The Hidden Blade: A Prequel to My Beautiful Enemy (Heart of Blade)

by Sherry Thomas

  Ying-ying was outraged. “How dare you treat your master with such disrespect?”

  Little Dragon’s handsome face was a mask of scorn and fury. “He is a stinking foreign devil. My master is over there, dead. You killed him, you daughter of a whore.”

  The epithet, more than his accusation of slaughter, stunned her. Big Treasure had called her that. Chang had called her that this very night. But Little Dragon had always been polite, despite his antipathy.

  “Your master tried to catch me so Young Master could dishonor me,” she countered. “You know what kind of man Young Master is. You know how he treats women. Was I supposed to go along?”

  “Who cares how Young Master treats you?” Little Dragon spat. “My master was a great man. If he wanted to beat you stupid, you should kowtow afterward and thank him for his instruction!”

  “Well, too bad your master wasn’t capable of it. I beat him fair and square.”

  Little Dragon looked as if steam were going to rise from him again. “Shut up! My master was injured five and a half years ago. If he hadn’t been, he would have crushed you with his little finger.”

  He pulled his sword from its sheath and pointed it at her. “I am going to avenge him. I’m going to send you to the underworld as his slave.”

  She took a step back. She wasn’t afraid of him. If she could beat the master, why should she fear the disciple? But she had a healthy respect for the sword. She was not going to fight it barehanded. Now, where was Mr. Gordon’s walking stick? Had it fallen into the pond? Or was it somewhere on the ground?

  “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, fighting a girl?” She needed to buy herself some time.

  “Are you scared?” he taunted.

  She took another step back and turned sideways, to get a better look at the edge of the pond. No sign of the stick. Damn it. “Not only will you be fighting a girl, but an unarmed girl. What will people say when you lose?”

  That was an unwise thing to say. The tip of his sword was suddenly before her neck. She sidestepped it, but not before breaking out in a cold sweat all over. He was uncannily swift with the blade.

  The sword came unerringly at her throat again. She rolled to her left. He gave her no breathing room. The blade followed her and was upon her almost before she could rise to her feet again.

  Clang. It was met by another blade.

  “Master Keeper Lin,” said Amah, addressing Little Dragon by his surname with elaborate courtesy. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Master Keeper Lin, fighting an unarmed girl.”

  Ying-ying scrambled to her feet and ran behind Amah. She had never been so happy to see anyone in her entire life. Amah was in good health. Her voice was steady and strong. And she had come upon them so softly that neither she nor Little Dragon had been aware of her approach.

  Little Dragon’s face twisted with rage. “You! I remember your voice. You are the thief who injured my master!”

  “Good memory, young man,” Amah answered calmly. “Were you hiding and watching us? It’s true I left a bit of Thousand-winter Chill in his blood. But he should be fine, as long as he didn’t tax himself—or take cold baths.”

  “Your disciple.” Little Dragon’s voice shook. “Your disciple pushed him into the frozen pond tonight.”

  “Really?” Amah looked at the pond, and at the sodden, blood-spattered body at its edge. Her expression was unmoved. “Is that him then?”

  Little Dragon’s jaw worked.

  Amah turned to Ying-ying. “Were you disrespectful toward Master Keeper Chang?”

  “He was trying to force me to submit to Young Master’s ignominious will.”

  “I see. I should have known that boy was involved somehow—when I saw the state of our rooms my mind did not immediately turn to him.” Amah sighed. “Ying-ying, go and kowtow to Master Keeper Chang.”

  It was an incomprehensible command, something she’d have refused outright under normal circumstances. But at this moment Ying-ying was glad to do anything for Amah. She kowtowed not once, but three times.

  “Master Keeper Chang was a magnanimous man. I’m sure his ghost has forgiven you, as you meant him no harm,” said Amah. “You did not know that cold water was fatal to him.”

  Little Dragon laughed harshly. “You with your fancy words and false gestures. Fine. I’ll let the whore’s daughter go and kill you instead.”

  Ying-ying shivered. Amah looked at him steadily. “I injured your master. But he wounded me no less severely. The account was even between the two of us. Do not get involved in an old feud. Or it will never end.”

