Dances of Deception: A Legends of Tivara Story (The Dragon Songs Saga Book 3)

by JC Kang

  The boy stopped struggling. The girl melted in her arms. After a few minutes, she shifted her weight back and returned to holding the children’s hands. Maybe this was what it was like to be a mother? She smiled at them. Not a contrived court smile, but more like those she’d shared with Tian a decade before. And again, not long ago. “Are you lost? Where are your parents?” She spoke slowly, carefully annunciating each word.

  The children looked at each other and then back at her, heads cocked.

  They clearly didn’t speak Arkothi. She placed her hand over her heart, and said “Kaiya. My name is Kaiya.” She extended her open hand towards them. “What is your name?”

  The girl’s eyes brightened and she clapped her hands together. A smile creased her face. Pointing to herself, she said excitedly, “Nadi.” She gestured back and said, “Kaiya.”

  “Yes.” Kaiya smiled again. “Pleased to meet you, Nadi.”

  The boy, now bouncing on his toes, pointed at himself. “Waka.” Both children giggled.

  “Nice to meet you, Waka. You must be hungry.” Rubbing her stomach, she put a finger to her mouth.

  They both nodded eagerly while speaking in their own language, their trepidation now apparently forgotten.

  Trying to pick out words, Kaiya took their hands and walked them back to where Ma Jun slept. Flakes started to flutter from the skies.

  They looked at him with wide eyes, and then up to her. “Kane ma taichoupu tezuga?” the boy said.

  Though the words might have been gibberish, their sounds and cadence seemed familiar. She kneeled down next to Ma Jun and covered him with her cloak. She took some cornbread from her pack.

  The children eyed it. When she offered the bread, they snatched it and plopped down cross-legged to devour it, crumbs scattering onto their clothes. So cute! She handed them some dried fruit, which immediately disappeared into their little mouths.

  At least for the moment, they were content. Kaiya watched them eat. What would she do with these two? She pointed at them, then toward the burnt-out village. “Did you live here?”

  The boy tilted his head inquisitively. He asked something of his sister, and she just shook her head. He met Kaiya’s gaze and shrugged.

  A few more attempts at gesticulating, making faces, and otherwise trying to ask questions all met with the same frustrations. Perhaps her time would be better spent trying to learn some of their language.

  It helped that many words sounded vaguely similar to the Hua court language, spoken only by the Imperial Family. Her new little friends were enthusiastic teachers. By the time Ma Jun woke up a phase later, her vocabulary consisted of body parts, animals, and geographical features. Fast learners, they had also learned the corresponding Arkothi words.

  Ma Jun eased himself into a sitting position and bobbed his head as she brought a water skin to his lips. He took a few tentative sips before beginning to swallow large mouthfuls. He then shifted to his knees and pressed his head to the ground. “Dian-xia, I am mortified to have you serve me like this.”

  She ruffled through her pack and withdrew his imperial guard ring. “In Hua, I am the daughter of the Tianzi. Out here in the wilderness, we are just fellow countrymen, leaning on each other to survive. Think nothing of it. Are you well enough to walk?”

  Receiving the ring with a bow of his head, he rose on wobbling legs and hobbled over to his pack. She lifted his arm over her shoulders to help him walk, and motioned for the children to follow her back down the trail to the west.

  The boy and girl shook their heads violently. Refusing to follow, they pointed across the river, speaking animatedly. From the hour-long lesson in their Kanin dialect, the gist of their concerns seemed to be there bad...river good.

  Kaiya looked up and down the bank. Her two new friends might know the forest better, but there was no way to cross. With the snow now falling fast enough to gather on her cloak, it would be wiser to head for the cover of the trees. Tian expected her at the head of the trail, anyway.

  She emphatically motioned the children to come with her. After a few refusals, they reluctantly complied. Like ducklings, they pressed close, virtually tripping her as they clutched her pant legs. At their plodding pace, with Ma Jun’s weight hanging on her, and slowed even further by the light accumulation of snow, it seemed like a full hour passed before the dead village disappeared from sight.

