The Poison Prince

by S. C. Emmett

  It was marvelously flexible, though, and it probably stung when she slashed at another fellow grown too importunate, reaching as if he thought he could drag at Archer’s reins. The horse tensed under her, but Yala’s knees and calves clamped since she stood in the stirrups as if she was about to draw and loose at a long-ear in swaying grass; Archer merely laid his ears even more flat and turned a fraction as she wished him to.

  “Hai-yohai!” she yelled, the traditional cry of a hunter whose hawk had not gone awry, and struck again with the long whiplike sapling, transferring it to her left hand and dispelling the urge to cower against Archer’s neck. She was a bigger target for the bowman, of course, but the keep was so close— she recognized it as the sun sank in a lake of blood to the west, shadows bringing every edge into sharp relief. At least she had not missed the town or the great bridge, though she had lost much time that entire weary day by avoiding these men.

  Another bolt whickered past. She had driven off the two closest; a distant horn sounded. She hoped it was the keep, and hoped further that they had seen the standard before it was torn from the sapling. Had she time or supplies to properly sew, it would not have dared slip loose.

  Archer bunched and lifted, sailing over a planting-ditch. Great clods of black Zhaon earth spattered, flung by shod hooves, and there was the ravine she was to follow to the keep had she not been under siege herself. The decision was instant— she aimed for the broken ground on its eastron side and Archer shot forward, his gait changing to a strange floating gallop. He could not make such an effort for long, and the scree on the slope might cause him to turn a hoof.

  Then I will have to take a horse from one of them. She dropped again into the saddle, the sapling held back and ready in her left hand. There was no time for prayer or beseeching, her head filled with the strange running thunder of the best kaibok games played with Komori Baiyan in her youth, all her skill and strength stretched to the limit as their lathered horses pressed neck to neck.

  Archer slowed the merest touch and took the slope with the surefoot grace of the cloudfur’s mountain cousins, those shag-coated beasts with curving horns and hooves that looked too delicate to bear them up sheer cliffs. A rattle, another whining bolt chip-splintering off a boulder, and they gained the top of the rise just as more horns sounded, definitely from the far-off keep with its red Zhaon flag fluttering from the tallest spire.

  They have seen us. Or they have seen something.

  Again she held Archer back; that queer floating pace was new, and she did not wish him to call upon his last reserves just yet. This horse was worth far more than any Zhaon probably suspected; intelligent and amenable, he would want for nothing in the North. He would be cosseted, run at the hunt to keep him sharp, and bred to the finest, fleetest mares his owner could afford.

  The other riders had the advantage of fresh mounts and that cursed bowman. Yala risked a short sharp glance over her left shoulder and saw three silhouettes at the top of the ridge. Now she saw, also, why Banh had cautioned her to follow the ravine; the road running through was sheltered. Eschewing that cover, she was now a moving piece upon a chessboard, laid bare to unfriendly eyes.

  Not that it mattered.

  Thunk. Something hit just above the floating ribs on her right side, driving her onto Archer’s neck. Yala snatched at the reins; for a moment it didn’t even hurt and she thought perhaps a kaibok ball had glanced off and away. Then the pain began, a spear buried in her back, and her knees clenched upon Archer’s heaving sides. Not yet, my lovely, my beautiful. You could call a horse whatever you wished, and utter all manner of blandishments without any impropriety whatsoever.

  She barely realized she was speaking aloud, or more precisely, screaming in Khir as she never had since well before the weight of decorum settled upon her and the dowagers began the long process of training a girlchild into a noblewoman.

  After the first jolt, the pain was a hungry fangmouth beast; she risked another glance and found the man upon the black mare far too close. The sapling slid; it threatened to squirt free like a kaibok cup-mallet struck from an unwary hand.

  But Yala was a good player, and had only let go with one hand to catch with the other. Flexible lyong wood whipped free and the pain sank its teeth up her ribs, seizing her entire right side with a monstrous cramp. Another rider might have been unseated, but Yala was Khir; she swung, the sapling struck at the man’s pockmarked face and was torn from her grasp.

