by JC Kang
Her pulse quickened. There was one last chance to leave before risking a capital offense.
CHAPTER 20
Gone Rogue
Jie had never ridden a horse before, and would hopefully never have to again. How the ruddy-skinned Kanin plainspeople spent all day in the saddle was beyond her. Their purebred swifthorses were part of the relay system that she used now.
It dated back to before the Hellstorm, during the Hundred Years of War between the Arkothi and Ayuri Empires. Though horses and messengers were meant to change at waystations every sixty li, she only changed horses. A trip that normally took the better part of a day on foot lasted only an hour, but left her butt and thighs so sore, she’d almost welcome Fat Nose Jiang’s groping.
Or maybe Tian’s. Not as if he’d even shown the least amount of jealousy when she used her feminine wiles on Jiang. Dismounting in the broad, moonlit plaza outside Sun-Moon Palace, outside a perimeter of imperial guards, she wobbled over to where several officials gathered. Every joint and muscle ached with each step.
Blue robes swished as a familiar imperial guard officer blocked her way. Either the horse had given her away, or perhaps sore muscles compromised her stealth. The five-clawed dragon on his breastplate sent a shiver through her spine. “You!” he said. “Who are you to commandeer an imperial swifthorse?”
Disguised as a court official, Master Yan shuffled over, bowing. “General Zheng, this is my daughter Jie. She has hurried all the way from Jiangkou to join in our task.” He spoke in a loud whisper as his eyes roved past the perimeter.
Jie followed his gaze, her elven vision locking in on the armed men across the moat, their robes showing no symbol of allegiance. She turned back and bowed, looking up through her lashes at the commander of the imperial guard; Zheng, Tian’s cousin, which explained the familiarity. Only a handful of the senior-most imperial guards knew of the Moquan and Master Yan’s identity.
General Zheng favored her with furrowed eyebrows. Lowering his voice, he beckoned her past the cordon, across the plaza and into the ring of officials. “Thank you for coming. Master Yan has told me about your particular abilities.”
Pretending to pay attention to the general’s pleasantries, Jie leaned in to her adoptive father and whispered, “Tian thinks Lord Tong has gone beyond the illegal production of firepowder. He might also be plotting a rebellion with Northern Lords Chu, Xi, and Qin. All own part of a suspicious trading company, and none have arrived for the imperial wedding. He has also been stockpiling food. Also absent are Lords Chi, Shen, and Bai from Nanling Province, and much of the illegal firepowder has ended up there.”
Without breaking stride, Master Yan bowed toward General Zheng. “I must brief the Tianzi on an urgent matter. I entrust Jie to you.”
“What have we learned so far?” Jie asked.
General Zheng grunted. “The princess left the reception four and a half hours ago at the first waxing gibbous with Young Lord Peng Kai-Long of Nanling Province.”
Jie sucked on her lower lip. Tian had adored Peng as a child, though a mistake by Kai-Long had led to Tian’s banishment. As confirmed by Fat Nose Jiang, the Peng family was unquestioningly loyal to the Tianzi. “Do we know where they headed from there?”
“Young Lord Peng left her near a pagoda in the inner castle. She disappeared right after that, and nobody has seen her since.”
Leave it to imperial guards to lose a princess. Jie swept a hand toward the palace walls. “Sun-Moon Palace is vast. Are you sure she is not here?”
General Zheng gave a perfunctory nod. “Everyone, including members of your clan, has swept the grounds thrice over.”
The girl wasn’t trained in stealth, so… “How did she get past the imperial guards?” Besides the fact they were witless strong-arms. “Surely someone would have seen her?”
“Magic.” General Zheng spoke the word with a tone that suggested he had just eaten a bitter melon. He held a glass bauble, like an Aksumi magic light, cradled in a silk kerchief. “When it touches bare flesh, it makes someone look like her. The servants found it in the pagoda.”
Jie took the bauble in hand.
General Zheng nearly choked. “That is disconcerting. Please, don’t touch it. It makes you look a little like her.”
