The art of legend, p.56
The Art of Legend, page 56
Wani picked herself off the floor and tried to spearhand her. Qisami slapped the hand away and then slapped the girl across the face. She snarled and tried again, launching the same attack at the same angle at the same speed. It was adorable, really. Qisami caught the attack in midair, clutching the viperstrike’s pinky and ring finger. Then, with a wicked snarl, she clenched and yanked to the side, causing the viperstrike to flip onto the floor.
She waited for both Marhi and Wani to pick themselves up. Qisami turned to face her audience of small children for the first time. “What were their mistakes?”
Many small hands shot into the air. A little Nezra boy’s cries were slightly louder than his brethren. “Wani jumped too late.”
“That’s not it.” Qisami shook her head. “There’s no crime in missing. A war artist is not going to draw blood with every strike. You will miss more than you hit. That doesn’t mean you still shouldn’t be murdering every enemy you find.”
One of the clan elders frowned. Qisami didn’t care. “Anyone else?”
Another boy raised his hand. “Marhi made it worse!”
“Close! Good boy.” She waggled a finger at him. “Once Wani missed, Marhi tried to make up for it by attacking. She not only ran into and tripped over her cellmate, what else did she do?”
“Lost the element of surprise!” the choir shouted back.
“Lost the element of surprise. That’s right!” Qisami waggled her finger at the others. These kids were sharp. Give her a training pool, and she could make her own shadowkill operation that could challenge the Consortium.
The tall weeds of the dense jungle they had been traveling through parted before the sharpened point of the Nezra Rides. The shaded, swampy ground suddenly opened to a sprawling brown river. Qisami, alongside the children, hurried to the railing of the starboard side of the Nezra Rides.
The Sand Snake.
The Nezra Rides was nowhere near the head of the Exiles fleet. A dozen other pods were already half covered in the sand as their tires and tracks spun, kicking up spray in their wake. More Exiles pods emerged from the jungle thicket, sliding down the Sand Snake dunes and paddling forward. The Nezra Rides was halfway across the narrow expanse when the first of the vanguard pods made it to the other side.
Qisami watched with professional interest as the advance pods formed a beachhead and waited. Her gaze went to a small but clearly visible structure in the distance, standing atop a needle-shaped spire. It was daylight with perfect visibility. Why was the watchtower still silent?
This wasn’t some small raiding party sneaking past the towers in the middle of the night. This was a whole blasted fleet, dozens of giant pods. A blind person couldn’t have missed this. Qisami was still pondering when a small detail caught her eye, something about the tip of that tower. Every Xing watchtower had a wide, circular platform at the top for surveillance. This one had been shorn off. Someone had come here before them.
The change in the climate when the Nezra fleet passed from the Grass Sea to Xing Duchy was immediate. What had been a vibrant green jungle an hour ago gave way to an arid desert with deep dunes that undulated and shifted with the breeze.
Qisami breathed in deeply as the first familiar scents of the desert swirls passed her. Hints of cinnamon and cacao. She knew exactly where they were passing, just to the south of Dragon’s Maw Pass. The Nezra fleet had crossed into Zhuun lands.
Qisami was home, and once again a criminal and fugitive. She couldn’t catch a break these days, could she? Well, at the bottom of every beautiful waterfall was a drowning victim, so she was just going to have to roll with it.
“So this is the home you keep blabbing about.” Wani appeared next to her on the bow of the pod. She looked out. “This place sucks.”
“The Xing desert is like an ugly courtesan. Underestimate her at your own risk.” Qisami grinned. She was a softie when it came to her favorite duchy.
That was when it finally hit her. After all these years, she was home again. By the King’s shriveled balls, she missed this dry heat. After nearly ten years—five of them in prison—she was finally home. This was where she began her career. Xusan was where she had carved out her reputation, where she earned diamond-tier status, and where she could command top coin. Xing was the largest market for shadowkills, and certainly the most fun region in which to operate. The Xing Court in Xusan was filled by a bunch of madmen. Sometimes, Qisami and her cell would get double-booked.
