Four Barbarian Generals: Dryth Chronicles Epic Fantasy (Celestial Empire Book 3)

by T. A. Miles

  So, with that fact accepted, the question at the forefront of Tristus’ mind was, “With the underground threat resolved and questions answered, what will we do now?”

  Huang Shang-san held up a hand, as if he had been anticipating that question. With a polite smile and a nod, he said, “You were assigned to units by the Empress when you received your rank as generals of her army. All of you will continue to study and to train…to properly assume your role and act within your duty. It will be a long road.”

  While Huang Shang-san turned toward Guang Ci to speak to him—more than likely to repeat what had just been said to them—Tristus looked to Alere. The elf was already focused in his direction.

  “What do you think of all of this?” he decided to ask Alere.

  Alere said, “I’ve worked in armies both elvish and human. I will look at this differently, only in considering its essential importance.”

  “What do you mean?” Tristus asked.

  Alere’s response came without hesitation. “In the past the only important detail of my commitment to any army or lord was the benefit and protection of my family. It is still that, at the core, but now my family has extended beyond my blood. And a world poisoned by the shadows is no place for any of my family to live. I came here to combat chaos and darkness. I will remain here until I have done so as thoroughly as I am able, for the sake of my family on both sides of the sea.”

  Tristus simply watched the elf speaking. He could not smile—he was too moved by Alere’s dedication to those he loved, and how simple it was…how essential, as he’d already pointed out. It inspired Tristus to extend his hand toward Alere’s, and over it.

  Alere turned his hand enough to curl his fingers around Tristus’, and Tristus allowed it. He knew at that point that allowance could be taken as a message sent without words, knowing where Alere’s heart was determined to be. Tristus understood that, and he felt no urge to withdraw. There was a tangled mess of emotion and affection strewn about them—including others beyond them—but they would get each knotted strand sorted. The message Tristus offered to Alere was a promise that somehow, they would do just that.

  MA SHOU DREAMED of a tree. Its bark was white, like bone. What few leaves it had to its stretched and sharply bent branches were red as the eyes of the necromancer. The overly tall growth stood upon a rigid clifftop, overlooking the many narrow mountains that populated what appeared to be a river gorge. Striations of darkly tinted water coursed through the dark vegetation covering the jagged cliff formations, which were veiled thinly by a pale mist…one which matched the tone of the necromancer’s skin.

  There was no awareness of where Ma Shou’s feet were anchored—he might well have been drifting through the spirit realm. In front of him, Lei Kui stood before the tree, both it and him a misfit among the surrounding growth. The necromancer’s long hair pulled like fabric in the wind, forming a dark banner against the landscape. Robes the color of clouded jade billowed around the necromancer’s form, woven and knotted belts of red lifting and falling with their movement. The haunting face of the doomed creature was not in view, but it haunted Ma Shou anyway. The image of him lingered, like a curse.

  “How does one eradicate the elements?” Lei Kui asked, though the question seemed to be aimed at no one specifically.

  Again, Ma Shou felt like an observer…a witness, but to what? He had not the wisdom to decipher what lay before him, whether in dream or awake.

  “How does one take the heat from fire, or the breath from wind…the strength from metal, or the vitality from wood…the constancy from water, or the energy from the soul?”

  The voice of the female counterpart echoed after the words that were spoken by the necromancer. The latter sound drifted off into the steep mountains from their vantage, like one delicate hand letting go another in a gentle cast off. It felt like a departure, perhaps from life to death, but at the same time it carried the promise of return.

  Ma Shou felt enthralled and horrified in the presence of Lei Kui. He could not comprehend which course of action to take and, as the dream illustrated, he feared that a step in any direction was to his doom. Of course, that meant that he was doomed already.

  “I will not wait to die,” he whispered.

  In that moment, the red leaves revealed themselves as birds and took flight. Many more of them than had actually been visible flew from the ivory limbs like gouts of blood into the gray-green environment.

  The necromancer looked over his shoulder then. The torturous beauty of one became two when a second face peered out from behind him. The twin beauties met him with quiet expressions that tore through Ma Shou’s spirit. One face promised a plummeting death, suspended in a pit of the Hells, falling forever. The other threatened to attack him savagely, to eviscerate his very being simply for having been a witness.

  A witness to what? “What’s happening?”

  With the question, a hand dropped onto his shoulder heavily. He presumed it was the stoic and dangerous Guo Sen, but when he turned he was met with Zhen Yu’s face. The pirate’s skin was gray, as if taken with some form of illness. His eyes were discolored and scarcely focused, yet seeing Ma Shou as if he were the only focus. Zhen Yu’s other hand lurched upward, as if to tear at Ma Shou’s face.

  Ma Shou shook himself away, and fell. It was the fall which jerked him awake. He sat up and looked quickly around in the half-dark of the tent he’d been too afraid to wander far from. He remained afraid to leave. He was equally terrified of staying. Ma Shou felt his fear eating at him, like a swarm of locusts after crops. He would be eaten from and left to blight.

  Raising his hand to his hair in frustration and worry, he formed a tight fist and pulled back, letting go when a minor twinge of pain let him know that he had not died yet. Not like Zhen Yu.