  On they trudged. In the distance ahead, someone approached, their form partially obscured by the falling snow. Kaiya’s heart lifted, her worries about progressing too slowly now melting away. Tian must have already reached the rendezvous point and was now heading up the trail to meet them. She called out to him. Was that longing she heard in her voice?

  No reply.

  What if it wasn’t Tian?

  The person drew closer, picking up pace. Too big. Much too big to be Tian.

  Ma Jun pushed forward, saber in hand. His voice rasped. “It’s an ogre...holding a shortsword in its left hand.”

  Left hand... Kaiya’s heart skittered.

  The children cowered.

  Ma Jun shoved Kaiya in the back. “Run! Back to the village! I will stall him here.”

  Kaiya’s palms sweated. At full strength, Ma Jun might be able to handle an ogre. In his weakened state, he didn’t stand a chance. And the children. Even if she knew their word for flee, they could never outrun a loping ogre.

  Pulling Ma Jun behind her, she unslung the bow from her back and quickly let two arrows fly in succession. The first grazed the ogre’s right arm as he shifted out of the way, while the second lodged in his thigh. He staggered forward.

  His arm hung in a sling. The ogre lieutenant from two nights before. The one she’d hit with an arrow. The one who’d promised vengeance. Not enough time to take an aimed shot.

  Kaiya threw down the bow and slid her double straight swords from her sheath. One, she held underhanded in her left hand behind her back, the other in her right hand pointing forward. “Stop,” she sang with her voice of command.

  The ogre skidded to a halt and glared at her. His expression glinted with hatred. “Girl give up, others go. Or me kill all.”

  Ma Jun tried to step past her, but Kaiya, never turning her eyes from the ogre, swept her right-hand sword into his path. “Stand down, Ma Jun. Protect the children: they are your first duty now.” He was in no condition to protect anyone.

  Ma Jun bowed his head and backed off.

  Kaiya turned the sword point towards the ogre. “You are injured and alone, and our friends are coming back this way. You cannot defeat all of us, but you can live to rejoin your own kind. I will command my people not to pursue you.”

  The ogre, whose grasp of Arkothi was probably not much better than the two children after her one-hour lesson, laughed. “No come, you die!” Holding the shortsword underhanded like a dagger, he lunged at her with a clumsy stab.

  A sequence from the Dance of Swords came to her, unbidden. She glided to his left. Her right sword slashed into his attacking hand, and she turned her shoulder so that the left sword cut under his attack and across his gut.

  As he tried to recover, she turned and stabbed back at his exposed left flank with her left sword. The blade slid with precision between his ribs. In the same turning motion, her right sword cut across his left shoulder, and the point thrust through his neck. Before the ogre hit the ground with black blood spraying from his wounds, she had withdrawn and flipped her left behind her back.

  Had she really just done that? Behind her, both children sobbed.

  With a quick flick of her wrists, Kaiya shook the swords, vibrating the black blood off before she sheathed them. She knelt down and wrapped her arms around the whimpering children, hushing them with her voice.

  Ma Jun dropped to his knee beside her, head bowed. “I’m so sorry to be useless. I couldn’t fight the ogre, I couldn’t even comfort the children.”

  She pulled him into the group. “All that matters is that we are all safe. Let’s find Zheng Tian.”

/>   The snow now fell heavily, clinging to branches like cherry blossoms. Despite the cover provided by the tree canopy, nearly a finger-length of snow accumulated on the trail. After another half-hour, they came to the trailhead. Kaiya pointed south, following Allie’s instructions.

  The children exchanged a few lively words. Their shaking heads and the numerous times they said bad suggested that neither liked the idea. They followed nonetheless.

  Before long, another solitary figure approached, slogging through the snow. Though it was not large enough to be an ogre, Kaiya had learned a lesson from their last encounter. She eased Ma Jun down, unslung her bow, and fitted an arrow.

  The man trudged closer.

  “Stop. Who are you?” Kaiya drew the bowstring. If he took three more steps without announcing himself...

  The newcomer knelt and stretched out his arms. The two children dashed out from behind her, crying excitedly. Their father, no doubt.

