From The Ashes (4 page)

While Moh-Gwei got into position, Ying could not help wondering if this was that third and silent horseman who was to win the hand of the princess and then assassinate the royal family.
 
But what could he do other than defeat him?
 
The few seconds in which Mei-Liang bestowed the victor’s wreath would be the only opportunity he could get to even speak to her.

“Begin!” shouted the tournament master.

At once, Lohng sprung towards the center of the cage with ears flattened, eyes glaring, and fangs dripping.

Ying sent Xue forth and retained his own perspective for tactical purposes.

// KEEP ABOVE HIM!
 
EARN STRIKE POINTS FROM BEHIND //

Lohng reared up on his hind legs as Xue approached.
 
The eagle swooped down and swiped its talon across the fur of Lohng’s tawny foreleg.
 
Lohng hissed and growled, taking a swing at Xue.
 
But he missed and returned to the ground on all four legs, one of which bled from the gash.

“Strike point for Ying!”

Moderate applause.

Lohng spun around, just as Xue descended and struck the top of his head.
 
This time, the mountain lion dropped to the ground and rolled.
 
But not quickly enough to evade another laceration.
 
The corner of its left ear had been ripped off.

“Strike point for Ying!”

Moh-Gwei unrolled the whip from his side and cracked it in the air behind Lohng.
 
“Fight, you worthless kitten!”

// HE’S DISTRACTED, APPROACH FROM THE WEST! //

Even as Lohng leapt up with his massive paws swinging, Xue caught his neck between his talons.
 
Then something truly remarkable happened.
 
With each flap of his wings, Xue began to glow.
 
His entire body grew to twice its size.
 
And he lifted Lohng into the air by the scruff of his neck, as a mother cat would its young.

Blood dripped from its wounds as Xue now, almost larger than the mountain lion flew to the top of the cage.
 
Ying’s mouth hung agape.
 
He had only read about such wonders in his father’s Ancient Sojourner book.

“What is
this!
”
 
Moh-Gwei demanded.
 
“Surely this is a violation!
 
How did—?”

“Do not ask me,” Ying replied.
 
“I didn’t know this could happen.”

Now, every spectator rose to his feet.
 
The entire arena bellowed in amazement as the mountain lion thrashed about, trying in vain to bite or claw the massive eagle.

But Moh-Gwei threw his whip down, ran to the bars of the cage and shouted at the tournament master.
 
“Ying must be disqualified immediately!”

But the tournament master, his eyes wide and fixed on the enormous, glowing eagle, clutching the mountain lion in its talons, gave him a dismissive wave.

// XUE, HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS? //

Suddenly, Lohng swung himself around, grasped Xue with his paws, and shook him out of flight.
 
They both fell and struck the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
 
It wasn’t more than fifteen feet, but the impact reached Ying’s ears.

“Xue!”

The cloud dissipated.
 
Ying stepped forward.
 
Xue, now his normal size stood on the ground and flapped his wings twice before folding them away.
 
Next to him lay a very dazed Lohng, whose tongue hung out of his panting mouth.

“Three strike points for Ying!”

For the first time in the entire tournament, the audience cheered for Ying.
 
This did not impress him much, as his thoughts remained on finding a way to end this so that he could win and reach the princess.

“The use of magic is forbidden in the entire Empire!”
 
Moh-Gwei shouted.
 
“I demand proper adjudication!”

The tournament master signaled to the guards by the red curtained booth.
 
One of them spoke into the curtain.
 
Shortly after, the Princess emerged.

“What is the grievance?”

“The use of magic, Your Highness!”
 
Moh-Gwei pointed to Xue, who stood unblinking over the stunned body of Lohng.
 
“My opponent must be disqualified for using…an enchanted bird!”

From over the edge of her white and ornately stitched fan, Mei-Liang peered down at Xue.
 
“I see nothing magical about that eagle.”

“But did you not see what it did to my mountain lion?”

“It appears to have defeated it.”
 

The spectators laughed.

“No, what I meant—”

Just then, Lohng leapt up, struck the eagle with its paw and wrapped its jaws around it.

Ying gasped and let out a shout.
 
But it was too late.
 
After one twitch, Lohng bore down.
 
The sound of bones cracking reached Ying’s ears.
 
He tried to cry out, but the words caught in his parched throat.

Moh-Gwei looked back to see what had just happened.
 
He turned back to the princess.
 
“Forgive the disturbance, Princess.
 
The matter is resolved.”

A tear rolled down from Ying’s eye.
 
He didn’t understand why the death of this bird should affect him so deeply, but it did.
 
As Lohng released the body from his mouth, Moh-Gwei came over and rubbed the mountain lion’s head affectionately.
 
“Well done, my friend.
 
Well done.”

“Seven strike points for Moh-Gwei!” the tournament master announced, without enthusiasm.
 
“Contestants will await the final tally.”

Ying went over to the Xue’s broken body.
 
