The confusion wouldn’t last. Pearl thrust Treaty back into its sheath and tossed Soul Slicer into her right hand. Thundering Heaven was no longer bellowing. He was swinging around, heading back to where Flying Claw lay in the pool of his own blood on the stone floor.
His intent was clear. Flying Claw could be both hostage and weapon. Thundering Heaven was gambling that Pearl would not have come all this way just to kill the boy.
Pearl snarled. She’d been running on adrenalin and fear to this point, but now she was beginning to feel the first hints of exhaustion. Her joints were beginning to ache, the weight of two swords dragging her down.
Raising Soul Slicer, feeling it as dead metal after Treaty’s ferocious sense of intent, Pearl ran forward. Thundering Heaven was bending, bending, reaching for Flying Claw, grabbing at the youth’s arm, twisting the torso around as if that arm was nothing more than a convenient hold. The younger man was screaming, his eyes rolled back, showing nothing but the whites.
Pearl tried to push herself faster, but each motion felt broken into distinct elements, stuttering like the frames of an old movie. Pearl forced herself to speed the film, to move more swiftly.
Thundering Heaven had exposed his back. His movements were stuttering, too, but he was moving, aura shifting rose to green, rose to green, as he hauled Flying Claw up. In a moment, Thundering Heaven would turn and that screaming wreck of bloodied flesh would be imposed as a barrier between them.
Pearl struck, reserving the blow for that moment when green was shifting to rose, directing Soul Slicer to cut not just flesh, but soul from flesh, flensing Tea Rose from the body in which she had anchored herself all those years ago.
The moment came. Pearl struck a wide slash along the meat at the back of one strongly muscled shoulder.
Blood splashed. Thundering Heaven’s scream sounded like that of a woman. Flying Claw was dropped to the floor hard, but no sound came from him. Thundering Heaven turned heavily.
His aura was wholly green now, but his eyes held no less malice. He spread his arms wide, fingers curled, and Pearl saw that claws were coming forth from the tips. Thundering Heaven’s face was changing shape, far more rapidly than Pearl had dreamed possible. Black and orange fur was sprouting, fangs distorting his open mouth.
In a moment, she would be facing six hundred pounds of furious, wounded Tiger.
Pearl didn’t hesitate, but brought Soul Slicer down in a two-handed strike, slashing into her father’s open, exposed chest. The heavy blade went through muscle, jolted against bone, the force reverberating up through Pearl’s arms, making the bones of her barely healed hand ache and creak as if on the verge of breaking.
Thundering Heaven did not scream, did not snarl, just fell back in terrible silence. His partly transformed foot slid in Flying Claw’s blood, in his own blood, and he struggled to find balance.
Pearl raised Soul Slicer again, finding the blade easier to wield now. M aybeit liked her intent, maybe having taken one soul from this overpopulated body, it was eager to do so again.
Pearl didn’t much like the glee she could feel coming up through the weapon, but she certainly didn’t have time to switch back to Treaty. Thundering Heaven had come back from the dead once. She was going to make damn certain he didn’t do it again.
Her second cut, low through the gut, met resistance only when the blade grated against the spine. She drew the sword back, shifting for another blow, but although Soul Slicer was willing, Pearl saw there was no need.
Blood still gushed from the body of Thundering Heaven, but it did not pulse, merely guttered out like cheap wine from a plastic jug. A new pool spread to touch, then merge with, that which surrounded Flying Claw.
Thundering Heaven was dead. Hopefully this time for good.
Pearl sagged. She wanted to drop Soul Slicer where she stood, but couldn’t bring herself to be disrespectful to a weapon that had been helpful, even if she found it somehow disgusting.
“Thanks for your help,” she managed to say, then laid it on a cabinet top, next to a whip, a pair of branding irons, and an assortment of sharp knives.
Exhaustion, nausea, and something like sorrow all vied for her attention, but she didn’t have time for any of that.
Pearl hurried to Flying Claw. As soon as she ascertained he was still breathing, she tried to think what to do. There was no going back via the route by which she had arrived. Tea Rose was gone, hopefully to get a stern talking to from the Yama Kings. The road her malice had carved into Pearl was gone with her.