If only she had a mirror. Jie had never seen the princess up close, but had heard she was a plain-looking girl. Whatever Tian had seen in her… She wrapped the bauble up as she thought. Tian’s recollections of Princess Kaiya suggested a sweet and obedient girl, who would never dream of breaking any rules. Where had she acquired Aksumi magic baubles and what prompted her to run away? “Was there anything out of the ordinary in her schedule today?”
General Zheng harrumphed. “She met a suitor, but only after an interruption from a foreign supplicant to the Tianzi. She was quite smitten by him.”
“The suitor?”
“No, the foreigner. General Lu broke off the matchmaking meeting halfway through.”
Jie stifled a sigh. Oh, to be able to make connections like Tian. General Lu commanded the national armies in the North. Posted in Lord Tong’s Wailian County, no less. Another conspirator? “What do we know of the foreigner?”
“Prince Hardeep Vaswani of Ankira. Twenty-three years old according to the archives, and apparently trained in Ayuri Paladin arts.”
Paladins could supposedly plant suggestions in the gullible, and if the Founder’s Dictionary of the Hua Language were illustrated, it would probably show a picture of a sixteen-year-old girl in the entry for gullible. “Where would we find Prince Hardeep?”
“He was staying with Young Lord Peng Kai-Long.”
Young Lord Peng again. Also something of a vainglorious narcissist if Tian’s childhood recollections served him well. Perhaps Prince Hardeep had duped him, too. “Where is Young Lord Peng right now?”
“He is at the Tianzi’s side, taking blame for this debacle. He said Prince Hardeep was visiting the Ankiran ghetto.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing.” And Jie heard a lot.
“It’s fairly new. Young Lord Peng petitioned the Tianzi to allow the Ankiran refugees to stay there.”
With no other clues… “Then that’s where I’ll start. Where is it?”
“I will send Princess Kaiya’s most senior imperial guards with you.” He gestured toward a gaggle of blue-robed men who would stand out anywhere in Huajing.
Jie pursed her lips. It would far easier if he just told her. “Do you think they’re reliable after they let the princess slip through their fingers?”
General Zheng’s frown mirrored her own. “I charged them with watching the reception tonight, not the princess.”
“They will only slow me down.” Though as sore as her muscles burned, she might not be moving that fast.
Five imperial guards, all in their mid-to-late twenties, marched over. The dragons etched into their burnished breastplates scowled, sending the little human hairs on her arms prickling. In unison, they saluted General Zheng with a right fist in a left palm.
He gestured toward her. “This is…what is your name again?”
“Jie.” She hopefully contained the roll of her eyes.
“Right. She will be searching for clues. You will accompany her. Jie, this is Captain Chen Xin, Zhao Yue, Ma Jun, Xu Zhan, and Li Wei.”
Jie examined each. Even with her elven vision and Moquan training, little differentiated the five dour men. They might as well have been moving statues, bowing their heads and barking in unison, “Yes, General.”
With an affable smile, Li Wei—or maybe it was Ma Jun—beckoned her, with his left hand. Unlike the others, he wore his sword on his right. “I know a fast way to get there.”
Nodding, Jie followed him. The other four pushed past her, through the perimeter and east into the city’s northeast quadrant. For all the interest they showed, she might as well not have been there.
“I thought he’d never let us go,” said Chen Xin. Definitely Chen Xin, clearly the oldest with h
is rough skin and salt-and-pepper hair. The three gold stripes on his cuffs marked him as the leader. Tian had said something about a run-in with him years ago, before his banishment.
“Too bad we’re stuck with her.” Xu Zhan—or was it Zhao Yue—jerked a thumb at her.
Now away from the general, there was little need to hide the rolling of her eyes. “I’m right here.”
“May I speak freely?” said Xu Zhan…yes, it was Xu Zhan. His knuckles were flat and worn, the mark of a brawler. “You might be an elf, but we’d be better off with scent hounds.”
Jie’s pulse roared in her ears. “I’m not an elf, and while a dog might have a good nose, it lacks my brains to connect all the clues. I doubt the five of you combined could compensate for that.”
Xu Zhan’s flat-knuckled hands closed into tight balls.
Laughing, Ma Jun, the one with the boyish face, clapped Flat-Knuckle Xu Zhan on the back. At least one of them did have a personality. “Never mind him, he’s just worried.”
