River of Stars

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  The Emperor Wenzong—tall, gaunt, grey-haired, grey-bearded—was given the title Lord of Muddled Virtue. Much amusement ensued. His son, to even greater hilarity, was proclaimed Doubly Muddled Virtue. They wore placards around their necks with these names in two languages, with additional characters declaring them deluded leaders of slave rebels.

  Both men would survive the journey, most of it side by side in an ox cart. They were taken first to the Southern Capital, then the Eastern, and then, for greatest security, all the way to a city in the far north of what had been the Xiaolu empire and was now that of the Altai. Their survival ended up being important, though not in ways anyone anticipated in those early days.

  Prime Minister Hang Dejin, the man most likely to have thought all this through, was dead at Little Gold Hill.

  Emperor Wenzong had been celebrated for his art and a lifelong appreciation of beauty. He wrote poems endlessly on the way north. A number of these were preserved because some of those in the terrible convoys did escape, though none of the imperial family, closely watched, did so.

  On rough paper obtained for him, Wenzong wrote:

  After all this time the great enterprise stops.

  I was a fool not to heed wise advice,

  Listening instead to those urging madness.

  Humbly I now travel ten thousand li,

  A captive among my people.

  I eat cold rice from cracked bowls

  And sleep on hard ground.

  My hair is thin upon my head.

  To think how in the palace of Hanjin

  I was saddened and demanded music

  When jade halls grew cool in autumn.

  Enterprises do not necessarily stop, even after disasters, or simply because a humiliated leader, guilt-stricken about his own mistakes, believes it so.

  Daiyan had two men trailing behind as they raced towards the Wai River as fast as the presence of the prince and a woman allowed. It was a week’s hard ride, more if the weather turned worse. He had not yet explained Shan to Prince Zhizeng, nor had the prince asked. It was, he had come to understand, an aspect of being imperial: you didn’t even notice certain things.

  The trailing men came racing up on the fourth afternoon. A party of Altai were closing. Would be upon them by evening, or in the night.

  “How many?” Ziji asked quietly.

  “Not easy to tell,” one rider said. “We couldn’t let them get too near us.” He was exhausted. It was snowing again. “Five hundred, at a guess.”

  Ziji swore, but under his breath. Neither of the reinforcement cavalry companies from the west had yet arrived. The one sent to cut off the Altai had—obviously—not done so, and the others were to meet them at the Wai, many days south yet.

  It was a difficult, defining moment. It was seen by those watching anxiously that Commander Ren Daiyan smiled. That would be remembered.

  “Sometimes it feels as if you can see patterns in life,” he said to his oldest friend. “I know this country. So do you. We’ve been here.”

  “He said five hundred, Daiyan,” Ziji said, keeping his voice low.

  Daiyan’s smile only deepened. Shan, leaning against her horse not far away (her legs were weak and her back ached), felt the strangest sensation, seeing it.

  “I did hear that,” Daiyan said to Ziji. He raised his voice, to be heard. “Let’s go. I know where we lose them. And I need two men to head west to find our reinforcements. They won’t be far.”

  That last he didn’t know with certainty, but sometimes you led men by pretending the sureness they needed to see in you, because they would be watching, wanting to hope.

  HE WAS SOBER, had been by the end of the first night of this cold chase, he’d even left his wine cup deliberately behind. Bai’ji was also angry—a fury directed back at his brother, the war-leader. That he’d address when they returned.

  It disturbed him, a little, how close he’d been to killing Wan’yen in the midst of their camp. He wasn’t unsettled by the idea of killing, but because that would have been the wrong way, exposing himself. He wasn’t the only ambitious man in the tribe.

  He’d decided some time ago that his brother was too weak, too narrow, too limited to properly succeed their aging kaghan—who was even more limited, in truth. Wan’yen couldn’t grasp the larger possibilities. He’d mocked Bai’ji about riding to the southern sea. The two of them riding, he’d said, like a good younger brother.