Brenda, though, Brenda should have created a proper gate. When Flying Claw was stabilized, Pearl would need to leave him just long enough to find Brenda and her allies. Maybe she could use a spell to facilitate finding them. Shen was with Brenda, and they had come up with some tricks long ago—the equivalent of passing notes in class.
Maybe something like that would work.
As she thought, Pearl’s hands were busy. She was no doctor. Nissa had far more training, but Pearl knew enough first aid to do a basic triage.
What Pearl saw both appalled her and gave her hope. Flying Claw had been horribly mutilated. It would be a long time—if ever—before the sight of his face made a girl’s heart leap with anything but horror. But although he was nearly bled out, most of his wounds—aside from the mutilation of his face—were actually superficial.
There was no froth of red in his saliva, nor did she smell the stench of ruptured organs on his breath. It was possible that Thundering Heaven had actuallysought to keep his victim alive, perhaps so he could cause him to suffer as much as possible.
She took a peek under the rags about Flying Claw’s hips and relaxed slightly. At least Thundering Heaven hadn’t gone that far.
Pearl wasn’t strong enough to lift Flying Claw, but she could get him out of the pool of blood. This, she now realized, was somewhat less extensive than she’d thought. Part of the stain was old, although there was ample new.
She dragged Flying Claw, forcing herself to ignore his involuntary whimpers of pain, then propped him up against the cabinet, since being upright seemed to make it easier for him to breathe.
In the cabinet Pearl found some bandage fabric and several containers, one of ointment, two of water, one of a weak rice wine. Using these, she cleaned and bound the worst of the wounds, stanching the bleeding. When Flying Claw began to moan, she soaked a rag in water and nursed a little between his mutilated lips.
He sucked and winced, sucked and winced, eager need and acute pain warring so visibly that Pearl felt tears start in her eyes.
But Pearl wasted no time on pity either. Allowing herself a slug of the rice wine, she assessed her own condition. Her first Dragon’s Tail was down, so she cast another. Then, because she would not be able to defend Flying Claw when she went to find Shen and Brenda, she broke another amulet, setting the Tail it contained to protect him.
Crossing to the heavy door that seemed to be the only entrance or exit from the room, Pearl listened. Not surprisingly, the heavy, metal-banded door was built so that sound would not penetrate. There was a jailer’s peephole, though, and she eased that open.
What she heard was less than reassuring. Footsteps, rapid and purposeful, were coming down the corridor. Many footsteps, whose matched cadence announced without words: “military.”
Pearl laid a hand on Treaty at her belt. Then she closed the peephole and stood to one side, where she would be out of direct sight when the door was open, but not blocked from action by its opening.
There was a thudding on the door; a deep, muffled voice shouted: “Thundering Heaven, open in the name of the lord!”
Pearl did nothing, hoping against hope there was only one key, that they would leave.
That hope was nearly instantly dashed. There was a sharp click, and the door began to open into the room.
Pearl raised Treaty, focusing hard on her promise to protect Flying Claw, knowing Treaty would fight better if in defense of a promise.
A voice, cold and
perfectly measured, spoke from the corridor outside the door.
“I see Thundering Heaven. It seems I heard his call too late to bring him aid, but perhaps I am not too late to avenge him.”
At the cold precision of that voice, Pearl took an involuntary step back, then another, moving rapidly to stand near Flying Claw.
Two soldiers, armed and armored, entered, then two more. They fanned out, seeming unmoved by the carnage within the room.
A man in court robes followed them. Protection spells shimmered around him in a rainbow aura.
“I am Li Szu,” he said formally. “The punishment for patricide is death.”
Without discussion, Brenda, Shen, and Parnell turned toward the shouting. Wasp, always fierce, grown fiercer since the discovery of how the prisoners had been treated, flew ahead to scout the route, saving them innumerable turns down blind alleys.
Palm upraised, strange, multifaceted eyes bright, Wasp mimed just peeking around the corner, then cupped one pointed ear to indicate they should listen.
