by Matt Weber
“We are aspirants to the Orchid Watch,” called Datang before Lin Gyat could deploy his singular turn of phrase. “This is Envied of Snakes Lin Gyat. My name is Datang and I am from Shrastaka.”
“A Riverman and a woman?” said the colonel. “The Watch has no use for riffraff. You may petition for entry at the Tiger Gate, with the rest of the mountain men and hedge-wizards pleading succor.”
“Succor?” called Datang. “We are volunteering our blood and sinew, sir, in response to the King’s own call. Moreover, we have already killed one of the Eunuch’s strategists at no small risk to our breath.”
“Which strategist?” The colonel let scorn stretch out his words.
A sulfurous heat begun to rise from Datang’s belly into the back of her throat; but if Lin Gyat noticed the colonel’s contempt, he made no sign. “The Glib Ape,” he said blithely.
The colonel laughed in derision. “Try your luck at the Tiger Gate, liar. The Glib Ape was sighted at an engagement near the Emerald Basin not three hours ago—nowhere near these barren hills.”
“Your report is in error,” said Datang, ignoring the shiver that chilled the very water in her spine, “but that is immaterial. We wish to pledge our blood and sinew to the King, and we will not squander our strength and a half-day’s walk petitioning like dispossessed farm-wives at the Tiger Gate when our purpose can here be achieved directly.”
“Directly?” said the colonel. “The Bat Gate gainsays you, Datang of Shrastaka. Unless you wish to wrench it open—but I do not think your blood and sinew are equal to the task.”
There was only one rejoinder to such smugness, and Datang made it. The colonel and his snipers laughed heartily enough as she sprinted for the gate, but when she left the ground and did not return, and did not return, and did not return, the color drained from their faces. A pair of reports rang out—cleverly timed, it must be said, for the very top of her arc, where Datang hung for the briefest of instants, neither climbing nor descending—and the flesh parted in a line over her left bicep; but the arc of her leap was unmarred, her landing on the narrow platform perfect, her hand gripping her sword, which remained sheathed but for an inch of gleaming steel at the base.
She faced the colonel, crouched like a sprinter, panting and bleeding. The snipers wheeled around to replace their aim. “The Bat Gate has admitted me, Colonel,” she said. “May I know the name I am soon to have the privilege of redacting from the Ledger of Living Souls?”
“Are you threatening an officer of the Guard?” The colonel spoke slowly, his eye on Datang’s dripping arm.
“Why, nothing of the kind,” she said. “I am merely demanding satisfaction, which I cannot imagine you will refuse me in front of these honorable subordinates, and stating a self-evident truth about the outcome of that encounter.”
“Grant satisfaction to a criminal? Don’t be absurd.” The colonel jerked his head meaningfully toward Datang. When this resulted in no action, he followed it up with a glare at his men. “Arrest the trespasser!”
Sentries shuffled toward Datang from behind. She straightened and turned, positioned for Clearing the Spider’s Web, the motion punctuated with the subtle scrape of her blade emerging another half-inch from its sheath. Her turn stopped her would-be arresters as effectually as a King’s edict. She waited for the rifle-shots to pierce her, but they did not come. She had gambled that this odious colonel did not command his men’s absolute loyalty, and the dice had fallen well. Now all that remained was to think of a way out of the impasse that did not end in her summary perforation.
Three heartbeats passed, then four. No way out came to Datang’s mind. Rather, we should say, she dismissed the one that did. An application of the Crane’s Migration step would carry her into the city at some respectable fraction of the rifles’ range; another and she would be lost among the ramshackle highrises of whatever district it was that abutted the Bat Gate. But that would strand Lin Gyat on the Bat Gate Bridge, in range of an angry colonel and several snipers anxious to redeem their recent failure; and, more to the point, it would stain the name of Datang with cowardice. Thus, though her legs longed to leap, she stayed.
“Zao, the Versicolor Guard!” a voice rang from the street below the parapets. Datang took her eyes from the snipers just long enough to catch a glimpse of the speaker: It was a man in the same greens as Lin Gyat, with a blue armband; he trailed a small company in similar armbands, though not in similar greens, and who had all turned to look at him, apparently as surprised by his salutation as were the snipers and Datang. “We heard shots,” the Green Morning brother continued. “The Cerulean Guard is here to lend assistance!”