  Didn’t it excite Wan’yen? That thought? Doing something no horseman of the steppe had ever done, had ever even thought to do?

  Obviously not. What excited his older brother was humiliating Bai’ji, sending him off on this chase of a small party (they’d realized they were pursuing about twenty Kitan), which could easily have been assigned a lesser rider, leaving Bai’ji to his deserved pleasures.

  Instead, he was galloping through this unpleasantly hilly, broken-up country, around clusters of winter trees and across choppy farmland with ditches and canals, leading unhappy men. The fugitives were going faster than expected, but not as fast—never as fast—as steppe riders with three horses each could go.

  There had been arrows loosed at them from hidden places at twilight and in the grey before sunrise. Some of his men had died, or been wounded. Twice the riders at the front were tripped up at night by ropes between trees lining a road they followed. There was chaos each time, men and horses breaking limbs. That meant death for the horses, and usually for the riders, out here.

  He’d sent men to hunt down the archers, or those who laid these traps, but no one was found. It was close, dense country here. Farmers’ fields, then forests. The sky too near under a moon or wintry sun, when either of them showed.

  They were close now. From the tracks (off the road, heading southwest) Bai’ji judged they might overtake the fleeing party by darkfall. His brother owed him.

  Owed him a death, in fact. But not to be done in rage, or among others, where he might be seen to be in the wrong as a younger sibling owing loyalty. There were ways of accomplishing this that would leave a clear path, under the Sky God’s heaven, for a man who understood what was possible now. Kitai was huge, wealthy. It was ripe as summer fruit.

  He could bring this fleeing prince back, or kill him. Wan’yen had said he didn’t care. Bai’ji saw no reason to slow themselves on the way back. The prince was dead tonight.

  He also needed to kill the other man, Ren Daiyan. His brother was afraid the prince could become a symbol. Bai’ji knew better. It was the warrior who was more likely to become that—the man who’d destroyed an Altai army, who had entered a guarded camp and escaped with a prisoner, leaving a mocking note to be read aloud.

  That one was dangerous. He had only twenty men here, however. A horseman, a leader of the Altai—or their emperor—could always use two drinking cups, Bai’ji thought.

  THAT NIGHT NORTH of the Wai the cloud cover finally broke and a waxing moon shone among hard and brilliant stars. What followed became the matter of legend.

  Marshlands change year to year, season to season. Trackways through them alter, high ground will subside or be covered by rising water, an islet of firm footing will disappear, or emerge. It was important not to be overconfident, especially in the dark. What did not change was that marshes, everywhere, are very bad for horsemen.

  These were not the marshes south of the Great River that he and Ziji knew like they knew the homes in which they’d each grown up. But years in such terrain gave you instincts and awareness that extended to other watery places. And they had been here, when they put down the rebellion in the season they were sent this way by Kai Zhen. He’d been prevented by that from going to battle the Xiaolu at their Southern Capital—which was never taken, or not by Kitai.

  He’d recruited ten thousand rebels here and south of here, for these marshes extended almost all the way to the Wai. Three of those men were with him now. For them, this land was home in the deepest, most powerful way: a refuge in the midst of danger. A place to lure enemi
es, and destroy them.

  He’d said he knew how to lose the pursuing riders. It became more than that. Which is why the histories—and the legends—came to include this story, this night, that watching moon.

  There are many difficulties pursuing a fleeing enemy into unexpected marshes in the dark. One is that if a retreat becomes necessary, either a genuine flight or a strategic withdrawal until morning, it is not easy for a large company of riders (each with a pair of horses strung to the one he rode) to turn around and find a way out.

  Turning around is difficult, even for the best riders in the world, in wet, sucking bog, or surprisingly deep water, a landscape alien to their grassland lives. Horses will panic, lose their footing, and fall in the thick, clinging mud. Creatures in the swampy water will hungrily find their legs and bite, and that will make horses scream in pain and terror, rear up, topple each other—and their riders.

