Rise of the Dragon

by C K Gold

  Birch was silent, still. Fang couldn’t look at him to see what kind of expression he wore. Shocked, disgusted, or just indifferently curious. It was hard to say what would cut deeper.

  “It was an accident the first time. Or… the kind of accident that betrays you. When you slip and call a lover the wrong name, or when you blurt out how you actually feel about… It seemed natural. It was easy. I didn’t think about it until later. I didn’t have time; I had a gang leader to behead. And I wanted to, again, at the Pearl, but you made your move before I had a chance. There wasn’t enough time anyway… not even with Orchid’s best intentions.” His laugh was bitter as half-remembered medicine, but it didn’t draw out the poison.

  Birch, wordlessly rose and walked to the hut door. Fang looked at his back, but it didn’t tell him what kind of rejection he was facing. Birch lingered at the threshold. Fang lapsed back into silence and resigned himself.

  This would make it easier. He wouldn’t be ruining his own hopes, half-formed though they were. He’d take the ferry back to Dockside and get his report to Red Hand over with. If fortune smiled on him, he’d be able to hunker down for a few more days and rest and hope no one sought him out in connection with the events at the docks.

  The plank floor creaked under Birch’s swiftly advancing footsteps. Fang steeled himself, but Birch pulled him into an awkward embrace, mashing Fang’s nose just above Birch’s hipbone.

  “I’m glad,” he said roughly. “I thought this was part of some new grand strategy of yours.” As ungainly as it was, Fang breathed his scent in deeply, guilt warring with pleasure. “You don’t even know.” Birch pulled away and touched Fang’s chin. He tilted his head back without thinking. Birch’s eyes darkened, an unmistakable sign of interest. “I wish I had the right words. And I hope you don’t wake up later and decide it was the fever talking, because if I don’t make sure you’re resting when Orchid comes back, she’ll have me drowned.”

  ⁂

  As soon as the better part of his strength returned, Fang rode the ferry back to Deepwater. Perhaps his misadventure had really changed him; he kept his head down and did his best to not draw attention, and no one recognized him. He had never been an ostentatious kind of man, but he had always walked with confidence, head held high, in a city where ordinary people watched the ground for fear of meeting the eyes of someone cruel and bored.

  He didn’t deviate from his path in order to scout the damage to the docks. His route took him straight to headquarters, where the guards at the gates were lolling in the afternoon sun. His arrival took them by surprise — perhaps they’d expected he’d died or fled. One followed him in and told anyone who stood still long enough that Fang was back to speak to Red Hand.

  Not that Fang had said anything of the sort.

  He thought about how he looked to them. Drawn, pale, but not unkempt; dusty, with muddy shoes after obvious travel. A stained sack slung over his shoulder. He’d returned after leading at least two of their number to their deaths.

  “Fang!” Goat said, and gripped his shoulder. “What — I mean, how—”

  Fang shook his head and Goat subsided at once. At least the kid hadn’t done anything to cause the other gangsters to seize or kill him at the gate. Goat followed them through the building. It seemed like a lot of people suddenly had business inside. Fang consciously didn’t look back to count the number of people trailing him, anticipating a show, perhaps.

  Red Hand was not in his audience room; it wasn’t that kind of day. Instead, they stumbled over him in the smaller courtyard, stirring the water of an ornamental pond with a fire poker. Goat grabbed Fang’s sleeve and released it almost as quickly. Fang knew what he wanted to say: run. But Fang wasn’t afraid of the old man. He wasn’t afraid of pain. All those things were obstacles at worst.

  Red Hand looked up at their approach, but said nothing. The poker stilled in the water. All the fish were missing again, Fang noted. He tossed the sack down at Red Hand’s feet.

  “I’ve come to report,” Fang said.

  Red Hand spread the sack open with the hook and peered inside. He grunted at the sight of the handful of scrolls and books. “Goat, it seems your life is yours again. Your faith wasn’t entirely mislaid.”

  Fang didn’t look at Goat. Putting his eyes on anything or anyone but Red Hand at this point was too dangerous. Did Goat swear I’d return? If he had, he’d made a foolish gamble on Fang and Birch.

