by E. M. Hardy
Majdi nodded at Cui Dai’s confirmation. “Locally known as Mizutani Kiyotaka. We’ll wrap him up nice and tight, send him to your people for safekeeping.”
“The Empire thanks you,” Cui Dai said with a nod even as Majdi’s people bagged his head once more and pulled the man out of the room. “He can expect the noose after we obtain all that we need from him. Drawn and quartered, if the adjudicator is not feeling generous.”
Majdi removed the hood of the next person in line. Another man, in his mid-thirties, with a pot-belly and ugly warts all over his face. He didn’t sport an ugly bruise on his face, though he did seem to favor what appeared to be a broken arm.
He wasn’t even able to mutter out a single word before Cui Dai whipped her threads out, filled them with chi, wrapped them around the man’s neck, and sliced his head clean off his shoulders.
Yao Xiu jumped at the sudden act of savagery against a bound and injured opponent. Majdi simply raised a brow as the man’s twitching, jerking body crashed to the floor.
“Imperial orders,” Cui Dai explained as she retracted her threads, the blood-veins lapping up the man’s life force. Her weapon was already dangerous enough in its original iteration, but the blood-binding ritual Cui Dai undertook under the shadow of an obelisk made it ten times deadlier against an unprepared opponent.
“This man is Xu Mu, leader of the cell responsible for overseeing the Rape of Yan Bao. He and the people under him convinced the officials of the city to throw open their gates, promising mercy and leniency for those who voluntarily surrendered.
“Their meekness was rewarded with brutality, everyone within slaughtered to grow their stockpile of blood weapons. Her Majesty ordered me to kill him as soon as I laid my eyes on him… messily and without mercy.”
Cui Dai spared a moment to glance at Yao Xiu, who gulped noisily as she turned green, sweat beading her forehead. The young woman still held notions of how the heroes of legend would act, remembering only their tales of valor and cunning. Well, this was a good introduction to the realities of working for the throne—to the uglier parts that historians do not like writing about in the public archives.
Majdi simply shrugged. “Eh. They’re yours to deal with as you see fit. We just want to clean up the vermin nibbling away at our investments, and we thought to score some goodwill with the Empire while we’re at it.”
Cui Dai bowed her thanks once more, ignoring the real reason why they were pulling off this charade in the first place.
The Balancer and the League operative continued this play two more times, without the need for bloodshed this time around. Majdi turned over a woman who played a part in the former Sage Ye Heng’s attempt to assassinate Empress Zi Li, along with another man involved in the propaganda campaign in Wu Er.
Cui Dai blinked as Majdi unhooded the fifth figure—a young woman in her early twenties, shivering with fright. She showed no signs of resisting at all. On the contrary, she darted her eyes frantically between the two captors standing in front of her, then screamed as her gaze landed on the lifeless, headless body on the floor.
“This woman is… not known to us,” Cui Dai said blankly, genuinely not recognizing the bound woman before her.
“Really?” said Majdi after slapping the bound woman, who ceased her screaming but began whimpering instead. “You have no idea who this woman is?”
“Unfortunately not. If she is connected to the Rats, then she is not among the ones we are actively looking for.”
Majdi huffed in frustration. “Hmm. Well, that leaves us stumped. We caught this one trying to smuggle blood-bound weapons into Imperial territory.”
That caught Cui Dai’s attention. “Oho… what’s her name?”
“Arima Miya.”
Cui Dai leaned in closer to the young woman, studying the length of her nose, the distance between her brows, the sharpness of her cheekbones, and the width of her chin. The woman may change her clothes, paint her face, cut her hair, but she would not be able to do anything about her bone structure. At least not without disfiguring herself. She committed the woman’s features to her memory, connecting them to the names that Majdi listed out.
“Well, Miss Arima. Would you care to explain what you were doing with what I assume were illegally-manufactured blood-bound weapons?”
