Branson opened his eyes fully. "What is it?"
"As we are to be fellow students, you must treat us as fellow students. As equals." Render extended his hand.
For a moment longer than would have been polite, Branson stared at Render's hand as if it had just been pulled from a cesspool. But finally, he took it, smiled a crooked smile and said, "Fellow students."
"Fellow students."
Branson took his hand back and began walking inside. Mid-stride he stopped and looked back. "But equals?" He shook his head and scoffed as he left.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Exhausted, Ahndien did not know if she had any strength left to defend herself against whatever was approaching. The soft but purposeful steps got closer. Trepidation gripped her heart tighter with each one.
"Ahndien."
She gasped, swung her sword back preparing to strike.
Held her breath.
Then from behind the bushes, he appeared.
Worn, ragged and limping.
At first she thought, Ah-Yeh? But then she realized he was not her grandfather at all. It was that voice. //BE STILL...FEAR NOT // The one she had heard in her head. Only stronger, more confident.
Still shaken from the mountain lion attack, Ahndien blinked and stood perfectly still. She dared not move. Then, when she saw who it was she lowered her sword and stepped forward. "Oh, it's you."
"Are you all right?" Lao-Ying hobbled over on his gnarled walking stick. The question barely settled into her mind. Darkness enshrouded her thoughts. With disembodied awareness, she knew that overwhelming sorrow brewed within her, but somehow they failed to connect with her thoughts, her words.
They're gone, she tried to say, but no sound passed her lips.
"Yes, I am all right. I think."
Lao-Ying sighed wearily, took hold of her arm and turned it over. "You are bleeding."
"All of them. Gone."
Ahndien fixed her gaze upon the smoke rising from the village. Ah-Ma and Shao-Bao lay dead just ahead of her. A cold tear rolled down her face but she didn't move, barely breathed.
Lao-Ying muttered something, walked over to Ah-Ma and Shao-Bao and covered them with a large sackcloth. He turned around and searched Ahndien with concerned eyes. "I am truly sorry."
But her heart and her voice were entombed in ice. All she saw were ethereal images layered over of the hills. Flames shooting into the air, a few fleeing villagers running from the accursed Torian soldiers, who shot them with arrows. This echo-like vision seemed much more vivid than witnessing them firsthand. It disturbed her more than if it was actually happening before her eyes.
Lao-Ying returned and guided her to sit on a large rock. He ripped open her sleeve and with a strip torn from that sleeve tied it tight around her forearm, just above the puncture wounds. "What did the mountain lion say to you?"
The question echoed in her mind. But all she could think of was her village, her friends, her family. All gone. She continued to stare into the hills as the images continued to flood her consciousness, if it could be called consciousness. Her lips moved and, as if someone else had spoken, she answered the old man. "It wanted Ah-Ba's sword."
"Sword?" He pulled the ribbons tight. A sharp pain oozed from the holes in her arm. But Ahndien neither cried out, nor flinched. She didn't even blink. Lao-Ying rumbled. "Why would they...? Unless they thought that—"
All at once, like floodgates bursting, the reality of it all overcame her. She let out a painful cry that resounded through the woods.
"Ah-Ma!"
Ahndien tore herself from the old man's caring hands and rushed to the charred remains of her mother and little brother. "Ah-Ma!" All her cries melded into an unintelligible melisma of sobs and words and screams.
Tears mixed with soot and ash muddied her face. She fell to her knees over the bodies. Now, the only word she could utter was, "No." She choked back another sob. "No, no, no, no!"
She had only left for a short while. And in that time, her family, her village, her entire world had been destroyed.
"Ahndien," Lao-Ying said in a hushed tone. Gently, he placed his hands on her shoulders.
"No!" she bolted up, expecting the old man to lose balance and fall on his back. But instead, he straightened up and regarded her with empathy. This moved her little. "It is your fault!"
"My—?"
"You distracted me, delayed me! All the while my family was being murdered by the filthy Torians!"
"How could I have possibly—?"
"You knew! I don't know how, but you knew! That's why you...Why I didn't..." She could not speak another word because the next wave of sobs and convulsions overtook her.
