The Dragonslayer's Heart

by Resa Nelson

  She walked toward him. Since leaving the Southlands where Benzel had trained the up-and-coming dragonslayers, Pingzi tried to use his native Northlander language whenever she spoke to him in order to keep her skills intact. Today, however, Pingzi felt lazy and decided to speak in her own Far Eastern language instead. “Benzel. What are you doing here?”

  The old man turned to her with a smile.

  His age reminded Pingzi of her own. In the years since they’d first met, Pingzi had born and raised children, now old enough to live their own lives outside of Zangcheen. Her daughter, the eldest, had married a Northlander, requiring her to live abroad for her own safety. Pingzi married a man she thought she loved, only to discover throughout the years that his character wasn’t as strong as she first believed. Once their children left home, Pingzi’s husband left to pursue a more compliable woman in a different province.

  The sun had burned and tanned Benzel’s pale Northlander skin so many times during the past several years that it looked like leather. His bald head reflected the sunlight. His eyes still twinkled bright blue, even though his white beard now grew sparse. “Making myself useful.”

  These particular neighbors irritated Pingzi because they often took advantage of Benzel’s offer to work without giving any payment in return. She pressed her lips together in frustration. “You’re just encouraging them.”

  Benzel’s smile sagged. “Consider it atonement.”

  Pingzi’s spirits sank. “Don’t say that!”

  “Am I not a demon?”

  “Not now. Not anymore.”

  “Because you succeeded in quelling me.”

  “Of wanting to murder your fellow Northlanders, yes.”

  Benzel of the Wolf bristled. “I would hardly call them Northlanders. ‘Cold-blooded butchers’ seems more appropriate.” He crossed his arms in defiance. “And I’ve never understood why I’m a demon to be quelled when they’re the ones who brought so much mayhem to the Northlands.”

  Pingzi wondered how many times she’d have to explain it. “The berserkers who harmed you and your people are incorrigible. Nothing can change them. They are lost souls.” Her voice softened. “But you’re not. Most people are like you: if tragedy leads them astray, a demon queller can drive the madness out of their hearts.”

  “Sometimes I wonder if you should have left well enough alone,” Benzel said. “I could have killed them all by now.”

  “That’s the point. If you’d killed those who hurt you, then you would have become just like them. You would have become one of them. Is that something you can live with?”

  Benzel stared at the ground and loosened a rock from the soil with the toe of his shoe. He kicked the rock away. “Possibly.”

  Pingzi snorted. “I know you better than that. It would eat you up if you had to live with that kind of blood on your hands.”

  Benzel shrugged, still staring at the ground.

  Pingzi continued. “Think about how your actions could have snowballed. Northlanders would have seen you as a monster and would have hunted you down. They would have feared you. And feared for the safety of their families and villages.”

  Benzel shook his head. “I was trained to slay dragons.”

  “And you were trained to slay men.”

  Pingzi and Benzel stared at each other for several long moments.

  “Northlanders would have had every reason to fear you,” Pingzi continued. “Knowing how to slay dragons and men alike made you the most dangerous man in the Northlands. If you’d started killing people, no one would feel safe letting you live. Killing you could have led to things getting so far out of hand that the Northlands might have turned into a murderous nation.” Pingzi exhaled in frustration. “That’s why you were a demon, and that’s why you had to be quelled. You were the one with the sense to stop the killing before it could begin.”

  Benzel smirked.

  Pingzi drew in a sharp breath.

  When will I learn? He’s simply goading me again for his own entertainment.

  Pingzi pointed at a branch of the tree damaged by insects. “I think I should quell you with that branch.”

  Benzel reached up and poked at the end of the diseased branch. “It would help if you’d make some temper spice tea. It’s always soothing.”

  Pingzi’s frustration fell away. “I’d be happy to make some temper spice tea for you.”

  Benzel’s eyes regained their sparkle. “Who said the tea was for me?”

  Pingzi suppressed the urge to smack him and smiled sweetly instead. “Very funny.”

