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THE FUGITIVES
ING-KU
“THEY DID not travel this way.”
“North, sir?”
“Yes. North. And quickly. We have lost two days.”
The sun sat three hours from falling to night, its rays hot even in the latter quarter of the day. Ing-Ku wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead as he stared at the domed huts of the small village — over-sized walnut shells scattered haphazardly on either side of a lane. He sat on his horse watching a band of pilgrims shuffle past village houses beside a meandering river. The four men remaining of his hand of wardens sat on horses several paces behind him. The two dogs rooted in the nearby bushes, sniffing at a ground squirrel’s nest. His sub-commander, a young man with a round face and an easy disposition named Dian-Vang, rode a horse beside him.
“Back the way we came, or find a shortcut, sir?” Dian-Vang looked at the rickety wooden bridge crossing the river they had ridden over minutes ago.
They had lost the trail of the girl and her protectors days prior. Knowing the fugitives favored pilgrim bands, he followed the path of several heading north. This trail had split, with one band heading west and the other continuing north. He had gambled on following the pilgrims headed west, hoping they proved quicker to overtake. A gamble that bore no reward.
“No. We will waste too much time retracing our route.” Ing-Ku pulled a map from the satchel strapped to his horse and opened it between his hands. He had paid a considerable sum to the leader of a merchant caravan for the small piece of paper. It depicted the major roads and rivers of the region. “We will head forward and find a road north. There is one a day’s journey from here. If they stay with the pilgrims, they will make for the Old Border Road. We will reach it first and wait for them.”
“A good plan, sir.” Dian-Vang leaned over to look at the map. The man fidgeted with the reins, wrapping them around his fingers.
“Yes?” Ing-Ku worried he had promoted Dian-Vang too soon, but he needed a sub-commander, and while young, the man had potential. He also had a habit of playing with his hands whenever he wanted to say something that made him uncomfortable.
“What? Ah. Yes. It’s Ran-Hur, sir.” Dian-Vang glanced over his shoulder at the other men of the hand, their horses eating wild barley from the roadside. “He talks in his sleep, sir.”
“I have heard.” Ing-Ku had awoken from Ran-Hur’s nocturnal mutterings more than once.
“Well, sir, it’s upsetting the other men.” Dian-Vang looked at his hands, squinting his eyes as he visibly forced them to cease their motion.
“The dreams are not our concern.” Ing-Ku glanced at the map again. “Our concern is the girl.”
“Yes, sir.” Dian-Vang looked away, his hands fumbling with the reins once more.
In truth, the dreams did trouble Ing-Ku. Not so much for having them every night, as he had for the past several weeks, nor for the way they made him question his faith in Ni-Kam-Djen during the waking hours, but rather, for the nagging suspicion that a connection existed between the dreams and the girl. He could not place the source of that intuition, but trusted it nevertheless. He feared it would prove more accurate than his hunch about which pilgrim band to follow. Once the pilgrims before them cleared the narrow village street, they could pass around them and make good time to the next crossroad.
He looked at the map again and frowned. How did the fugitives continue to elude him? A tutor and a farmer and a girl. A farmer did not kill five armed wardens. A tutor for children did not escape the palace jails. As his mother used to say, an egg that stank when cracked went rotten long beforehand. The thought of his mother brought a smile to his face. He wondered if she still lived. He had often considered sending word to her, but to write letters to a woman who could not read in a village of illiterate fishermen did no good for anyone. He might have paid for a messenger, though. Someone to read aloud his words.
The notion of words recited brought his father to mind, the old man singing ancient songs in a soft voice as they cast their nets into the water, the boat bobbing in the placid ocean waves. His father had always said the fish needed to be coaxed to the net, to be lured in with the songs of lives they would never live.
Ing-Ku looked up from his map and back over his shoulder, an idea forming in his mind like a chart written out in a familiar hand. He might not be able to lure his prey to his net, but he could certainly fish for them.
“Tell the men to strip their things from the horses.” Ing-Ku scanned the edge of the river, finding what he sought.
