Chapter 7
“Hello? Hello!”
“Hello!”
“Hello?”
“Hello down there!”
“Can you hear me?”
“Hello?”
“Make the bridge real!”
“I can’t hear you!”
“The bridge!”
“...can’t hear...”
“We are the Daybringers. I am Selara. Fix the bridge!”
“I can’t hear you at all. I’m going to put down the bridge!”
Selara stepped experimentally on the stone ramp leading up to the mystic Gatehouse of the Five Winds. When it appeared solid enough to support her boots, she turned to the team. “Worst manse plan ever...” she muttered, and began walking up the incline. Toruna waved her thanks to the guards, posted over three hundred feet above them.
As the cart approached the delicately arching ramp, the horses balked. Eyes wide, nostrils flaring, they would not set a hoof on the enchanted pathway. Yao Ye walked around to the panicking draft horses. She grabbed a bridle in each hand and tried to coax them forward. “Stupid horses! Stupid manse! Wing, give me a hand with these horses, please? They don’t like me!”
Zhou Wing jumped off the back of the cart and began walking past her, up to the manse. She watched him walk past with her mouth gaping open. “Wing? I... I could use your help... Wing?”
She chewed her lip and scratched the back of her head. Shu Zhuang stopped beside her and said, “Hmm. He just went on his way. It must be frustrating when someone won’t listen to you, even when you’re being sincere.”
She watched the rest of her team walking away, a blank expression on her face. “Yes... wait a minute...”
Shu Zhuang began patting the horses’ heads and making soothing noises with his throat. “We need your help, little flower. Maybe you need us too.”
She shouldered her hammer and smiled. “Well, now I can help a lot more, right?”
The aged loremaster looked at the hammer warily, and even the horses seemed to start when she brandished it. They forgot their reservations and began racing up the incline. When they had passed by, she asked, “I know I messed up... but everything is all right now, isn’t it? The village has been moved, the lake is being purified, and I’ve got a weapon that finally gives me an edge against our enemies. It’s okay now... right?” Her smile wavered slightly, and she twisted away on one heel, watching him through the corner of her eye.
Old Zhuang patted her on her back and looked up at the manse. “That’s what we’re here to find out. Don’t worry, you’re a Daybringer, and we’ll always be behind you.”
He began following the cart. Yao Ye twirled the hammer and called after him, “Well, okay, but when do you think you all will... uh... start talking to me again?”
The Gatehouse of the Five Winds was a building far stranger than any of the earlier manses designed by the sorcerer architect, Rivers Between Us. During the day, the entire structure glowed as the rays of sunlight filtered in through the translucent walls. At night, cleverly arranged shafts of crystal brought pure starlight into its deepest recesses.
The team was brought to the war room, which hung suspended above the immense hangar. Selara and Yao Ye ran over to the slanting adamant windows and looked down at the hangar deck; a half completed airship was slowly being constructed by a score of automatons and technicians. The snake warrior pointed and shouted, “Do you see that? They’re lowering an essence cannon into the keel behind those shutters. The beastmen will never see it coming!”
Yao Ye pushed her face against the glass. “I wonder how fast it can go... hey, why do we have to lug around this cart all the time if they’re building these?”
A voice from behind them laughed lightly. “Because we’ve only finished one so far, and it’s already set sail on one of your errands.”
The two turned around to see Ruki Nü, scholar of the Xuan Wu academy, enter through the sloping passageway. He was young, of medium height, slender build, and he wore the traditional light gray civil robes of the new Marukan Alliance. At his side he had a simple seven section staff, and his head was completely shaven. Yao Ye muttered under her breath, “I guess he didn’t hear that the Master has hair now...”
Selara poked her in the ribs with her elbow.
The scholar motioned for them to sit at a long table made of a translucent blue stone. He tapped on the wall as he sat down, and instantly a door misted into existence behind him, the windows overlooking the hangar became opaque, and the light dimmed in the room.
“I was excited when I heard you were coming here, but I’d have preferred it were under different circumstances. I have to admit, the Daybringers are a kind of a legend among the other amalgams.”
Yao Ye set her hammer on the floor beside her and cupped her chin in her hands. “Really? What do they say?”
He laughed again, glancing down at the table and tapping a panel. “Well, you’re either considered incredibly lucky or unfortunate, depending on who you ask. Which, incidentally, seems to be the present situation. You’re probably wondering why you’ve been recalled here with such haste.”
Zhou Wing ran his fingers through his wispy gray hair. “Actually, we have a pretty good idea...”