“Your assistance is not required,” said the colonel. “We are on the verge of arresting a trespasser and shooting her accomplice. All is well in hand.”
“Ah, that is well,” said the man in green, who carried bow and broadsword. “What did this intruding worm purpose to do?”
The colonel paused; Datang seized the opportunity. “My fellow-traveler and I wish nothing but to pledge our service to King Tenshing Astama, whose holiness defends us from corruption. The colonel who maligns me would not open the gate for us, whereupon I made a small hop to gain the parapet and demanded satisfaction. Now, though he scorns the skills of women, he turns six rifles on me rather than draw steel.”
“Lies and arrant fictions!” called the Green Morning brother. “Such vulgarity is beneath arrest. Denounce her, Colonel, and kill her summarily; your honor will be satisfied, and your men will surely attest to the justice of your actions at the inquest.”
Datang did not stoop to show it, but for the second time that afternoon, the water in her spine froze. The colonel did not give the order, though. The mention of an inquest seemed to have petrified him with indecision.
“Leave off, Eager Edge,” called the colonel in charge of the blue-armbanded company. “We are on a war footing here, man; let us not neglect our duties.”
“War does not obviate the demands of honor,” called the brother styled Eager Edge, without looking at his superior. “If anything, it makes them keener. I wish to see this filth punished for her lies and trespasses.”
The Cerulean Guard colonel was walking back to the man called Eager Edge, his face growing red. “I know your style, damn you. I know your ways and means, and I grow weary of the Green Morning’s fetish for dueling. We march. Rejoin us or face court-martial.”
The left side of Eager Edge’s mouth curled up into something that Datang would not, on reflection, have called a smile. “My colonel,” he said, “surely you have not just accused me of disingenuousness.”
The colonel’s face went white as swiftly as it went red; he stopped in his tracks. “Nothing of the kind.”
“Then let us hear the clamor of these men in support of their colonel, that we may witness his dispensation of justice and continue on our way.”
Datang turned expectantly to the snipers. They took a step back and remained silent.
“Well,” said Eager Edge. “The clamor is long in coming. Is it possible that this invading leech has told the truth?”
The colonel on the wall flicked his eyes around nervously at his men, who looked away. “Very well,” he snarled, “I’ll kill her myself.” And he drew his blade and rushed Datang.
She countered with Clearing the Spider’s Web, which connected with, but merely scratched, the colonel’s armor; his own stroke went whistling by. But Datang stumbled in the aftermath of the pass. She looked at the ground; the blood from her arm had formed a gleaming, dark pool. She turned to face the colonel, who was already preparing for a second charge. When he saw her pallor, though, he eased back into a defensive stance. “On second thought,” he said, “perhaps I shall let you come to me.”
“In a commander,” said Datang, “one thing men respect above all is judiciousness.” It was true, unfortunately, she reflected, and tried to spit the word “judiciousness” with enough vitriol that he might take the truth as insult.
&nb
sp; “Nothing of the kind, trespasser!” shouted the Eager Edge. “What they respect is toying with an opponent, especially one so benighted as to stake her life against overwhelming odds rather than use her powers of mobility to flee!”
One sniper murmured something to another, who laughed. The colonel turned red.
“You stand with sword drawn and invite my attack,” said Datang. “Your arrest order is rescinded, then? This is a duel, is it not?”
“Bah,” said the colonel, “I will not sanctify your absurd gesticulations with the term.”
“Then you order my arrest?”
“Would you prefer the security of jail?” He sneered. “How quickly her bravery evaporates.”
“I have no fear of your steel,” said Datang, realizing at an odd remove that it was true. “But I harbor some sympathy for your men, who must be uncertain as to their present duties.” She tried not to listen to the drip of her blood on the wood.
“My men may do as they please,” said the colonel. “But come, do you not tire of talking?”
“Of listening, at any rate,” she said, and leapt for him.
