Steel Crow Saga

by Paul Krueger

  “Kurihara—” Tala growled.

  “You haven’t been allowed to speak yet, Sanbuna,” Ruomei said before returning her attention to Kurihara. “If my troops open fire, the misfortune would surely fall heaviest on the dozens of innocents crowded in that train behind you. And if I ordered my guards’ shades to search the train thoroughly for other potential dissidents, I assure you: They would not do so gently.”

  The assembled Cicadas muttered in outrage. Kurihara, never one for muttering, growled: “You wouldn’t!”

  Xiulan, on the other hand, knew with grim certainty what Ruomei would and wouldn’t do.

  “As I understand it,” Ruomei said, “you were the one who dragged these innocents by the dozen into a battle you were fighting. To act surprised that they might be in danger now…one would almost think that you and your little band of freedom fighters don’t actually have the Tomodanese people’s best interests at heart.” She took a step forward, and her pleasantly polite tone took on an edge sharp enough to shave with. “Because I can assure you, Kurihara Kosuke, son of Kurihara Daisuke: I certainly don’t.”

  “Lord Kurihara, if I may?” Xiulan piped up. “I would put stock in her sincerity, were I in your position.”

  Kurihara gritted his teeth. “The Steel Cicadas fight tirelessly for the future of Tomoda and its people,” he said. “There’s no need for bloodshed. Give us our reward money, and we’ll be on our way.”

  “If we deduct that reward of jian from the sum total of bounties that have been placed for your own head,” Ruomei said mildly, “you would see that you actually still owe the Snow-Feather Throne four thousand jian.” She turned to her soldiers and didn’t even bother to change languages as she continued: “Soldiers, collect it for me.”

  In perfect lockstep, her troops and their tiger-shades took one step forward, the collective footfall echoing through the empty train platform as a single noise.

  Tala gritted her teeth. “Is she trying to get us killed?”

  Xiulan shook her head. “What others try, Ruomei does.”

  Kurihara seemed to be running the odds himself. “You may have numbers,” he said, “but we would make your cost of victory dear. We would die as heroes.”

  Xiulan’s mouth was dry with fear. Even though she knew her life was valuable to the Shang troops assembled, all it would take was a single stray bullet to make an already-bad day a hall-of-fame worst.

  She swallowed. Now wasn’t the time to think like a person, she told herself. Now was the time to think like a rat. And if there was one thing rats always did, it was survive.

  “But you have no wish to die a hero, do you not?” Xiulan said. “Or indeed, to die at all. Not when you’re a young man in love.”

  Kurihara’s spine stiffened.

  “Do you really wish to go to your grave without seeing your beloved prince again?” Xiulan said. “To let these fine Shang soldiers—and they are fine Shang soldiers—fill your body with shard after shard of the metal you worship, when instead there lies the tantalizing possibility that one day, you might once again have the chance to run your fingers through Prince Jimuro’s hair, or savor his touch on the small of your back, or enjoy the thrill that races through you when he laughs at something you’ve said?”

  Tala stared. “How did you say that all in one breath?”

  “How I feel about His Brilliance is hardly relevant!” Kurihara protested, glancing around uneasily. For her part, Ruomei said nothing, retreating behind her own dark glasses and an inscrutable smile.

  Xiulan shrugged. “I merely wish to remind you that you have more at stake in this very moment than you might first assume.”

  “And besides,” Tala added, “I saw what I saw. You’re way past the ‘feelings’ stage, Kurihara.”

  Kurihara glanced around helplessly. Xiulan was struck by how young he looked, suddenly. He was a few years her senior, but in this moment he exuded the vague aura of a child, lost in the woods and trying his best not to fear the distant snapping of twigs.

  “Release my sister and drop your weapons,” Ruomei said simply. “I’ll see you and your…comrades…returned to your individual families, where dealing with you can be their problem. Or I can make it my problem, and you can see a firsthand demonstration of my effective problem-solving skills.”

