by Fonda Lee
Gont paced forward slowly like an advancing lion. His voice was a cautious growl. “If this were a dispute of personal honor, the two of us would have matched clean blades long ago, Kaul-jen. But this is clan war. We are Horns who must do what we do, for our clans to prevail, is that not so?” He circled Hilo, measuring him with deep-set eyes. “I must admit, I did not expect you to come. I assumed I’d have to cut my way through every last Green Bone in No Peak to get to you.”
“You still want a duel, I’ll give you one right here and now,” Hilo said, following the enemy Horn around with his eyes and Perception.
Gont gave a low, snorting chuckle. “That wasn’t the offer. I’m not so selfish as to risk the outcome of a war on a single duel.” He stopped in front of Hilo, his broad frame casting a large shadow across the space between them. “We both know the Mountain will defeat No Peak in the end. Why let your loyal followers throw their lives away for you? Why drag out the suffering of this city we both care for? If I were in your position, I would think to the selfless example of Baijen.”
Hilo was silent. An invisible spasm coursed through him—he did not want to die. He was certainly prepared to, but he didn’t want to. He knew Gont could Perceive the burst of conflicted emotions, but he didn’t try to hide them. “You gave me certain assurances,” he said. He nodded back to where Anden stood, some distance behind him. “My cousin is here to make sure they’re fulfilled.”
Gont shifted his gaze to the teenager and motioned him over. “Come here, Anden Emery.” Anden approached, calmly but visibly reluctant. Gont gestured him closer and closer, until the young man was near enough for the Horn to place a large, meaty hand on his shoulder as they both faced Hilo. “Do you know what part you’re to play in this agreement between your cousin and myself?”
“He knows,” Hilo said, his jaw stiffening at the sight of Gont’s grip on Anden’s shoulder. “I trust him to stay out of it once it starts. He’s to bring me back to the family; I want to be in one piece and with every stone of jade still on my body. If Anden returns safely and reports that everything happened as you promised, my Weather Man will surrender control of the clan. I’ve spoken to my Horn and written letters to all of my Fists ordering them to lay down their blades and accept your terms. If you honor your bargain, she’ll give these letters to them. If you don’t, all my Fists and Fingers will fight to the last man to bring the Mountain to its knees. You’d destroy us, but the victory would be hollow. Your clan would be crippled, and the city in ruins.” Hilo’s words held absolute conviction; he meant what he said. “We both know it could go that way, but neither of us is so selfish, Gont-jen. That’s why I’m standing here.”
Gont nodded, a grudging respect in his eyes. He released Anden and said, “I give my word that young Anden here won’t be harmed or interfered with.”
“One other thing,” Hilo said. “I want you to finish it. I merit a clean-bladed duel and instead you give me this. The least I deserve in a death of consequence is to not go down in a careless, hacking mess. Do you understand, Gont-jen? I want another Horn to give me a warrior’s death.”
After a moment, Gont inclined his head, a touch of dark humor in the movement of his lips. “I assure you it would be my pleasure, Kaul-jen.”
Hilo ran his eyes through Gont’s men. They had followed their Horn, inching closer in anticipation, but now they halted and shifted back, sensing the change in the set of Hilo’s body, the settling of his shoulders, the readiness in his knees. Hilo undid the next two buttons on his shirt and yanked the top of it wide open to reveal the long line of jade pieces studding his collarbone. “Come on, then!” He was suddenly impatient. He drew his talon knife, spun it around his index finger by the hilt ring before gripping it and dropping into the coiled stance of an experienced fighter.
“Gont-jen, show me which of your men is greenest with the knife!”
Anden stood off to the side, Gont’s weighty presence hovering near him. He stifled a gasp as the three Mountain men circling Hilo closed in together. The scene became a blur of movement and slashing that Anden could barely follow. They were good fighters, these men who had stepped forward with their Horn’s permission. They wore jade through their eyebrows and ears, around their fingers and wrists and necks. They moved with supple ferocity. Yet they must’ve known right from the start that in volunteering for this worthy task, they were likely to die. Kaul Hiloshudon was a feared talon knife fighter and now Anden understood why.