"Ahndien," Lao-Ying said, "To assign blame—"
"Ah-Ba!" Through her tears, anger arose. Where was he? When his family needed him most? She grabbed the sword and hacked at a tree branch over and over until the blade became lodged. "Where were you!"
Ahndien resheathed the sword andleaned an arm on the branch. Her tears fell and slapped against a fallen leaf. Sorrow, rage and despair boiled to the surface. When her vision cleared, something on the ground caught her eye. Glinting in the setting sun, it sent a tingle through her veins. Ah-Ba's pendant, the leather neck strap torn open. It never left his person. He had been here.
And to the side of the pendant, large drops of blood coagulated in the dirt. A trail dug into the ground suggested that he had been dragged on his knees up to a wagon, where tread marks from its wheels took over.
She spun around to Lao-Ying, standing erect, his walking stick abandoned behind him. "They've taken my father!"
He lowered his eyes and bowed his head.
"I've got to help him." Ahndien yanked the sword out of the tree branch and slung her satchel over her shoulder. She knelt by the cloth covering the remains of Ah-Ma and Shao-Bao. With reverence, she rested her hand on them. "For the honor of our family," she said in a grave voice. "I will avenge you."
"Ahndien, wait." Lao-Ying stepped forward and reached for her arm. "Do not act rashly."
Her sword flew out of the sheath and sang a ringing, metallic song just as its sharp edge found its way right before Lao-Ying's chest. "You will not impede me again, you frail, old coward of a man!" Her heart pounded like Lunar Festival drums, fire coursed through her blood. Her chest rose and fell, her teeth clenched. A single tear drop burned a trail down her cheek.
But Lao-Ying didn't so much as blink. He took a deep breath and stood taller than Ahndien could remember. "Kill me, and you will never know the answer."
"Answer?" She hadn't yet asked any question. "To what?"
"To the questions that arise from reading that." He pointed to her satchel. "Your father's book."
A cold wind passed over her and caused her to shiver. How did he know it was in there? She jutted her jaw out. Leaned forward and pressed the sword into his shirt. "I have no questions."
With the steadfast fortitude of a man half his age, Lao-Ying gazed right into her eyes and said, "But you shall."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Your riddles do not interest me," Ahndien said, certain the blade would break the old man's frail skin if she pressed in any further.
"I offer answers, not riddles." He tried to back away, but Ahndien kept the edge of the sword against his chest.
"How do I know you are not in league with the Torians?"
"I am not."
"How can I be certain?"
"You cannot. At least not presently. You can only trust me. Or not."
Regardless of his age, this man could not be trusted. She would cut the tiresome old man's heart out. Ahndien let out a frustrated grunt and swung the sword.
Lao-Ying's only reaction came so quick Ahndien never saw it happen. Before the blade ever reached him, he was upon her, his hand grasping her right wrist with crushing force. All strength from her arm, her hand, her entire right side drained out of her. Instantly, she dropped the sword and it clanked twice on the ground.
"You are mo
st assuredly your father's daughter."
"How did you—?" She would have completed her sentence if not for the transformation in the old man. Before her very eyes, he began to radiate with wisps of white light, its warmth spreading out and caressing her face.
"You have his fighting spirit, his heart of justice."
"He is a scholar."
"And the brash temper of his youth."
The white brilliance washed out Lao-Ying's features, his cottony beard, his winged eyebrows. This continued until all was light. And his voice began to envelop her thoughts.
// BUT IF YOU HUMBLE YOURSELF, YOU WILL LEARN GREAT THINGS. YOU WILL FULFILL ALL FOR WHICH YOU ARE DESTINED //
Like a roaring fire, Lao-Ying's brilliance rose above her. Ahndien stooped down and turned her eyes upward. "Is it you?" The sun had fallen behind the hills and the sky had turned to blood and wine. But Lao-Ying's radiance illuminated the entire village as though it were midday.
When she could see clearly again, she beheld a great figure directly above her, against the deep violet backdrop peppered with stars. A rush of wind blew down from the figure's wings.
"Was it—?"