  Kaiya lowered the bow and wiped away the few snowflakes that clung to her face.

  Ma Jun nudged her. “That is the man whom the ogres captured before releasing me.”

  Kaiya nodded. Let the father and children enjoy their tearful reunion.

  The boy and girl chattered with broad smiles, gesticulating wildly. On occasion, the tall, handsome man would look up and favor her with a penetrating gaze. Like the children, he wore beige buckskin breeches and shirts, with a heavier fur cloak about his shoulders. His long black hair fluttered in the breeze. A necklace of animal teeth and shiny rocks hung around his neck.

  He approached, placing his right hand over his heart and bowing his head. A dignified pride radiated from him. He spoke in halting, heavily-accented Arkothi. “Thank you. You save my children.”

  She spoke slowly, hoping he would understand. “I am happy they could be reunited with you.”

  Nodding, he favored her with a curious eye. “Nadi say you beat beast. I think you too skinny for warrior.”

  “I am not a warrior. He was injured and I had superior weapons. Otherwise, you and I might have never met, and you would have never seen your children again.”

  The man nodded solemnly. Maybe he understood. “We wait, you friend, close to here. What you name?”

  Her friend...Tian? She bowed her head. “Kaiya. This is Ma Jun.”

  He placed his open right hand in his left. A greeting? “I am Yuha. You already meet Nadi and Waka. We are Maki.”

  Kaiya nodded. Maki must be the name of their tribe.

  “Why you here?” His eyes narrowed.

  The short version would have to do. She pointed toward what she hoped was west. “We travel toward our homeland.”

  Yuha shook his head. “Land now very dangerous. Many beasts, many Metal Man build...big house. This season, snow very hard. Many white moons can’t pass. But, you save us. Please, come to village.”

  Beasts and Metal Men—ogres and Teleri, perhaps. And many white moons...were they stranded here for months? She imitated his gesture of thanks, putting her right hand over her heart and bowing her head.

  Faced with the prospect of wintering in the Wilds, she decided to learn what she could of the local language. Piecing together words she’d learned from the children, she said, “When my friend come?”

  Yuha beamed. Using Arkothi, he returned her feeble attempt at conversation in the Maki dialect. “You try speak our mouth. Not like Metal Man. They take all, give none.”

  She continued in his dialect. “Your mouth, how say man?”

  “Odogo.”

  Odogo. It sounded like the imperial language for male. After half an hour of picking up new words and listening for grammar patterns, Kaiya looked up to the sounds of footsteps crunching in the snow.

  Shouldering the doctor, Tian was leading a large group of natives up the path. Fighting the urge to run to him, she just stood there. His gaze met hers and his lips curved into a crooked smile.

  Why did her heart flutter? Every step brought him closer, but seemed to last forever.

  He sank to his right knee, fist to the ground. “Dian-xia, we have freed the captives.”

  “Where’s Allie?”

  “She headed south.”

  The doctor, too, tried to kneel, but almost fell. Despite his obvious pain, he still felt the need to salute, for nothing more than her title—one that meant nothing here in the Wilds.

  Kaiya stepped towards him, and Ma Jun limped forward as well.

  Fang Weiyong straightened. Still a doctor in spite of his own wounds, he pressed along Ma Jun’s ribs, causing the imperial guard to wince.

  “He might have a broken rib,” the doctor said.

  Kaiya sighed. “Ma Jun and Fang Weiyong are both injured. This man, Yuha, says the snow will fall heavily. He offered to let us stay in his village. It seems that the Wilds are also rife with dangers that we did not expect. It might be wise to rest well and consider our options there.”

  Tian nodded, though he did not hide his dislike of the idea. “Very well.”

  Kaiya turned to Yuha and tried speaking the dialect. “We go with you.”

  He nodded and pointed them back down the path towards the gutted village.

  The entire band of Maki tribespeople joined them, helping the injured as they pressed down the snow-covered path. Large, wet flakes fell. What had taken Kaiya half an hour earlier lagged out to a full hour now. When they passed the ogre’s corpse, the children chattered. Everyone favored her with wide eyes.