“Sir?” Dian-Vang’s head snapped around at the odd command.
“We’re selling the horses.” Ing-Ku folded the map and slid it back in the satchel.
“We’re walking, sir?” Dian-Vang’s voice matched the confusion on his face.
“No.” Ing-Ku extended an arm and an index finger. “We’re selling the horses to buy that boat.”
Ing-Ku watched with restrained amusement as Dian-Vang followed his hand, the import of the command registering with his raised eyebrows and opened mouth.
“A very good idea, sir.” Dian-Vang turned his horse around to relay the order to his fellow wardens.
Ing-Ku slid from his saddle, looking at the long fishing boat by the bridge and the wide river stretching north through the forest, hoping this impulsive decision proved more productive than the last. Hoping, as well, that when the time came, he ignored that other notion he spent his days suppressing and fulfilled his mission to kill the girl.
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THE FUGITIVES
SHA-KUTAN
FILAMENT-THIN STRANDS of silk, woven layer upon layer, surrounded and entombed the tiny creature as it altered its essence from one form to another. Sha-Kutan pushed aside the slender branch, the cocoon dangling down — a chrysalis fruit portending a mid-season turn as much as an insectal transformation. He wondered a moment at the colors of the future butterfly’s wings, then proceeded through the woods, back toward the riverbank, two rabbits hanging dead in one hand.
He slid from the forest and walked through the pilgrim encampment along the river’s edge. It had taken nearly three days to find a new bridge to cross the river. The leaders of the band of wayfarers had chosen to set camp on the far side of the stone transfer after making the crossing. Sha-Kutan contributed, as always, by hunting the nearby woods. He had hoped to find a deer or a wild pig, but only managed to catch two rabbits. The noise from the pilgrims drove most of the animals farther into the forest.
He walked past the wagons and makeshift tents spread along the riverbank. Fifty some people settled down for the night, trying to get fires burning and food prepared before sunset. Far fewer pilgrims made camp than before the accident at the last bridge. They had gained three more in passing through a small village on the road that hugged the river, but the loss hung about the group — a palpable pain masking every motion and word.
Not for everyone, of course, and not in the same manner for all. Sha-Kutan said Pashist prayers for the dead each night, but did not weep for them the way many of the pilgrims did as they intoned their pleas to their goddess, tracing their fingers in spirals across their chests. Lee-Nin did not weep either, although he sensed her pain, hidden behind that hard resolve. He understood this as his own barriers against feeling had long been held in place. Unlike Lee-Nin, who constructed her walls to protect her inner nature, he spent years working to dismantle the bricks of the boundary to his heart, its density often resisting his efforts.
He noted another who did not weep or express more than feigned concern for the lost lives of the pilgrims drowned that day — the man most responsible for their deaths. Most of the men who had stood on that bridge were now dead, and none alive knew how Chu-Ki’s anger and arrogance led to the bridge’s collapse. None except Sha-Kutan, and he
refrained from speaking of it for one reason — if the pilgrims gathered to expel the man, he would leave, but he would also take his wife and daughter with him. The woman and girl bore no responsibility for what befell the pilgrim band, but they would be expelled with the culprit.
Thoughts of the man brought worries about his location and potential actions. Sha-Kutan expanded his senses to locate Sao-Tauna. He turned his head to see her by the river, playing in the shallows with Chu-Ki’s daughter, Gao-Pai. They seemed easy companions. Neither girl spoke much. Lee-Nin stood nearby, helping two other women prepare food for the evening meal. She looked to him and he nodded back, his attention diverted by the locus of his previous contemplations.
Chu-Ki stood near the forest edge, leaning his arm against a tree, a pilgrim girl of ten or eleven years backed against the bark, barely visible from the camp. Sha-Kutan altered his course from the cook fires and toward Chu-Ki and the girl. He said nothing as he approached, coming to stand on the side of the man’s outstretched arm. Chu-Ki turned to look at him, a thinly fabricated smile upon his lips.
“Ah, Fan-Nak. Ya bring us game again.” Chu-Ki pointed to the rabbits in Sha-Kutan’s hand.