The Kekonese talon knife is a hooked, double-edged four-inch blade used for slashing, puncturing, hooking, and controlling the joints. Anden had seen Hilo’s weapon; it had three jade stones set flush in the handle and was made of the same Da Tanori steel as the best moon blades, but unlike the moon blade, which has always been the quintessential Green Bone weapon, the talon knife is the tool of the street fighter. Simple, jadeless versions abound in Kekon and youngsters in Green Bone families learn to handle it long before they ever touch any other weapon.
Hilo fought as if he didn’t even have a knife. He never looked at his hands or his blade, didn’t rely on leading only with the right side, never seemed tense in the arm or overly conscious of his weapon, the way anyone less comfortable would behave. He weaved and sidestepped and circled, deflecting his opponents’ attacks and entering their space with his own—except that each contact he made was punctuated with flashes of steel. One fighter came at Hilo with a high cut; Hilo hooked the man’s wrist, slashed across the inside of the elbow, slipped the blade over the other arm, and drove up, slicing into and around the man’s neck like paring a piece of fruit.
It happened in a second. The man was not fast enough with his Steel to follow the flurry; the knife cut into his jugular and he fell with a bloody gurgle. Hilo was already moving on, his eyes blazing motes of fire. So it was with the next man as well; Hilo returned one slash with three or four of his own in fluid succession. The next opponent caught Hilo across the ribs and then across the back of the neck. On most people, the talon knife would part flesh effortlessly, but Hilo’s Steel was nearly as good as Gont’s was purported to be—not so much in strength as in fluidity. A master of Steel could direct his jade energy in a nimble dance of tension and release, avoiding hampering his own movements, flexing a shifting shield of near invulnerability at an instant. Anden stopped breathing for a second as he saw the blade part Hilo’s clothes, yet only a trickle of blood stained them. Hilo grunted as he repositioned and threw Strength into a left-handed strike to the throat. As expected, his opponent slipped and reacted, meeting the blow by Steeling into his upper body. With a quick step, Hilo went low and slashed the man across the femoral artery before stabbing into the back of the knee. The Green Bone buckled with a cry and Hilo matched it with a triumphant snarl as he drove the knife tip between the vertebrae of the man’s neck.
“You’re wasting my time!” he shouted, dancing away from the body. Sweat stood out on his brow and neck. “At this rate, Gont-jen, you’ll run out of Green Bones! If I’d known fighting Mountain Fists would be this easy, I’d have come around here earlier!”
He’s goading them on, Anden thought, despairing. The Mountain fighters who came forward now were not hesitant. They were infuriated by the deaths of their comrades and spurred on by the knowledge that even the best fighter is doomed to tire rapidly against multiple opponents. Anden forced himself to stand unmoving, to watch and not look away as the fight became a true melee. Hilo scrambled to stay out of the center of the storm. He slammed two men back with a Deflection as he took on a third. He leapt Light to avoid a simultaneous attack from two sides but was dragged back down. He Channeled into an attacker, but before he could finish the kill, he was knocked to his knees by another man’s Strength. Anden’s breath grew shallow and panicked; his nails dug into his palms as glimpses of his cousin disappeared behind the blur of dark-clad bodies and flashing knives.
Hilo’s talon knife skittered across the pavement out of the circle of fighters, and Gont Asch bellowed, “Enough!” A few of his me
n, maddened with the fight, didn’t obey at once, and Gont bellowed again, flinging his arm out in a wide, shallow Deflection that sent his own Green Bones staggering. When they parted, Anden saw that the Pillar of No Peak was on his hands and knees, blood flowing freely down his face and across the back of his shirt. There was a rattle in his breath as his shoulders heaved up and down.
Suddenly, Anden thought of the time Hilo had come to the Academy and handed him a beating just for the fun of it, to test what kind of a man he was, whether he was the sort to keep fighting no matter how outmatched. Hilo had beaten him so easily that day, toyed with him the way a large dog pins and nips a small one. At that time, Anden had never imagined he would see this: the most ferocious of the Kauls as helpless against his enemies as Anden had been against him. Gont strode forward. “Enough,” he rumbled again. “You’ve taken enough Green Bone blood today, Kaul Hiloshudon of No Peak. You deserve your warrior’s death.” Gont reached for the hilt of his moon blade, and in that instant, Hilo propelled himself forward like a shot, tackling Gont across the midsection.