  She screamed an obscenity she had heard Bai mutter more than once and folded tightly over the grey’s neck. He was lathered now and each hoof-fall was a fresh knife in her back, but Yala tightened her knees again, falling into his rhythm, and leaned into his jolting, jarring gallop like silk piled in a rocking basket.

  “Now,” she called into the wind roaring past her face, stinging eyes and cheeks since the muffling cloth meant to hide her features and the fact of her femaleness was likewise lost. “Now, my beauty, my Archer, my love! Fly! Fly!”

  There was a heartbeat of hesitation, as if the grey did not quite believe she was giving him leave. Then he gathered, an arrow upon the string, and leapt forward in a great rush with that same strange, floating gallop.

  Komor Yala could do nothing but hold the reins, keep herself to the saddle like a thornburr upon a woolen skirt, and hope.

  PINNED JEWELWINGS

  The great palace of Shan, so much smaller than Zhaon-An’s sprawling complex, was nevertheless taller and set upon a promontory besides. Her legs ached from the stair-climbing, but this spire commanded a view for many a li— spreading houses and streets, rolling fields, orchards, mirrorlike paddies, and in the near distance, smoke as the hamlets put to fire and sword lay shuddering under their conquerors. Burning vapor rose in columns; when the wind shifted the smoke was overlaid with a sweetness of roasted curltail and fried hair as well as spoiled food and far more noxious vapors.

  The barbarians had fired everything outside and driven streaming refugees against the closed gates. The ministers and lords who could afford to were fled to the uncertain safety of the provinces, but those pedestrians or peasants too slow to reach Shan’s capital safely had been pinned like jewelwings in a collector’s book, and much of the horde— a mass of tiny figures clinging to horses and their vast wagon-train of supplies and captured spoils— had turned their attention to consuming a banquet, like large black ants at a nestful of xiahiao hatchlings.

  So this was the Tabrak, the ghostly raiders said to eat babies and spit pregnant women upon spears, lifting their bodies to rot in the sun. Maybe this creeping segmented beast had even eaten her merchant-pretender husband, though the prospect gave Sabwone little comfort indeed at the moment.

  They did truly look like beetles, from this height. Instead of the regimented boxes of a Zhaon army or the Golden performing their drills upon a palace square, horses and riders milled about, tents and cooking fires arranged in a haphazard but dense cloak at the city’s blackened but still temporarily unbreached walls. Metal glinted only here and there; they did not wear bright armor but leather and fur.

  “My lady,” Nijera said nervously, trembling and huffing from the effort of clearing stair upon stair, “we must think of your escape.” Her hair was dressed very simply, her hairpin a small half-moon of glowing shell.

  “Escape?” Sabwone had chosen her favorite dress this morn, the babu-patterned silk with a tight, bright yellow sash. It might be the last gown she ever wore, if the walls fell today. “My lord husband left me the city; I cannot give it to these barbarians.” It almost makes the Shan look civilized. Why, they probably even eat their horses.

  A deep thudding from the second-largest city gate announced that some of the raiders were not occupied merely with plunder and rapine but now with forcing their way into the winding streets full of moaning, mounting fear. It was only a matter of time, and the palace itself, walled and set upon its crowning point, would not be far behind. The great black palace gates were timber, and however hurriedly braced, th
ey would not hold forever.

  “They can barely hold the walls. The food stores are burning, we shall starve.” Nijera’s hands wrung at each other as her mistress’s did, and neither woman was aware of the motion. “Please, my lady. I have made some small arrangements—”

  The first intimation of disaster had burst into the queen’s quarters in the form of a junior eunuch who bethought himself to chivalrously spread the news among oblivious females before looking to his own safety. Sabwone barely begrudged him his flight; Kiron had been gone for a good sixteen days and her attempt to join the council of lords left behind was an abject failure; they ignored her as her own parents had, and she saw little use in attempting to scream them into submission just yet. Now even they were gone; nothing remained in the palace but old retainers and weeping women. The walls were held by whatever men could be found under the round, oft-smiling lord named Buwon; he had little time for her, busy as he was with kicking those reluctant to do their duty to the battlements.