  Benzel chuckled and returned to his work.

  “I’ll get your tea,” Pingzi muttered. “You could use some quelling today.”

  I’m out of temper spice anyway. It’s a good day to walk to the city.

  Pingzi always enjoyed a walk into the heart of Zangcheen. Few people knew she belonged to the emperor’s family, and that gave her the treasured opportunity to live a normal life. Her relatives lived inside the royal palace because it protected them from constant requests for a special audience with the emperor or suggestions to influence his decisions. Common folk also tended to be inquisitive about the royal magician and the royal astrologer. The last thing Pingzi wanted was to be inundated with people asking to see them.

  Instead, she relished her anonymity and nodded a simple greeting to everyone she encountered on the way to the public medicinal garden, a massive outdoor space dedicated to neat and well-kept rows of all herbs known in the Far East. Catching a glimpse of the garden up ahead, Pingzi closed her eyes and breathed in the dreamy and heady scents carried from it by the wind.

  As she strolled beneath the canopy of a cat-claw tree, Pingzi started at the sensation of water splashing against her face. She wiped it away and looked up.

  Droplets of water hanging from the long and narrow leaves of the tree glistened in the sunlight.

  Pingzi remembered dark clouds that rolled in at sunset the previous day.

  It must have rained last night.

  Pingzi noticed a cart parked at the entrance to the medicinal garden. It overflowed with neat stacks of cloth dyed in bright colors. A man who looked like a Midlander stood close to the cart. He held a cane carved in the shape of a simple stick and used it to point to the cloth while talking to a small group of women circled before him.

  That looks like linen from the Northlands. It’s rare we see a merchant bold enough to come here.

  She tuned her ears in his direction and recognized his fluency in the Far Eastern language.

  “I’ve also been inside the royal complex,” the merchant said.

  The audience of women clucked with delight.

  “My boy will bring out my greatest find. It took a lot of bargaining to convince the royal store master of fabric to relinquish any of this silk, because it was reserved for the empress.”

  The women gasped with awe and delight.

  The merchant grinned. “I have exactly enough for one outfit to be made. For the right price, it’s yours.”

  A boy wrestled an armful of creamy white silk from the cart. Even though folded, its slippery nature required two solid arms to control. With a steady and careful approach, the boy walked around the merchant and toward the women.

  But when his foot landed on a slick patch of mud from last night’s rainfall, the boy’s legs flew out from beneath him and he fell to the ground.

  The creamy white silk sailed into the air above his head only to land in the mud.

  The women cried out.

  “It’s ruined!” one of them shouted.

  The boy scrambled onto his hands and knees. He reached out in an attempt to salvage the fabric, but he slipped and fell onto it. Even more mud splattered across the silk.

  “Idiot!” the merchant screamed. He gripped the cane with both hands and beat the boy with it.

  The boy screamed in fear and pain.

  The potential buyers shrieked and scurried away.

  In that moment, everything that Pin
gzi Po had ever learned by watching Benzel of the Wolf teach his dragonslayer students came rushing back. Although she had never wielded a sword, Pingzi had absorbed all the knowledge Benzel dispensed about grips and stances and delivering blows. Although most of his teachings focused on how to kill dragons, Benzel also had included instructions for fighting men, such as brigands one might encounter on the road.

  She had paid especially close attention to the technique Benzel taught about moving in close to one’s opponent in order to disarm him.

  Pingzi yelled her favorite expression of frustration. “Aiy yah!”

  The merchant looked up at her.

  “Leave him alone!” Pingzi shouted.

  The boy cowered and wrapped his arms over his head.

  The merchant scowled and turned back to the boy. He raised the cane above his head, ready to strike another blow.

  Pingzi rushed at the merchant as if running into his arms.

  Surprised, the merchant hesitated, and the cane’s downward momentum slowed.

  Pingzi spun her body into the descending cane so that she matched its direction and speed. She wrapped both hands around it and continued spinning until it felt as if she’d become one with the cane. Pingzi twisted the cane out of the merchant’s hands. Still remembering what she’d seen Benzel teach for years, Pingzi took a few retreating steps away from the merchant and then pointed the cane at him as if it were a sword.