She had been so lost in thought she forgot Wani was still chattering about something.
“…so it doesn’t matter which way. We understand the need to return home. There aren’t any sour feelings if you decide to do that, all right?”
Qisami frowned. “You think I’m going to dump you sorry lot the moment I get twisty sand beneath my toes?”
The younger viperstrike blushed. “I would like it if you stayed with us a little longer. Your training is fun.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll still be here when you find Salminde.”
“It’s just that we would understand—”
“Got it.” Qisami elbowed her hard enough to stumble. “Do you want to go over the three-prong counter?”
“Yes, please!”
Why the hell not? Qisami swung her leg over and landed on her feet. “Peel those brats away from the railing and let’s get back to work. Tell the mouth breather to meet us back on deck.”
“Marhi!” Wani called. “She’s staaaaaaaaying!”
Qisami watched as the girl ran off. She couldn’t help but feel weird about Wani’s reaction. It was good—warm, even—but awkward. Qisami spent the next hour teaching the brats how to properly slash someone with a knife. Everyone’s follow-through was terrible. She had never pegged herself as a training pool mother, but she was finding fulfillment when she passed her knowledge to these little brats. Maybe she was getting old.
The evenings were spent at a small settlement that looked like it had been flattened by giant pods. The residents had hidden in sand crates when they arrived. It was only with Qisami shooing the city pods away and walking up the stupid stretches of dunes that she managed to lure one of the locals out in the open. Like most remote desert settlements, supplies were often buried in the sand. It took a bit of convincing, cajoling, and only a few threats before she managed to persuade these dirty eggs that she meant no harm, which was a lie. No sooner had they finally opened up to her than the bands of Nezra appeared. Qisami felt guilty for betraying a fellow Zhuun, but only a little. In the end, the fleet received a fair barter of oil, blackrock, and cooked cactus in return for several barrels of food and water. Everyone won, sort of.
More importantly, Qisami was able to extract what happened here from the locals: a large group of black Kati pods had come by a few days prior, followed by a cluster of red-and-green pods. The settlement had only minutes to stow their supplies.
They had stared at Qisami while she hammered out their trade. They recognized a nightblossom when they saw one and panicked when a city pod arrived to pick up the supplies. The thought of robbing these peasants blind did cross her mind, but now—she wasn’t sure why—she watched with satisfaction as the barter was completed without incident. The Exiles Rebellion received some much-needed supplies to continue powering their fleet, while these Xing settlers wouldn’t starve or freeze to death tonight.
The most vital information they learned was that Chaqra had veered west, toward Xusan. That surprised Malinde and the rest of the Nezra leadership. They had assumed that the Black City would continue to head south to pillage the many smaller settlements and minor towns that were plump with ore and weaker fortifications. There was even talk that Chaqra could target Sanba, the unofficial southern capital of the duchy. Hitting Xusan directly, however, was unthinkable. The Katuia had never directly threatened a ducal capital before. Qisami was impressed. Whoever was leading these spirit shamans was brazen.
They only realized the extent of the Katuia attack into Xing a few hours later when one of the lancer pods scouting ahead came across one of the watchtowers that had been leveled by artillery fire. The report back was that most of the Xing soldiers had been massacred inside the tower. Many had attempted to flee but were hunted down. Their bodies were found half covered in sand several hundred yards to the west with wounds on their backs.
The Exiles fleet passed by three more towers and two more settlements on their way to the heart of the duchy. The settlements had been sacked while the watchtowers had been leveled, although it appeared the third tower at least put up a stiffer fight. That meant the watchtowers were able to get off the signal fires. It also meant Xusan would be ready for the attack from the khan’s fleet. It gave Qisami hope. She would be pissed off if someone busted up her hometown.