  At least he had visited once and urged her to leave. No few of Sabwone’s supposed ladies-in-waiting had taken the offering, fleeing through drainage tunnels in the company of junior eunuchs and cowards who could still hold a pike.

  And you, my queen? Buwon had muttered the words in somewhat formulaic fashion.

  “You may leave if you like.” Sabwone repeated her answer. “I am a princess of Zhaon, Aunt Nijera. I will not flee these mongrels.”

  What princess of Zhaon could say otherwise? It was like a novel, but no book brushed upon rai- or pressed-paper ever spoke of the smell, or the way one’s knees went weak with fear. Well, she had been swimming in a bath of terror since being dragged from home; it was nothing new.

  Lord Buwon had regarded her for a long moment, his round face free of any smile. No doubt he had been one of Kiron’s creatures roundly unimpressed with her from the beginning. Then we will not either, he had said, finally, and bowed— he had not upon entering, but perhaps taking his leave was more a relief to him.

  What else could she have done? Flee like a kaburei, like a cowardly merchant’s daughter? The disaster was total, and struggling would avail her naught. She had learned as much since receiving the news of her impending marriage; at least if the horde swept through and beheaded her she would not have to suffer the merchant pretender or any of his ilk again.

  The thought that she might suffer worse, like a barbarian conqueror heaving and grunting atop her, was not to be borne, so she set her wits to two things— climbing to this highest point, and finding some means of doing what she had failed to in the palanquin.

  Should it become necessary.

  “Stupid girl,” Nijera muttered, but Sabwone pretended not to hear. Why had the woman bothered to stay?

  “You should have left,” she said, but softly. What did it matter? What did anything matter? Of course the walls would not hold. Perhaps someone, anyone, would be riding to the rescue, and if they arrived in a timely fashion she would not creep back into the palace with a peasant’s ingratiating smile.

  No, Sabwone would have proved her worth, even to this collection of jumped-up merchants. Wouldn’t her mother be forced to admit her daughter had been right to rail against this marriage?

  The wind veered again, bringing that sweetish smell of roasting. She realized what it had to be all at once, and though she had not wanted any breakfast her gorge rose. The new queen of Shan gripped at the stone sill of this tiny window in the highest peak of her beleaguered palace like a scroll-illustration of Hae Jinwone in the Blood Years, and raised her chin.

  She was Garan Sabwone, the daughter of the conqueror of Zhaon, and retreat was impossible. It was somewhat of a surprise to find her own bravery, though it was more mere distaste for the cowardice of others and the desperate desire to prove that she was not, after all, the spoiled, vapid brat they thought her.

  At least this was something even Father could not ignore. They had packed her off to Shan, now they would be sorry.

  If Suon Kiron somehow miraculously returned before the palace gates were shattered by the barbarian flood, she would deal with him roundly.

  If not…Garan Daebo-a Sabwone eyed the casement. A slim girl could just fit, she decided. She might have to turn sideways, but that was no hardship.

  I will show them all. Yes, if the miracle did not come, she would not wait.

  She had always wondered what it would feel like to fly.

  LONGTAIL AND KITTEN

  After five days of no afternoon downpour it was official— the drought time of summer was upon Zhaon. Uncertainty rose like dust, not yet choking but definitely present, collecting in corners while incense burned in house-shrines, prayers rising for the shade of the old Emperor and the health of the new. Disturbing rumors raced from Zhaon-An like a lone light rider crying aloud at a gallop in every village square.

  Still, stormclouds massed over the city that afternoon, and Garan Gamnae did not hunch her shoulders as she swept down a colonnaded garden path. A ghost of cool, water-scented breeze fluttered her pale mourning sleeves, ruffled her braided but unpinned hair, and her mother’s voice was still ringing in her ears.

  You will not visit that son of a commoner, Gamnae. I forbid it.