He went for her feint of Casting the Coconut and caught the thrust of Berry Plucking on his off-hand forearm—but he wore bracers as well as breastplates, and her edge again failed to cut him. He countered with a pommel-strike that she first took for Crushing the Field Mouse, but when he followed it with a taloned off-hand strike that scratched her wounded arm, she recognized his style for the Tiger rather than the Bull. She dodged around his back and whirled into Riding the Vine; he caught it on a bracer again. His smile was ugly. “You fight the Humble Family,” he said. “That is quaint.”
“A noble fencer may fight the Humble Family,” she said, “but the opposite is as true and truer—as you know from hard experience, since I have hit you twice.”
“Have you?” he said. “I felt nothing.” And he launched Raking the Ox’s Back.
Datang parried and hit him again, then parried his riposte and again launched a hit he took on the bracers. He was bigger than her and strong from the habit of wearing armor; his feet were lead, but his aim was good. A distant part of her mind cast its eye to the future: She could not parry many more direct attacks, and she could not afford to take a hit. In a long engagement, though, her strength or speed would flag, and his steel would, in time, connect; and that would be the ignominious punkt closing out her entry in the Book of Gallant Styles.
She modulated her distance—not out of reach of his weapon, but not quite in it. He shuffled a half-step closer and took the attack; she parried and danced back to the same range. He pressed the attack again. Her parry buckled then, and she took a strike on the collarbone. The cut was shallow, but its pain and force unbalanced her; she managed to dance back several steps before she stumbled. She thought to feign disorientation, but found little feigning was needful: Her sight was clear enough, but her head buzzed, and she was not quite sure where her sword arm was. The colonel smiled cruelly and raised his sword for the coup de grâce.
As his weight shifted forward, she dove for his knees, using the power of the Crane’s Migration Step to propel herself up. She rammed his armored chest with bone-rattling force, bringing his legs up behind him as his trunk overbalanced and tipped.
He went over the platform into the street, landing with the rattle of a pile of pots.
She reeled, then fell after him.
Something stopped her fall, only to allow it to resume at once; for the second time in as many days, the earth kicked the wind from her lungs. “Aiya!” said the Eager Edge. “I tried to catch my honored superior the colonel, but I have broken the fall of this degenerate instead! Curse my carelessness—”
“Shut up, Eager Edge,” the Cerulean colonel cut in. Datang pushed off the Eager Edge and swung her legs down to the ground. The Versicolor colonel had landed, as she had hoped, on his head, which was now a half-pulped lump inside his helmet. The Cerulean colonel looked at his dead colleague, then up at the snipers. “From where I stand,” he said, “this looks to have been a duel.”
The snipers murmured among themselves; one shrugged, then another. Datang breathed deeply and willed her knees not to go to water.
“Woman fencer,” the colonel said. “What is your business in this city?”
“To lend her blood and sinew to the King’s cause,” said Eager Edge, “she claims. But surely we must avenge the honored dead.”
“The steel polemic negates vengeance, as you know,” growled the Cerulean colonel.
“Perhaps the invader cheated!”
“I saw no cheating.”
Eager Edge shrugged smoothly. “Very well. If a colonel of the guard pronounces the altercation a duel fairly fought, we must all surely abide by his determination.” Nodding and shrugging rippled among the snipers; but there were stares of venom too, and bared teeth.
The Cerulean colonel turned to face Datang. “You wish to lend your blood and sinew to the King’s cause?” Datang nodded, not trusting her voice. “In my capacity as ranking officer, I accept—what’s your name?”
“Datang,” said Datang after a moment, in tones pleasantly firm and steady. “Of Shrastaka.”
“Jiao the Ape’s Left Hand,” added Lin Gyat, his voice floating faintly over the Bat Gate.
“I accept Datang of Shrastaka into the Orchid Watch and recommend her for the Cerulean Guard. Under the recruitment statutes, this expunges any criminal record she may or may not have amassed as a civilian, mooting the question of her trespass. Anything to add?”
“Excuse me, colonel,” said the Eager Edge. “Our esteemed new colleague has shown mastery of the Crane’s Migration Step, which I believe entitles her to certain perquisites within the organization.”