  Kurihara puffed up his chest like a proud rooster, and for a moment Xiulan was certain that even after all that, he would force the issue. But then he deflated, and the proud rooster became a lame duck. “Weapons down,” he said quietly to his Cicadas. “Weapons down.”

  As Shang soldiers moved forward to take them into custody, Tala caught Xiulan’s eye. “How’d you know that would work?”

  Xiulan grinned. “We Shang have a rather old and famous saying about one’s enemies, and the knowing thereof.”

  “ ‘Know thy enemy’?”

  “Yes, that’s the one. And speaking of…” She nodded to her approaching sister.

  “Unbind them at once,” Ruomei said to the nearest soldier, and moments later both Xiulan and Tala had free hands again. “Come along, meimei. You’ve caused the family enough problems and embarrassment for one lifetime.” She regarded Tala. “And as for this one…”

  “Ah, forgive me,” Xiulan said, pointedly sticking to Tomodanese so Tala could understand. She and Tala had only recently met, but she trusted the sergeant to safeguard her well-being far more than she did her sister. “Allow me to introduce Sergeant Tala, daughter of…” She trailed off and cast a questioning glance Tala’s way.

  “…two people,” the sergeant finished. “And I’ll be thrilled to report to General Erega that you were here to rescue me, and not waiting to assassinate the Iron Prince like our intelligence suggested.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ruomei said, predictably. “But I’m glad to have been here to prove in person how incorrect those awful rumors were. Shang holds only the highest regard for its cherished ally, the Republic of Sanbu, and wishes for nothing more than productive and expedient peace talks.”

  As Ruomei was talking, a realization fell into Xiulan’s mind, heavy and juicy as a ripe fruit. She couldn’t believe it. Now was the perfect time.

  “It’s funny you should mention those,” Xiulan said. “I take it that you mean to attend them yourself?”

  “Of course,” Ruomei said. “I’ll be at Father’s side the entire time.”

  “I find the prospect of that to be dubious at best,” said Xiulan.

  “I know you deliberately stopped speaking just then because you’re hoping I’ll ask you something like, And why is that?” said Ruomei.

  “Because, Second Princess Shang Ruomei,” Xiulan said, “I, Twenty-Eighth Princess Shang Xiulan, in my capacity as your sister and peer, challenge you to gui juedou.”

  The soldiers within earshot may not have necessarily understood Tomodanese, but they all knew the phrase gui juedou. They looked at one another uncertainly, a few muttering among themselves.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Princess?” Tala said, but Xiulan’s focus was riveted on her older sister.

  The Second Princess returned that attention in kind. And then she gently tilted her head back and began to laugh. It was a delicate sound, like a razor being scraped across skin, and it made Xiulan’s blood boil. It was the exact same laugh she’d heard when Ruomei had bestowed upon her the soubriquet that had haunted her until she’d turned it into an armor unto itself.

  “Meimei,” Ruomei said, “I don’t have time for your storybook nonsense. I have a consulate to run. A staff I should be getting back to. Piles of paperwork that require my personal attention.”

  “I’m an officer of the law,” Xiulan said, “and no stranger to paperwork. I speak with authority when I tell you: It can wait.”

  Ruomei reached for Xiulan’s long bang. “You’ve had an ordeal. Self-inflic
ted, but an ordeal nonetheless. Come home. Rest. We can discuss—”

  A hand shot out, grabbing Ruomei’s wrist before it could touch Xiulan. And there, slightly interposed between one sister and another, was Sergeant Tala. She wore a glare that looked downright murderous. For a moment Xiulan saw something deeper behind her eyes, too: a hunger, deep and primal.

  She remembered what Tala had told her about her fantastical condition. Was this an expression of it? Was she about to rip Ruomei’s soul in two?

  At once shouts arose from her sister’s guards. In a heartbeat Tala found herself surrounded by a trio of roaring tiger-shades. Ruomei’s calm shattered completely, a stricken look of panic on her face. Xiulan couldn’t see her own face, but she imagined her expression was much the same.

  Sergeant Tala didn’t so much as flinch.