  Well, Mother forbade plenty of things, but it was not right. It was not right at all, like the empty space upon Kanbina’s pyre. Mother said Kanbina was a creeping little mouse, but the Second Concubine had always patiently steadied young Gamnae’s hand upon the teapot while pouring, and was not at all angry when a child dropped a precious, breakable thing. Later, of course, Mother was furious when she found out about the visits, so they stopped except for those politeness utterly demanded.

  Now Gamnae wished she had been braver.

  She climbed the steps to the Jonwa’s large door, and set her chin. Still, neither Golden on the stairs or at the door itself gainsaid her.

  Perhaps she was expected after all.

  Inside, it was cool, somewhat dim, and very much as usual. The snow-pard statue’s paired snarling looked less fierce, more like an old friend, and Housekeeper Kue appeared with a bow, her eyes red-rimmed but her Shan tunic neatly buttoned and tied. “Second Princess,” she said, softly. “It is good of you to visit.”

  “I…I wish to see my Eldest Brother, please?” She had practiced the command endlessly inside her head as she walked, now it burst out as a request instead.

  “Yes, of course.” At least Lady Kue did not look disdainful. Rather, she seemed slightly relieved. “They are all with him.”

  They who? Gamnae followed the housekeeper’s steady gliding, wishing it was Komor Yala greeting her instead. She would remark softly upon something or another that would help Gamnae find her bearings, but the Khir lady was ill with grief and abed. Perhaps Gamnae could force a visit upon her, too, and…what? Reassure herself that someone else she liked was not about to die?

  If Father could die, what hope was there for the rest of Zhaon? Mother had stopped alternately weeping and raging, but she was dangerously absent-minded, often staring into the distance with an unsettling half-smile playing about her full lips. Kurin was also absent but in a different way, busy with whatever important matters he could find. Gamnae was not supposed to leave her mother’s side and would certainly be punished— and yet, it seemed worth it, or at least it had this morn when she had prevailed upon her close-servant to fetch her jatas.

  The housekeeper indicated a door and stepped through, bowing, to announce Gamnae, who smoothed the front of her skirts with a quick nervous motion and tucked her hands in her pale mourning sleeves. She stepped through, head high, and found herself in an unexpected crowd.

  Jin was at Takyeo’s bedside, hunching upon a three-legged stool and holding their Eldest Brother’s hand. Sensheo was near the verandah door, gazing onto a water-garden with a set expression as if he hated both pungent medicinal odors and faint breath of rot. Which wasn’t surprising, Gamnae smelled it too, but a noble was never supposed to remark openly upon such things exc
ept as a witty aside.

  Makar was busily brushing something upon paper at a small letter-desk, his own mourning garb straight and severe as a scholar’s, though of much better quality. And there was Kurin, his topknot caged in scrubbed white bone with a bone pin, examining Gamnae as if he had plans for punishing her disobedience after all.

  It was Takshin who stepped to her side and offered his arm. He was not in mourning, save for a strip of unbleached linen around his left arm, and his gold earring gleamed mellow. “Good,” he said, as if he had invited her. “You’re here.”

  “I…I heard…” Gamnae could not look away from Takyeo’s pale, drawn face. He looked much older, old as Father, even, and his abdomen was heavily bandaged. The shabby physician Kihon Jiao was busy at a table, mixing and grinding, and Gamnae longed to clap a hand over her mouth so the last part of the sentence would not slip free.

  “You heard I was dying,” Takyeo said, in a thin, reedy voice so unlike him it gave her the shivers. “Rumor is, in this one case, undeniably correct.”

  It was one thing to suspect, another to hear it confirmed, and yet another to see him wasted and pale like this, great circles under his eyes and his lank hair spread upon his shoulders, where often a laughing, very small Gamnae had sat and pounded upon his topknot, crying for her brother-horse to gallop. “I…” Gamnae gulped, and Takshin’s hand settled over hers in the crook of his elbow. He did not squeeze hard or warningly, but applied a brief, bolstering pressure.

  She never would have believed him capable of such gentleness.