“We’ll never find her.” Lefty Li Wei shook his head, sending the scar on his chin zigzagging. “Not before ruffians do, and do horrible things to her.”
Zhao Yue, the one with a triangular head like a fox, held up a hand. “Everyone in the capital knows what she looks like. They wouldn’t dare touch her.”
Ruffians didn’t fear the law, and rebels would do worse. Jie would never underestimate an imperial guard’s idiocy again. Any more of their banter and she’d tear her hair out. “Is it much farther? Wait.” She paused at an alley, where something sparkling in the three moons’ light caught her eye.
The men all came to a stop and followed her gaze down the alley.
“What is it?” Salt-and-pepper-haired Chen Xin crowded over her shoulder like a monster from a horror novel.
Jie took in the alley. With the bright moons, her night vision hadn’t taken over, but her visual acuity still picked up on details these five buffoons would miss. She pointed at the splintered wood of a two-story house. “Two holes, from crossbow bolts. The size is too big for standard-issue Hua bolts.”
One eye closed, fox-faced Zhao Yue leaned toward the wall while Xu Zhan pushed past him and tested each hole with his finger, like a bear pawing for honey.
“Bring a lamp over here.” Jie knelt down and picked up the cracked glass bauble that had originally drawn her attention. She withdrew the one General Zheng had given her. In boy-faced Ma Jun’s lamplight, the texture, color, and size were close to identical. “Maybe the princess came this way.”
Grinning and making himself look more like a fox, Zhao Yue elbowed Xu Zhan. “She’s definitely better than a dog.”
“Blood.” The coppery smell drew Jie to a line of blood droplets. She leaned over and touched it. “Fairly fresh, two or three hours old. The spray pattern suggests blades—” she moved to the place where the wielder had likely stood and swung her arm as if holding a sword “—cut through an artery.”
Lefty Li Wei fisted his hair with both hands. “This is horrible.”
Chen Xin cleared his throat. “Citizens! Come out in the name of the Tianzi.”
Perhaps they weren’t that dumb after all. In the second stories, windows opened and faces peeked out.
“What happened here?” Chen Xin yelled.
Voices erupted all at once.
“An assault!”
“A girl and a man.”
“A foreign man.”
“Attacked by six masked men.”
“Big men.”
“Very big men.”
Jie blew out a whistle shrill enough to wake ghosts. “One at a time. Were the man and girl harmed?”
“No.”
Thank the Heavens. “How long ago? Which way did they go?”
Fingers pointed out the north end of the alley. “Two hours. They turned the corner, and that was that.”
“That’s the general direction of the Ankiran ghetto,” Ma Jun whispered.
“Did the attackers give chase?” Chen Xin said.
“Yes.”
Flat-Knuckled Xu Zhan took off in the direction they pointed, with Lefty Li Wei close on his heels. Not like it would make much difference given the two hours that had passed.
Jie started to join the rest of the imperial guards following them, but paused and grabbed Ma Jun’s elbow and Chen Xin’s wrist. “Wait. Captain, go retrieve your men. I have an idea.” If someone was trying to capture the princess… She looked up at all the people. “I need a dress, large enough for him—” she thumbed Ma Jun “—and four sets of male clothes. I’ll pay a gold yuan, and we’ll even return the dress when we’re done if he doesn’t like it.”
Ma Jun snorted as commotion buzzed. “What are you trying to do?”
“You will be bait for anyone who is trying to harm the princess.”
His forehead scrunched up. “I don’t look anything like her.”
Jie withdrew the magic bauble and pressed it to her skin. She didn’t feel any different, but…
Ma Jun gasped. “It’s just like Princess Kaiya, only pretty.”
“Now you look like her.” She pressed the bauble into his hand.
His appearance changed in a blink. He no longer towered above her, but now stood just a head taller. Gone were the broad shoulders and boyish face, replaced by a thin, pretty girl on the edge of womanhood. Perhaps prettier than what Tian remembered; and even in the imperial guard uniform, which had shrunk to size, it was clear how he could find her attractive.
Insides twisting, she plucked the bauble from his grasp. “But first, we need to size you.”
“Why can’t you do it?” A tight-lipped frown replaced his usually jovial expression.