  “Where has my wayward son been?” Red Hand asked, and laid the poker across his knees. His hand never left the grip.

  “Recovering,” Fang said.

  “It’s been nearly a week since the tribute ship,” Red Hand said. “A week, isn’t that right, Goat?”

  “And a day,” Goat mumbled.

  “What’s that? Speak up. We don’t need mutterers here.”

  “A week and a day, boss!”

  “Did you hear that, Fang? A week and a day since I last saw your face. I thought for sure you were dead, and then I’d have to mourn four subordinates, not two. Did you desert, but have a change of heart?”

  Fang bit out, “I would never—”

  “In what world does an unruly child argue with his father? Who do you think you are to even look at my face right now?”

  Another man might have stayed boldly standing to defend his innocence. Fang threw himself on his knees beside the sack of intelligence and bent his head. Everything was in service to the cause; everything that didn’t bring him closer could be cast aside. Pride was one of those things. He’d already thrown it aside at Birch’s cabin.

  A loud crack brought gasps from some of the junior brothers watching. Red Hand struck him with the poker. Pain bloomed across Fang’s cheek and ear from the blow, hard enough to split skin. But he didn’t move.

  “I have no use for a failure in my family!”

  Fang’s hands were stone still on his thighs. Blood dripped onto the slate pathway, forming small, indistinguishable stains. The second blow caught his shoulder, hard enough to send a secondary wave burning through his half-healed wounds.

  “Nor a coward, a turncoat, or oathbreaker!” The blows rained down indiscriminately. Only the fact that Red Hand was beating Fang with his off-hand saved Fang from fractured bones. He sat as still as possible, weathering the beating. All of him that cried out against such unjust treatment at the hands of such a heinous villain was locked away, crushed down into the deep, dark well where Fang kept all his ideals.

  “Father, just finish him off and be done with it,” Jun rumbled. Fang didn’t know when he’d arrived; Fang’s head spun too much from the blows, his ears ringing. “This is undignified.” Goat, several paces behind, made an incoherent sound of protest.

  Someone grabbed Fang’s topknot and yanked his head back. Two Coins Ranu inspected him like a piece of livestock. He’d submit to Red Hand, but Ranu wasn’t part of that agenda. He pulled away, twisting Ranu’s scrawny wrist in the process. It would only take a little more effort to throw him into the pond.

  “Release him,” Red Hand snapped. Fang and Ranu let go of each other, sharing a brief mutual uncertainty about who was being ordered. Red Hand cast the poker aside; it skittered across the path before stopping out of sight in the grass. He rose and drew the short, wide sword from his belt.

  “Boss!” Goat cried out, then threw himself on his knees beside Fang. He went one step further, and prostrated himself, forehead touching the ground. “Please don’t kill Brother Fang! Show mercy! Hasn’t he been faithful?”

  The old man paused and then laughed, a deep, booming laugh as though he were genuinely amused, like he was watching a play or had heard a particularly good joke. “Mercy,” he repeated, marveling over the punchline Goat had offered. “Show any weakness and you’ll be rewarded with chaos and suffering. Carry that lesson into the next life!”

  Fang ripped the stone from its place around his neck and lifted it. The humble rock didn’t look like anything special; that was how Fang had gotten it past Birch, who had
expected something more notable.

  But Birch didn’t have a collector’s eye. Red Hand snatched it from Fang; the tip of his sword rested safely for the moment in a crack between the paving stones. Fang looked up to see Jun regarding him steadily. Behind Fang, Ranu shifted his weight, uneasy at Red Hand’s sudden change in demeanor.

  “So you did retrieve it,” Red Hand murmured. “Why didn’t you say so from the beginning? Never mind. You’ll say something irritating; I can smell it. Now you’ve made me out to be the unjust tyrant in front of all your brothers.”

  With the wind now blowing in Fang’s favor, Ranu offered him a hand to his feet. Instead, Fang nudged Goat and stood on his own. Goat bowed his way back toward the crowd, silent and pale, but Red Hand paid him no mind. It was safer for Goat that way.

