Five Kingdoms

by T. A. Miles

  The dragon lay stunned on its side. Guang Ci ran as quickly as he was able. The Night Blade seemed to grow heavier as he drew nearer to the beast, as if it was swelling with a physical power. By the time he reached the dragon, it seemed more as if it was refusing to be wielded. The dark energy of the weapon distorted the air around it, spreading an inky blackness that bled onto Guang Ci’s hands and stained his view when he dragged the blade forward. The fantastic odor of the dragon assailed him as well, and beneath its belly he could see a small field of dark fluid that seemed to immediately reflect the Night Blade’s magic. It was as if there was some relationship between beast and sword, one that elected to favor the beast over the sword’s bearer.

  You wanted this! Guang Ci reminded the Night Blade.

  The aura of the weapon seemed to contradict him in those moments, its power dragging heavier. Again, it seemed it wanted him to obey it…to wield it as if it had designs of its own, that it could realize through the one carrying it.

  I wield this Blade for Sheng Fan! Guang Ci enforced. For the safety of my Empress, for the glory of my lord Xu Liang, and for the peace of the people!

  He lunged forward with all of his strength, drawing the Night Blade steadily forward. In the corner of his vision, Jiao Ren had arrived with the Sun Blade. A malicious radiance drove from the Night Blade, through Guang Ci. The sword released itself to his strength, and his swing happened with no ability to control it. Beside him, Jiao Ren was driving the near flaming tip of the Spear of Heaven into the dragon’s chest, precisely when Behel was penetrating the beast’s wall of flesh. Both weapons delved deep into the dragon, and met one another at some point inside. Guang Ci was only aware of an eruption of deep, mournful chords before he was flung through the air at tremendous speeds. The streak of the Sun Blade’s aura raked across his vision like a falling star in the night.

  Rise and Fall of the Sun

  At first, Xu Liang believed that the dragon had thrown both Jiao Ren and Guang Ci from it. But with the delay in the creature’s movement, it became quickly clear that they had been thrown from each other with force similar to that which had locked the Storm and Twilight Blades in Yvaria. For several moments, he could only stare at the sight of both Blades and their bearers hurtled in opposite directions, as if by the hands of a giant deity. It seeped into his thoughts gradually that they had attacked with poor timing. He could only assume that urgency to strike before the dragon rose and ambition to quell the beast altogether had not allowed Jiao Ren to wait for Guang Ci’s attack to be completed.

  It scarcely seemed to matter what order they had attacked in now; the dragon was returning to its feet.

  “What now?” Shirisae asked, not as one beleaguered, but as one eager to carry on fighting.

  “We find another way,” Xu Liang told her, because there was no other answer.

  Jiao Ren held onto the Spear of Heaven throughout his flight across the courtyard, as if it were somehow a safe purchase. Instinct would not let him release it, and so he flew with it, arcing briefly skyward and then rapidly descending to the ground and across it. He tumbled so swiftly and the entirety of the event was such a shock that he scarcely felt any of it. When at last the spear took hold of the earth, he let go the shaft and rolled only a short distance further before coming to a stop on his back. For several moments, he couldn’t tell if he was breathing, but then it began to ache all over to do so.

  The outsiders reached him first. The ghostly pale one, followed by the man with eyes the color of sky. Their names had been told to him, but he could not recall them in the moment. Their language was a blur of foreign sounds. He felt as if he was falling from consciousness.

  “We have to move him,” Tristus said while he began an attempt to heal the general, after an impressive leap from the rooftops that might have done him a fair amount of harm as well if he’d landed wrong. “If we don’t, the three of us are going to get trampled.”

  Alere wasn’t arguing that point. Still, there options for safety seemed few.

  The dragon had renewed the clamor of its movement—evident in the quaking underfoot—though it was not yet in sight. Jiao Ren had been thrown a tremendous distance, and presumably Guang Ci had flown equally far, though in the opposite direction.

