Avatar, The Last Airbender: The Rise of Kyoshi

by F. C. Yee

  “Big brother,” Mok said. The daofei leader’s mannerisms suddenly took on a reverential, submissive quality. “I can’t believe it’s you. After so long!”

  “Come here,” the prisoner said, opening his arms wide. The two men embraced and pounded each other’s backs.

  “Eight years,” the newly freed man said. “Eight years.”

  “I know, brother,” Mok sobbed.

  “Eight years,” the man repeated, squeezing harder. “Eight years! It took you eight stinking years to rescue me?”

  Mok gasped, unable to breathe. “I’m sorry, brother!” he choked out with the air he had left. “We tried our best!”

  “Your best!?” his elder brother screamed in his ear. “Your best took nearly a decade! What’s your second-best? Waiting for my prison to collapse from rust?”

  Judging by Mok’s squeals of pain, prison hadn’t rendered the man physically weak. He tossed Mok aside and surveyed the daofei. Wai hadn’t made a single move. The surviving Kang Shen followers took a knee and lowered their heads, while the rank and file stood at attention. Kyoshi’s eyes fell on the moon peach blossoms, still placed with care on the men’s shirts. While it was now obvious that they’d sprung no ordinary outlaw from Te’s custody, there was something worse hanging in the air, a dark warning in her imagination.

  “Uncles,” Kyoshi spoke up suddenly. “If the debt of the Flying Opera Company is repaid, we should be on our way.” Her instincts screamed that they needed to get out of here. Immediately.

  “Repaid?” the man they’d rescued said. He beamed at them, not with the fake smiles of Mok, but with genuine warmth in his heart. “My friends, you have done more than repay a debt. You have made a new future possible. Forevermore, you shall have the friendship and sworn brotherhood of Xu Ping An. You must stay and celebrate with us!”

  Alarms went off in Kyoshi’s head, the creeping hint of recognition just out of her sight. Before she and the others could decline, he turned to address his troops. Mok’s men had become his men, and there was no protest.

  “Brothers!” he said, his pleasant voice ringing through the camp. “For many years you’ve kept the faith. You are true Followers of the Code! I would die happily this very instant, knowing that there is still honor and loyalty in this world!”

  The assembled daofei roared and shook their weapons. The sun began to rise dramatically behind Xu, as if he were favored by the spirits themselves.

  “But I think we’ve suffered enough losses, don’t you?” Xu said. “Five thousand. Five thousand of our compatriots snuffed out like vermin. I haven’t forgotten them, not over the eight years I spent rotting in an abider prison. I haven’t forgotten them! Have you?”

  Over the frenzied screams of the daofei, Xu raised his arms to greet the morning light. “I say there’s a price to be paid! A debt that is owed! And collection starts today!”

  Kyoshi’s head swam. They’d been duped. Distracted by small matters when the real danger that threatened the kingdom loomed within reach. She was so stupid.

  “Now!” Xu said with theatrical casualness. “Where are my colors? I feel terribly naked without them.”

  Mok hurried over and handed him a piece of fabric. In unison, the daofei reached into pockets and satchels or lifted their shirts to reveal lengths of cloth tied around their waists. They freed the wrappings from wherever they’d hid them and fastened them around their necks.

  The sun rose fully, letting Kyoshi see the hues that adorned the bodies of every outlaw present. The moon peach blossoms had been a ruse, a cover story to avoid detection. The Autumn Bloom was a temporary name for an old organization. A behemoth had risen from the depths of the earth to feed once more.

  “Much better,” Xu said as he patted the bright yellow scarf knotted around his neck. “I was getting a bit chilly there.”

  THE CHALLENGE

  “We have to do something!” Rangi said. “This is our fault!”

  “It might be our fault, but it’s definitely not our problem,” Kirima muttered as she hastily packed her portion of their camp. “It’s not our problem.” She repeated it like a mantra that might keep them safe from harm.

  “I don’t understand,” Lek said. “Who is this Xu Ping An guy? Who are the Yellow Necks? I thought we were dealing with the Autumn Bloom.”