  “There was a sect of monks whose sole monastery was at Ten Gates. For hundreds of years, they practiced a strange discipline whose ultimate goal was to grant them the forms of divine dragons. Their devotions were harsh and solitary. They famously committed none of their doctrine to writing, and with the fall of that city, their sect is almost certainly extinct. But for this one thing — the power of all those years of meditation and suffering are said to have imbued this relic, passed down from abbot to abbot, with the power they sought. And now it’s mine.” Red Hand closed his eyes briefly, the closest to pleasure that Fang had ever seen.

  “I am obligated to you, Fang, my son. Your will is strong. I could see that you felt no fear. You recognize the way of the world. One day, you will stand where I now stand, with your own sons around you.”

  Fang loosened his knees as dizziness coursed through him. Maybe he’d received too many blows to the head, but it sounded like Red Hand had just named him his successor. A soft intake of breath from Ranu confirmed that at least Fang wasn’t the only one to interpret things that way.

  “Take him to get cleaned up and rest,” Red Hand said, pointing his sword at his other subordinates. They wavered like reeds before the breeze. None of them wanted to be on the business end of Red Hand’s weapon. They’d already almost witnessed two executions of respected brothers.

  Jun stepped forward, all but pushing Ranu aside as he slung Fang’s arm across his broad shoulders. He had to stoop a bit to do it, and Fang still had to stretch. The discomfort paled in comparison to his surprise. Without another word, Jun led him through the parting crowd. But instead of taking him to his rooms, Jun led him farther into the wing where most of the living quarters were, until they reached Big Wei’s chambers. He deposited Fang onto a cushioned sofa based on a foreign design; perfect for fainting in, if men fainted.

  “This is better than your old room,” he rumbled. “I’ll have someone bring a washbasin.”

  “But Big Wei?” Fang didn’t manage to finish the question. He touched his sticky temple. Drying blood thickened on his fingers. It didn’t seem to matter what he did. It always ended with a beating.

  “He’s hiding. If Red Hand doesn’t disown him, well, he’s on the last rung now.” With that, Jun left Fang alone in the borrowed rooms.

  ⁂

  Fang pulled himself away a few days later after receiving another note, this time delivered by Goat. He hadn’t even raised an eyebrow; at this point, Goat was in too deep to avoid a beheading if he spoke up. Fang had saved him from Red Hand once, but no one else would if Goat sold him out.

  He awaited Orchid at Abalone’s again. Unusually, he was led to an empty room and left by himself. He poured himself some wine and resigned himself to waiting. His fresh wounds itched. Worse, they drew attention, something he didn’t need. By now, everyone knew Fang had returned and that he’d managed to climb up the ranks again. They didn’t all know the dramatic story, though.

  How long until the city guards hear about the dragon stone from some spy? The question occupied him. The old man had freely shown everyone the prize. Big Wei had to have known that it was Fang on that ship, or at least Fang’s proxies. But I never use proxies, so he must know. Thinking about it brought back echoes of the ferocious headache from his beating, so he pushed it aside.

  The door slid open. Without further prelude, Birch stepped in, dressed plainly in dark, conservative cuts, the sort of thing a well-off, but frugal merchant might wear. His expression was pinched and thunderous, lips thinned out until they were no more than a bloodless gash. The door thumped shut behind him.

  Fang braced himself again, staring down into his cup. The wine had helped dull the sharp aches, but it didn’t do much to blot out his shame.

  “Why did you hide it?” Birch asked. He didn’t sit. He glared down at the top of Fang’s head. “Why didn’t you tell me? You snuck out of the safe house like a fugitive. I thought you’d been snatched up—”

  “I left in broad daylight in the morning,” Fang said. He couldn’t keep the weariness from his voice and wondered if it sounded like exasperation to Birch. It didn’t matter. Probably anything he said at this point would go over poorly. “I didn’t tell you because…” I couldn’t trust you not to take it. He shook his head. A lie would be too transparent.

  “You said it was lost. It was that necklace, wasn’t it? I thought it was strange, but I wanted to believe you’d tell me if you got it. I’m an idiot. I trusted you, and you handed it over to that murderous fuck like a box of tobacco. Like a toy!”