  “Sergeant,” Xiulan said slowly. “Think very carefully about what you’re doing…”

  The film of rage that had settled on Tala’s face disappeared. She let go of Ruomei’s wrist, then took two steps back and sank into a Shang-style bow, with her hands clasped together and offered forward. “Uh, sorry, Your Majesty,” she said. “No one touches Princess Xiulan.”

  She straightened and took her place slightly in front of Xiulan, whose mood was currently transitioning from shocked to downright gleeful. She could barely believe what she’d just seen. In Shang, Ruomei commanded the adoration of the people, the respect of their siblings, and the distant passive aggression from their father that was supposed to pass for approval. What with her heritage, the vast personal wealth she had begun to accrue with the reopening of Shang’s national markets, and the network of political connections she commanded, the Second Princess was virtually untouchable.

  Except the good sergeant had just disproven that in the most delightfully literal way possible.

  Ruomei did an admirable job of regaining her composure, though Xiulan noted with satisfaction that the slight tremor in her hands betrayed her. “Why do you even want a gui juedou, meimei?”

  “If I win,” Xiulan said, “you will relinquish your post as diplomat in chief, citing…I suppose whichever cause you prefer. I won’t be so cruel as to stipulate. But you will nominate me to serve in your stead.”

  Ruomei bristled. “This is absolutely ridiculous, mei—”

  “You don’t have permission to refer to me that way,” Xiulan said coldly. “Not after everything.”

  Slowly, Ruomei reached up and pulled her glasses off her face. Her eyes regarded Xiulan with some kind of pity, and it stung like a slap in the face. “If you’re sure you want to go down this path—”

  “I am quite so,” Xiulan said, more vehemently than she’d meant.

  “—then for me to accept the challenge, you would have to offer up something of commensurate value as your stake. What do you have to offer, m—Xiulan?”

  Xiulan was ready for this question. “I’ll wager you my claim to the throne.”

  Next to her, Tala twitched in surprise. Xiulan felt fleeting appreciation for the soldier’s discipline that stopped the sergeant from undermining her.

  She expected Ruomei to jump at the chance, but to her surprise the Second Princess looked uncomfortable. “You have no claim to the throne. Not really.”

  “You’ve always been scared of the ways I am uniquely capable of disrupting your position,” Xiulan said. “Wouldn’t you like the permanent assurance of my neutrality?”

  “Only if I believed for a moment that, should you lose, you would remain neutral,” Ruomei said before softening her tone and switching back to Shang. “Xiulan, please consider what you’re giving up.”

  “I have considered it,” Xiulan said, stubbornly remaining in Tomodanese. “I’ve considered it every day of my life for nineteen years. Now, do you find the terms agreeable or not?”

  Ruomei’s mouth twisted. “I don’t find them agreeable,” she said. Then she sighed. “But I do agree.” She gestured to the train platform. “Given your love of slumming, I imagine this will be a suitable venue for you.”

  Xiulan beamed. “You do care, after all.”

  Ruomei shook her head, then turned on her heel and began issuing orders in Shang. She didn’t raise her voice, but she didn’t have to. The soldiers all jumped to obey, practically falling over themselves as they fanned out to clear space on the platform.

  “Okay,” Tala said, “I’m going to need a quick explanation, right now, of what the fuck just happened here.”

  “Gui juedou,” Xiulan said simply. “An honor duel between peers of privilege, to settle disputes. The practice has become archaic and fallen out of common usage. But,” she added with a twinkle in her eye, “a careful reading of the Crane’s Law would reveal that it was never formally superseded by our more traditional judiciary. Once she provides her assent, the duel and its results become legally binding.”

  Tala nodded, then frowned. “Hang on,” she said. “Ruomei’s been giving you trouble for years.”

  Xiulan’s expression darkened. “Indeed.”

  “So if you’re so sure you’ll beat her now, and the law was always there,” Tala said, “why didn’t you challenge her before?”

  “Because,” Xiulan said, “I never had an adequate champion before.”

  “Champion…?” Tala said. But Xiulan knew that in moments, she would notice that it was not Ruomei striding to the center of the ring created by the Shang soldiers, but rather the captain who had first treated with Kurihara. And for that matter, all the expectant eyes that had fallen on Sergeant Tala.