The two men crashed to the ground together. Hilo spat in Gont’s face. “Did you think I’d offer you my neck like a duck on a fucking chopping block? I’m going to take you with me!” And he raised up just enough to gather his remaining Strength for a skull-crushing blow.
Gont blasted Hilo back with a Deflection that knocked the other man flat onto his back. Mountain fighters ran forward to attack again, but Gont shouted, “Leave him!” as he sprang to his feet, remarkably fast and Light for a man his size. The Horn stalked toward Kaul, who rolled to his feet with a groan and attacked again. Gont fended off the weakened man’s lunge and hit him across the face. Hilo fell but rose again, and again Gont dropped him, this time with a kick that buckled him across the ribs. Anden shook; his eyes, his throat, his chest burned. A wild and vindictively satisfied light had come into Gont’s eyes, emerging from behind the heavy curtain of stony control. “You … are … so … persistent,” he growled with each blow that sent Hilo staggering or collapsing, only to rise again. “You … don’t know … when to stop.”
With a heaving of Strength, Gont lifted the slighter man and hurled him bodily several feet. Hilo smashed into the asphalt, and this time he didn’t rise. He lay like a broken and torn doll, and his chest barely moved in a gurgling, rasping breath. As Gont drew his moon blade, Hilo’s head tilted back and he cried out, “Now!”
Anden ran. None of the Green Bones were paying him any attention. He was a teenage student, merely a designated witness to this event; none of them had seen a weapon on him, or sensed even the faintest jade aura. The fear and anxiety they’d Perceived in him had seemed only natural. Now he sprinted, his heart a drum in his ears, and flung himself upon his cousin’s prone and bloodied form. “Andy,” Hilo whispered, and reached out his hand, and from the inside of Hilo’s left sleeve, Anden tore out a long string of jade and looped it around his closed fist.
Two days ago, Hilo had had nearly every piece of jade he owned removed and strung onto a thin cord that could be taped snugly against the inside of his left forearm—the arm not drawing attention with a talon knife. He left only the studs on his collarbone, the ones everyone saw, in their usual place. There was no difference in his aura; he still carried every one of his gems against his skin. Now, Hilo’s body shuddered violently as his jade was ripped away.
Anden’s world exploded in a rush of pure energy.
It was as if he’d burst out of the confines of his own body. He was everywhere and nowhere; he was crouched over his cousin, he was looking down on himself and Gont from above, he was inside the people around him, the pulse of their blood and the throbbing of their organs cavernous, surrounding him. His own body was a strange and limiting thing—an odd combination of systems and parts, organic matter, flesh twined around bone, skin and water and brain matter—and he was keenly aware that he was merely that, and much more than that. He was sensation itself; he was conscious energy, energy that knows and manipulates itself at will.
Never had he imagined such awareness, such ecstasy of power and feeling.
Last night, when they’d rehearsed how it would happen, Anden had tugged at the hidden jade without pulling it entirely off Hilo’s arm. They hadn’t wanted to risk dangerously weakening themselves with jade rush and withdrawal. Even still, Anden had felt the tingly high of so much jade, more than he’d ever been in contact with before. That had been nothing compared to this.
“Don’t make a move before I signal you,” Hilo had said. “If I die before I can call you, you might still have a chance, but only if Gont is close. He has to be close.”
Gont was close now. Anden felt the hitch in the man’s motion, the instant of complete surprise. Hilo had done a good job keeping all of the Horn’s attention focused on him, and him alone, rousing his temper to obscure anything that might have made him glance back at Anden, even the split second of intent between Hilo’s cry and Anden’s response. The moon blade in Gont’s hand swung down, but there was indecision in it; the white length of metal fell so slowly, as if the air it parted were thick as honey, and Anden felt the bizarre urge to laugh when he realized Gont hadn’t slowed down—it was Anden’s perception of time that had elongated a thousandfold.