  And if rapid, deadly arrows are being loosed at them from higher, hidden ground, even by only twenty men (every man Ziji had brought knew how to use a bow), then carnage will result, dying men and horses, since blood and thrashing hooves and loud noises in a night swamp will bring other hungry creatures, some of them large.

  Some of them human. There are always outlaws in marshes.

  It took the nearest of these little time to grasp what was happening here. Horseflesh is sustaining meat for a man in winter, and many of them had children and wives with them. There were rocks and heavy sticks, knives, old, rusting swords, scythes, even a few bows. Men who knew where they were treading could approach the riders carefully, unseen, and dispatch a wounded man or beast.

  Legends tend not to linger upon the ugliness of such unholy nights. Or the appearance of a killing swamp in morning under a winter sun. Legends dwell upon courage, redemption, glory, revenge. Honour. Not wet leeches on the eyeless face of a dead boy from the grasslands whose hands and feet are already gone.

  None of Daiyan’s party knew which man was the leader of the Altai company sent after them, none would have recognized the war-leader’s younger brother if they’d seen him. He was unrecognizable by morning, in any case. The later stories that told of single combat between him and Ren Daiyan on raised ground were only that: stories told.

  A handful of Altai did escape, those towards the back of their party. Daiyan didn’t order them pursued. They’d carry word of what could happen to steppe riders south of Hanjin—or they’d be killed on the way back. Or killed by their own leaders when they returned, for having failed.

  He didn’t greatly care. He made certain the prince was all right, and Shan, and his own men. They had no casualties. None. He confirmed that arrows were being reclaimed. He looked for the outlaws who had joined them in the dark, but they’d melted back into the marshlands and he couldn’t blame them for that. They would return when Daiyan and his men had gone. He had his soldiers chase down as many healthy horses as they could.

  They lit torches. He became aware that there was something new, a kind of awe, in the way his men were looking at him—and a different expression in the eyes of Prince Zhizeng.

  He thought of speaking to the prince again, using the night’s triumph to again urge that they make a stand at Jingxian, rally the armies, drive the horsemen back, regain Hanjin—and then the north.

  His judgment told him that this was the wrong time. In that, as it happened, he was correct. Princes can draw very different conclusions than one might expect, even from the moments and men (and battles) that save their lives, leading them nearer to a throne they want. Zhizeng had expected to die from the time they’d learned the pursuit was closing in. He had lived with terror from the moment they’d entered the marsh at night.

  In the darkness before sunrise they lit fires for warmth and posted guards against tigers, which they heard but never saw. Ziji made no jests about them, not that night.

  They did not fear pursuit any more. They would proceed with speed from here on, but not urgency. They could rest and breathe and sleep.

  Daiyan spent the last part of the night with Shan on elevated ground. She fell asleep against his shoulder as he leaned against a twisted, mossy tree. He realized he didn’t care any more if they were seen. He needed her there. He didn’t expect many opportunities going forward.

  Before falling asleep, she said, “Be careful with the prince,” which was his own thought.

  He slept a little, fitfully, woke before the sun. Stayed where he was, because she was still sleeping. Heard winter birds as the sky began to brighten and the shape of the world came back.

  Hanjin was theirs, but Wan’yen still preferred to spend nights in his yurt. He had never liked walls, wasn’t sure how he’d adapt to them, or if he wanted to.

  The shaman came to him at sunrise, elk-fur vest, bells and drums at his waist, painted eyes, twin scars on his shoulder blades.

  “I had a dream,” he said.

  Wan’yen didn’t like his shaman, but liking them wasn’t what mattered. He was tired, half asleep. He cleared his throat and spat onto the ground beside the fire. It was warmer this morning. The snow had melted. It would come again.

  “What must I know?” he asked.

  “Your brother died last night.” No warning at all. The words cold. He was like that, the shaman. “Most of his party died with him. There was water,” he added.

  Wan’yen had not expected the feeling that overtook him. He’d been near to killing Bai’ji beside this fire, several nights ago.