  Dumbfounded, the merchant stared at his empty hands as if the cane had dissipated into the air by some foul type of magic. He looked even more surprised when he looked up to see his cane in Pingzi’s hands. The merchant rolled his eyes in exasperation. He stepped toward her with an extended hand. “Give that back to me.”

  The excitement of starting an unanticipated fight rushed through Pingzi’s body. Her skin buzzed with the feeling of power. “Aiy yah!” she shouted again.

  The merchant paused in surprise and then laughed at her.

  Pingzi used the cane like a sword and smacked the merchant in the side of the head.

  He cried out in pain and dropped to one knee.

  Growing more excited by the moment, Pingzi said, “Be grateful I don’t have a sharp sword in my hands. Otherwise, you’d be decapitated!”

  She remembered all the mistakes she’d seen Benzel’s dragonslayer students make, determined not to be like them.

  I must circle him. I must watch to see if he tries to make any sudden moves. I must stay in motion to make it difficult for him to harm me.

  Pingzi became acutely aware of her feet and the way the ground felt beneath them. Feeling every toe and bone and muscle, she moved around the fallen merchant as if she were doing the slow dance of the daily exercises she performed with hundreds of other people in the parks of Zangcheen every morning.

  Clutching his head, the merchant lunged at her.

  For a moment, fear gripped Pingzi and froze her in place.

  Stay in motion!

  Sheer determination moved Pingzi’s feet to the side, away from the merchant’s reach.

  Turning to face his sprawled, belly-down figure squarely, she raised the cane above her head and delivered an overhead blow across the back of his shoulders.

  The merchant cried out again and then shouted a string of profanities suggesting that Pingzi made her living in a most inappropriate way.

  Infuriated, she struck him again in the ankles and then the knees.

  The merchant screamed.

  The sharp sound of cracking bones startled Pingzi but didn’t stop her. Although her palms stung, she kept a tight grip on the cane and struck the merchant in the head again.

  “Mercy!” the merchant shrieked.

  Pingzi held still. “Promise you will never harm this boy again.”

  “I promise!”

  Panting from exertion, Pingzi noticed a crowd had gathered around them.

  One of the men in the crowd raised his arm and shouted, “Over here!”

  Two uniformed men pushed their way through the crowd. They stopped long enough to stare at Pingzi but then rushed to the aid of the merchant. He cried out in pain when they lifted the merchant to his feet. He wobbled and sank back down to the ground.

  “She’s gone mad!” the merchant told them. He repeated his string of profanities.

  Although her heart beat wildly, Pingzi rested one end of the cane on the ground between her feet. She stood as if at attention. She refrained from smiling, because she knew what would happen next.

  “She attacked me!” the merchant continued. “I have permission to be here in Zangcheen and sell my wares. I’m welcome at the royal palace.” He jabbed a shaking finger at Pingzi. “She should be punished for trying to kill me.”

  One uniformed man took a step toward Pingzi.

  Offering a sweet smile, she said, “My royal guard. The House of Po has great appreciation for all you do.”

  The uniformed man approaching her hesitated. “You do not dress like a member of the House of Po.”

  Pingzi sized him up. The man’s hair had gone half grey. Most of the emperor’s guards spent their entire lives working for the palace. Being a guard for the House of Po carried great prestige and honor. “Surely you remember the demon queller.”

  Her words startled him. The guard leaned forward slightly with an intense gaze. “I was a guard of the gate when the young Pingzi Po revealed herself as the demon queller. That was 30 years ago.” He stared into her eyes, something no guard would do if he knew he addressed royalty. “But Mistress Po hasn’t been seen since then.”

  “I rarely need to go to the palace,” Pingzi said. “My work as a demon queller hasn’t ended. It’s work that can only be done outside the palace.”

  The other guard offered his opinion to his colleague. “She bears a resemblance to the emperor.” His supportive grip on the merchant eased. “She sounds like Po, too.”

