by Zoe Marriott
We reached the small, oval-shaped practice field that sat near the centre of the camp. I’d never trained here. It was reserved for the officers only. Accordingly, the ground had been packed with gravel to keep it dry and free of mud, tall posts at either end flew the imperial standard, and at the base of each pole there was a rough wooden bench to rest on and a trough of fresh water to drink or to splash on a hot face and hands.
This was where Lu had flogged the deserter this morning, on Diao’s orders. My stomach lurched. I struggled to keep my shadow face neutral.
Diao’s aide-de-camp, Sergeant Yun, appeared beside us. After a quickly murmured conversation with the commander about practice weapons, he hurried off again, pushing through the rapidly growing crowd that hovered a few feet back from the edges of the duelling ring.
“Blunt blades?” Lu said challengingly, bringing my attention back to the ring. “What if the general objects?”
My stomach turned over again, this time with a surge of loathing towards Lu. I kept my teeth firmly gritted on the hasty and insubordinate words that wanted to jump out. Diao, who was not similarly constrained, opened his mouth – but before he could speak the Young General himself turned an incredulous face on Lu. “I am not armoured, Captain.”
Oh. I looked down at myself. I wasn’t in full battle armour, but I had shrugged my light scale-mail coat back on over my shirt after washing. It was hot, but I liked the extra protection it offered, the break from holding an illusion over my chest. My boots also had shin guards buckled to their fronts.
I unbuckled my sword belt from around my waist and laid it and the scabbard on the bench close by. Then I reached under my left arm and began to unlace the leather ties which held the armour in place. Diao realized what I was doing and, to my astonishment, went to my right side to help, his thick, gnarled fingers picking deftly at the laces there. I took a deep breath and centred myself, quickly spinning out threads of qi into a robust seeming over my chest area – flat planes of muscle and lightly tanned skin, no telltale bandages, no soft curves… If Diao did notice something, his eyes would reassure him that he had been wrong. The effort left me dizzy for a moment. I stood as still as possible, waiting for the unsteadiness to pass.
General Wu had moved to the other side of the ring and was removing the fine silk of his outer robes. Lu took them reverently and folded them over the back of the wooden bench. Clad only in snug leggings and a thin shirt – like my own, though considerably crisper and whiter – the general began to gently stretch out.
“Listen, Hua Zhi,” Diao murmured, as he helped me pull the armour up over my head. “Wu Jiang isn’t a bad fighter. His aunt paid for the very finest tutors. But he is used to winning because his opponents fear her, not because of his own skill. I’ve watched you train with Sigong. You are the better swordsman, and you are entirely capable of beating him. I’ll undertake to ensure that there are no consequences for you, although I fancy your father’s name would be protection enough regardless. In return, you are to fight full-out, do you understand?”
Why? I wanted to ask. We’re all supposed to be on the same side! But of course I didn’t. My commander had ordered: my lot was to obey without question.
“I – I can try, sir,” I whispered. Regardless of what Diao said, it was obvious to anyone who had eyes to look at General Wu that I didn’t stand a chance. He was built like three of me. He was a war hero.
But I could try.
“Good man.” He knelt at my feet to unbuckle the shin guard from my left boot as I bent over the right one. A moment later, Sergeant Yun returned and handed me a practice blade. It was high quality, much better than the battered old ones we recruits used day-to-day. Stepping away from the bench, I circled it in the air, testing the weight and balance as I moved slowly into a series of very basic sword forms, warming my muscles and working out any stiffness while gaining familiarity with the sword. I chose the basic forms because the Young General would almost certainly be keeping his eye on me, just as I was keeping mine on him, gauging what kind of threat he would be.
I needed to give away as little as possible.
Opposite me, Wu Jiang had his own blunt blade in hand, and was doing a different series of forms. More advanced than mine but still undemanding, standard enough to reveal little. Except that, to me, with my habit of analysing and homing in on the weaknesses of others – a habit formed through years and years of observing my father’s duels – the movements revealed a surprising amount.