  Relaxing, Ma Shou looked about his enclosure once more. The space appeared empty, save for the few items kept within whenever camp was made. It was never much; a lantern, some oil and tinder, small sacks of what he assumed to be rations, bedrolls, and the odd box. The boxes ranged from simple crates small enough to carry with ease, to ornate lacquered pieces with arcing lids, painted patterns, and filigreed latches. Ma Shou had never dared try to look inside any of them. He suspected that nightmares were contained within them, though in reality they likely contained items such as the bones Lei Kui had been toying with before.

  It was that thought which inspired Ma Shou to lean slowly away from the pallet beneath him, and to look upon the rug-covered ground in the center of the tent. The bones were yet there, and they were in the formation of a tree. Small, glistening drops darkened the edges of the gloom-shaded mosaic.

  Ma Shou recoiled. As quickly, he rose from the pallet and looked urgently around him, his mind reeling toward the edge of panic. He could take no more. He would not wait to die.

  Dropping to his knees, he took a moment simply to breathe, forcing himself to gradually take slower breaths. When he’d recovered himself, he looked upon the bone tree again, then raised his hand, closing his eyes. He prayed more desperately to his ancestors than he had in a long time—perhaps ever. He prayed to the Spirit of Fire also, that Ai Rin Xia might aid him directly, if only for a moment.

  It was within a moment that his spell was begun. Fire manifested over his open hand, rolling over itself repeatedly until it formed a ball at least twice the size of his hand. The light threw the furthest reaches of the tent immediately into blackness, silhouetting the forms of the inanimate objects within.

  Ma Shou rose to his feet, backing toward the tent wall nearest him. He stopped when his heel touched something that was somewhat solid—a sack, he presumed. He looked across the small space, then drew in another breath, closing his eyes once more, only briefly. When he opened them again, he had a flame that had grown double what it was. He threw it at the opposite side of the tent. With a crackling burst of heat that billowed the hem of the tent, the smell of burning rushed to envelop the air while pitiless fire set about consuming whatever
it could.

  Sounds of interest that rapidly became panic rose outside. Ma Shou ignored them, until he imagined that he heard the heavy footsteps of Guo Sen. Whether or not the necromancer’s companion was present or coming, Ma Shou concentrated solely on maintaining his courage. When enough of the far side of the tent had been consumed, he drew a breath and rushed forward, raising his arms in front of his face while he leaped through the fire-bitten hole his spell had created.

  Outside, he scarcely took a moment to catch his balance or to check whether or not he’d caught fire. Instead, he bounded onward, into the sporadically lit darkness of the ramshackle village crowding at the threshold of the Imperial City.

  THE SOUNDS OF voices and of movement pervaded the cooling autumn air of what should have been a tranquil field. Even at night, the clamor of human dwelling carried on, casting the conversations of frogs and insects into the background. Though they were in the background, Guo Sen could still hear them when he focused. For over an hour, he’d been doing little else while he stood beneath a lonely willow amid the grass and gravel that comprised the unofficial pavement of the outermost city of Jianfeng. For a time, he turned his blind eye to the village and shut the sight of its people out while he surveyed the calmer horizon to the west. When he gave attention once again to the village, he saw what he was meant to see—what he would not have been able to see with his ruined eye on the commune, but what he saw anyway, because fate had a habit of turning his head precisely when it needed to be turned.

  The initial burst of flames went unseen and unheard—the latter because there was significant distance between Guo Sen and the incident—but the glowing embers rising above the conglomeration of tents and tiny shacks was all he needed to see. He decided on a point and followed it visually through the ill-lit village, from one poor structure to the next until…out he came.

  The pyromancer ran frantically out of the thicker collection, into the clearing Guo Sen occupied by the willow.

  Ma Shou did not see Guo Sen—it appeared he could barely stay balanced on his feet. He stumbled more than once, but managed to continue moving forward, toward the open darkness away from the Imperial City. Gradually, the night wrapped around his fleeing form and Guo Sen lost interest. His gaze searched in the opposite direction, over the dimming orange glow of a fire being brought under control by the commune patrol. Guo Sen passed over the view and stopped his wandering gaze when Lei Kui appeared in his periphery.

  “I’m finished here,” the necromancer said.

  Guo Sen nodded once, then stepped away to collect their horses.

  The Fingers of the Earth

  THE PLANK ROAD of the Kang Su Province began at a small, unmanned gate which announced the region. The architecture of the entryway was tall, yet thin, adorned with gilded characters and small flags bearing emblems of prayer to the gods and spirits. The color of them had faded significantly over the years and the edges were somewhat frayed by the elements. The road was wide, sturdily railed, and in good repair. At the unnamed gate, Xu Liang entered the mountains without delay. The men all had their instructions on how the movement was to take place. The units would separate here, many of them following Xu Liang’s lead and many of them taking the road’s turn east.

  For those headed south, the path snaked gracefully between great slopes of browning green that met at their bases, an expanse of grasses and shrubs between them. As the road progressed, it curved gently through the hills, which overhead were gaining height and rigidity. With the troops narrowing their formation, so that less were in any one place at the same time, the sounds of those immediately behind became more acute, including the light snapping of the point flagbearer’s banner. Looking up, Xu Liang caught the edges of the Blue Dragon’s long form undulating before the view of hilltops and sky.