  The crackling of light from Firestorm let them know that Shirisae and possibly Xu Liang as well were engaging the dragon once again. It would be foolish to waste the time their efforts were giving them. Alere looked for a location to move to that was neither too far nor overly exposed. A toppled awning propped beside a covered walkway seemed ample shelter, at least for a brief period.

  “There,” he said to Tristus, pointing in the direction.

  The knight glanced over his shoulder, eyeing up what Alere was referencing and approving of it with a quick nod. He abandoned his healing efforts and together, they lifted Jiao Ren from the ground, moving quickly toward the shade of the fallen awning. Once Jiao Ren was laid back down and Tristus resumed his cleric’s work, Alere placed himself near the edge of the portion of roof that would be no shelter at all if the dragon came too near, and watched for the enemy.

  Tarfan would not have believed it if he hadn’t seen it himself, with his own dwarf’s eyes. No sooner had he once again topped the miserably steep staircase of the city wall, and there came a sound like the enragement of the gods—the same sound that had nearly taken the elves’ blades from them not all that long ago. But rather than a berserker tearing the weapons apart in direct defiance of the gods, it was a lone Fanese guardsman flying through the air, like a thrown sack of root vegetables. And somehow, in the midst of his pell-mell flight, he righted himself in the air and took only the mildest tumble before he stabbed the Night Blade into the earth and refused to travel any further. It was the most astounding act of defiance Tarfan had seen since Tristus’ feat in Yvaria, and it was damned impressive, particularly as Behel gave off a low moan that might have been protest, and in the process belched a ring of darkness out around itself and its bearer. Afterward, Guang Ci got to his feet and was off as if he’d never been removed from the battle, even for a moment.

  There was excited and panicked murmuring around Tarfan, though not all of it was on account of Guang Ci. Much of it was over the dragon, which, like all dragons, refused to be put down without raising the very hells. That might have been the one thing a dragon and a dwarf had in common. With a cursory look over his shoulder at the stunned assortment of troops gathered on the wall, Tarfan shrugged and made for the stairs. If those damned artifacts weren’t going to take care of this neat and tidy, then he wasn’t about to stand around waiting for the end to announce itself. He had a hammer, and whatever this dragon represented, it appeared made of blood and bones.

  Tarfan felt somewhat exhilarated by his decision, but more so by the sight of well-armed and armored Fanese men leaving the wall at both ends. He couldn’t take all the credit for their movement, since half or more of them probably couldn’t see him over the stairwell, but he did take a fair amount of pride in men—and a single dwarf—in those moments, that they had all come to the decision to act at the same time.

  The dragon’s steps were no longer sure. More than likely, it had taken on too much injury and, if the manuals were correct, the wound at its belly had become toxic, owed to the natural poisons it carried in its gut. The manuals also claimed that dragons could regenerate if allowed to rest, which meant that they could not simply wait for it to die. The final two strikes had failed, though not entirely. Damage had still been done to the region of the lungs and heart, even if the wounds had not been delivered with any immediate finality. The key now was to avoid its enraged flailing and its desperate wails. While Xu Liang would have preferred so ancient a beast to have a swifter, more dignified end, fate had not allowed it.

  The dragon placed itself between buildings, as if by some instinct to retreat into a recess, just as it seemed to slumber within the caves. It emitt
ed a rolling growl while it looked through eyes damaged by the intensity of Firestorm’s light upon Xu Liang and Shirisae.

  A wave of pity crashed over Xu Liang, but it could not last when, within the dragon’s glare, he perceived a defiant sneer. The ancient beast seemed suddenly not so ancient at all. Xu Liang recalled the dream of the nest, and then what he’d seen of it beneath the city, and what of that nest had risen to the surface behind the larger beast. He realized that it was only a small display of what was possible.

  “There are more,” Xu Liang heard, possibly from the mouth—or the mind—of the dragon. “They are stronger. They will be released.”

  Soldiers rushed from the wall in those moments. The sounds of their coming seemed to imbue the dragon with a second wind. It wheeled its head quickly around to face the oncoming troops. Xu Liang envisioned disaster.