  “The Yellow Necks are business that we don’t want any part of,” Wong said. He rolled up the sleeping blankets with tight, nervous hand motions. “They’re not in this life for money or freedom. They take glee in pillage and destruction. They’re wanton killers. And Xu Ping An is their brains, heart, and soul.”

  “He was a bloodthirsty madman before he spent the last eight years locked up and dreaming about revenge,” Kirima said. “We heard the stories. He used to call himself the General of Pandimu and claimed its residents were beholden to him for the protection he provided.”

  Lek scratched his head. “Where’s Pandimu?”

  “Nowhere!” Kirima said. “It’s the name for the world he made up himself! My point is he’s unhinged!”

  Earlier, as they’d mumbled excuses about needing to leave the company of the Yellow Necks, Xu had seemed easygoing, without Mok’s pettiness or Wai’s outbursts of violence. He’d assured them that though he wished to throw a feast in their honor, a little show of appreciation, anything really, they were free to go with all debts to the Autumn Bloom and Yellow Necks repaid.

  Kyoshi knew that veneer of civility meant nothing. Men like Xu simply waited for the right moment to drop it and reveal the beast behind the curtain.

  “I don’t know how he’s alive,” Rangi said. She paced in circles around the remnants of the campfire. “I’ve read copies of reports sent to the Earth King by Jianzhu himself. Xu was listed among the dead at the Battle of Zhulu Pass. This doesn’t make sense!”

  Kirima kept her argument directed at Kyoshi. “Look, they’re—what?—a couple hundred strong now, at the most? Fewer, since the Kang Shen decided to dine on rocks? They’re not an army like they were in the past. We can simply wait until the governors summon a militia force to deal with them. I bet Te is the one who rides out to meet him.”

  Governor Te was currently riding at the head of a one-man column in nothing but his pajamas. It wasn’t clear whether Kirima and the others knew how old he was. But he could be a hundred, and he still wouldn’t know how to deal with a man who’d given Jianzhu fits.

  “That sounds perfect to me,” Lek said. His face was unrecognizably dark. “The more dead lawmen, the better.” He left the camp to get Pengpeng ready for departure, satisfied with his contribution to the debate.

  “Xu first started out with smaller numbers than he has now,” Rangi said. “If more Yellow Necks come out of hiding and rally to his banner, we’re back to the dark days after Kuruk died.”

  “We’re not back to anything!” Kirima shouted. “Xu is the abiders’ problem! As far as we’re concerned, he’s a finished job! You don’t go back to a job you’ve already finished!”

  “Years ago, I passed through a town caught in the wake of the Yellow Necks,” Lao Ge said, reminiscing calmly like it had been a mediocre vacation he’d once taken. “I saw what happened to the residents. They’d been . . .” He twisted his mouth, trying to decide what word to use before settling on one. “Stacked,” he said. He made a layering motion with his hands, alternating one on top of the other.

  Kirima still wasn’t swayed. “We run away from trouble,” she said. “Not toward it. That’s our policy. It served us well in Chameleon Bay, it helped us survive in Hujiang, and it’ll pay off here.”

  “What do you think we should do, Kyoshi?” Lao Ge said. “Given your newfound taste for making decisions of life and death?”

  His question was dripping with petulance. But the rest of the gang didn’t know about the botched assassination. They were still thinking of her command to preserve the lives of Te’s household while pulling off the raid. No one had argued against her back then.

  It didn�
�t seem like they would now either. The group fell silent as they waited on Kyoshi’s response, offering her the chance to tilt the scales conclusively.

  Her head swam. A single moon ago, she was the weak link, not the shot caller. The others were putting too much stock in her being the Avatar. Conflating bending versatility with leadership. She’d grown more capable in the days since Hujiang, but not wiser.

  Kyoshi fell back on the one philosophy she was well-versed in as an Earthbender. Neutral jing. “We wait and see what happens,” she said. “But we can wait from a higher elevation. Load up Pengpeng.”

  Rangi and Kirima, the two opposite voices in her ear, united to share a worried look with each other.

  They loitered in the air, a physical stamp of Kyoshi’s indecision on the blue-and-white cloth of the sky. Pengpeng floated inside a cloud that Kirima had pulled around them. The Waterbender stood upright in the saddle, swirling her arms to prevent the tufts of vapor from parting and revealing their position.