  Little Dragon sneered. “It ends tonight. Your disciple killed my master. I kill hers. Sounds fair enough to me.”

  He raised his sword and pointed at Amah. Amah unsheathed her own sword. “Ying-ying, don’t stand there like a fool. Go help your teacher.”

  Hurriedly Ying-ying warmed Mr. Gordon’s bed with a brazier pan. She warmed him with a half glass of spirits before tucking him in. “Stay here tonight. Don’t go out again.”

  He gripped her hand. “What is going on? Will you be safe?”

  She squeezed his palm. She knew he was confused and worried, but she had to get back to Amah now. “I’ll be fine—my amah is here. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”

  He had some interesting English medicines that he had shown her before. She applied a balm to the puncture wound on her leg and rushed back to the garden.

  Amah and Little Dragon were fighting on the miniature bridge. The long retreat had done wonders for Amah. There was a new fluidity to her movement, a potent ease, like the glide of an eagle in the sky. Her thrusts were clean, her swings strong, and her parries secure.

  They engaged in a series of attacks and counterattacks. Amah, to Ying-ying’s relief, did not seem intent on killing Little Dragon. She probably planned to humiliate the young man, to wrest a resounding victory that would leave him no choice but to scamper away, licking his wounds.

  Little Dragon, however, was not intimidated. Ying-ying was astonished to see how adept he was with his weapon. He was what? Nineteen, twenty at most. Strength and aggression she expected from him, but despite his murderous rage, he also displayed a surety and cleverness beyond his years.

  Their movements quickened and quickened yet again. They were now closer to each other, their motions more brutal, the swords clashing closer to the hilts than to the tips. Ying-ying had her fingers between her teeth, her heart quivering with each collision of the blades. Amah must have realized she was dealing with no mere enraged, impotent child here, but a well-trained and possibly prodigious talent, for she drove her sword far forward, and followed with a somersault backward, into the pavilion.

  Little Dragon followed. Amah leaped onto the stone table to give herself the advantage of height. As their blades continued to thrash and clank, she aimed a good half dozen kicks at him: One just missed the side of his head; another caught him squarely below his left collarbone. He wavered a little, but did not make any sound, and was back in the fight in no time.

  Amah put her aerial capability to full and dazzling use. She catapulted over his head; her feet landed on and immediately kicked against the railing, reversing her direction, launching the tip of her blade directly at his back. Lin barely sidestepped in time, so surprised had he been by her agility and the unexpected direction of the attack.

  Amah soared, twirled, wheeled. She performed impossible feats. But Lin could no longer be discomposed. He stepped up to the table at the center of the pavilion and refused to budge from the spot, an ideal place for holding defenses. At one point Ying-ying could swear he closed his eyes and used his other senses guide him, so as not to be distracted by Amah’s leaps and bounds.

  The situation was developing toward an impasse: Amah, once heir to the legendary skills of the Order of the Shadowless Goddesses, dominated the battle but could not subdue the resilient Little Dragon, who, despite his youth and relative lack of experience, held firm against her.

  Then everything
changed. As Amah again elevated and plunged toward him, he raised his sword to meet her charge, while his left arm swept up in a peculiar motion. Something small and slender shot out of his sleeve toward Amah’s legs. A sleeve arrow. Before Ying-ying could even gasp, Amah cried out in pain.

  Their swords met and ground against each other. Using that resistance, Amah flipped backward. Little Dragon let fly another sleeve arrow, this one hitting Amah squarely in the thigh. She fell like a bird that had been struck with a slingshot.

  Amah did not lose her wits. In the narrow space between the stools and the railing, she rolled away from Little Dragon as soon as she landed. But he proved quicker on foot. He leaped down from the center of the table and intercepted her. Shifting his sword from right hand to left, he slammed aside Amah’s hurriedly upraised blade.

  Amah again attempted to pierce him. But her position was too vulnerable. He kicked her arm. She screamed and dropped her sword. Without further ado, he crouched down and struck her three times on the torso with his right palm.

