Iron Jaw and Hummingbird

by Chris Roberson

  The morning sun was just peeking up over the eastern horizon, and still Huang had not received Jue’s signal from only a little more than a half mile away. Huang had been able to check on the other team’s progress through the night, even if all he could discern were indistinct shadows moving against the night sky, and they had once or twice exchanged signals with flashing lights. Huang’s last signals had gone unanswered, but now as the sun was rising, he should have been able to see Jue’s team plainly at this distance. Come to that, a loud shout would likely be sufficient to reach them, if they weren’t concerned about alerting any military forces that might be patrolling the roadways below.

  Try as he might, though, with the naked eye or aided by the binoculars, Huang could catch no sign of Jue and his men. Could they already have completed the work and retreated to safety? Should Huang order his men to fire the explosives? What if Jue’s team hadn’t yet finished, and starting an avalanche on the northern cliff face only alerted the military to their plans, and the soldiers attacked before the southern face could be blown? Then the mission would have been for naught.

  Huang gritted his teeth, trying to work out what to do next, as the men began affixing the last of the wires to the detonator.

  The sound of pounding feet shook Huang from his reverie, and he looked up to see a small group of men rushing toward them, sabers in hand and lips twisted in rage. Bannermen!

  As the squad of Bannermen rushed his team, all Huang could think was that their approach to the cliffs had not been as stealthy as he had hoped. The military forces patrolling the base of the narrow passage below must have spotted the Fists and ascended the cliff walls to intercept. That they hadn’t attacked before Huang’s team had drilled the bores and planted the explosives suggested that the Fists had been spotted relatively recently, but that was hardly a point of pride. As it stood, the last of the wires had not been fixed to the detonator, and Huang could not blow the cliff face if he wanted to, whether the explosives were in the bores or not.

  It occurred to him to wonder whether Jue’s team, too, were under attack, but then one of the Bannermen rushed him with saber drawn, and Huang was forced to put the question aside for the moment.

  Huang had been taught, when fencing, always to watch the eyes of his opponent, not the blade. The blade could lie, feinting one way then coming back to attack another, but the eyes never could. So it was that a moment passed, and Huang had already parried a graceful thrust, before he got a good look at the Bannerman attacking him.

  The man had thin, delicate features, his fair hair shaved to the top of his head, the rest worn in a braid down his back. Above his right eye was an cross-shaped scar, and a familiar sneer curled his lip.

  The Bannerman lunged forward again, and Huang batted the saber aside as he danced backward.

  “Kenniston An?!” Huang’s eyes widened in shock.

  The Bannerman paused for a moment, raising an eyebrow, surprised. “Huang Fei?” His smile broadened, but the point of his saber did not waver. “Well, this is a surprise.”

  Some part of him had known, Huang realized. Some part of him had known since Gamine had vaguely remembered the name of the scarred Bannerman, only a syllable or two different from that of his childhood friend. Or earlier, perhaps, when he had recognized the bemasked and goggled Bannerman’s fencing style, just before Zhao fell before his blade. Some part of him had always known.

  “Your parents said you were dead.”

  Some part had known, but Huang had not admitted it to himself before now.

  “I’ll have to inform them that they were premature. Of course, once we’re done here, it’s not as if they’ll be wrong.”

  His closest friend from childhood, with whom he had studied the blade year after year, who had gone off and joined the Bannermen while Huang was still a boy—Huang’s oldest friend was the Bannerman who had killed Zhao, the man whom Huang had come to see as a father.

  “What’s the matter, Fei? Aren’t you going to say anything?”

  Kenniston An. The only person who’d ever been able to defeat Huang in a fencing match. Now standing facing him, a sword in hand, and murder in his eyes.

  “Did these people addle your brains before turning you against your own kind, Fei? Or did you only fall in with them after you lost your senses?”

  Huang didn’t bother to respond. What was there to say? He wouldn’t, and couldn’t, ask for mercy. He’d sworn an oath of vengeance, with Zhao’s lifeblood still staining his hands, that he would one day find and kill the bandit chief’s killer. He wasn’t sure he could go through with killing his oldest friend, but he would be damned if he would ask Zhao’s killer for mercy.