This time, she accompanied the lancer pod to investigate what was left of the third watchtower, known as the Crane Tower. This was halfway between the Grass Sea and Xusan. The Crane Tower was far larger and more fortified than the previous two, but it appeared to have crumbled easily, which was astonishing. Entire wars had been fought to a standstill at the Crane Tower.
Malinde stood next to her and made an uneasy face at the bodies strewn about. They were three days baked in the hot sun and were thoroughly dusted by the constantly shifting sands. But the story of the attack, based on where men died, was clear. This had been a quick battle.
“Chaqra’s fleet must be large. Easily a hundred pods, maybe more, to our forty-two.” Malinde sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Those are pretty bad odds, right?”
“I don’t think you have to be a master tactician to know that being outnumbered two to one is a bad bargain, but that’s where we go if we want to save Salminde.” Qisami paused. “Are you sure it’s worth it?”
“Worth the effort of saving my sister, Salminde the Viperstrike? Absolutely.”
Qisami said the quiet part aloud. “I mean, risking your entire clan for one person.”
Malinde looked even more determined. “These Kahun pods are faster than anything Chaqra can roll at us. Besides, the enemy is now deep in Zhuun territory. We should be able to catch them.”
Qisami nodded. “ ‘Let your enemy stab your other enemies and then stab the survivor.’ ”
“What is that?”
“It’s a saying from the training pools. Basically, what it means is—”
“Oh, I get it. You don’t have to be a master tactician to decipher it,” said Malinde. “The battle still has to make sense, understood? Our entire clan is here. The risk has to be worth the reward.”
“Why are you bringing your kids into war anyway?”
“The whole clan is here.” The master tinker huffed. “It’s not like we can gather all our children and drop them off with a neighboring clan. ‘Here are our lads. Please give them back after we’re done going to war.’ Everyone has a role in our battles. Even the sprouts.”
“Madness,” Qisami muttered. She stepped over an older corpse. The watchtowers were often garrisoned by soldiers finishing their last few years on contract before retirement. Hardly elite. Perhaps that was how Chaqra smashed through them so quickly. That sounded as plausible as any other excuse. “Bunch of fat white whiskers padding their pensions.”
The lancer pod returned to the main fleet a while later. Daewon had decided to keep the fleet moving through the night to avoid the sandstorm that had been nipping at their heels for the past two days.
“It’ll take two days to clean out the sand,” Daewon proclaimed. “You don’t want your steeds to pull up lame out here in enemy lands.”
That was good enough for Malinde, so they pressed on. If the fleet continued traveling through the night at their current speed, they should be able to see Xusan, the Column City, by morning.
While they traveled, Qisami did what all good professionals did during quality downtime: she caught up on her sleep. Qisami spent so much time here aboard the Nezra Rides that Malinde had offered her quarters near the children. She still thought it was outrageous for the clan to pack them on a warpod, even if this was the safest one, but that was their way.
No sooner had she closed her eyes than she found herself looking out at morning. Streams of light were poking through a window off a porthole. Qisami heard shouts from above. She leaped out of bed and into the hallway, picking her way against traffic until she reached the staircase leading up to the main deck.
Qisami hurried to the bow of the pod. She didn’t need anyone to point her to where to look. Off in the distance was a magnificent tower standing alone in the midst of a sprawling plateau.
Xusan. The capital of Xing Duchy.
And it was burning, billowing a giant spray of black soot. The Pedestal That Lifts the Sky was now stained black.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Unification
Taishi was already annoyed with this new arrangement.
The tailors had put a stunningly beautiful but unwieldy robe on her, complete with small glass beads hanging from her shoulders and elbows. She looked like a silly tree with the rest of the participants waiting for their turn to be announced. Taishi would get called early as the less important always went first. She didn’t have any rank or importance, but her presence would be missed if she did not attend a ceremony with the dukes, the high seats, and most importantly, the Prophesied Hero of the Tiandi. Jian would be announced second to last, with only Dongshi after him.