Despite his height, he was light on his feet, with that natural nimbleness some very large men seemed to possess. His movements weren’t showy, but they were confident and graceful. In the light garments, I could see that his size was more than mere bulk – shoulders, arms and legs displayed hard muscle, the kind that took work to maintain.
“Court duelling rules, I think, General?” Diao said, stepping into the middle of the duelling ring. His tone made it clear that while this might be phrased as a suggestion, it was in fact a command. I watched Wu Jiang’s face carefully. It betrayed no annoyance – only resignation and a faint gleam of what I thought was amusement. “Three bouts, each to a disarming or a standstill – or until I call ‘break’. No hand-to-hand moves will be permitted. Sword-work only.”
Diao’s rules favoured me in this instance. I couldn’t hope to punch or kick with a fraction of the power of such a weighty man as General Wu – the use of hand-to-hand moves would have given him a considerable advantage over me. He still had a greater reach and more power than I did, but in the generous space of the ring I might be able to put my speed and agility to good use and make a respectable showing. I hoped.
“Ready?” When Diao received two head nods, he backed out of the circle, leaving me face to face with Wu Jiang for the first time. We bowed formally. His bow, I noted, was just as deep as mine.
“May the best man win!” Diao boomed from the edge of the duelling ring. There was a muted cheer from the onlookers.
I eyed Wu Jiang warily as we began to circle each other. I made a slight movement to my left and tracked the minute tensing of Wu Jiang’s muscles as he began to respond – but instead of lifting his blade, he backed off. Taking my measure? Clever.
Beginning a standard offensive form – Floating Lilies – I quickly closed in on him. Our blades clashed for the first time. He blocked me easily, shifting into the offensive posture to force me on to the defensive. The movement seemed aggressive. And yet…
His shoulders had relaxed. Why?
Switching to a different, more advanced form, I came at him in a barrage of quick, darting cuts, trying to get him off-balance. He parried, blocked and deflected, matching my speed as if by rote – but never exceeding it. He wasn’t pushing me. I wasn’t even breathing hard. From outside the ring, it doubtless looked very impressive, but it felt wrong. Like duelling with a mirror.
I switched forms again, reversing my blade’s sweep into a complex corkscrewing twist that would break through his guard—
Faster than thought, he blocked me.
A flicker of a grimace crossed his face. In the next moment he disengaged, backing away hastily as if to get out of trouble. But he hadn’t been in trouble. He had blocked me – easily, effortlessly – and could have countered to attempt to take my sword. Why didn’t he?
A formless suspicion was beginning to niggle at the back of my mind.
I engaged him again, falling back into the familiar patterns of Floating Lilies once more and allowing him to do the same. Slash, block, turn – more like a dance than a fight – every move predictable and choreographed until…
There. The minute relaxation in his shoulders. I switched forms again and dived beneath his blade in the Striking Mantis attack.
His blade flashed down. It caught mine on its guard. Metal screeched shrilly as his superior strength bore down on my sword. My arms trembled as I fought to keep his sword engaged – the twin blades shook and grated between our faces. His brows had drawn together with effort. I
felt his weight shift and knew he was about to twist, so he could use my own momentum against me and turn my attack back. I braced myself to fall and roll up, to counter—
Our eyes met. His widened, then narrowed. His brow smoothed out.
He fumbled his sword.
Without thinking, I surged into the opening. The blade popped out of his hand and landed on the gravel with a hollow clatter. He swore – loudly, but just an eye-blink too late to convince me – and stepped back, lifting his hands in surrender.
The roar of the crowd was triumphant. “Bout one goes to Hua Zhi!” Commander Diao announced.
I didn’t take my eyes off Wu Jiang as we bowed to each other. His gaze was averted, and he sucked in deep breaths as he turned away, as if he was winded. But I had been close enough to hear his breathing a moment before, and he had not been out of breath then. He was faking.
I knew it.