The girl shivered even more powerfully at Cui Dai’s intense stare before breaking down, forcing herself to look away. Her gaze lingered once more upon the dead man’s body, his blood staining his clothes and liberally pooling on the floor. Before she could shriek in panic, Cui Dai grasped her chin and forcefully pulled it toward her until they came face to face.
“None of that now, Miss Arima. What were you planning to do with the blood-bound weapons you were trying to bring into the Empire? Give me an answer I like, and we can discuss the terms of your punishment. Give me an answer I do not like, and… well…” She pushed the woman’s face so she could get a better look at the cooling body of Xu Mu.
“Saga Atsuhira! Saito Nariuji! Nishina Iri!” She couldn’t blurt out names fast enough as Cui Dai nodded grimly.
“They… they promised me lots of money if I would bring their cargo with me, no questions asked. I… my mother is sick, see, and I really needed the money. I wanted to try my hand working in one of the Emirates, see if I can get a job waiting in one of the higher-end restaurants. They think Taiyo girls are exotic, see, with our pale skin and angled eyes. I thought I could—”
“Spare me your sob story,” interrupted Cui Dai. “Where were you supposed to drop off your cargo?”
The woman called Arima Miya blinked, taken aback. “Um. Right. Uh… the Red City. I was supposed to hand over my luggage to someone called Xia Ruogang, who was going to contact me before I depart for Five Gorges and catch a caravan going to Ma’an.”
“The Red City, huh?” Cui Dai noted with a nod of her head. “Tell me more.”
***
“What did you say, honored colleague?” commented Yao Xiu as they walked away from the old mansion and back toward the city.
“I said, that was too easy,” mumbled Cui Dai just loud enough for Yao Xiu to hear. “The Rats should have known that there would be guards at the Continental Bridge, that someone like Arima Miya would be easily intercepted with only a cursory inspection of her luggage. And yet they went ahead and wasted five blood-bound katanas like that.”
Cui Dai shook her head with a frown. “And three contacts approaching her, giving names so openly? Why would the Rats expose three contacts to such a risk when one would have sufficed? No, make that four contacts; they gave the name of Xia Ruogang as well.”
Yao Xiu nodded, comprehension dawning on her. “Ah. I see your concerns, honored colleague. You are worried that all this may be a trap of some kind?”
“Exactly. All this valuable information just falling into our laps… it’s too easy.”
Inqiz nodded his head, green wisps of ether trailing in his wake. “True, but you do have to consider that the League of Merchants has been doing most of the work here in the Isles of Taiyo. They are practically gifting the Rats to us for nothing more than a good word to the Empress.”
“Yes,” added Enin as she floated beside Cui Dai. “The League has done most of the legwork here. You are basically just confirming the identities of the Rats they captured, preparing them for transport to Imperial custody.”
The four drew stares from the people they passed. Children pointed with wonder while parents ushered them back indoors, making warding signs and whispering prayers. Cui Dai ignored them all since few people in this part of the world had acclimated to the presence of jinn drifting among them. Many of the merchants and traders from the League had yet to bond with jinni of their own.
Truth be told, she still wasn’t entirely used to the idea of jinn even though she bound herself to one.
Cui Dai brought her attention back to the present with a simple breath. “Whatever the circumstances, we cannot afford t
o ignore the leads we gained today.” She turned to Yao Xiu with a stern expression on her face. Her apprentice likewise straightened up, ready and eager to obey as needed.
Cui Dai liked that in her.
“The most obvious target would be the Empress,” she continued as she picked up her pace, looking skyward for an eyeball. “Prince Suhaib will join the Xi dynasty as Imperial Consort in a few short months and the ceremonies will be held in the Red City—right where the weapons were going to be delivered. It would be far too early to assume what they will do, but the timing is suspect. We must find and cull these Rats before they have a chance to carry out whatever they have planned.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us. Prepare yourself accordingly, Apprentice Balancer,” Cui Dai said formally. Yao Xiu nodded gravely at that as Cui Dai found what she was looking for. She pulled her threads out of their pouch, infusing them with more chi than usual so they’d glow brightly in the morning sun.