Brenda sneaked forward and crouched low, figuring that if anyone did glance in this direction, they were likely to focus at standing height. Down the corridor a few paces was a heavy door.
A man wearing light armor—a breastplate, greaves, and a light helmet—was inserting a key into the lock. Behind him stood three other men, armored much as he was, and behind them a man in understatedly elegant robes. This man shimmered with magic, protective, Brenda thought, but she wasn’t sure.
Behind him stood several more armored men. Most looked eager and intent, but one or two looked a little scared.
The guard with the key pushed the door open, then stood so that while he blocked it, the man in the robes would have a clear line of sight into the room.
“I see Thundering Heaven,” said the man in the robes, his impassive face becoming, if possible, more impassive. “It seems I heard his call too late to bring him aid, but perhaps I am not too late to avenge him.”
He made a motion with his hand and the guard with the key, followed closely by three others, entered the room, drawing swords as they went.
The man in the robes followed them, moving, Brenda noted, at an angle that meant he would stand behind those protecting ranks.
“I am Li Szu,” came the cool, precise voice. “The punishment for patricide is death.”
Pearl’s voice, astonishingly steady, answered, “Death, I am sure, is the punishment for many crimes. The Legalists made that mistake before. When the punishment is death, what reason is there to surrender?”
But Brenda wasn’t waiting to hear the reply. She’d felt warmth as Parnell and Shen moved up beside her, heard faint, dry ticking on the flagstone floor and suspected that some of the sidhe folk had also joined them.
A plan would be nice, but it was pretty clear that Pearl was alone in there, and against all those armed men even that Lady Tiger didn’t have a hope.
Brenda touched the offensive bracelets on her wrist and chose two that held Winding Snakes. It wasn’t as nasty a spell as Dragon’s Breath, but she wasn’t sure where the backwash of flame might go in this contained corridor.
These, though . . . She held them up so Shen and Parnell could see them. Shen nodded. Parnell looked puzzled, but nodded for her to go ahead.
Brenda cast the amulets against the floor and directed the force of the spell against the guards. Cued by her motion, Shen smashed a pair of amulets of his own. Brenda felt their force go past her as she started running in the direction of the guards.
Shen’s spell flashed red. Brenda blinked as a bright light put spots in front of her eyes. The four corridor guards were clutching at their eyes; two were tottering as her Winding Snakes began to bind their legs.
Behind her, Brenda could hear Parnell and Shen, but she had the lead. What she’d do with it would depend on if she could squeeze by the guards who remained in the corridor. They might be temporarily blinded and unsteady on their feet, but they were still pretty big.
Clanging of metal against metal was now coming from the room. The cool voice said, “Keep at her. Her protective spell is not very strong.”
That made Brenda mad somehow, like not only Pearl but all the Orphans’ carefully hoarded lore was being dismissed. When she got to the doorway and saw a narrow gap between a blinded guard and one who was not only blinded but uncertain on his legs, that anger gave her courage to act when otherwise she might have hesitated.
Aiming low, trusting her Dragon’s Tail to pad her from the worst impact with the stone floor, Brenda dove through the gap. She came up on the other side, sliding in a foul-smelling puddle of still-sticky blood. Thundering Heaven’s body lay almost directly in front of her, close enough that she saw the gaping wound in his chest and the blue-grey loops of his intestines spilling out from a cut in his abdomen.
The Dragon’s Tail could cushion Brenda from impact with the floor, but it couldn’t do anything about the spears of pain from the stigmata on Brenda’s wrists and back. Nor did it stop the cold blood that now saturated her clothes.
Brenda didn’t care. As she had suspected, Pearl was being attacked by all four guards. The robed man was right; Pearl’s protective spell was giving way under the onslaught, and only the speed of her parries was keeping her from being wounded.
Still half laying on the floor, Brenda grasped for the strongest of the offensive spells she had brought: two sets of the Twins—the Twins of Sky and the Twins of Earth.
The Twins were yin and yang, male and female, clad in elaborate costumes more indebted to Chinese opera than to any real battlefield. Those of Sky wore white and pale blue, the dominant theme in their embroidered designs clouds and suns. Those of Earth wore brown and bronze. Their embroideries evoked growing things. Their long hair was bound with strands of rough gemstones.