  Tian turned to Yuha. “It’s so dangerous. You travelled. With your children alone. Why?” The question she wanted to ask.

  “I...healer... I visit holy place with two child. Take ten days. On way back, beast attack. I tell children run home.”

  Kaiya looked at the two young ones, clasping their father’s hand. They were so brave, to flee on their own!

  When they reached the burnt-out village, many of the Maki turned somber.

  “Belong to same tribe.” Yuha’s face darkened. “Maki. Our cousins. Many missing.”

  Kaiya shuddered.

  Coming to the eastern edge of the village bordering the river, Yuha led them south along the banks. Everyone picked the berries growing in the bushes. He lugged out three canoes from where they were hidden in the shrubs.

  They were nothing like the planked hulls of Hua boats and ships. Dug out from the trunk of a sweet evergreen, each canoe held four people. Several of the men talked animatedly, pointing at various points along the river. It seemed most of their homes were downstream.

  Kaiya studied Yuha’s body language and inflection. Despite his foreign words, he radiated charisma. His opinion apparently carried weight, for the natives all complied with his decision to cross. After an hour of ferrying people back and forth, all four dozen had reached the east bank.

  They hid the boats among the shrubs before continuing south in the shadows of the cliffs. Narrow and dotted with huge rocks, the banks made for a treacherous journey. Yet Yuha indicated that, not far to the south, they would find a path leading up to the top of the cliff. He let others take the lead, while he held his children’s hands to help them jump from rock to rock. Kaiya and Tian also helped them negotiate the rocks, made slicker by melting snow.

  At the top of the cliff, the group took a short break—just enough to rest tired legs and catch their breath. With words of farewell, they broke into three groups, each heading toward a different village. Standing at the head of a dozen tribespeople, Yuha motioned for Kaiya to follow him.

  They walked until nightfall and camped off the path, where the trees provided partial cover from the falling snow. Kaiya couldn’t remember ever feeling so cold. She leaned against Tian for warmth.

  In the mid-afternoon of the third day, with the snow accumulating to her knees, several lodges thankfully came into view. Villagers pointed and yelled at their approach. Several came out to join them.

  A stately older gentleman with long white hair fluttering in the breeze held his excited people back. Flanked by a dozen warr
iors armed with stone-headed spears, he marched forward. Like the others, he wore a buckskin shirt and breeches. A necklace of shimmering river stones hung around his neck, and bright feathers adorned his head. His wise eyes, which spoke of many winters, met Tian’s before shifting to Yuha. Anger creased his already time-worn features as he pointed at them, barking out words that did not hint at a warm welcome.

  Metal Men came out especially frigid. Kaiya’s throat tightened.

  The warriors lowered the spears at them.

  CHAPTER 43:

  Village Life

  Tian gauged the warriors’ skill by their stances and the way they held their spears. Hand drifting towards his saber, he spaced them out in his head, plotting a path to their grey-haired chief. The Founder’s treatise on warfare espoused targeting leaders: cut off the enemy’s head, and the body would surely fall.

  The chief’s brow scrunched up, adding lines to his withered skin. He barked out a string of syllables, the unfriendly tone leaving little doubt where the Hua stood with the natives.

  The princess placed her right hand into her left and bowed her head. The natives’ dialect spilled from her mouth, flowing in her distinctive voice.

  Tian gaped. How had she learned it so quickly?

  The chief cocked his head, the furrows in his brow smoothing and his frown softening. He turned and exchanged words with the shaman Yuha, and nodded.

  Behind the chief, the villagers surged forward, greeting their lost fellows in warm embraces. They were so relaxed with affection, in stark contrast to the more rigid Hua decorum. Physical contact in the form of pats, hugs, and hair-rubbing seemed a natural complement to verbal exchange for these people.

  The princess edged forward and rested her hand on the inside of his elbow. She leaned towards his ear. “The chief doesn’t trust outsiders, but it seems he will allow us to stay.”

  For how long? Tian turned to her. “You speak their language. How?”

  “A woman has her ways.” She cast him a mischievous smile.

  His heart skipped a beat, even if her deflection lacked conviction. He raised an eyebrow.