She let the threads float freely in the air, creating an eye-catching crisscross pattern. It served as a signal, and she could already make out an eyeball zooming toward her position from high in the sky. She would share this information with Martin, who would instantly relay this potential threat to Her Highness and the other Balancers. They, in turn, would no doubt tighten security now that they knew the Rats were active in the Empire once again.
“By the way,” Cui Dai added as she turned toward the apprentice Balancer. “What do you have planned for lunch? I’ve heard good things about this soba place in town. Or maybe we can try some udon. I wonder how the Taiyo prepare them, how they stack up to our cho mein and cho fun?”
Martin called out as his eyeball reached ground level, catching Cui Dai’s attention. She turned to face the eyeball, giving a report meant to be passed to a Balancer contact in the Red Throne. She never caught the grins and knowing glances that Yao Xiu, Inqiz, and Enin all shared.
Chapter 04
“Horseshit,” the man spat, disbelief tingeing every syllable of the curse. “Do you really believe that the Mud Men are suing for peace? That this is not just some elaborate trap to ensnare us all like rabbits strung up on their hind legs?”
The two other men shook their heads at their friend’s anger, the soft crackle of the fire drowning out their sighs. “Of course, it could be a trap,” one spoke up after a few heartbeats of silence. “But what other choice do we have? The other Hordes—”
“We fight!” growled the first man. “We rally our people, drive those bastards off the lands they stole from us!”
“Let me finish, Hobogetur,” repeated the man with as much of his frayed patience as he could muster. “We might have had a chance of beating them back if it was just the Blooded, Verdant, and Resolute Hordes. Now that they’ve absorbed the Plainsrider Horde, however, they simply have too many men and horses for us to deal with.”
“And?” scorned the Khan called Hobogetur. “Do you really think so lowly of your own riders, Chuluun, that they cannot fend off an extra Horde? We have fought together through thick and thin, endured tribulations that would have crushed lesser hordes.
“The three of us—you, me, and Todogen over here—we are sworn brothers. Our peoples have tasted victory and defeat together. Do you really think this slipshod alliance of opportunists will ever have the advantage? Especially when the other Hordes will stab them in the back the moment they show any sign of weakness?”
“That’s the problem,” intercepted Todogen, the quiet and soft-spoken member of this triumvirate. “The other Hordes have just concluded a major battle. Nine Hordes committed into a great clash, and it ended in a bloody stalemate. Very bloody, with no clear victor.”
Hobogetur groaned at that, slapping his hands on his face. “Now you tell me this?” he murmured. He may be among sworn brothers, but he would be damned if he let himself wallow in regret. Todogen was always the wisest of the three sworn brothers, smartly ignoring Hobogetur’s moment of weakness. Chuluun, however, was not quite as gracious.
“Oh? Was that a glimmer of fear I saw from the Great and Invincible Hobogetur?”
“Chuluun…” warned Todogen, his tone low and cautious. The warning came too late, however, for Hobogetur’s sharp ears already picked up the taunt.
Hobogetur wanted to rip his sworn brother a new hole, punch the grin out of his face and shove it into a pile of horse manure. He would surely have done so if it were anyone else who insulted him the same way. Instead, Hobogetur picked up a rag soaked with his sweat and tossed it at the jokester—catching him in the face with a wet slap.
“BLUGH!?” Chuluun’s startled, undignified fall on his back elicited a chortle from Hobogetur, mollifying his anger. Hobogetur turned to face Todogen, erasing any sign of levity and returning back to his neutral frown.
“My bravery and Chuluun’s cowardice aside, Brother Todogen: if we fought as viciously as we could, as tightly as we can, as expertly as we have done before… do you think we have a chance of retaking our farms and grazing grounds?”
Todogen’s falling shoulders told Todogen all he needed to hear, even without words. Still, Hobogetur’s sworn brother mustered up his courage and looked him straight in the eye as he delivered his response.