He and Lee-Nin and the girl did not travel under their real names, using new ones with every pilgrim band they joined. Sha-Kutan had been impressed when Lee-Nin suggested the practice. She easily took to responding to new names, while Sao-Tauna spoke little and responded to no name unless she chose to, so the deception proceeded effortlessly wherever they traveled.
“I need your help to skin them.” Sha-Kutan raised the rabbits in his arm.
There is something else I’d like to skin.
All wicked men may purify their hearts. We know this.
“Ya given’ orders now, is ya?” Chu-Ki’s smile widened as his voice deepened.
“No. I am asking for help.” Sha-Kutan looked at the girl. She looked back, eyes widening. She understood the import of his gaze and turned, running off back to the camp.
“I gots things to do.” Chu-Ki turned to watch the girl run away, his smile fading slightly.
“No. You don’t.” Sha-Kutan watched as Chu-Ki looked around, clearly judging who from the camp stood close enough to hear their words.
We know what he is.
What we are can change.
We should kill him now. It will save time later.
Killing evil men does not end evil.
Close enough.
“Look here, big man.” Chu-Ki’s smile faded as he jabbed a finger into Sha-Kutan’s chest. “I take orders from no man. Nots you. Nots no one.”
It would save time and words.
Words change what we know and who we are.
The right words to the right ears.
“I see you.” Sha-Kutan ignored the finger pressing into his chest as he stared into Chu-Ki’s eyes. Eyes he had seen on many men. Eyes he had seen often in his own reflection years ago.
“Don’t look at me.” Chu-Ki leaned in and fingered the hilt of his sword with his other hand. “Listen and listen good. Tuss with me an’ I’ll kill ya.”
Chu-Ki stared a moment longer, clearly attempting to impress upon Sha-Kutan the danger of his threat. Sha-Kutan made no reply, his expression stone and iron. Chu-Ki blinked and swallowed, revealing the depth of his menace, then turned, the artificial smile returning to his face as he walked back to camp.
He could change.
He will not.
We changed.
We wanted to. He does not.
That might change.
It will not.
It did for us.
TWENTY YEARS AGO
BLOOD, VICIOUS black in the blue-white light of the twin moons, dripped from sword tip to earth, pooling in a puddle beside a worn leather boot. Sha-Kutan wiped his nose on the back of his free hand, breathing hard as he looked around the roadside campsite. Five bodies littered the ground, five men who died with swords in their hands. Five men rent open, flesh torn wide to the chill night air, blood congealing as it dried, eyes staring into endless darkness.
Sha-Kutan winced as the pain in his side gained his attention. He placed a hand there, feeling his pulse pound in the gash cutting through his shirt and his skin. He pulled the hand back to stare at the blood painting his palm. He did not remember being struck. He had not expected them to fight so determinedly. Or to rise from their sleep so quickly. It occurred to him that they might not have been asleep. They might have been laying a trap for a lone bandit, one with a bounty on his head. They might have been hoping to fill with coin the wooden chest sitting too close to the fire, a place of prominence where it might be seen from a distance.
Sha-Kutan kicked a dead man’s arm from his path as he walked to the fire. An iron lock held shut the lid of the small box. He ignored the lock, bringing the edge of his sword down upon the top of the chest, the wood cracking open much like the skull of the man lying next to it had. He reached down and pulled the wooden panels of the lid apart to reveal a pile of rocks.
He bellowed curses to the twin sisters in the sky above, repeatedly kicking the lifeless body of the man who had once guarded the useless coffer of rocks. Bait. They had hooked him — the fish that came and ate the fishermen only to find no use in the boat it captured.
“You have been very busy.”
Sha-Kutan raised his sword as he turned toward the voice. A man walked toward the camp, flickering in and out of sight beneath the dappled shadows of the leaves arching over the remote stretch of road.
“Who is ya?” Sha-Kutan did not care who the man might be. He cared why the stranger would approach a man holding a sword with five dead bodies at his feet.
