snow and night, listening.

  It was Junwen who saw the campfires. He touched the commander and pointed. Ren Daiyan nodded his head. He put his mouth to Junwen’s ear.

  “There will be guards. You have to carry me. I am wounded, my horse fell, I fell, you are bringing me back. Can you carry me?”

  Junwen simply nodded. He could do whatever this man asked him to do.

  “Can you make them believe we are riders?”

  “Yes,” Junwen whispered. “I am not afraid.”

  That last was a lie. He was afraid, but it wasn’t about to stop him.

  Commander Ren Daiyan squeezed Junwen’s shoulder. He said, barely a whisper, “You are a good man. Get us through the outer guards and keep walking until they can’t see you any more. We will do this, the two of us.”

  The two of us. Kang Junwen didn’t know what this was, but it didn’t matter. He’d been called a good man by the commander, he was bringing honour to his lost family. His heart was full. It pushed away fear. He lifted Ren Daiyan over his shoulder as if he were carrying a weight of harvested grain on their farm. He was careful of the commander’s bow and sword, and of his own sword (he wasn’t a bowman).

  He staggered with his first steps, then steadied.

  After fifty paces or so, nearing the campfires, he made a decision. He didn’t wait for the guards to challenge him. He shouted, in the language of the steppe, his Xiaolu accent, “Are you there? Light us through! A man is wounded.”

  “No lights here, fool!” The reply was blunt but not suspicious. Why and how should any of the helpless, vanquished Kitan be coming this way? The guard was Xiaolu by his voice, no trouble with Junwen’s speech.

  “Where are the shamans? Their yurts?” Junwen gasped, as if exhausted. He saw the shapes of guards ahead, holding the short bows of the steppe. He approached.

  “Straight back of here. They have a swan banner. You’ll see it. How is it out there?” The voice was envious, not quite sober, a man missing the blood-joy of conquest.

  “Didn’t fucking get there,” Junwen snapped. “Got told to bring him back. I’m fine, but both our horses went down.”

  “The fuckers still have those swords?” a second guard asked. This one was Altai.

  “Never saw. But the ground’s bad.”

  “Get him inside, then. Swan banner. Bad luck for him.”

  “Bad luck for me,” said Kang Junwen, as he carried his commander and the memory of his father into the enemy camp, frightened and defiant, grieving and proud.

  HIS LIFE HAD BEGUN when he first did
this, Daiyan thought. He moved around to the back of the prisoner’s yurt, away from the fire, and killed the last guard with an arrow in the throat (you shot men there to eliminate the chance of a dying cry).

  He was thinking of the road to Guan Family Village. He’d been fifteen. He remembered, on a winter night in a barbarian camp, how he had felt, walking into the forest, leaving everything behind. It had been as if he were outside of his own body, watching himself go.

  It was dangerous to be so distracted, to be living in this moment and in the past. Hanjin winter and Szechen springtime. The mind, he thought, silently returning to where he’d had Junwen wait, could be strange. A scent or an image could take you back years.

  A fox darted across the snowy ground.

  He was sure it was a fox, even in the darkness with only the one watch fire burning in front of the yurt. His heart began hammering. He couldn’t help it. It didn’t stop running, the fox, it only ... let itself be seen. His tattooed words felt as if they were burning on his back.

  He made himself ignore this. All of it. The past. The message, if it was a message. The spirit world was always nearby. Sometimes you saw it, became aware of it, but it was always there.

  He touched the other man on the arm. Junwen didn’t jump or startle. Only turned, ready. A good man, Daiyan had decided. Had said as much to him. This one truly hated the horsemen. Daiyan didn’t know why that was so, he hadn’t asked, but it didn’t matter. Probably something in his family. Hatred could be useful. You could be driven by it.

  Daiyan turned, the other man followed. Snow was still falling, lying thinly on the ground. There were sounds around them, but not many and not too near. Few of the riders had remained behind. Guards on the perimeter, at this yurt, there would be more at the back of the camp where the treasure had been gathered.

  Who would want to be left behind? Tonight was a fierce, red culmination. They’d been here a long time, tethered in one place.

  It was going to be savage in the city. People would die badly, and other things would happen, too. You could be driven hard by hatred, Daiyan thought again. You still needed to be precise. He was here for a reason. Kitai needed to go on past this night.