“Not anymore. As you said earlier, we could draw our enemies out long enough for the other Hordes to hit them from behind and take some pressure off for us. But with the two other alliances reeling from their recent battle, they are in no position to take advantage of the weakness of our enemies. They will be able to bear the full might of their Hordes upon us with no relief in sight.”
Todogen lowered his eyes, shaking his head. “The only reason we are still alive right now is because the Empire and their Mud Men have chosen not to attack us. They have stopped building their infernal obelisks, true, but they still have their lances pointed at our backs. If the new Empress ever decides to turn her attention to the Grass Seas, attempt to subjugate us as the Emperors of old have, we will be the first to fall.”
Hobogetur chuffed at that, grimacing deeply at the defeat in Todogen’s words. His sworn brother was never one for boasting and posturing, but neither was he a coward. His calm judgment was what saved the three sworn brothers from complete disaster when they first attempted to raid the Empire.
It all started when they broke through the strange small walls surrounding the Imperial boundary. The moment their riders moved deeper into Imperial territory, the Mud Men retook the Little Walls and began resealing the breaches. Hobogetur wanted so badly to take Imperial land, capture slaves and arable land for his people, that he pushed to continue with the attack.
Todogen, however, foresaw that doing so would have trapped them in Imperial lands. The Mud Men would no doubt hold the Little Walls long enough for Imperial reinforcements to pin them from behind.
As much as Hobogetur hated losing face, Todogen’s decision to withdraw was the right one at the time.
Having recovered from the sweat-soaked towel flung to his nose, Chuluun splashed some water on his face and scowled at Hobogetur as he spoke up. “Like I was saying before you so rudely interrupted me, brother: we have no other choice except to treat with the Empire.
“Our herds are able to graze on the grasses here, but it is not as thick or robust as the grasses in our homeland. And then there are our people. They will not survive for long without farms and access to more fresh water than what these meager streams provide.
“We will at most be able to hold on for another month before we start slaughtering the studs. Many mares will quickly dry up after that, then we’d have to slaughter them for meat. We will starve, Hobogetur, unless we get safe lands where we can settle and cultivate. That is unless we somehow become one with our horses, sustaining ourselves on nothing more than grass and muddy ponds.” Chuluun forced a chuckle to take the edge off his words, but there was no way Hobogetur missed the note of despair in his words.
Even if Hobogetur would taunt and bully Chuluun, he neve
r truly thought of his sworn brother as a coward. Cunning, flaky, and fleeting, true, but he could always count on him to back him up in a bad situation.
And from the way Todogen’s eyes pleaded with Hobogetur, it looked like his other sworn brother agreed with Chuluun. “We can at most raid our rivals, ride in force and steal as many supplies as we can before they can cut us off, but Chuluun speaks the truth. We won’t hold out for long, not when our enemies act without pressure from the other Hordes.”
Hobogetur snorted at that, his mouth forming into a deep grimace. “Damn it all,” he blurted out loud, loudly scratching his head in frustration. “I really shouldn’t have led us on that raid. If we hadn’t spread our Hordes out, if we had enough riders defending our homes, we would have been able to drive those bastards back before they were even able to step foot on our territory.”
“True,” agreed Chuluun while Todogen silently nodded his assent. Hobogetur’s grimace deepened, the guilt and shame gripping his chest, yet his two other sworn brothers said nothing more. They were well within their rights to rebuke him, to cast blame his way for pushing an aggressive plan to raid what he thought was a weak and fractured Empire.
They instead kept their silence.
When Hobogetur peered up to study their expressions, he only saw two brothers staring at the furs and woven tapestries arranged neatly around the yurt’s floor. Their silence wasn’t scornful or mean-spirited. They did not revel in his failure, nor push it in his face. Neither did they make excuses for him, try to placate his ego by telling him it was all right.
He made a choice, it did not work out as they planned, and now they all bore the burdens of the consequences.
Hobogetur sighed, swallowing his pride and shoving it in a deep, dark place. If this were a year ago, he would have been busy spewing invectives at his subordinates, blaming them for failing to do what needed to be done. He would have thrown blame at everyone except himself.