Lhando turned toward the darkness, the stars of the moonless night giving little illumination to the land.
“There were two earlier in the day, but I can’t see anything now.” Lhando squinted.
“I see no one either.” Yeth swept her eyes across the murky landscape.
“How you no see? Man there and there.” Shifhuul pointed with an outstretched paw.
Tarak saw the men easily, his vision well attuned to the night, but he took the time to scan the surrounding area in case more men hid in the shadows of trees. The two guards stood in the field at the corners of the castle to remain in sight of one another. That would make things difficult, but not impossible.
“Maybe we hunt this problem from the wrong direction.” Yeth glanced back at the castle gate. “Instead of trying to keep them out, maybe we let them. Open the gate as a trap. Archers from the walls. Pits with stakes in the courtyard. Clay jars with lamp oil thrown and lit to set them aflame. In the confusion, we three could kill many of the human militia before they knew what befell them.”
“Wicked mind.” Shifhuul smiled approvingly. “Smart for yutan.”
“Smart indeed, but it would take longer than we have to set that trap.” Tarak looked again at the sheetoo militiamen watching the castle from the edges of the cornfield. “We need to strike them before they can strike us. We need to go over the wall.”
Tarak looked to the ground a hundred paces below, feeling an echo of another moment and place fill him with dread. He hoped he made the honorable choice this time.
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THE FUGITIVES
SHA-KUTAN
THE SHADOWS of night crept across the river as the sun sank behind the trees.
Where?
Nearby.
Impossible.
Sha-Kutan stood. He had been repairing a wagon wheel beside a fire at the edge of the riverside camp. The sensation had been nearly imperceptible, practically instantaneous, but unmistakable in its nature, something he had not sensed in more than twenty years.
Could it be her?
She would not warn of her presence in such a way.
Then what?
Sha-Kutan scanned the campsite, looking for Lee-Nin and Sao-Tauna. What he had perceived might mean danger. It might mean they needed to flee quickly. His eyes easily found Lee-Nin still tending to the dinner pot, preparing to serve the pilgrims just beginning to line up for the evening meal. He did not see Sao-Tauna. He looked again. He did not spot the girl Gao-Pai either. The two often played together. Maybe they had wandered into the forest. His jaw clenched as he realized the other person missing from the riverside camp — Chu-Ki.
Sha-Kutan reached out with the essence of himself, searching for the girl. He found her effortlessly enough. In the forest. Not far from camp. He left the broken wheel, the man working with him complaining at his silent departure. He pushed through the branches and strode between the trees, heading straight for where he sensed he would find the girl.
Surely she would scream if in danger. The thought of something happening to Sao-Tauna arose an anger in his heart as he had never experienced. The knowledge of what he would do to the man Chu-Ki made his hands clench, nails digging deep into the flesh of his palms.
If he harms her…
He will die.
Sha-Kutan nearly snapped a limb from the side of a tree in the haste of his passing, coming to a stop in a small clearing of low grass beneath a wooded temple of arched branches. Sao-Tauna and the girl, Gao-Pai, sat in the leaves holding caterpillars in their hands in the fading light. He stopped, staring at the girls, marveling at the insects in their tiny palms.
Coincidence?
Or omen?
“It is dark and almost time for the evening meal.” Sha-Kutan stared down at the girls.
Sao-Tauna and Gao-Pai stood slowly, still cupping the larva in their hands.
“What are you doing here?” Sha-Kutan asked.
Sao-Tauna held up her hand with the caterpillar. He did not understand the answer, but knew it to be an evasion.
“You are too far from camp. Your mother does not like you to be too far away, especially at such a late hour.” Sha-Kutan ignored the feeling of his own deception that came with his words.
The girls shrugged. Not an apology, but with two girls who barely spoke, he did not expect contrition.
“Have you seen Chu-Ki?” Sha-Kutan looked to Gao-Pai. “Your father.”