They materialized armed with swords and spears. They had bows, too, but the room was too crowded for these to be effective.
“Help Pearl,” Brenda commanded, the words less necessary than her mental image of her desire. “I’ll distract Mr. Rainbow.”
She didn’t know how she was going to manage that. The robed man was standing within the most amazing aura of protective magics she could imagine. With the knowledge gained in her recent training, Brenda could see that these spells were powered directly from the ch’i of the Lands. Apparently, Li Szu had no trouble tapping what for everyone else was a diminished flow.
Shouting from the corridor—human voices mingled with the shrill inhuman chitters and squeaks of the sidhe folk—told Brenda that reinforcements had arrived. Behind her where the Twins and Pearl fought the guards, everything sounded very busy. The Twins were good, but they were only a spell, and lacked the innovation of a human warrior. At best, they might defeat a couple of the guards, but even at the worst, they should be providing Pearl with a breather.
Brenda wished she felt braver. She wished she wasn’t soaked in evil-smelling blood and gore. She wished her dad hadn’t sent her off to college, that she’d been studying fighting techniques instead of history and literature.
But wishes weren’t going to get her anywhere. Something in how the cold glower in Li Szu’s eyes had gotten positively glacial when Brenda had cast down the Twins and sent them to Pearl’s aid gave Brenda courage.
Brenda hauled herself to her feet and moved toward Li Szu. He had made certain to stand far away from the spreading pool of blood, so after a few tacky steps, her footing was steady.
What she saw appalled her. Li Szu was ignoring her. His lips were moving slightly, his eyes were hooded. Brenda guessed that he was working on a spell of some sort, trusting to his protective spells to keep him safe.
Brenda knew that if she broke Li Szu’s concentration, it was likely his spell would also break. She didn’t think any of her spells could get through his personal ward. She didn’t have any weapon, but she did have herself. Her Dragon’s Tail was still at nearly full force. So, taking a few running steps, Brenda threw her arms wide and flung her
self directly at the lord creator of the Lands Born from Smoke and Sacrifice.
Her idea had been to grab him in a sort of bear hug and shake. The Dragon’s Tail acted as sort of a full body boxing glove, after all, and why hit with a fist when you can hit with a whole person?
What happened wasn’t exactly according to plan. Brenda leapt and felt her Dragon’s Tail hit solidly against what ever it was Li Szu had wrapped himself in. There was a flash of multicolored light, and Brenda felt herself thrown back. She sailed through the air until she hit the stone wall all the way across the room. The impact did for what remained of her Dragon’s Tail, and she felt the bruising impact along every inch of her already tormented back.
She screamed. She couldn’t help it. Pain ripped the sound from her lips, even though in that moment of flight, as she balled herself up as best she could so her head wouldn’t hit, she’d resolved not to make a sound that might distract Pearl or the others.
But she screamed.
She heard someone—Parnell, she thought—yell, “Brenda!” but when she tried to call, “I’m okay!” she didn’t have the breath.
Staggering to her feet, Brenda fumbled for another Dragon’s Tail, early lessons in the need to defend first all the more acute after recent events.
As she smashed the bracelet to the ground, Brenda tried to assess the situation. She saw segments that her mind struggled to arrange into a whole.
Pearl was still facing off against the guards, but there was one fewer guard and another one looked very ragged. The Twins of Heaven were gone, but the Twins of Earth were still fighting, although chopped at around the edges.
At the door, Shen stood, head bent, muttering fiercely, a cluster of amulets in one hand, preparatory to being cast down to release the spells they contained.
There were still sounds of fighting from the corridor, but Shen seemed confident, so Brenda guessed that someone was covering his back.
And between where Brenda had hit the wall and a rough wooden cabinet, a nearly naked creature was taking a sword from where it rested on top of the cabinet. It looked like a demon from hell, flesh reddish brown and bloodied, the face a horrible parody of something feline, its ears pointed, its hair carved into stripes.
Five Odd Honors Page 42