  Lek took them slowly over the Yellow Necks so they could monitor the movements of Xu’s force. Kyoshi was keenly aware that they occupied a literal halfway point between fleeing and staying, perhaps ruining their chances for either option. She shook the nagging doubt out of her head and peered down below.

  The column of men drifted slowly away from Te’s palace like ants on the march. They formed a solid mass, Xu no doubt at the front, with the occasional scout sprinting ahead and returning back to report. A colony sending out feelers.

  “I hope they’re heading toward a militia outpost,” Lek said, still clinging to some ember of hate for the law. “Then we could see a good dustup from here.”

  “They’ve stopped by a rice field,” Rangi said. “Maybe they’re trying to pick it? The second harvest wouldn’t be ready though.” The farming knowledge of Yokoya had rubbed off on her.

  Kyoshi watched as the crops provoked some kind of response in the daofei. Years ago, when she was still living without a roof over her head, she would sometimes watch her fellow insects crawl through the dirt in search of food. The motions of the bugs always started slow, indistinguishable from randomness, full of hesitant backpedaling, until within the span of a fingersnap they turned into a focused swarm. The army lingered next to the green, burgeoning grain as if the collective had sniffed a target of interest.

  Dark lines began to grow across the field. She puzzled over their meaning until she realized it was Xu’s scouts infiltrating through the high stalks of rice, parting and trampling the plants. Her eyes darted to the opposite end of the field where a small house and barn stood. Smoke from the morning’s water boil puffed gently out the chimney.

  Kyoshi had been so preoccupied with the safety of the household staff of the palace that she’d forgotten about the people outside the moat. Large estates often had tenant farmers managing their private lands. In that little house was a family. A target for eight years of Xu’s pent-up wrath.

  Trying to split the difference with neutral jing had been the wrong choice. “I made a mistake,” Kyoshi said. “We have to get down there. Now.”

  Kirima made a choking, indignant noise. “What, exactly, are we going to do?”

  The lines had nearly crossed the rice field. “I don’t know!” Kyoshi said. “But I can’t stay up here and watch anymore! Drop me off and fly away if you have to!”

  A scream came from the house. The occupants had spotted the daofei closing in on them. The memory of swordsmen wearing yellow around their necks likely still haunted this region of the Earth Kingdom.

  Kirima swore and mashed her fist against the saddle floor. “No,” she said. “If you go, we go.” She flicked the cap of her water skin open and pulled the cloud vapor inside, condensing it into ammunition.

  “Once we hit the ground, we’ll follow your lead,” Wong said to Kyoshi.

  Lek groaned but brought Pengpeng around in a tight turn, descending as fast as it was safe to. The others gripped the edges of the saddle and hung on for dear life.

  “Thank you,” Rangi said to Kirima, the wind whipping her words, forcing her to shout. It was the nicest she’d ever been to the Waterbender. “You’re true companions of the Avatar.”

  “What good is that if we’re dead?” Kirima yelled back. Though she blushed, just a bit.

  Please don’t let us be too late, Kyoshi prayed as they sprinted toward the barn. She’d chosen that building over the house, remembering the setup in Hujiang. The tiny hut wouldn’t have fit a big enough audience for Xu and Mok’s grandstanding tastes.

  The contingent of daofei stuck outside the doors sprang to their feet in alarm, but relaxed as they drew closer. The paint still caked on their faces made the Flying Opera Company instantly recognizable. The ghosts in red and white were honored guests of their boss. Kyoshi pushed deeper inside. She could see over the heads of the crowd to an empty space in the back where Xu probably was and shoved her way through until she found him.

  The leader of the Yellow Necks sat on a bench, calmly reading a book. He must have missed literature in prison and taken it from the house. Against the wall behind him, Mok and Wai stood guard over a woman and her son, who couldn’t have been older than seven or eight, cowering and sobbing to themselves, dressed in simple farmers’ garb.

  They’d been beaten, their faces bruised and bloody. Her anger at Xu laying hands on a child paled before the sight of what he’d done to the boy’s father.

