The Grace of Kings (12 page)

“Grandfather and Rio Cotumo dueled for five days straight on the shores of the Liru without being able to determine a victor. Finally, on the sixth day, Cotumo stumbled because his foot slipped on a loose rock, and Grandfather was able to cut off his head. But Grandfather always thought his victory was unearned, and he honored Cotumo by giving him a lavish burial, and kept his weapon as a memento.”

“Does it have a name?” Mata asked.

Phin shook his head. “If it did, your grandfather never learned it.”

“Then I will call it Goremaw, companion to Na-aroénna.”

“You will not use a shield?”

Mata gave a contemptuous laugh. “What need is there for a shield when my enemies will die before three strokes?”

He held the sword steady in his right hand and struck it sharply with the cudgel in his left hand. It clanged in a sweet, pure note that held for a long time, reverberating in the stone halls of the castle.

Phin and Mata Zyndu fought their way through the castle.

Having tasted his first blood, Mata was now possessed by the killing lust. He was like a shark set loose amongst a herd of seals. In the narrow halls of the castle, the Xana soldiers could not take advantage of their numbers, and Mata methodically dispatched them as they came at him in ones and pairs. He swung Na-aroénna with such force that it crashed through shields and arms held up vainly in defense. He smashed Goremaw down so hard that a man's skull was crushed into his torso.

There were two hundred men in the castle garrison. On that day, Mata slaughtered one hundred and seventy-three. The other twenty-­seven were dispatched by Phin Zyndu, who laughed as he saw the image of his own father, the great Dazu Zyndu, reflected in the bloody young man fighting next to him.

Mata raised the flag of Cocru, a red field charged with a pair of ravens, one black and one white, over the castle the next day. And the chrysanthemum coat of arms of the Zyndu Clan was rehung over the castle door. News of his victory over the Xana garrison became a story, a legend, and then a myth, as it spread among the Tunoa Islands. Even children learned the names of Na-aroénna and Goremaw.

“Cocru has returned,” the men and women of the Tunoa Islands whispered to one another. They still remembered Dazu Zyndu's tales of bravery, and his grandson compared favorably to him. Maybe there was hope to this rebellion after all.

Men began arriving at Zyndu Castle, volunteering to fight for Cocru. Soon, the Zyndus had gathered around them an army of eight hundred.

It was now the end of the ninth month, two months after Huno Krima and Zopa Shigin first saw the prophecy in the fish.

CHAPTER EIGHT

KUNI'S CHOICE

OUTSIDE ZUDI: THE NINTH MONTH IN THE THIRD YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

The night before, Kuni Garu still had under his charge fifty prisoners—a few from Zudi, but most from far away, men who had committed some kind of crime and received sentences of hard labor in the corvée gangs.

The prisoners had been walking slowly because one of the men had a lame leg. Since they couldn't make it to the next town in time, Kuni had decided to make camp in the mountains.

In the morning, only fifteen prisoners were left.

“What are they thinking?” Kuni fumed. “There is nowhere to hide anywhere in the Islands. They'll be caught and their families will be executed or conscripted for hard labor to make up for their desertion. I treated them well and didn't have them chained at night, and this is how they repay me? I'm dead meat!”

Kuni had been promoted to head of the Corvée Department two years ago. Ordinarily, escorting a team of prisoners was something one of his underlings would do. But he had taken this particular assignment himself because he knew that the gang would probably not get to their destination on time because of the man with the bad leg—Kuni was sure he could convince the commander at Pan to let it go. Besides, he had never been to Pan, and he had always wanted to see the Immaculate City.

“I just
had
to do the most
interesting
thing,” he berated himself. “Am I having
fun
now?” At that moment, he wished more than anything to be home with Jia, drinking a cup of herbal tea made from some recipe she was experimenting with, safe and bored.

“You didn't know?” one of the soldiers, a man by the name of Hupé, asked, incredulous. “The prisoners had been whispering and plotting all of yesterday. I thought you knew and were letting them go on purpose because you believed in the prophecy. They want to join the rebels who declared war on the emperor and pledged to free all prisoners and conscripted laborers.”

Kuni did remember the prisoners whispering an unusual amount yesterday. And he, like everyone else in Zudi, had heard rumors about the rebellion. But he had been too distracted by the beauty of the mountains they were hiking through, and didn't connect the dots.

Abashed, he asked Hupé to tell him more about what he knew of the rebels.

“A scroll in a fish!” Kuni exclaimed. “A fish that they just happened to have bought. That con stopped working on me when I turned five. And people believe this?”

“Don't speak ill of the gods,” Hupé, who was very religious, said stiffly.

“Well, this is a bit of a pickle,” Kuni muttered. To calm himself, he took a plug of chewing herbs out of his waist pouch and put it into his mouth, letting it sit under his tongue. Jia knew how to make herbal mixes that made him feel like he was flying and caused him to see rainbow-haloed crubens and dyrans everywhere—he and Jia had fun with those—but she also knew how to make mixes that did the opposite: slowed things down and helped him see choices more clearly when he was stressed, and he definitely needed some clarity.

What was the point of bringing fifteen prisoners to Pan when the quota was fifty? He'd have an appointment with the executioner no matter how he tried to talk his way out of it. And most likely Jia, too. His life as a servant of the emperor was over; there was no longer any path back to safety. All the options he had were dangerous.

But some choices are more interesting than others, and I did make a
promise to myself.

Could this rebellion finally be the opportunity that he had been seeking all his life?

“Emperor, king, general, duke,” he whispered to himself. “These are just labels. Climb up the family tree of any of them high enough and you'll find a commoner who dared to take a chance.”