  “Water? He drowned?” His mouth was dry.

  “An arrow,” the shaman said.

  “You know this with certainty?”

  The shaman didn’t even bother answering. The painted eyes fixed his a moment, then looked away towards the morning sky where an eagle could be seen.

  Wan’yen was careful to show no emotion. Shamans could not be trusted. They walked in a different world. Between worlds.

  He was fully awake now. He was calculating numbers in his head. He was good with numbers. He was good at making decisions.

  He summoned his leaders to the yurt and they came. Some were drunk, had been since the city fell. He named the ones to be left in command here and gave his orders concerning Hanjin. The walls were to be rebuilt, this was their city now. He named those who would lead the treasure carts and captives north. Those men were happy. They were going home.

  He took thirty thousand riders and went south. He sent messengers west to the army still besieging Yenling. Twenty thousand of them were ordered to do the same thing he was doing. He might arrange to join the two armies. He’d decide later. You didn’t fight campaigns in winter, everyone knew it, but sometimes circumstances forced you to go against old wisdom.

  An escaped prince could rally and rouse Kitai. That was why he’d needed the man recaptured. Now it became a different kind of war they were fighting, he and this Ren Daiyan. He found himself remembering a night in the northeast, when he’d been humiliated, made to dance between fires.

  Wan’yen didn’t like being made to dance.

  These soft southern people, before they even shaped a thought of fighting back, claiming pride, seizing hope, needed to learn exactly what they were facing. How red and wide a swath of death the horsemen from above the Black River could shape, even in winter.

  He would call it avenging his brother, his riders would like that, understand it. In truth, he was breaking Kitai. So savagely no man would think to lift a sword, a stick, a bow, would dare raise his head in a village or on a farm when a steppe horseman rode by.

  He wasn’t chasing the prince, he had no idea where he’d be going, and Kitai was very large. His brother had wanted them to ride together to the southern sea. His brother had been ambitious and a fool and was dead.

  Late on their second night riding south, perhaps because he’d had too much to drink before retiring, he found he could not sleep. He was remembering Bai’ji, growing up together, first wolves, first battles. He went from his yurt and looked up at the stars. He felt himself wrapped
in sorrow and memory. The feeling passed. It never came again.

  “Should we be moving everyone south?” Lu Chao asked his brother the poet, later that same winter.

  It was too cold to be outdoors, even on a sunny day. They sat on either side of a built-up fire in the older brother’s writing room, drinking tea.

  “Where?” Chen asked. “Where would you have us go?”

  “I don’t know,” the younger brother admitted.

  “We have people to feed. This is finally a working farm because of my sage and dedicated labours.”

  Lu Chao permitted himself a sibling’s snort of amusement.

  The older brother smiled. After a moment, he added, “The river will protect us. They won’t get across.”

  Chao looked at him. “You are certain of that? Or you are trying to make yourself believe it?”

  The poet laughed. “I am cursed with a clever brother. It is unfair.” He drank his tea. “I am certain of nothing,” he said. “But this is a long way for the Altai to come, and surely someone will organize to defend the Great River, if not the Wai.”

  “Surely,” the younger brother said wryly. Then added, in the same ironic tone, “Our valiant armies?”

  Chen made an equally wry face. He said, “I am too old to move again, brother. Let that be my answer.”

  “You aren’t old,” Chao said.

  “My hair is too thin to hold a pin,” the older one quoted.

  There was a footfall in the corridor. Mah stood in the doorway.

  “My son,” said Chen. “Join us. We are discussing how youthful we feel. I intend to do my exercises. Shall we be outlaws and attack a mountain temple for hidden gold?”

  Mah shook his head. “You’d better come,” he said.

  IT WAS A SMALL PARTY approaching, but not so small that they couldn’t overrun East Slope and kill them all. There was no hidden gold here, but there was food, there were animals, and enough of value to lure danger in this time of chaos. People were on the move everywhere, dispossessed, hungry, mostly coming south, with the barbarians in the north.