Gao-Pai paused a moment and then shook her head. Sao-Tauna remained still and silent.
“Do you know where he is?” Sha-Kutan ignored Gao-Pai, turning his attention entirely toward Sao-Tauna.
Sao-Tauna stared back at him, saying nothing, her eyes speaking in whispers that could not be heard by human senses.
She knows.
She more than knows.
How is it possible?
I do not know.
“Dinner is soon. We should get back to camp.” Sha-Kutan turned to walk back to the camp, hearing and sensing the girls fall in behind him.
What does it mean?
It means we know why they wish the girl dead.
She is a danger.
To us more so than others.
What do we do?
Should we leave them?
Sha-Kutan stopped at the edge of the forest as his senses relayed a presence to his mind. He looked up river. Far beyond the bridge and the pilgrim campsite, near a bend in the waterway two spans away, a boat came into view. He did not need to see the occupants to distinguish who they were.
“We must talk to your mother,” Sha-Kutan said to Sao-Tauna. He moved his eyes to Gao-Pai. “And you must rejoin your own mother.” The girl nodded.
Sha-Kutan walked slowly through the camp, knowing the haste he needed to display would only attract attention. When he reached Lee-Nin, serving scoops of soup to the hungry pilgrims, he leaned close to her ear.
“We must leave.”
“Certainly, my husband.” Lee-Nin calmly ladled another bowl of soup and handed it to a man with a smile. She turned to the woman beside her, Gao-Pai’s mother, and passed her the ladle. “Can you help? My husband needs me for a moment.”
Lee-Nin reached down to hold Sao-Tauna’s hand as they followed Sha-Kutan to the woods. He stopped by their space in the camp and picked up the canvas bag with their few possessions, carrying it low to avoid attention. He glanced back to see Gao-Pai standing beside her mother, the girl the only one who seemed to notice them as they walked out of the camp.
“What is it?” Lee-Nin whispered as she smiled at a pilgrim woman passing along the riverside.
“The men come again. Up river. In a boat. They will be here soon.” Sha-Kutan looked toward the river, and Lee-Nin turned to see where he stared.
“We could steal two of the horses.” Lee-Nin glanced to the wagons near the bridge and the horses tied there. “We could gain at least an hour down the road before they realize we’re gone and steal horses themselves.”
“I have another plan.” Sha-Kutan pushed the branch of a tree aside as he made a path for Lee-Nin and Sau-Tauna to follow into the forest.
If it works.
It will work.
He held the branch aside as Lee-Nin picked Sao-Tauna up into her arms. The girl went slightly rigid at the woman’s touch, as she always did, but she spared a smile for Sha-Kutan.
If we were wise, we would leave the dangerous girl.
If we were wise, we would have hidden better in the woods behind the house.
And they would not have found us.
And the girl would be dead.
So what good…
…Is wisdom?
Sha-Kutan led Lee-Nin and Sao-Tauna into the forest, hoping he had time to make his plan work, anxious for the full darkness of night to engulf the camp.
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THE WITNESS
HASHEL
A SQUIRREL dug in the ground, burying an acorn in the short grass of a Tanshen palace garden. Hashel watched the animal conceal its treasure and scamper off across the walking path and into the nearby bushes. He sat beneath an oak tree in the gardens, leaning against the trunk, eating a cold chicken leg and waiting for the night to settle, for sleep to take him somewhere far away, a new place with new people and new things. Ondromead sat to the side, licking his fingers after finishing his portion of the chicken they had found in the palace kitchens.
“An odd day.” Ondromead tapped the leather satchel containing the book at his side. “No deaths. No births. No fires. No accidents. No storms. Nothing unusual. Nothing memorable. Perhaps I missed something. Did I miss something?”
Hashel shrugged at Ondromead’s question. He had not seen anything particularly interesting throughout the day, but that did not mean something hadn’t happened. He did appreciate not needing to witness another death. Especially after the town where they tried to burn those people. Did they burn people in palaces?