  The daofei had tied the tenant farmer up and hung him by the wrists over the rafters with a long rope, several men holding on to the other end so they could raise and lower him at Xu’s command. Underneath, they’d set up a fire and a rendering cauldron full of boiling water. It was big enough that if they dropped him, he’d be fully submerged in the vessel. The farmer’s big toes dangled in the liquid, and he screamed through his gag.

  Kyoshi ran up and kicked the heavy cauldron over, spilling water in the direction of the daofei holding the rope. They let go, and she caught the farmer in her arms. She heard the hiss of blades being drawn as she laid the man on dry ground, twitching in pain but still alive.

  Xu didn’t look up from his book. “You spilled my tea,” he said. He licked his finger and turned another page.

  She’d come to the conclusion that Mok’s affected nonchalance was a pale imitation of his elder brother’s. Xu had probably learned it from someone else. Like Te, they were all copying their predecessors, in a cycle that went on and on. Kyoshi drew strength from the fact that her own links went back further, among the most righteous in history.

  “Xu!” she shouted. “Stop this! Let them go!” She heard shuffling behind her and a familiar, reassuring warmth. Rangi and the Flying Opera Company stood at her side.

  Xu clapped his book shut and stared at Kyoshi. He’d combed his long hair and cropped his beard as best he could.

  “First off, it’s Uncle Xu to you,” he said. “And second, this man is an abider. He worked for those who imprisoned me. He grew their grain and took their coin, which makes him another weight on the scales I must balance. If you can’t handle this, you’re not going to like what I do to the town of Zigan.”

  Kyoshi’s fists tightened. If they were playing roles, then she would imitate the strongest, the bravest, the best. “You don’t get Zigan,” she snarled. “You don’t get any town in the Earth Kingdom, nor this farmhouse for that matter. You get the free air you can fit in your lungs, and nothing else.”

  She heard her friends tense up beside her. Xu preemptively waved off the daofei who were ready to hack her to bits.

  “Kyoshi, was it?” he said. “Kyoshi, I’m eternally grateful to you and your compatriots for rescuing me. But you’re young, and that’s why you don’t understand. Eight years of my life were stolen from me. Thousands of my followers. At your tender age, what would you know about that kind of injustice?”

  They’re all the same, Kyoshi thought. Every single one. Whether they clothe themselves in business or brotherhood or a higher calling only they can
see, it doesn’t matter. They’re one and the same.

  “A lesser man might quit in the face of a setback that large,” Xu said. “But not me. I relish the work, not the reward. I will get what I am owed.”

  They look at themselves like forces of nature, as inevitable ends, but they’re not. Their depth is as false as the shoals at low tide. They twist the meaning of justice to absolve themselves of conscience.

  Xu smiled benevolently and tried to find his spot in the book again. “The world is on the verge of forgetting my name. Which means I didn’t carve the scars deep enough last time. I’ll do better with the second chance you’ve given me, Kyoshi.”

  He motioned at Wai, who still hovered over the mother and son. Wai shoved the woman onto her hands and knees and yanked her head back by her hair, exposing her throat. She screamed.

  They’re humans like us, made of skin and guts and pain. They need to be reminded of that fact.

  “I SAID STOP!” Kyoshi shouted. There was a backing to her voice that punched through the air. Wai hesitated, remembering the last time he’d drawn his knife in her presence.

  Kyoshi pointed at Xu. “Xu Ping An! I challenge you to face me on the lei tai, immediately!”

  It was the one idea that could have forestalled both him and his army from exploding into a frenzy of violence. Maybe Xu didn’t think much of Kyoshi, but he had to respect the challenge. The Code that empowered him in the eyes of his followers demanded it.

  There was silence from the crowd as her words sunk in, but Xu responded as if it were the most normal request in the world. “Challenges are meant to settle grievances,” he said, dabbing the pad of his forefinger with his tongue again. “What insult have I given you?”

  “Your existence,” Kyoshi spat.

  She didn’t know it was possible for a group of hardened killers to gasp collectively. Now Xu paid her mind. He put the book down and stood up. His men parted to form an aisle between him and the barn door. Only Kyoshi and the Flying Opera Company stood in the middle, barring the way.