  And just like that, Tala noticed.

  By the time she leveled a glare at Xiulan, she had already retreated a good twenty feet from the sergeant. “All part of my grand plan, good Sergeant!” she called from a safe distance, though she got the distinct impression that Tala was trying to set her aflame with her mind.

  Tala sighed and rolled her broad shoulders. “You’re lucky I’m in a fighting mood, Princess.” Then she called: “Beaky!”

  Violet light heralded the arrival of a black bird. Next to the tiger-shade he was up against, Tala’s own shade didn’t look too impressive. Certainly, Ruomei didn’t think so, from the lopsided smile she exchanged with a nearby aide.

  Xiulan, on the other hand, calmly removed her pipe from her coat, then tipped her hat to her older sister.

  As Ruomei’s champion and Tala squared off, Xiulan felt a current of electricity running just beneath her skin. All over her body, her hair stood on end, and she felt her pactmark throb on the surface of her eye. Nestled in the depths of her soul, Kou seemed to feel the significance of what was about to happen here.

  She glared across the ad hoc arena at Ruomei, who stood with her arms folded while a servant cooled her with a large peacock-feather fan. After a lifetime of being at each other’s throats, this would be it: the long-awaited reckoning in this struggle of sisterhood. In her head, she already saw it playing out like Bai Junjie’s final reckoning with Professor Sakini, the fiendish Tomodanese mastermind who had been his archenemy for most of the series. Theirs had been a dramatic showdown, a deadly game of wits inside an abandoned mansion that had ended, after great struggle, with the professor outwitted at last.

  Going in, Xiulan knew it wouldn’t be the same. For one thing, there was always a whiff of jingoism about Bai Junjie’s stories that hardly applied here. But beyond that, this would be all the more satisfying. The great detective had had to fake his death for a year following his triumph. Xiulan would be able to revel in hers straightaway.

  Got it figured out already, then? Lee snarked in her head. Why not just save some time and skip the fight, then?

  She smiled at even the illusory sound of Lee’s voice. Once all this business with Ruomei was settled, she would be able to find Lee at last…and if necessary, she thought as she glared at the retreating figure of Kurihara Kosuke, avenge her. But f
irst, there was a long, hard battle to be fought and won.

  The tiger-shade barely made it halfway across the platform when Beaky swooped down, just barely grazing the creature’s back with his talons. The tiger-shade turned and snapped its jaws ineffectually at the crow-shade, but Beaky had already gained altitude again, and the tiger’s teeth closed over only open air.

  Ground attacks against a flying shade? Xiulan thought with a smirk. It’s not very effective…

  She had no idea how right she was.

  Suddenly Beaky dropped from above, wings folded to his sides and beak forward like a rocket. The tiger-shade leapt up, ready to intercept the smaller shade in midair. But at the last moment, Beaky flared out his wings and whipped his talons forward, raking them across the tiger-shade’s face before latching onto its upper brow. He gripped tightly, then bent forward and sent a savage peck right into the base of the other shade’s neck. The shade cried out as its entire body stiffened and convulsed. Its legs collapsed out from under it.

  Energy crackled over the wound as it began to heal, but by then Beaky had repositioned himself. He drove his beak right into the creature’s skull again. And when that wound began to heal up, Beaky pecked it again.

  Sergeant Tala had her back to Xiulan, but Xiulan didn’t need to see her face. The tight fists clenched at her sides told her everything she needed to know about the sergeant’s mental state.

  “Yield!” Xiulan called across the platform.

  Ruomei’s champion stared at her shade with wide, horrified eyes, even as the tiger-shade suffered having one of its own pecked out. She glanced back over her shoulder at Ruomei.

  Ruomei frowned. And then at long last, she gave a single curt nod.

  The champion hung her head and reached out a hand. As quickly as the tiger-shade had appeared, it dissipated into a cloud of light.

  A terrified, awful hush fell over the Shang troops, and Xiulan became keenly aware that all the eyes on the platform were squarely on her.