  “It’s just a rock,” Fang said. “You didn’t notice anything special about it either. It’s a curiosity at best.”

  “You absolute bastard,” Birch hissed.

  “We’ve been over this. If I kill him, the others will just play out the same game as the Knives. That’s hardly been peaceful. Best case, one of the others steps in and keeps them under control. Worst case, more riots and banditry. The whole thing has to be destroyed. An ugly worry stone wouldn’t have helped with any of that. What he really wanted was the information, and you had plenty of time with the reports and logs before he did.”

  “Those were mostly useless.” Birch sat heavily. “And there’s no second chance at getting more. The ship unloaded and left in a hurry after your adventure.” The venom had at least drained from Birch’s voice.

  Fang imagined Red Hand’s assessment of the information and squeezed the bridge of his nose until the sudden anger subsided.

  “You look like shit.”

  “Thanks,” Fang gritted out.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “Being kept at your place.”

  Birch was silent. Fang took a deep breath, then lowered his hand and opened his eyes. His old friend looked shaken. The pinched frustration in his eyes hadn’t left, but much of the outrage had. “He beat you for lying low?” Birch asked, uncharacteristically soft-spoken. “With all the heat from that heist out there… have you even slept since then?”

  Fang didn’t confess that he hadn’t; he felt the need to keep one eye open. He’d been installed in Big Wei’s old rooms, given an uncertain promotion, and marked out as a target to anyone who cared about that stone.

  Birch scooted around the table. “We’ve got an hour or so. Rest, and I’ll keep watch.” He took off his outer robe and bundled it into a pillow. Fang tried to think up objections, but he was honestly exhausted. He sprawled out behind the table and tucked the bundle beneath his head. He closed his eyes and drifted off, surrounded by Birch’s scent.

  A soft touch by Fang’s ear roused him faintly, but Birch hadn’t given a sign that it was time to go. His fingers ghosted around the bruises and split skin, hesitant, then carded through Fang’s loose hair. They hadn’t touched or even spoken of anything important since Birch acknowledged his confession; this was the most, even though Fang had stayed in that hut after. He’d thought maybe Birch regretted his words, that they had been impulsive, borne along the currents of their nighttime escape. Maybe that wasn’t the case. Maybe there was something there after all.

  Chapter 7

  Red Hand eased back on assigning Fang tasks, perhaps recognizing that Fang was on the brink of some
thing, be it collapse or mutiny. For his part, Fang was glad. His body was a mass of bruises and bandages, and exhaustion had settled into his bones.

  The weariness that proved the hardest to kick. It had to be obvious; his subordinates had become even more solicitous, somehow, and ran interference between him and nearly anyone Fang had once indicated anything remotely like irritation with. From time to time he caught Goat giving him worried looks or having hushed, hurried conversations with his other followers. He had the sense that most of those talks had to do with him. He hardly had to lift a finger before someone asked if he was hungry or thirsty, if he wanted a new robe, if he wanted someone’s ass beaten, or perhaps did he want a smoke?

  If Red Hand lived like that, no wonder he seemed power mad by regular standards. Fang found himself impatient with it in the beginning, but within days it was easy to take the constant attention to his needs for granted.

  The eagerness did have its uses. While he waited for the next word from Red Hand or Orchid, Fang had to solidify his position in the gang. It wasn’t about gaining status so much as it was about protecting himself and anyone who’d demonstrated themselves as his partisans. The longer his actual status remained uncertain, the weaker Fang appeared and the more his position seemed in doubt. All of that translated into vulnerability. And that was the one thing that Red Hand was right about: weakness was death in this world.

  His subordinates were happy to take his orders without any explanation of what they were doing. Mostly that was observing and reporting back, but from time to time, Fang had them cause trouble, or arrange for trouble: inconveniences, leaks, and other bits of minor sabotage that put the other elder brothers’ competence in question and revealed more about their schemes to Fang.

  Jun had been oddly solicitous that day, and Fang was reluctant to push him. His men only watched and learned from the previous apparent successor. If Jun was bitter about being displaced so abruptly, it didn’t show. He was even slightly more personable with Fang than before — which was to say that Jun would occasionally greet him, but they didn’t drink together.