  The abrupt deterioration in Amah’s fortune caught Ying-ying completely lead-footed. Mere seconds had passed from the moment the first sleeve arrow had been deployed. She stood paralyzed, her viscera quaking with each wallop of Little Dragon’s hand, as Amah groaned like a beast being clubbed to death.

  Then Ying-ying was racing across the bridge, screaming, “Leave her alone!”

  Little Dragon looked up in disdain. She grabbed the sword that had dropped from Amah’s hand and pointed it at him. “Leave her alone or you will have to answer to me.”

  Her hand must be shaking badly—the tip of the sword wobbled all over the place. Little Dragon regarded her for a moment. “I already said I’d let you go. Now leave.”

  “I won’t. You will not touch her again.”

  His face hardened. “Fine. You asked for it.”

  The next moment his sword drove directly at her chest. Acting on pure reflex, she sidestepped. The blade missed her arm by a hairbreadth. She heard her own screech of fright.

  He did not give her a moment to breathe. His sword slashed at her. She ducked and took another two steps back. This time, as the long, sharp edge of steel descended, her own sword came up and she was suddenly filled with an energy bordering on panic. All other thoughts and concerns, even those of Amah, were preempted by her pressing need to not be killed.

  She parried his thrust. The contact was quick, but jarring—she could almost hear the bones of her forearm rattle. Circulating her chi to her sword arm to protect against the impact, she took another hit on her blade. And it hurt despite the protection of her chi.

  The confines of the pavilion did not help her. She dared lean neither right nor left for fear of being trapped against the railing or the stone stools. What exercises she had with swords or the steel fans—too long ago now—certainly never included a homicidal opponent or such awkward surroundings. Barely a few moves into the battle she was already panting, and if her insides shook any harder, it would cause waves in the pond.

  She must get out of the pavilion if she was to have any chance. But he must think it a good idea to keep her in, for as she backed closer to the bridge, he deliberately forced her to her right, away from her exit.

  In desperation she jumped onto a stool, and then from there onto the stone table. The tabletop, being merely placed on top of a round column, shifted, causing her to wobble. He immediately swung his sword in a horizontal slash at her knees. She crouched, and with all her strength pushed his blade as far to her left as possible and at the same moment leaped forward to the railing.

  Her plan was to land on the railing, and from that high vantage point to leap clear of the pond altogether to the other side. Amah had performed much more complex maneuvers, so Ying-ying figured she had a chance. But when she looked down, she discovered she had clearly overshot the distance to the railing. Her body reacted on its own, her legs kicking down, attempting, against the odds, to find some footing. But only her heels caught the outside of the railing.

  She did her best to push off. But her angle was too awkward. Instead of an upward bound, she was going forward but down.

  “Ying-ying!” Amah moaned. “Careful!”

  She flung her arms out and caught the edge of the pond. But that was not enough to prevent two-thirds of her body from breaking through the ice. She whimpered from the cold that instantly swamped her, through her silk trousers and the several pairs of pantalettes underneath.

  Fortunately the pond was not deep, only up to her waist. Pushing off with whatever slippery traction she could get, she hoisted herself out, to Little Dragon’s chortles.

  Without hurry he stepped off the bridge. “Why, is it already washday, Bai Gu-niang?”

  Ying-ying backed away from him and picked up her sword, which had landed on a sheet of ice that still hugged the edge of the pond. She had no clever retort for him. Her shoes oozed mud. Much of her front was raw from scraping against ice that had broken jaggedly. As a stiff wind blew, her legs and bottom screamed with cold, her sodden garments sucking every last shred of warmth from her blood.

  He renewed his attack without another word. As Ying-ying moved to duck his blow, the mud on her soles made her foot slip out from under her; her other knee hit the paving stone hard. But she managed to keep his sword from reaching her. As he drew back to drive at her again, she rolled sideways, toward a dwarf juniper in a large planter.

  As his blade fell, she scooted behind the planter, furiously scraping the mud from her soles, and his sword slashed nothing but a branch. He came around the planter, and she scampered so as to be opposite him again. Irritated at her tactic, he swung his sword and hacked off the top third of the dwarf juniper tree in one strike.