Anden could feel the man’s jade aura like a tangible thing that could be grasped with both hands. Almost experimentally, he brought a palm up and felt his greater-than-self clutch the flow of energy, envelop it, burrow into the heart of it. Gont froze, and then understanding and alarm washed into his eyes. His legendary Steel poured up and around him. Anden felt his questing force being pushed back, sensed Gont’s powerful aura battening itself in defense. Anden rose to his feet, the string of jade stones clutched in his fist, one hand still reaching out to his enemy, and pushed. His Channeling was like an iron spear. It tore through the outer layers of the man’s Steel and stopped just short, met by impenetrable resistance, unable to go further.
Gont’s eyes bulged. The moon blade quavered as if his entire body was locked in a paralysis of action and reaction. Anden felt his skin tingle with sudden climbing heat. Blood trickled from Gont’s mouth and nose; shock and panic strengthened his Steel, and Anden felt it expanding inexorably back against him. He could no longer breathe; the force building inside him was such that he felt his eyes and lungs would soon burst.
In that instant of desperate stalemate, Hilo pushed himself up in a surge of tenuous strength driven by supreme force of will alone. He grabbed Gont’s talon knife from its hip sheath and sank it into the man’s side. Gont let out a roar of pain. “Don’t you remember?” Hilo rasped. “Baijen came back from the dead to kill his enemy.”
Hilo collapsed to the ground. The remaining Mountain fighters sprang forward to help their Horn, to cut Anden and Hilo to pieces, but they were too late. The talon knife buried in Gont’s side had created the needed opening. Gont’s attention and Steel wavered, and Anden Channeled with all his force, felt the unbearable pressure inside him release in a violent surge, lancing into the other man’s body.
Gont’s heart stopped, his lungs seized, the veins in his brain burst. Anden, unable to block out the cruel clarity of his Perception, shared in the sensation of death, felt every terrible spike of destruction as it tore through his enemy’s body. Gont was dying; he was dying too. As the Horn fell, Anden sank with him, mouth open but unable to make a single sound. Then the storm of death crashed out and another wave hit: the blowback of jade energy rushing into Anden, like a wind sucked up by the angry god Yofo and shot out as an earth-scouring typhoon. The return energy rush from destroying a man as powerful as Gont Asch was indescribable. The light and heat of a thousand stars erupted in Anden’s skull. His head rocked back, and he screamed from the very pit of his soul in a terror of agony and ecstasy.
He was going to combust; he needed to expend this terrible boiling, this overabundance clawing under the surface of his skin, desperate to escape the confines of his flesh. The Mountain fighters rushin
g at him with upraised blades were like vessels into which to Channel the overflow. An outlet, a precious outlet. He didn’t even need to touch them; it was as easy as snuffing the life from mice in a cage. He caught up two men in midstep. They clutched their chests, eyes and mouths wide with shock, blades clattering to the ground. He watched with curious detachment and greedy joy as they died.
The Green Bones that remained backed away. Anden registered their fear of him and heard himself give an odd giggle. He was a demon—a pale teenage monster drunk on jade energy and killing. What happens when you cross a goat and a tiger? Kaul Sen had wondered. Something strange and terrifying.
With a shudder, Anden’s spine rippled. He flung his hands out sharply, fingers splayed, unleashing a Deflection that tore through the air and lifted three men off their feet, throwing them into the air before they tumbled and rolled to the ground. They scrambled up, staggering and limping, and staring back with wild alarm, they ran from him, the others following on their heels. Their footfalls thundered.
The barest sense of reality floated back to Anden’s conscious mind, which felt as if it were curled in terror in a dark corner of himself. Hilo’s unmoving form lay on the ground, the blood and life draining from his wounds. Anden had to … he had to get help … phone someone. He stared at the coils of jade in his right hand, and with a wrenching force of will as strong as if he were plucking out his own eyeball, he opened his fingers and let the string of gems fall. He stood up, took one step, and suddenly the entire world tilted and fell away into sudden blackness, and Anden sank, insensible, to the asphalt next to his cousin.
CHAPTER
55
Not Finished
Anden awoke in the hospital, hooked up to an intravenous tube and machines that beeped quietly. His head felt heavy and swollen, his eyes crusty. His throat was raw, and his skin was tender, as if the entire surface of his body was a single bruise, and it hurt to even shift his weight on the soft mattress of the hospital bed. For a moment, he couldn’t understand why he was here, and then it came back to him all at once. His heart gave a panicked lurch, and he was quickly bathed in sweat.