  Pingzi’s tone became dry. “That’s because I am a Po.” She leaned the top end of the cane toward the merchant. “And I do believe you heard the accusations aimed at me from that man’s mouth when you first arrived.”

  The guard standing near the merchant eased away from him. “I heard what he called you.”

  “I believe you know the laws as well as I do,” Pingzi said. “This man has committed the act of Speaking Ill Against a Member of the House of Po. He should be taken to court at once and tried.”

  “What?” the merchant said. He looked back and forth at the guards. “You believe her?”

  “As you should know,” Pingzi said to the guards, “I’ve spent years abroad.” She pointed a sharp finger at the merchant. “Men like this often think we look alike and can’t tell the difference between us. While you have the experience to recognize a member of the House of Po, this man does not.”

  The guards flanked the merchant. They reached down, took his arms in a firm grip, and hauled him back up on his uncertain feet.

  Flustered, the merchant said, “What’s happening?”

  One guard announced, “You have been charged with the crime of Speaking Ill Against a Member of the House of Po. You will appear in court before the emperor today.” The guard bowed toward Pingzi. “My sincere apologies for the time it took to recognize you, Mistress Po.”

  Pingzi smiled. “I’ve grown up since any of the royal guards last saw me. I can’t hold that against you.”

  Awash with relief, the guards dragged the protesting merchant toward the royal complex.

  Still gripping the cane she’d taken from him, Pingzi looked for the boy and found him weeping with the soiled silk drawn around him like a shield. She knelt beside him. “Are you alright?”

  Startled, he looked at her with fearful eyes.

  Pingzi softened her voice and tried again. “What’s your name?”

  The boy looked confused and stayed silent.

  What if he doesn’t speak Far Eastern?

  Because Benzel was a Northlander, Pingzi had learned his language. When they lived in the Southlands, she�
�d learned a smattering of Southlander and Midlander. But once she returned to the Far East, Pingzi had let that knowledge slide. Now she regretted failing to practice her Northlander this morning with Benzel when she had the chance.

  Pingzi did her best to recall the Northlander language, assuming a Midlander boy should speak it. “Your name?”

  The boy brightened and spoke confident Northlander with a strong Midlander accent. “TeaTree! My name is TeaTree!” He winced and coddled the places where he’d been beaten by the merchant. “I don’t understand. What’s happened to my master?”

  Pingzi struggled to explain in Northlander. “Bad man broke law. Must pay for crime.”

  TeaTree gathered his wits and stood up, now covered in mud after having first slipped in it and then struck in it. He pointed at the man who had first called out to the guards. “Is he going to champion you?”

  Pingzi turned around. The crowd that had surrounded them now dissipated with the exception of an attractive man. She switched to speaking Far Eastern. “Who are you? What do you want?”

  He smiled and gave a respectful bow. “I am Hsu Mao, nu shi.”

  Pingzi bristled at the term of veneration. “You eavesdropped. My conversation with the guards was private.”

  Hsu Mao began to laugh but then covered it up with a cough. “I beg your pardon, Mistress Po, but your conversation was so loud that I found it impossible not to hear.”

  “Practice closing your ears to conversations that don’t concern you!” Pingzi straightened her clothing, even though nothing needed straightening. “And don’t ‘nu shi’ me. Did it ever occur to you that my life outside the royal palace will become impossible if people recognize me?” She gave him a once-over. “We look to be the same age. No man ever addresses a woman of his age as ‘nu shi’ unless he’s addressing royalty or a very wise elder. Stop it at once.”

  “I will,” Hsu Mao said. “But what should I call you?” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “If I call you Mistress Po, it raises the same problem.”

  “I see no reason for you to address me at all,” Pingzi said with a huff. She remembered the way the young dragonslayers used to twirl their swords in the air. She tried it with the cane but lost her grip on it. The cane clattered to the ground, and she picked it up as if nothing embarrassing had happened. “If you find it necessary to address me, I suppose you can call me Pingzi.”