  “Oh, well. I’ll give your parents your best wishes, eh, Fei?”

  Huang, silent as a stone statue, launched himself at Kenniston, whipping his sword over his head in a vicious downward stroke. The Bannerman sidestepped and blocked the stroke, then pivoted and brought his own sword in a sideways arc at Huang’s midsection.

  Dancing back frantically out of the sword’s path, Huang put a few paces’ distance between himself and Kenniston, then fell into a ready stance. He’d tried taking the offensive and would now try a defensive strategy.

  Kenniston feinted right, then reversed to the left and lunged, right arm thrusting the saber forward, left arm thrown back for balance. Huang spun his own sword’s point in a circle around Kenniston’s blade, turning it aside and sending up a shower of sparks as the two swords slid against one another.

  Huang riposted, turning his wrist and pushing his saber forward toward Kenniston’s heart, but the Bannerman swung his own sword’s point around in a circle, like a windmill’s blade spinning, and swatted Huang’s blade aside. Then the two fell back a pace, took ready positions, and started again.

  Kenniston was winning. The conclusion was inescapable. Huang’s muscles ached with the strain of parrying so many blows, and his legs were beginning to cramp. He’d been able to spare only brief glances around and saw that his men were holding their own against the Bannermen, but they were beginning to flag. The Fists had just hauled heavy drilling equipment two days overland, and then worked all night to bore a dozen holes in the living rock of the cliff. The Bannermen, though, had just scaled the cliff walls and seemed more than a little flagged themselves.

  But Huang had fenced for too long, against too many opponents, to have any illusions about his chances of besting Kenniston An. The Bannerman would defeat him, and soon.

  There was one weakness to Kenniston’s strategy, though, Huang realized. The Bannerman was fighting as though this were a competition bout, for all that he intended to end the match by burying his sword in Huang’s chest. But Huang knew that this wasn’t a competition bout. This was real life. Life wasn’t sport, as Zhao had always said. Sport had rules, but in real life the only rule was Don’t Get Killed.

  Huang remembered the other things that Zhao had taught him, as well.

  As Kenniston thrust his blade forward in a killing blow, Huang saw an opportunity and took it. He fell backward, the sword’s point passing harmlessly just above him.

  Before Kenniston could shift his weight and turn his sword’s blade downward, Huang broke all the rules of competitive fencing. Scooping up a handful of red sand, he threw it up into the Bannerman’s face, the grains pelting Kenniston in the eyes, nose, and mouth.

  As the Bannerman staggered back, sputtering and trying to wipe the sand from his stinging eyes, Huang pressed his advantage. A sweep of his legs knocked Kenniston off his feet, and in an instant Huang had leaped up, planted a foot on Kenniston’s neck, and plunged his sword down toward the Bannerman’s face, the point stopping only inches from Kenniston’s eyelid.

  “Stop struggling or you’ll have more than grit in your eye, An.”

  Through tear-streaming eyes, the Bannerman looked up at Huang. The arrogant sneer had left Kenniston’s lip.

  “Call off your men, An.”

  Kenniston managed a defiant expression.r />
  Huang lowered the point of the red-bladed saber, now only a finger’s width from Kenniston’s eye. “Call off your men,” he said, his voice level, “or I may just drop this sword.”

  Kenniston snarled, then rolled his eyes to the side, toward where his men were struggling with the Fists. “Stand down, Bannermen! Stand down!”

  Huang didn’t bother to look to see that they complied but listened as the Fists shoved their opponents away from them.

  “You killed a man I cared about, An,” Huang finally said, through his teeth. “Killed him like a rabid dog, on the orders of your master.”

  Kenniston seemed genuinely confused. “Well, I kill a lot of people, Fei, but none who don’t deserve it.”

  Huang seethed. “Like miners striking for better pay and safer conditions? Do they deserve it? Or farmers who just want water for their crops, so they can feed their starving families? Do they?”