I barely noticed Commander Diao guiding me back to my bench, although I gratefully accepted Sergeant Yun’s offer of a cup of water. My throat felt as if it was packed with sand. I saw my friends in the ring of watchers and nodded to them, but they stayed back and I was grateful for that, too. My head was spinning. General Wu was not slow, or an average, complaisant swordsman.
He was something else.
Absent-mindedly, I splashed my sweaty, dust-smudged face with water from the trough, smoothing back stray strands of hair that had fallen into my eyes with damp hands. Then I knelt and took a handful of dirt, rubbing it into my palms to improve my grip. I was still thirsty, but I knew better than to gulp down more water. In this heat and with the exertion, it might make me sick.
Diao was leaning on the bench beside me. “Excellent work. Excellent,” he murmured. Whether he spoke to me, or to himself, I couldn’t tell.
Suddenly I felt very tired of him. His dislike of the Young General might be well-founded for all I knew, but I no longer cared to puzzle over it. What I cared about was this: I had the opportunity to duel with a swordsman who might match the skill of my father, but instead of fighting me with honour, he apparently intended to treat the whole thing as some kind of joke.
It was… I searched within myself for the right word. Troubling? Baffling? Annoying. It made no sense at all to feel slighted, but I did. I didn’t seek this out. The situation was not of my making. I had been forced into this position by this dispute between Wu Jiang and Diao – pushed into the limelight again against my will. By the heavens, I at least deserved the respect of being treated as an equal in the ring.
A resolution formed. I had to draw him out somehow. If I was to win against the Young General here today, it would be for real. And if I lost, let that be real, too. Whatever happened, at least it would not be another lie.
I caught Yang Jie’s worried look and dared a jaunty wink, enjoying his expression of surprise. Energy surged through me and I felt a smile pulling at the corners of my lips.
I moved back to the centre of the duelling ring, tossing the hilt of my sword idly between my hands, flipping it over and over until I felt it settle naturally into my palm, until it belonged there.
“Ready?” Diao confirmed as Wu Jiang took his position opposite me. “Begin!”
Diao stepped out of the way and, as before, we bowed in unison.
As I straightened, I deliberately stared full into Wu Jiang’s face until his gaze, as if irresistibly drawn, met mine. But this time I didn’t bother with a manly, challenging glare.
I raised one eyebrow and gave him a conspiratorial grin. Let’s have some fun!
His eyes – so dark as to appear almost black – went wide with surprise. And then, like a nugget of gold gleaming in the shadowy water of a river, I saw the wink of a dimple almost hidden in his thick, dark beard.
I raised my blade and this time he surged forward to meet me. No basics now. I recognized the Drifting Clouds form and instinctively responded with the most technically challenging defence, Scattered Clouds.
Exhilaration made my skin tingle, my cheeks flame. We were dancing again – but this time it felt right. Two swordsmen, equals, duelling not for pride or anger but for love. Love of the sword. Our swords met and parted, clashed and parted again. He pressed into my space and I darted back. I took the advantage and he spun out of reach.
I could feel a manic grin splitting my face in two, and though his lips were firmly pressed together, the dimple in his cheek was as obvious a tell, to me, as a laugh.
Suddenly Wu Jiang broke away, stepping back and settling into the familiar stance from Floating Lilies once more. I felt a moment of confusion and then a flash of joyous realization. It was an invitation. Floating Lilies could be used to transition into Tiger Lilies – one of the most difficult and beautiful forms my father had ever taught me. I’d only practised it a few times, but at that moment in the ring with Wu Jiang, I knew I could do it. I had to.
I flowed into the movements and he flowed to meet me.
The setting sun bathed the duelling field with eerie amber light that flickered and sparked from Wu Jiang’s blade like lightning. Behind the general’s shoulder, the hills were black, and fire-edged blue clouds lay across the sky like banners. The shouts and awed murmuring of the watchers faded into silence. Dust seemed to hang motionless in the air around us, as if time herself had drawn in a breath, and we two were the only things that moved in the world.
Arms trembled.
Legs burned.
Breath rasped.