  Ying-ying gulped. They could see each other’s faces clearly above the truncated tree. He struck again. But the lower portion of the tree’s trunk was much thicker and did not give. Just as she was about to breathe a sigh of relief, however, he toppled the whole thing to the ground.

  Now there was nothing between them but the overturned planter, which he easily leaped over, sword pointed straight at her. She crouched down and grabbed a small pot of withered chrysanthemum and hurled it at him. By reflex he parried, and the collision of his sword with the pot broke the latter and sent clumps of dirt flying.

  She dashed off another clay pot. This time he sidestepped it and was directly before her. Their blades clashed and scraped. He dominated, but she held her own.

  As the peril of imminent death faded a little, their combat settling into a certain rhythm, hope began to revive in Ying-ying. Given time, perhaps Little Dragon would come to his senses and see that even if he killed every person who had ever crossed his master, it would not help bring Chang back, or make his journey less lonely in the underworld.

  Her hopes did not grow beyond a flicker, for Little Dragon abruptly intensified his attack. “I’ve had enough of this. You die now.”

  He raised his left arm. What happened to Amah flashed through her mind: He was going to launch a sleeve arrow at her. She somersaulted backward; the sleeve arrow hissed past her ear. But in her urge to avoid it, she forgot that she was standing only a short distance before another dwarf juniper in a large planter. Her feet landed squarely on the lip of the planter; it pitched forward, the dwarf juniper knocking her to the ground. She struggled to crawl out from underneath, but stilled as Little Dragon’s foot came down on her sword.

  Without thinking, she pulled out a long silver pin from her hair and jabbed the sharp end into his foot. He yowled. She scrambled out from under the dwarf juniper and threw a handful of dirt in his face.

  He roared and hacked down at her. They were once again in the thick of it. Ying-ying’s arm ached. The sword was getting heavier. Her lungs couldn’t bring in enough air. But Little Dragon was tireless—and seemed more homicidal by the minute.

  “Stop! What are the two of you doing?!”

  Ying-ying nearly lost her concentration. Mr. Gordon. What was he doi
ng out of bed? She barely ducked in time. A fraction of a second later and Little Dragon’s sword would have sliced through her arm.

  From the corner of her eye she saw Master Gordon raise his arm. What was he holding, aimed to the side? Was that a…It must be the pistol they had spoken of earlier in the day, an eternity ago.

  Bang!

  At the loud explosion, Little Dragon froze. Only for a split second, but long enough for the tip of Ying-ying’s sword to sink into his shoulder. He screamed. Then he screamed again and crumpled to the ground. Ying-ying sealed the acupuncture points on his legs. She had no idea why he was bleeding from his right thigh, and she did not care. She ran for Amah.

  Amah was still and silent. Ying-ying threw herself down and cupped her hand beneath Amah’s nose. The slightest stirring of air brushed against her skin. Her relief was knife-sharp. But then she lifted Amah’s wrist to check her pulse and cried out: Amah’s pulse was that of someone whose internal organs had been damaged beyond repair.

  As tears rang down her face, She put her hand at the center of Amah’s abdomen and tried to aid the older woman with some of her own chi. But she was running near empty. When she tried to force out what little remained, a flash of agony struck the center of her own abdomen. She didn’t care. If she had to give all her blood to Amah, she would.

  At last the connection between them warmed. Something was getting through to Amah. Her eyelids fluttered. Her lips moved. “Stop,” Amah whispered hoarsely. “It’s no use.”

  “We’ll find you a court doctor,” Ying-ying promised wildly. “We’ll find you a martial-arts master who can help save you.”

  “It’s no use,” Amah repeated, her voice thin as a ghost’s breath. “You must look out for yourself now. Dig under the third pomegran…”

  She did not finish her sentence.

  Ying-ying’s eyes burned. Her heart burned. She stood up and marched toward Little Dragon. Master Gordon was there, hunched over him, tearing strips off his own clothes to bind Little Dragon’s shoulder and leg.