  Kenniston, his eyes now bloodshot red, arched an eyebrow. Even sprawled on the ground with Huang’s boot on his neck and Huang’s sword poised above him, the Bannerman managed to look bemused.

  “Is that why you’ve joined up with this Harmonious Fist nonsense, Fei? Because of a few dirty miners and farmers? Just what sort of nonsense have this Hummingbird and his mistress, Iron Jaw, filled your head with, anyway?”

  Huang opened his mouth to answer, then bit back the words. He narrowed his gaze. “Nonsense, An? Is it nonsense to think that people shouldn’t be starved or killed just for wanting justice, fair treatment, and a better life for their children?”

  Kenniston scoffed. “Ancestors preserve us, you’re delusional . People have to work for what they need, and earn a better life. It can’t just be handed to them.”

  “But if it’s taken away from them,” Huang snarled, “it can sure as hell be handed back.”

  Kenniston blew air through his lips, dismissively. “Spout what nonsense you will, it won’t do any good. All of this will be over soon, and your uprising will be a thing of the past.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t think the governor-general was going to let this go on forever, did you? The emperor has agreed to his request for fresh troops and advanced siege engines, which should be arriving anytime now.”

  Huang spared a quick glance at his men, who were gathered together a short ways off, warily watching the Bannermen who slouched on Huang’s opposite side.

  “Ouyang has just announced a new offensive,” Kenniston added, “and it’s only a matter of time before all of you go the way of your scar-faced friend from across the canyon.”

  Huang tightened his grip on the sword’s hilt, and the sword’s blade began to vibrate with his tension. “What . . . what did you say?”

  Kenniston smiled and rolled his eyes in the direction of the opposite cliff wall. “We spotted them last night and took care of them before coming to this side to see to you. If not for the fact that we spotted your signal light in the darkness, we might not have known you were up here at all.”

  Huang gritted his teeth. “What did you do with them?”

  Kenniston’s smile slid into a sneer. “Hadn’t you heard? Governor-General Ouyang has given strict instruction that no insurgents or agitators are to be taken prisoner, but executed on the spot.” The Bannerman’s shoulders twitched in the ghost of a shrug. “I was simply following orders, Fei.”

  In his imagination, Huang saw the sword plunge down into Kenniston’s brain, saw himself driving the life from the body of his oldest friend. He could almost hear the sound of it, of metal wrenching through flesh, could almost smell the metallic tang of blood spurting onto the dry sands.

  But while he could imagine it, he could not accept it. Revenge or no, for Zhao or Jue or who knew how many others, it was a price he was not willing to pay.

  Instead, he raised his sword and lifted his foot from Kenniston’s neck.

  The Bannerman smiled, expecting that he was being released. The smile faded as Huang swung his foot in an arc connecting with Kenniston’s jaw, shattering the bone and rendering the Bannerman unconscious. He fell back onto the hard ground, alive but insensate.

  Then Huang turned and pointed with his blade toward the other Bannermen. “Now, all of you, listen closely.” He poised the blade over Kenniston’s heart. “Let us leave in peace, or your leader is only the first of you to die.”

  The Bannermen exchanged glances. They scowled but agreed to Huang’s terms.

  The trip back was no longer than the journey outward had been, but to Huang it felt like an eternity. Not only had their plan failed, but they’d lost many good people, Jue chief among them. In the end, they hadn’t even bothered to fire the explosives and collapse the northern cliff face, as with the southern cliff untouched it would have been a pointless gesture and, worse, a waste of resources. Instead they had retrieved the explosives, carefully repacking them and carrying them back for use at some later time.

  For two days the Fists traveled, descending into the Forking Paths and then making their way back to their hidden camp, careful to elude any pursuit. They moved in silence whenever possible. The Fists hardly minded. Huang had been in a dark mood ever since the encounter with the Bannermen atop the northern cliff, and it was growing darker with every step. If the choices were silence or hearing just what black thoughts swirled behind Huang’s smoldering gaze, the Fists were quite content to choose silence.