  “Shirisae,” he said, feeling somewhat drained by the rush of events, and by the weight of what he felt could be glimpsed of the future in the dragon’s threat. “Stop them.”

  The fire elf responded at once, turning toward the soldiers and raising the Storm Blade into the air. Fierce strands of silver lightning shot to the sky, alarming the men and halting their charge. Xu Liang stayed by her side, so that his people may know that he was in support of her actions, that they had not been the rogue actions of an outsider who might have been against them for any reason.

  It was in the midst of considering his next action that Guang Ci emerged from behind a broken pavilion, charging at the dragon. Though Xu Liang briefly felt the same instinct to stop him that had inspired him to call out to his guard once before, he withheld this time. Instead, he cast a wind spell, just enough to divert the dragon’s lunge with open maw so that Guang Ci was able to run beneath it and with both hands, stab once more into the dragon’s chest.

  The dragon wailed in agony, lurching up and toward Xu Liang and Shirisae. With the waning of his own strength, Xu Liang felt that he could barely lift the Moon Blade to summon its protection. He managed with the help of Shirisae’s hand to support his arm. As in the Temple of Divine Tranquility, the Phoenix appeared, wings outstretched to shield all those behind it. The dragon’s strike was delivered back to it, with a single flex of its fiery wings. The dragon was thrown onto its side by the returned force of its own assault. It clawed reflexively, trying to rise once again, with the Night Blade lodged in its flesh.

  Guang Ci leaped up to retrieve the weapon, managing to be carried for a span before the Blade slid free and both it and its bearer were deposited onto the ground. The dragon stumbled and appeared bent on facing the Phoenix, but it was faced with Jiao Ren instead. The general braced himself for its attack and when the dragon lunged forward, he ran swiftly beneath its head and neck, running the Spear of Heaven directly into the dragon’s chest.

  The beast coiled its neck back, like a serpent to strike, glaring with amber eyes down at Jiao Ren. Though the angle would not enable the beast to seize Jiao Ren in its jaws, it opened them anyway to let out its death wail. It was then that Jiao Ren drove the Blade deeper, turning it, and unleashing a deep red blossom of fire that rapidly colored the entirety of both forms.

  It was impossible to look upon the intensity of the Blade’s energy. Xu Liang averted his eyes. A tremendous heat filled the courtyard, as if Cheng Yu himself had briefly alighted upon the wall and lent the power of the sun directly to Jiao Ren’s strike.

  Tristus and Alere had rushed after Jiao Ren—who had leaped up immediately after the healing spell had taken effect—only to be met with the dragon’s reeling, and to be on the wrong side of it to offer aid to the determined young general. In the moments that followed, the dragon came to glow as if it held fire beneath its skin, and before it was possible to respond, both Tristus and Alere were knocked backward by a tremendous rush of heat. Tristus struck a pillar and was summarily put on the ground. Alere found himself in a cart just behind the pillar. In the moments they were rising, the fire was gone and the air felt still.

  Tristus offered Alere a hand out of the cart and retrieved Dawnfire. They both hurried toward what Tristus anticipated would be the smoldering body of a dragon and the singed, victorious form of Jiao Ren. They found themselves standing at the far end of a field of ash and skeletal fragments, the Sun Blade propped at low angle on the ground in the middle of it. At the other side stood Xu Liang, Shirisae, and a kneeling Guang Ci. Stunned soldiers were collected behind them. Jiao Ren was very simply not there.

  “Dear God,” Tristus whispered with immediate tears in his eyes. And there was nothing more to be said, or done. The dragon was gone, and so too was the champion of the empress of Sheng Fan.

  The Spear of Heaven was recovered and returned to the Empress with a full account of what had happened. She blessed Jiao Ren in spirit, and blessed all of the remaining bearers, welcoming those from foreign lands into Sheng Fan, as heroes of the Empire.

  For weeks after the dragon’s defeat, the west court remained cordoned off, so that architects and workers could begin its clearing and reconstruction. Within the new Temple of Divine Tranquility there would be a tribute to Jiao Ren, taking place of a new statue of Song Dai, which would instead be located in the Garden of Remembrance.