“Very strange.” Ondromead looked up at the sky as though speaking to himself. As Hashel never answered, he really did speak to himself. “Maybe something will happen in the night. Something before we fall asleep. A comet possibly. I once had a day where I thought nothing would be worth recording until a meteor shower lit up the night sky. I eventually saw many of the people affected by that meteor shower. The widow of a man who died when a flaming rock from the sky struck their home. The soldier fighting in a war triggered by priests who thought the meteors a sign from their gods to attack their ancestral enemies. A girl who found one of the meteors years later. The smith who forged a blade from the sky steel. A king who wielded the blade in battle. Yes. Perchance a meteor shower. Or maybe a comet.”
Hashel raised his eyes to the sky as well, searching for something among the stars that might move or signal the arrival of a celestial message. The sound of footsteps on the nearby path brought his eyes back to the ground. A man walked along the path. Two men with swords at their waists followed several paces behind him.
“Hmm.” Ondromead scrutinized the men. “I know that man. Tahn Taujin Lin-Pi. I saw him … twenty years ago. He was a young man then. His uncle did something remarkable. Terrifying, but remarkable.”
Another man approached the tahn from the opposite direction. He knelt on one knee and bowed his head.
“You have news?” Tahn Lin-Pi asked in Shen as he stopped before the kneeling man, speaking in a tone too low for the men behind to hear, but not so quiet as to escape Hashel’s ears in the near shadows of the tree branches. He found he understood all the languages of the people they witnessed. He assumed it to be something gifted to him by being near Ondromead. Like the words of the songs that came to him in many tongues when he sang. He understood Shen and could sing it when they were in Daeshen and Tanshen, or Easad in Atheton and Nevaeo, or Mumtiba in Juparti and Punderra. Even more reason to stay close to the old man. Strange gifts that he did not fear because they seemed intended for him alone. Who would grant such blessings for wicked reasons?
“I do, my tahn.” The man stood up. Hashel guessed him to be a soldier of some significant standing. He wore ornate robes and a finely decorated scabbard beside his legs. “A message by night jay from Commander Ing-Ku.”
“Has he managed to lose more men?” The tahn’s voice sounded angry.
“No, my tahn.” The soldier seemed embarrassed by the tahn’s question.
“Has he found my daughter?” Tahn Lin-Pi looked away from the soldier.
“He writes that he is close, my tahn.” The soldier lowered his eyes. “He says that the woman helping her has recruited the assistance of a man.”
“What man?” The tahn turned back to the soldier.
“He believes him to be a former warden or soldier. They travel together as a family and hide among the pilgrim bands.” Hashel noted how the man’s voice filled with disgust at the mention of the pilgrims.
“Two heresies combined.” Tahn Lin-Pi appeared disturbed.
Hashel wondered if the woman had stolen the tahn’s daughter. How awful to be held captive and separated from one’s family. Why would the woman do such a thing? Did she want coin? Had she lost her own child? As Hashel pondered these questions, he noticed Ondromead scribbling down the conversation in his black book.
“Commander Ing-Ku will not fail, my tahn.”
“If he does not kill my daughter, he should not return.”
Kill his daughter? Hashel dropped the bone of the chicken leg and sat up straight. The tahn had sent a man to kill his daughter? Why would he do such a thing? Did the woman flee with the girl to save her?
“Ahh, I see,” Ondromead muttered beside him.
“And when he returns, you know what must happen to the commander and his men,” the tahn said.
“Upon their return, they will be killed before they reach the palace.” The soldier nodded his understanding.
“My brother must never hear a hint that my daughter did not die of fever.” Tahn Lin-Pi held the man’s eyes.
“His Ascendancy will never learn such things from my lips.” The soldier bowed to emphasize his words.
“Good. My brother would have my head and those of my family as quickly as he would take those of a Daeshen heretic,” Tahn Lin-Pi said. “My brother’s devotion is great and is unbounded by familial loyalty. What he would do to someone not of the family to keep this secret is unmentionable.”