  “How long through these mountains?” Shirisae asked.

  Xu Liang lowered his gaze to the road ahead. “We will be traveling throughout the day and into the night in order to clear the river valley.”

  “I still have yet to see a river,” Shirisae commented.

  “The Chang River comes through here on its way to sea,” Xu Liang explained. “It is very wide, and quite blue.”

  “The Blue Dragon,” Shirisae deduced.

  Xu Liang lowered his head in a nod that both confirmed her answer and commended her observation. “Its counterpart is the Tunghui, which skirts the lower edges of Ying, but which is the primary source of livelihood for many of Du’s people. Therefore, it is the Green Dragon of Du.”

  “And what is Xun?” Shirisae asked.

  “Xun is the Crane,” Xu Liang answered. “Known for its longevity and commitment.”

  “And, of course, any individual or group of individuals might be enduringly committed to something incorrect.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, it can be interpreted as stubbornness,” Shirisae decided. And then she surprised him by saying, “I think in some ways, I can exhibit the traits of a crane.”

  Xu Liang looked at her, noticing foremost in the moment the manner in which she held her face high. A woman of destiny and faith, she did so often. She defended her beliefs and all that she loved without apology. It was not an uncommon tone of Fanese womanhood, but it was an uncommon way to express that tone.

  As to cranes…

  “I believe that any of us may exhibit the traits of anything,” Xu Liang said. “We are ever-changing beings as mortals, guided and afflicted by our environments. Nevertheless, within each of us is something uniquely constant, and it is that which truly identifies us from one another.”

  Shirisae said nothing to that immediately. She observed the road ahead of them for a span before forming words that seemed to partially form of satisfaction. “I believe you’re right.”

  Xu Liang accepted the decision she’d come to and for the hour that followed, they practiced Fanese vocabulary. Shirisae learned swiftly and, in the process of building her words in his language, she occasionally offered him the elvish counterparts, thereby enabling him to enhance his comprehension of her essential language. Xu Liang found it quite helpful to have Yvarian as a common middle between them. He believed she would advance quickly. Among the others, it was Taya who also learned at a rapid pace and she was closely followed by Tristus. Xu Liang had no doubts that Alere was learning, but his method seemed to be to do so in relatively silence, as if he intended to reserve demonstration until he had mastered Fanese. It made Xu Liang wonder if the mountain elf had been gradually absorbing the language since early after their meeting in Lower Yvaria. It was largely through listening that Xu Liang had taken in what he knew of the languages of the west, so he had no concerns over Alere for the time being.

  Tarfan appeared to be advancing toward the use of a new language at the most arduous pace, but he was a more stubborn and easily frustrated individual, who—as long as Xu Liang had known him—had always come around to what was less comfortable for him in his own manner. It may have been that the elder dwarf may have been least in need of full fluency of Fanese. First and foremost, the bearers would require the ability to navigate Sheng Fan verbally. Xu Liang would not be able to accompany them at every turn, as had lately been proved.

  That fact brought him to the situation of Shirisae, and the ideas that were forming of her status. It shed some fateful light onto the matter of his annulled betrothal some years ago. If he had been married already, there would be yet another dam obstructing the course of logic and possibility for his fellow officers and those below them in rank. While it was entirely uncustomary for a son of Sheng Fan to take a foreign wife, it was entirely unacceptable for a court official to take mistresses. The order of the household was paramount, and not to be adulterated or compromised. Every household in Sheng Fan was modeled first after the structure of the Imperial Court. Each of its officers held a moral obligation to uphold that structure, and through example, educate and guide the people of Sheng Fan of all other walks and stations of life.

  Xu L
iang felt that it was a positive assessment of his character by his peers that they were inclined to take Shirisae for an honorable association, even if an unconventional one. He felt that he should also discuss with her what was being theorized, so that he may set about correcting it in the way she most preferred, particularly if she took offense. He understood that elves were a reclusive and private people on the whole, and he had no interest in disregarding either her culture or her feelings.

  The wind stirred as the road brought them out into a clearing of sorts. It remained on a route between the soft mountains, but the tree-covered slopes had opened up more in order to accommodate the river. In the process, the plank road became a bridge, one which followed the course of the calm, blue waters which now covered any level ground they might otherwise have been travelling over.

  Shirisae appeared particularly taken with the Chang. Her features lit with interest while her eagle-toned eyes surveyed the transformed landscape.

  Xu Liang agreed silently that the river gave the area a new dimension. Beneath the early autumn sun, it felt warm and tranquil. It was not a wonder that the Supreme Mystics of Sheng Fan had chosen the location for their school of study and meditation. The wonder, Xu Liang reminded himself, was in their departure from the Imperial City. According to Huang Shang-san, they had not visited, nor written with any interest of visiting any of Jianfeng’s sacred palaces or temples in more than a year. It was true that the pilgrimages of the masters of the mystic arts had dwindled significantly in the last decade, but there had been attempts to remain connected to the Imperial City in spirit.