  Gamine was performing the revelation when Huang and the others returned from their mission. She was on the scaffold, having finished delivering the homily to the assembled Fists, and now one of the opera players, ostensibly selected at random from the crowd, was helping her demonstrate the divinely powered invulnerability that had earned her the name Iron Jaw.

  The player was just in the act of swinging his punch, which would be pulled less than an inch from her jaw, when Huang looked up and met Gamine’s gaze. What she saw in his eyes, at that moment, so startled her that she jerked her head up, mouth open in surprise. The movement shifted her position just enough that the player’s swing didn’t stop just short, but connected with full force, impacting on her jaw like a load of bricks.

  Gamine’s head snapped back, and she stumbled backward, stars shooting in her eyes. The player rushed forward, urging apologies, while the audience of Fists gasped as one.

  Within moments, Gamine had regained her composure. She resolutely resisted the urge to rub her sore and bruised jaw while delivering the final benediction to the Fists, after a brief explanation that the powers had wished to demonstrate her devotion to them by momentarily withdrawing their support from her, and that in standing steadfast and taking the full blow without flinching, Gamine had passed their test. Then she had hurried from the scaffold to hear what was behind the dark look in Huang’s eyes.

  Seated around the table in the command center, the inner circle listened attentively as Huang related the story of the last five days, of what had befallen them above the Grand Trunk junction, and what had happened to Jue and the Fists in the other team.

  Gamine listened carefully, occasionally prodding the tender spot on her jaw, where the flesh was already purpling into a vicious bruise.

  Finally, Huang related what his former friend had told him about the troop buildup and siege engines, about the new offensive, and finally about the standing orders that no Fists were to be taken alive.

  “Do you believe him?” Mama Noh asked suspiciously.

  Huang nodded. “Whatever else he is, Kenniston An is not a liar. He may have exaggerated somewhat, but what he said is essentially the truth.”

  “And you’re sure that you weren’t followed back?” Temujin put in nervously.

  Huang shook his head. “We took special care, and there was no sign of pursuit.” He paused and placed his fists on the table before him. “But we can’t hide in here forever. It’s only a matter of time before an airship passes overhead or a soldier stumbles into the canyon, and then they’ll be upon us.”

  “And
then they’ll just kill us all,” Ruan said, his brow knit, his mouth drawn into a tight line, leaving him looking even more like a skeleton than ever. Of all of them, save perhaps Huang, he seemed to be taking the news of Jue’s death the hardest.

  “Yes.” Huang gave a curt nod and flicked a glance at the skeletal bandit. “And then they’ll kill us all.” He let out a ragged sigh. “Some of us might manage to escape again, at the cost of still more of our people’s lives. But then they would find us again, and some would escape, at the cost of still more. And on and on. We can continue to play cat and mouse with them from here to the Great Southern Basin and back, but like Kenniston said, it’s just a matter of time. The governor-general, with the emperor at his back, has an effectively inexhaustible supply of men and arms to send after us. And what have we got?”

  “We’ve got righteousness,” Gamine said, speaking for the first time since they’d gathered together. “We’ve got the hope for harmony. And we’ve got the powers.”

  “Ancestors, not this again,” Ruan said, rolling his eyes.

  Huang gave her a hard look. “You talk a lot about special destiny, Gamine. Was Jue bleeding out his life far from any home he ever knew his special destiny?”

  Gamine opened her mouth, then shut it again. She took a deep breath, then let it out gradually through her nostrils. “Jue’s death was a tragedy. I . . . I don’t know, perhaps he did have a special destiny, but your friend Kenniston—”

  “No friend of mine!” Huang seethed.

  Gamine nodded by way of apology. “But when Bannerman Kenniston killed him, he prevented Jue from fulfilling his destiny. Maybe destiny isn’t just something that happens but is a plan we’re supposed to make happen.” She paused and looked around the table at the others. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I don’t think it’s my destiny to be hunted and killed by Ouyang and his thugs, do you?”