“I understand, my tahn.” The soldier bowed again.
The tahn waited a moment and then walked on, following a different path through the palace garden than the soldier. After the guards trailing the tahn passed out of earshot, Ondromead sighed loudly.
“We can fall asleep now.” Ondromead sounded sad as he packed his book back in his satchel. “There won’t be any meteor storms or comets tonight.”
Hashel watched Ondromead curl up on the grass beside the gnarled roots of the tree. He didn’t feel like sleeping yet, but lay down beside Ondromead just the same. He didn’t know when the traveling occurred each night, but he knew it happened while he slept, and he didn’t want Ondromead to travel alone without him. That would make him sad beyond words, and he already spoke no words in his sadness. He drifted off to sleep, dreaming of a girl and a woman and a man running from soldiers through woods and fields and towns and along a river.
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THE THRONE
RHOG-KAN
“WORD HAS come. It is official. The Tanshen army crossed the border two days ago, my zhan.”
“How many?”
“They crossed in three places, my zhan. Two thousand men in each company.”
Tigan Rhog-Kan clenched his fists behind his back, knuckles popping loudly. He stood beside Prime Councilor Kao-Rhee in Zhan Tin-Tsu’s private study, the calls of crickets in the palace gardens filtering through an open window. Tin-Tsu sat behind a large poda wood desk, his chin sitting on his fists as though in deep thought. The sconces along the wall cast his face in a contrast of soft light and harsh shadows.
Rhog-Kan resisted the urge to frown. The young zhan should think deeply. He had much to contemplate, such as the fact that if he had allowed Rhog-Kan to fortify the castles along the border with extra men after his coronation, the Tanshen Tigans might have considered against a new incursion in the south.
“What are their goals?” Zhan Tin-Tsu looked up from the map of the realm on his desk.
“They will attack the castles of the lesser tahns along the border, Your Ascendancy.” Rhog-Kan kept his tone even, the ignorance of the question making him want to shout his reply. The Tanshen wanted to invade their nation, kill the leaders, and rule it as their own. How could this not be clear? He tried to simplify the situation for the priest turned zhan. “They will try to claim the cast
les as their own and hold them to use as bases for further incursions. They have done this many times in the past twenty years.”
“Have we not done the same?” Zhan Tin-Tsu tilted his head to the side with the question.
Rhog-Kan thought the young zhan looked like a dog confused about where its next meal might come from. He would prefer a dog sat on the throne. He had found that as the days since the coronation passed, the new zhan’s limited understanding of the war caused his patience to flee him more readily than at any time in his life. The future of the dominion rested in the hands of a man who issued proclamations protecting heretics rather than persecuting those who might be agents of their enemy. Fortunately, Kao-Rhee spared him the necessity of a reply.
“Both sides have attempted to lay hold of the land of the other throughout the years, my zhan, but only the throne you sit upon holds the rightful claim to the greater Shen dominion.” Kao-Rhee looked at the map. “Our borders have changed many times in the past two decades, but we must ensure that if they alter from the lines of the Old Border Road, that they do so in our favor.”
“Our troops are close, yes?” Zhan Tin-Tsu traced the line of the Old Border Road along the map with his finger.
“Tigan Yan-Lo commands five thousand men gathered from three eastern strongholds and he marches south with all haste, Your Ascendancy.” Rhog-Kan ignored the urge to rub the man’s face in the map as one did with a dog that had wet the floor. “He should reach the border around the same time as the Tanshen companies.”
“Then our troops are outnumbered.” Zhan Tin-Tsu looked up from the map again.
“I advised weeks ago to send more soldiers south to man the strongholds, my zhan.” Rhog-Kan did not conceal from his voice the annoyance he felt. “You believed it would send the wrong signal to our adversary and encourage conflict.”
The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1) Page 52