// IT WAS AND IS //
The Eagle. The great bird of prey. The one who had snatched up the mountain lions and saved her from their deadly jaws. "But I...I don't understand."
As he descended, a cloud of dust floated up around her. Ahndien covered her face and backed away, yielding to the massive bird whose wingspan covered more than two huts.
// THERE IS MUCH TO BE DONE. WE MUST LEAVE THIS PLACE //
With as much caution as awe, she approached. Touched the dark, brassy plumage. His feathers were surprisingly velvet. And yet, they seemed stronger than iron. Lao-Ying—the eagle—lowered and turned his gold-crested head such that his black pearl of an eye gazed straight down at her. His beak seemed more powerful and deadlier than any sword a human could wield, his feathered legs ended with yellow rapier-like talons. And yet, she did not fear.
// THE PATH BEFORE US IS AS LONG AS IT IS ARDUOUS //
One final look to her ravished village.
One final glimpse into her past, all that she held dear.
Ahndien's knees faltered.
The entire world began to sway.
Lao-Ying leaned towards her. As Ahndien fell, she reached forward and with both hands grasped at one of the feathers in his wing, expecting to pluck it and drop to the ground.
Instead, she found it as firmly rooted as a Xuh-Suh tree in the rocky side of the mountains. And before she could fully appreciate what was happening, that feather, no, the entire wing yanked her upwards, sending her hurtling into the air.
Too awed to let out a cry, Ahndien's mouth gaped silently, though no breath passed through. She flew high above the tall bamboo trees. And then, a mass of brown, black and gold rushed past her. The next thing she felt, just as she began to fall from the apex of her ascent, was a swift tug on the back of her shirt. Her entire body jerked to a stop, father's sword rattling at her side. As quickly as she had been caught in Lao-Ying's formidable beak, she was lowered onto his back.
She let out a childish shriek. "You're flying!"
If ever a giant bird could smile, Ahndien believed she had just seen it. He nodded, turned to face forward and let out a fierce eagle call that resounded in the hills.
// HOLD FAST, AHNDIEN //
She attempted to wrap her arms around his neck, but could not clasp her hands together.
// GRASP THE FEATHERS OF MY NAPE //
"But, won't that hurt?" What followed was not so much words in her mind, but what could only be described as laughter from the great bird. Ahndien swallowed. "If you say so." She slipped her hands under the golden, leaf-shaped feathers and wrapped the shafts twice around her hands like rope. So strong, yet so flexible.
Presently, she became aware of the rising and dipping of her own body as she straddled Lao-Ying's tree trunk of a neck. As they floated up higher with each flap of his wings, the wind grew stronger. The village below grew smaller.
Clouds of black smoke arose from the center of her family's hut. A sharp pang twisted inside her chest.
Ah-Ma.
Shao-Bao.
Fading behind as they soared away.
Sharp blasts of wind streaked tears across her face. She sniffed wetly and wiped her eyes on her shoulder. One last look, please. Then stretched her neck back, but could not see her home. Her left hand releasing a feather, she twisted her trunk around. Right away, she lost her balance. Nearly slippped over the right side of Lao-Ying's neck. She shouted in terror.
// AHNDIEN! //
The entire horizon fell diagonally as Lao-Ying banked upwards on his right and reestablished Ahndien's balance. She spun around, leaned forward and grasped as many of his feathers as she could. As she leaned against his neck, her heart pounded so hard he must have felt it.
// ARE YOU ALL RIGHT? //
Silently, she nodded, her face buried in the silk and steel feathers.
// I'M SORRY, LAO-YING. I WANTED ONE A LAST LOOK //
He righted himself and soared towards the top of the Maw-Shuh Mountains. From his beak, a sound rose above the beating wind, like steam escaping a large and tightly covered cauldron. A sigh.
//LOOK BACK AND YOU SHALL SURELY FALL //
// I UNDERSTAND //
// AND NOW, DEAR FLEDGLING, THE TIME HAS COME TO LEAVE BEHIND THAT WHICH CANNOT BE RECOVERED, AND CONFRONT THAT WHICH CANNOT BE ESCAPED //
[END OF EXCERPT]
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From The Ashes Page 12