I was fighting full-out and still Wu Jiang matched me. Surpassed me. It was a struggle to keep up with him now. I could hardly follow the movements of his blunt practice sword, hardly gauge the minute tensing of his muscles that allowed me to meet and counter his attacks.
In a split second, I knew the truth: the Young General was a better swordsman than me. He was a better swordsman even than my father. To have attained this level of skill and yet conceal it so convincingly, from everyone… Wu Jiang was the greatest sword master I had never heard of.
And then his eyes met mine again, and he saw that I knew. The hidden, dimpled smile disappeared, like a light going out. In the next movement he slowed. Just a fraction – just enough: a masterly exercise in control. My blade, which he could easily have deflected with his own, pierced his defence and thudded solidly home against his right pectoral muscle. The impact shuddered through my arm.
Like an actor in a play, he staggered in place, one hand clasped over his chest. Suddenly his sword hand was in the path of mine, perfectly placed. The two blunt blades clashed.
His sword slipped from his loosened grip and skittered across the gravel to lie at Diao’s feet.
“What – why…” The words tumbled from my numb lips as I stepped back.
The Young General bent over at the waist, one hand braced on his knee, the other still dramatically clutched over the “wound” on his breast – probably a nasty bruise. He threw his head back as if gasping for air and I heard the soft words: “Well fought, Hua Zhi.”
The crowd were yelling, stamping, jumping, filling the air with the victorious sound of my name.
I felt hollow and shaky and distraught, as if I had lost something before I even realized its value.
The sun slipped below the hill as Diao charged into the ring to clasp my shoulders and congratulate me. I couldn’t even look at him. I barely noticed Lu’s poisonous glare.
My eyes followed the general instead, as he slipped silently off into the deepening shadows.
At some point Yang Jie arrived by my side. He slung a seemingly companionable arm around me – but his hand clasped my shoulder, squeezing as if in support. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice buzzing in my ear.
“He let me win,” I mumbled distractedly. “He just … let me win.”
Yang Jie’s brows drew together. “What? Are you sure?”
His doubt pressed down on a raw nerve. I shrugged his arm off. “Never mind. You wouldn’t understand.”
Twelve
crouched behind the
stables, coughing and gasping as I spat again and again, swirling lukewarm water from my canteen around my mouth. I had forgotten to shake the flask of tincture thoroughly before taking it, and the drop I had gargled had been painfully potent. Every time I spat I expected to see blood. Dear ancestors, it hurt. Both my nose and my tongue were numb. I couldn’t even smell the stink of the horses.
A high-pitched, frenzied warbling noise brought my head up. “Bingbing?” I rasped.
The little bird shot into view as if she had been searching for me. Her wings beat a frantic tattoo around my shoulders, so close that I didn’t dare to move in case I knocked her out of the air. She continued to scream. Her cries sounded almost human. Human – and afraid.
Yang Jie.
I had no memory, later, of the run that must have followed. The next thing I knew, my hands were shoving open the rough wooden door of the barracks, searching for Yang Jie – but finding only the sober, pale face of Ma Wen. He jumped to his feet as I careened in. “Hua Zhi! I was looking all over for you.”
“Where is he?” The words emerged as a hastily, garbled croak. “Where is Yang Jie?”
Ma Wen’s hands lifted in a helpless gesture. “We found him in the river – just now. The surgeons took him away. He’s in the infirmary.”
“Why? What happened?”
“I don’t – Hua Zhi, I don’t know for certain but … I think someone tried to kill him.”
The great gong would ring out soon. I would be expected to leave and go about my morning’s work: food, training, caring for my armour and weapons.
But I could not bring myself to leave.
Not yet.
Yang Jie made a faint snuffling sound, familiar to me from the many nights he had slept in the bed beside mine. Then he groaned.
“Shh,” I whispered, although the bustle of the healer’s tent continued undisturbed, noisy and businesslike, all around us. After a moment’s hesitation, I leaned over him to lay one hand on his shoulder. “Stay still. You’re all right, Yang Jie, you’re all right. Just be still.”