“I am no one.” The man stepped into the light of the fire, revealing a plum-black face, a shaved head, and the amber robes of a Pashist monk. Why did a Pashist monk walk a Tanshen road at night, risking death from Kam-Djen believers and bandits alike?
“What do ya want?” Sha-Kutan had never killed a monk before. A few priests. Raped a nun. Set a temple on fire. Never yet killed a monk. He held the blade out, blood still dripping to the ground.
“To help you.” The monk stopped at the edge of the camp, near enough to be heard, but not close enough to be attacked in one motion. Sha-Kutan noted the wisdom in that, as well as the fact that the monk spoke Shen with a highborn accent. He wondered where a Pashist monk learned to speak Shen so well.
“Leave or I’ll kill ya, monk.” Sha-Kutan had no need for help. Unless the monk could pray the rocks of the chest into coins of gold. Did the Pashist gods answer such prayers?
“Let us talk before I leave.” The monk kept his eyes on Sha-Kutan, ignoring the bodies of the men.
“Do ya wish ta die?” Sha-Kutan raised the sword and walked a step closer to the monk.
“Do you fear words more than swords?” The monk raised his hands. “I have no blade and my words will not cut you to bleed as you do now.”
Sha-Kutan touched the wound in his side.
“Speak then.”
“I am called Nukapan.” The monk smiled, spreading his palms in a welcoming gesture. “What is your name?”
“Sha-Kutan.”
Let the monk smile at that name.
“Sha-Kutan the Mad.” Nukapan’s smile widened. “Sha-Kutan the Night Terror. Sha-Kutan the Slaughterer. Sha-Kutan the Tower of Death. Sha-Kutan the Depraved. You have many names.”
“All true names.” Sha-Kutan smiled back at the monk.
“We name things to describe them, but the names are not the things themselves.” Nukapan lowered his hands. “Are you more than a name, and if so, what are you?”
“I’m a killer.” Sha-Kutan swung the sword down to point at the body near his feet.
“So I see.” Nukapan looked at the bodies and the blood by firelight. “You are a sword.”
“Yes.” Sha-Kutan nodded at the notion. A sword. A single word that described him perfectly.
“What manner of sword are you?” Nukapan looked from the blade in Sha-
Kutan’s hand to his eyes.
“A deadly one.” Sha-Kutan smiled again. He wondered if the monk carried any coin. A few coins would not be a chest of gold, but it would buy some wine and maybe a woman in the next town.
“All swords are deadly in the proper hands.” Nukapan bent down slowly and picked up the sword of one of the dead men near the fire.
Sha-Kutan tensed. What monk held a sword? Could he be a bounty hunter in disguise? He had fallen for one trap that night. He would not fall for another.
“There are many types of swords with varying grades of steel.” The monk held the blade, orange firelight reflecting from the metal to glow across his face. “Have you heard of Juparti night steel, sometimes called shadow steel? A totally black blade that does not reflect light. A Juparti shadow sword is very sharp, tempered and honed, they say, through The Sight. The blade will never lose its edge. Will not rust. Will not break or shatter. It is even impossible, I have heard, to melt down. Once made, a shadow sword is always as it was fashioned. A shadow sword is impervious to all it cuts, but a common sword will wear down under use, affected by the blood and steel it meets. A common sword can chip, can break, can rust. But a common sword can also be honed and sharpened again, can be polished clean of rust, can even be melted down and remade whole and new.”
“I think I’d like a shadow sword.” Sha-Kutan had heard tales of such swords. They were said to be rare, even in the Juparti Dominion, few seers knowing the art of transforming the steel.
“I am sure you would. What swordsman would not?” Nukapan lowered the blade in his hand. “The question, as I said, is what manner of sword are you? Are you the kind of sword that is cold and impervious to the death it brings, or are you a sword that is altered by the bone and blood that cracks and flows beneath its edge?”
“I’m a shadow sword.” Sha-Kutan raised himself to his full height, a head and a half above the monk. He stared into the man’s eyes, letting him see the depth of the darkness within.
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 47