He got up on a rock and faced the soldiers and the remaining prisoners, all of whom were terrified: “I'm grateful that you stayed with me. But there's no point in going any farther. Under the laws of Xana, we're all going to be punished severely. Feel free to go wherever you want or to join the rebels.”

“Aren't you going to join the rebels?” Hupé asked in a fervent voice. “The prophecy!”

“I can't think about any prophecies right now. I'm going to hide in the mountains first and figure out a way to save my family.”

“You're thinking of becoming a bandit then?”

“The way I look at it is this: If you try to obey the law, and the judges call you a criminal anyway, then you might as well live up to the name.”

To his satisfaction but not surprise, everyone volunteered to stay with him.

The best followers are those who think it was their own idea to follow
you.

Kuni Garu decided to take his band deep into the Er-Mé Mountains to minimize the risk of encountering Imperial patrols. The trail, winding slowly up the side of the mountain, was not steep, and the fall afternoon was pleasant. They made good progress.

But there was little camaraderie among ex-soldiers and ex-prisoners; they distrusted one another and were uncertain of the future.

Kuni wiped the sweat from his brow and stood still at a turn in the trail that gave him a good view of the verdant valleys below and the endless flat expanse of the Porin Plains beyond. He picked out another plug of chewing herbs from his pouch and bit into it with gusto. This one tasted minty and refreshing and made him feel like he should give a speech.

“Look at this view!” he said. “I had a pretty leisurely life”—those among the men who knew his history chuckled—“I never made enough money to rent a cabin up here and take my wife on a monthlong vacation hiking in the Er-Mé Mountains. My father-in-law was wealthy enough to do it, but he was too busy with his business. All this beauty was here, but neither of us ever got to enjoy it.”

The band admired the colorful fall foliage, a mosaic highlighted here and there by bunches of bright-red wild monkeyberries and late-blooming dandelions. A few of the men took deep breaths to fill their lungs with the mountain air, smelling of fresh-fallen leaves and loam that had been basking in the golden sun, so different from the air back in the streets of Zudi, which was dominated by the smell of copper coins and running sewage.

“So you see, it's not so bad being a bandit after all,” Kuni said. And all the men laughed. When they went on, everyone's steps felt lighter.

Suddenly, Hupé, who was in the lead, came to a dead stop. “Snake!”

There was indeed a large white python in the middle of the road, as thick as a grown man's thighs and long enough that its tail was still in the woods even as its body completely blocked the trail. Everyone in Kuni's party scrambled back and tried to get as far away from the snake as possible. But the snake whipped its head around and wrapped its body around a gangly prisoner named Otho Krin.

Later, Kuni could not explain why he did what he did next. He didn't like snakes, and he wasn't the sort to rush impulsively into danger.

A surge of excitement coursed through his veins, and he spat out the herbs in his mouth. Before he could think, he had pulled a sword from Hupé and leapt at the giant white python. With one swing he lopped its head off. The rest of the body coiled and whipped around, and Kuni was knocked off his feet. But Otho Krin was safe.

“Are you all right, Captain Garu?”

Kuni shook his head. He was in a daze.

What . . . what got into me?

His eyes fell on a dandelion seed head by the side of the trail. As he looked at it, a gust of wind suddenly plucked the white puffs from it, and the seeds floated into the air, like a swarm of mayflies.

He tried to hand the sword back to Hupé, but the man shook his head.

“You keep it, Captain. I didn't know you were such a good swordsman!”

The men climbed on, but the susurration of voices grew among them like a breeze caressing the leaves of an aspen stand.

Kuni stopped and turned around. The whispers stopped.

In the eyes of the men, Kuni saw respect, awe, and even a hint of fear.

“What's going on here?” he asked.

The men looked at one another until, eventually, Hupé stepped forward.

“I had a dream last night.” His voice was flat, as though he was still surrounded by illusions. “I was walking in a desert, where the sand was black like coal. Then I saw something white lying on the ground in the distance. As I came closer, I could make out the body of an enormous white snake.

“But as I approached the spot, the body disappeared. Instead, an old woman stood there crying. I asked her, ‘Granny, why are you crying?'

“ Oh, my son has been killed.'

“ Who's your son?' I asked.

“ My son is the White Emperor. The Red Emperor has killed him.' ”

Hupé stared at Kuni Garu, and the gazes of the others followed. White was the color of Xana, and red was the color of Cocru.

Ah, prophecies again,
Kuni thought. He shook his head and laughed weakly.

“If this banditry business doesn't work out,” he said, “you can try to become a wandering bard.” Then he slapped Hupé's back. “But you need to work on your delivery, and you have to come up with more believable plots!”

Laughter echoed in the mountain air. Fear left the gazes of the men, but awe remained.

A hot breeze, as dry and gritty as volcanic ash, rustled the trees near the top of the mountain.

What was that about, sister, my other self? Why have you taken an inter
est in this mortal?

A cold breeze, as brittle and crisp as a shard from a glacier, joined the first.

I know not of what you speak, Kana.

You didn't send in the snakes or give that man his dream? It seemed like your kind of sign.

I had no more to do with that than I did with that prophecy of the fish.

Then who? Fithowéo the Warlike? Lutho the Calculating?

I doubt it. They're busy elsewhere. But . . . now I
am
curious about this mortal.

He's a weakling, a commoner, and . . . not at all pious. We should not waste time with him. Ice-clad Rapa, our most promising champion is—

—young Zyndu. Yes, Flame-born Kana, I know you've liked him since the day he was born . . . yet, what strange things are happening around this other man!

Mere coincidences.

What is fate but coincidences in retrospect?