The eagle’s breast was punctured and wings snapped.
 
His head bent back at an impossible angle.
 
“I’m sorry, Xue.”

“A valiant effort,” Moh-Gwei murmured as he passed by.

As Ying bowed his head over his fallen friend, he shut his eyes and did not perceive the white light stretching out like tendrils from Xue’s body.
 
It floated up and encircled Ying, who was unaware as it seeped into his body.

A sudden rush of cognition filled his mind.
 
Memories of many a lifetime flashed before his inner eyes, too fast to comprehend.
 
And then in a moment, it was over.
 
He saw nothing, felt nothing.
 
But deep within, he became aware of something in his very being.
 
Something that had not been there before.

“We’ll be killed if they find us out here,” Chi hissed, blowing hot breath into his hands and rubbing them together.
 
Pale moonlight blanketed the entire forest with sheets of white sliced into manifold ribbons by the shadows of branches which resembled the arms of a mythical sea monster.
 
“What’s this all about?”

Ying rubbed his arms and stamped his feet to keep them warm.
 
“I can’t believe how cold it’s gotten tonight.”

“Then let’s hurry up and get this over with, so we can return to the warmth of our beds.”

Glancing around to make sure no one was listening, Ying began.
 
“We’ve got to do something.”

“I have been saying as much.”

“No, I mean we’ve got to do something to prevent a terrible…”
 
What was the term?

“A terrible what?”

“Something dreadful is about to happen.”

“I agree.” Chi grunted.
 
“We’re going to freeze our backsides off, unless you spit it out.”

“We’ve got to warn the princess.
 
Do you have any means of getting a message to the royal family?”

The dead silence, the eyes squinting in barely restrained snort, the suppressed convulsion of his chest, all converged in a cough that sounded much like a laugh.
 
“You would like me to help you send a love-letter to Her Highness for you, my young minstrel?”
 
Chi slapped a heavy hand upon Ying’s back and it would have sent him face first into the dirt, had he not been holding onto a tree branch.
 
“Come now, you’ve lost the tournament.
 
We should
both
go home to Xingjia and lick our wounds.”

“I’m not joking, Chi!
 
Last night, I overheard a band of men plotting to kill the royal family and bring an army of thousands to overtake Bai Kuo.”

At this, Chi’s demeanor hardened.
 
The smile faded and the corners of his mouth pulled into a taut line beneath his dark brown mustache.
 
“Tell me.”

After Ying repeated everything, a dark cloud covered the moon and cast a shadow all around them.
 

Chi’s voice lowered in pitch and deepened in severity.
 
“I cannot be certain, but it fits the pattern of the strategies employed by the current ruler of Xieh Di.”

“But isn’t that—?”

“Yes.
 
Which is precisely why it makes no sense.
 
And yet, perhaps it makes perfect sense.
 
They are the closest by blood to the royal family.
 
And such an action was foretold in the Sojourner prophecies.”

Ying’s eyes grew wide.
 
“So you
do
believe?”

“Have I ever denied it?”

“But you never told me.”

“You never asked.”

This was too much of a revelation for Ying to handle at once.
 
But so much of it became clearer with each passing moment.
 
All the scriptural references, all the combat terminology which Ying had thought Chi meant merely as mythological attributions to Sojourner tradition.
 

Without thinking, Ying grasped the collar of Chi’s shirt and yanked it down to reveal that odd-shaped birthmark.

“You bear the mark.”

“You bear absurdity.”
 
Chi pulled back.
 
“Enough of this childhood jest.”

“I am completely serious.
 
That mark…” he pointed at that spot just below Chi’s collarbone.
 
You know what it means.”

If not for the uncharacteristic anxiety in Chi’s eyes, Ying might have thought his cousin found this as amusing as he did ridiculous.
 
“It…It can’t possibly mean…there are limits to what one can believe, Ying.”

“It says in the tomes,
‘He that beareth the mark
—’”

“—
shall rule over
My
people for three generations.
 
Yes, I know.
 
And it is for precisely that reason it cannot be me.
 
After all, I am just a man, like you, like my father and his father before him.
 
No one
lives
that long.
 
And the Sojourners?
 
They’re…”

Ying let out an impatient breath.
 
Wisps of breath floated into the air.
 
“They’re long dead, that’s what you mean to say, isn’t it?”

Chi turned away and gazed into the night sky.

With unveiled exasperation, Ying let out a huff.
 
“Well, who is to say they won’t rise up again, and that Valhandra won’t reestablish his dominion among His people again?
 
And weren’t you the one who always said, ‘Fight now or die later?’”

Chi scoffed and shook his head and spoke with such disdain as Ying had never before heard.
  
His voice increased in volume and sarcasm with every word.
  
“Who will it start with, me?
 
Shall I be the
High King
of the mighty Sojourner nation?
 
Will you be my trusted advisor?
 
And we as a nation of two men—shall we bring peace to the entire empire?
 
Ha!”