Which was absurd. In more peaceful times, Taishi would have contested that arrangement with her blade. It was an insult to put some duke higher than the Prophesied Hero of the Tiandi. Now, still inching closer to death, she thought it hilarious that she had cared. She was never good at holding her tongue, which was a necessity among lords. Today was going to be a trying day.
She moved to her place in the queue beside a group of Black Orchid nuns. Taishi averted her gaze. She wasn’t sure if word of the convent’s destruction had reached Skyfall Temple yet, and she didn’t want to be the one to pass along the news. A thuggish group of bald Tiandi battlemonks glowered as they took their place next to her in the queue. Many of the devout still believed that Taishi kidnapped Jian from the Celestial Palace and held her responsible for every catastrophe that followed.
If only Taishi wielded such power in her one good hand.
The Skyfall Temple had been a hive of activity. It began on the morning of the second day after Wen Jian, the Prophesied Hero of the Tiandi, the Champion of the Five Under Heaven, the Savior of the Zhuun, appeared in front of the temple with Duchess Sunri of Caobiu and declared his support for her as the next Empress of the Enlightened States. It wasn’t a long event. Jian had workshopped a speech with Zofi for days, but then he learned something as he was about to give his remarks.
Jian had stage fright. He looked out at the sea of gaping admirers watching his every move. Before, he just had to wave or look brave. Now they expected him to talk! He blinked. “Uh, ba…”
Taishi had to usher him away, and then Sunri took over. The newly endorsed future Empress of the Tiandi declared martial law and then ordered Dukes Waylin of Xing and Dongshi of Lawkan to appear at this temple in three days, or risk dismemberment for this dishonor.
The chamber emptied. Dozens of monks scrambled down the stairs and poured out of the temple, pushing back out of the square while demanding a stop to this. Others tried to bring Jian back inside Skyfall’s walls.
Sunri did not allow that. Her guards locked shields and drew swords, forming a protective wall around Jian. It looked like a conflict was brewing between the new empress and the Tiandi religion. That would have been a scandalous disaster, especially with the Champion of the Five Under Heaven taking the duchess’s side over his own religion. The news had spread as fast as light could flicker. By night, it had reached every capital within the Enlightened States. By the next morning, both Waylin and Dongshi messaged Skyfall Temple through mindseers that they were on their way.
That was two days ago.
This morning, a massive nine-linked serpent barge appeared, nine ships connected by flexible tunnels with a water dragon head up front. The majestic craft snaked down the river with its many white masts pointed straight up and to the sides like a caterpillar. Taishi had joined the rush to watch the spectacle from the eighth-level balconies. It was a spectacular sight as massive six-mast ships glided toward shore like a bevy of floating swans performing synchronized swimming. Dongshi certainly knew how to make an entrance.
The lead ships docked in Hengyen’s harbor and then extended a bridge to connect to the next ship over. Then that ship would extend its bridge to connect to the next ship farther out. This continued until the Lawkan Alabaster Fleet formed a floating fortress.
Dongshi’s actual entrance from the ships to the main road through Hengyen and then to Skyfall Temple was not nearly as impressive. The duke and a mob of sailors poured onto the street. It looked like a riot more than a procession, but whatever it was called, it got the job done. The Lawkan were famously relaxed except when it came to sailing. They treated sailing like a second religion, if not the first.
Now that the Duke of Lawkan was here, it was time for their meeting, which was how Taishi ended up wearing this silly robe. The queue lines were crowded. A small stir passed through the crowd. Taishi craned her head and caught sight of the procession: the Duchess of Caobiu leading the way. Sunri was wearing a glittering gown crafted from gold and diamonds with plum-colored trim that lined her shoulders and a high arc around the collar. There was no questioning her imperial designs.
Sunri led a contingent of thirty attendants. Standing at the edge of the path near the queues, mute men eyed the spectators with suspicion. Many around her fell to their knees, which was overkill. Taishi had considered it, but then she would have to get back up. Instead, she stayed standing and bowed respectfully as the procession passed by.