The Cerulean colonel raised an eyebrow. “Shown mastery, Eager Edge? And what would you know about that?”
“The Bat Gate is closed, Colonel, is it not?”
“The Lotus,” muttered the colonel. “It is, at that.” He looked over at Datang. “In light of your wounds, I suppose I cannot ask you for a demonstration now, but when you have recovered, if any member of the Orchid Watch—in either troop—asks you to show your skill and it eludes you, things will go very hard with you indeed. Until such time as you fail such a challenge, commit another crime, or secure promotion, you’re retained for a year’s service starting from this date with the rank of corporal. You and Eager Edge should get yourself to Captain Galme and get yourselves assigned to a patrol.” The Cerulean colonel spat. “Tell him that if he puts either of you with me, I’ll throw open the Wind Horse Gate myself.”
The Eager Edge bowed crisp and deep. “It’s been an honor to work with you, Colonel.”
“Get out of my sight,” said the colonel. “Men!”
The patrol set off at a march. Datang shared a glance with the Versicolor snipers, then reeled again from the effort of tilting up her head.
“Did you win?” called Lin Gyat from the other side of the wall.
It did not take much for Datang and Eager Edge, whose personal name was Lin Yongten, to persuade the Versicolor snipers to open the Bat Gate for Lin Gyat. Datang had expected him to be petulant at having missed a fight, but one look at the Versicolor colonel, and Lin Gyat shrugged off the missed opportunity complacently enough. “He would have bounced off me,” he said, “to the same result. Better that you get the practice against a larger opponent, Ape’s Left Hand.”
“Ape’s Left Hand?” said Lin Yongten. “Envied of Snakes has been known to me for some time, as a member of the gallant fraternity and a brother in the Green Morning, but it was only recently I heard of an Ape’s Left Hand who did us all the charity of besting Golden Bat on the Road of Bulls. I might have thought of it sooner, but I had understood her merely to have assisted the Glib Ape, whereas you acquitted yourself admirably duzi—that is the Gardener word for solo,” he clarified, seeing Datang’s confusion—“and it had certainly not crossed my mind that anyone would come to Rassha on the Road of Bull
s.” He looked at her with quick, weighing eyes, but did not pursue the line of thought. “Well, we must bind your wounds and sort out the details of your enlistment. The first is most easily dealt with.” Lin Yongten knelt by the Versicolor colonel and wrestled the many-colored armband over his bracer. He then applied it to her wound with a practiced hand. The Versicolor snipers made noises of protest at this, but Lin Gyat twirled his rifle around one-handed, and they stopped after a few revolutions. The trio made their way off before the snipers could recover their courage.
Datang felt a weight lift from her shoulders when the Versicolor snipers were out of range. The neighborhood by the Bat Gate was none too well-maintained, but Lin Yongten’s Cerulean armband, Datang’s own Versicolor armband, and the simple immensity of Lin Gyat seemed to ward off all unwanted attention. Although it seemed something of an effort—that is to say, not something he would have done out of mere habit—Lin Yongten kept up a sustained monologue as they made their way through the streets of Uä’s capital.
“This is the Ogmin, one of many questionable neighborhoods by the minor gates. I live with an associate in the equally questionable neighborhood of Sengekang by the Snow Lion Gate, where the concentration of Cerulean to Versicolor Guard is more favorable than it is here, and so conducive to a certain peace of mind which, you perceive, is essential for rest and rejuvenation in one’s domicile. The Cerulean Guard is the troop directly supervised by General Gyaltsen, who recently covered himself in glory at the Hill of Faces. The Versicolor Guard is supervised by the King’s Lama, who enjoys no military qualifications. The schism is of recent vintage; events around the coronation led to tension between Gyaltsen and the priest. The latter believed he had reason for concern regarding his continued, ah, respiration, and of course you understand the need for increased security in the streets, in light of the succession’s, shall we say, divisive—ah, here you see the quality of architecture and citizenry both improve as we approach Plum Blossom Street, a major vinculum between the eastern and western halves of the city, which, of course, are separated by the Silver Dragon.”