  In response to an evident state of attack, one designed at least in part by the former—and still unaccounted for—Chancellor of the Court, the governors of the five kingdoms had been summoned to the Imperial City. It was the Empress’ hope that they would be made to see reason, through the tragic events they had faced in Jianfeng. It was Xu Liang’s hope as well, though he knew even as he addressed the governors and other officials that it would be no simple task, particularly as the governor of Xun had not even seen fit to attend. He had sent an envoy. It became clear that Fa Leng could not be put off, and it hadn’t been. A first wave of reinforcements had been sent. Xu Liang would accompany a second force soon afterward. The campaign was on his mind, even as he spoke to his peers.

  “We cannot afford this division,” Xu Liang reiterated. He had already said as much in more than one way. He was having more difficulty than he expected finding a combination of words his colleagues would listen to. “As we speak, we have more important concerns than our political differences in opinion, which have driven certain individuals, both present and not, to disregard the Mandate. I would ask everyone to reflect on such deeds, to consider the scope of such actions and the dire consequences that would surely face the Empire, should anyone attempt to wrest power from the only source capable of instilling peace. The lands divided among the Empire were not intended to be divided from the Empire. We must resolve our differences and face the real threat to the land as one, unified force.

  “That is what these weapons represent.” Xu Liang swept his hand over the display of Blades spread upon the floor. “Unity. Alone each of these blades are strong, announcing its station above common with a heavenly glow. Together they are not merely blessed, they are the power that can bless, the spirits of the gods, come to us in the forms of these artifacts, the Celestial Swords.”

  “We are not blind, Lord Xu Liang,” someone said, in a voice that dredged up too many memories of an unpleasant childhood. Xu Hong had crested seventy and lost none of his cruelty. His tone was rough, as a roll of thunder. His gaze was uncompromising, especially as it settled upon his recognized son, who—he was determined—had not been delivered to the ranks of the Imperial Court to oppose or challenge him. “We can see the evident sorcery that swirls about these blades, but what makes you so certain they are the weapons of the gods? Is it not possible that you might have fallen victim to some trickery, to believe that sacred artifacts of Sheng Fan could be so readily molested by the hands of outsiders? The same trickery which seems to have convinced many of the eyes of this court into believing that an earthquake was in actuality a dragon!”

  Xu Liang’s eyes glared as he watched his father walk toward the Blades. The Governor of Du possessed a more obl
ong shape in his older age, as the great muscles of his youth had lost their firmness and become simply excess weight. It was an effort for him to bend over and, if he crouched down, it was not quite so easy for him to rise again as he once did. Perhaps that was why he refrained from touching any of the Swords, though it was apparent in his expression that he’d intended to.

  Xu Liang spared him the trouble—and as far as Xu Hong was probably concerned, made a supreme and blatant effort to humiliate him—by taking two swift steps to the weapons and lightly sweeping up the Moon Blade. He held it low, and let his father watch the weapon’s glow swell along the blade, over the hilt, and gradually over his arm. “This is not trickery, Xu Hong,” he said. “It was not trickery that killed either the dragon or General Jiao Ren, eradicating nearly all evidence of their existence from the west court of the Empress’ city.”

  The display appeared to make the governor of the Western Kingdom uncomfortable, and unhappy. He glared in a way that was familiar to Xu Liang—the glare he had been raised to look at, whenever Xu Hong felt intimidated by Xiang Wu’s child.

  “There will be more avatars of Chaos,” Xu Liang told him, and the rest of the court.

  Murmurs began to rise in the throne room.

  “It was my grandfather,” the Empress said, drawing all attention to her, “your late Emperor, who implemented the Five Kingdoms Resolution. He believed that it would best benefit the people, enabling all parts of Sheng Fan to be properly and attentively governed, down to the smallest village. Prosperity and brotherhood were his inspiration. He believed that the Mandate rendered him father to all people of Sheng Fan, and he believed that a father must trust in and share responsibility with his children.