“Because it will look strange for Princess Kaiya to sniff blood stains and examine weapons.” Not to mention she’d already worn enough dresses today to last a lifetime.
A crowd of commoners gathered, pushing gowns into her face.
Jie shook her head. “Too coarse. Too small. Too plain. Too conservative. Yes!” She snatched up a light blue gown of silk, which must have belonged to a large woman, and held it up to Ma Jun.
His wide eyes protested. “I’ll look fat in that.”
“The magic will bring out all the right parts and hide the many wrong ones.” She coughed. “Many, many wrong ones.”
When the other guards returned, they occupied a citizen’s foyer and changed into the disguises. The guards all poked fun at Ma Jun, even the curmudgeon Xu Zhan. Yet when Ma Jun pressed the bauble to his bare skin and transformed into Princess Kaiya, they all dropped to a knee, fist to the ground.
Reflex, no doubt, just like the temple dogs responding to a treat. Jie gave herself a mental pat on the back. The disguise might work better than expected. “Now, we are going to continue to the Ankiran ghetto. Princess Ma Jun and I will walk ahead, and the rest of you hang back. If the attackers are still out there, and they don’t already have your princess, maybe we will draw them out.”
After some grumbling, they set off again. Ma Jun’s muttering about the dress leaving him cold and constrained made Jie grateful that her own duties never involved wearing formal gowns. In any case, his body language appeared too stiff, too…male. The Northern lords’ agents would never take the bait.
After several blocks, Jie called for a halt in front of a greengrocer’s empty cart. She knelt down and picked up a crossbow bolt’s black fletching and round point. At first glance, it seemed to match the hole in the wall from before. And there, under the wheel of the cart…no, it couldn’t be. She reached over and retrieved a biao throwing star, lacquered black. A Moquan weapon. Beneath it was a thin line of blood, fresher than the last.
“What is it?” Chen Xin knelt down next to her.
He couldn’t know about the biao, not until she found out more. Jie stashed the weapon in her sleeve with a flick of her wrist, then wiped her finger across the blood and held it up. “Fresher blood here. I think we are getting close.” Closer to a potential betrayal on Master Yan’s
part? No, never. A renegade, perhaps? Or an adept who tried to help the princess, but had not reported back?
Princess Ma Jun sashayed over. She—he—pointed north as he spoke with a deep voice mismatched for a young woman. “The Ankiran ghetto is a few blocks that way.”
A scream pierced the night, right where he pointed.
Jie broke into a run. Even without Ma Jun’s guidance, the disjointed chorus of screams, yells, and shouts might as well have been a beacon. That, and as she neared, the coppery scent of blood mingling with curry. She turned a corner into a side street lined by poorly maintained row houses.
From the far end of the block, three dark-clothed men with repeating crossbows pelted bolts into a mess of overturned tables and chairs. Bodies of men, women, and children sprawled in the jumble, blood slickening the pavestones. A few still lived, cowering behind splintered furniture.
Two more large men stood with their backs to her, swords in hand. Their form-fitting clothes resembled those Moquan wore on missions. From the bodies at their feet, which bled from ugly gashes, it appeared they had cut down anyone who tried to escape.
With each hand, Jie reached across and pulled three biao from either sleeve. In the same motion, she flung them at the nearest two. One dropped to his knees with a grunt as three stars lodged in his back.
The other man took one biao to the left shoulder—she’d need to practice more with her off hand—and spun around. Snarling, he loped over with his broadsword raised.
Better not to test her knife against that. She spun around to run…and slipped on a stray crossbow bolt. How had she not seen it earlier? She landed on her butt, already sore from the horseback ride. The huge man’s blade came down.
It clanged against a curved dao sword just a fingerbreadth from her head. In the same motion with which Xu Zhan brushed away the incoming broadsword, he countered with a two-handed slash. The dao sliced through the murderer’s neck and sent his head rolling to the ground in a swirling blood trail.
Jie popped up to her feet. The crossbowmen ran and the other imperial guards, save for Ma Jun in his dress, gave chase. Her short legs would never keep up. She turned to Xu Zhan and pointed to the headless body. “We needed to keep him alive for questioning!”