“Yes... I’m afraid the orders came straight from the circle in this case. That light you saw in the Northeast has quite a few people upset. It was witnessed by as many as three hundred individuals, and by their accounts we’ve placed it somewhere Northeast of the Eye by a few hundred miles. You’ll find out more before the day is out, but let me fill you in on our response from the gatehouse.”
As he said this, a map of the Marukan Alliance was traced in soft blues and greens on the table surface. Toruna and Selara leaned in, surprised by the level of detail. As Ruki Nü spoke, he pulled a slender wand from beneath the table and traced it across the map, leaving points of white light where it passed.
“We’ve sent riders to investigate in the nearby villages, but none of them seemed to have noticed anything beyond the bright light, which lasted for no more than a half minute. We’ve had the Shadow Racer covering the territory looking for signs of an essence discharge or geomantic disturbance from overhead, but so far our reports have come back negative. We’re still not even certain of its significance; it may have been a coincidence that it appeared when it did. Perhaps it was a freak weather event...”
Toruna shook her head. “It couldn’t be. It happened the moment she stepped out of the lake.”
“Don’t worry, we’re not finished yet. We’ll be pursuing other methods of research in the meantime.”
The door became a dream again, and a nondescript Marukan rider stood behind it. He waved a hand at the assembled amalgams and said, “Dinner’s ready.”
Yao Ye leaped up from her seat, knocking Selara on the floor in her haste. Wing began to rise, but the rider raised a hand. “Just her.”
Ye looked at her team, then looked back him. “Me?”
There is a dining room on the east side of the Gatehouse, small enough for but six to sit with a view of the rising sun. In the evenings, one can see the hills for dozens of miles in every direction, tinged with faint rose highlights of the sun setting in the mountains to the west. Every gully, creek, and trail was cut in sharp relief by the shadows, and riders approaching could be seen for hours in advance. The view was dominated by the shadow of the manse; it ran like a black road stretching directly to the east, where the banks of the Gray could be seen shimmering faintly in the distance.
It was to this room that Yao Ye was lead, but she paid no attention to the startling vista displayed by the ceiling to floor windows of adamant. She shouted a choked, “By the Sun’s twenty-six fingers and toes,” before falling on the feast arrayed there for her. It was simple enough fare: home brewed sake, rice and fried fish, pickled radishes and shelled walnuts, but she devoured it with equal measures of reverence and fury.
The rider entered the room and sat at the end of the table, ignoring the food, and a medium sized crocodilian-looking dragon entered through the side door and stood waiting, his hand resting loosely on the hilt of his tremendous, black jade, nine-ring sabre. Both of them watched her with relaxed alertness, their eyes only occasionally sliding to the hammer that lay on the floor behind her. After a full fifteen minutes of eating, she suddenly looked up at them warily. “Wait a minute, why aren’t you eating? Is this poisoned? I don’t care.” She went back to eating.
“I was hoping you would like it. Is everything prepared correctly?”
“It’s perfect. This is exactly like what I’d be eating if I were at home right...” She looked around herself again, and this time dropped her chop sticks. “Who are you?”
The rider nodded and stood up from his chair, walking to the window. The warm orange-red light that filtered through the walls gave half his face a healthy glow, but the other half seemed gray and indistinct. “I wanted you to feel comfortable before we began our discussion today. Part of that was preparing a little hometown cooking for you. And yes, I do know where you are from, what your real name is, and the names of your seven dead brothers. But there are a few things that I don’t know about you, like why you went mad in the weeks before Breaking Iron, how you managed to face a full moon lunar and live, and what happened at the bottom of that lake. I am Leaf Shakes the Wind, and there are some mysteries that I cannot tolerate, for the sake of our mission, and that Hammer happens to be among them.”
Yao Ye gulped nervously. “How do I know...”
The night caste exalt twitched his lip, and an empty golden circle appeared on his brow. “There is no time to waste. I assure you that I am acting under the full authority of the rulers of the Marukan. Now tell me your story from the beginning, omitting nothing.”
“So we’re waiting for this ship, this “Shadow Racer” to return?” Toruna pursed her lips with only the faintest flicker of annoyance.
The scholar bowed his head and wiped it with one hand. “Well, that and a couple of other things, which you’ll find out about soon enough. Again, it’s the Circle’s orders on this one... or at least Leaf and Rivers, and they’re the ones that have the final say in this matter, really. In the meantime, feel free to make yourselves at home. We pride ourselves on having the most relaxing and secure manse in the Marukan.”
Selara groaned. “Relaxation? Do you think that’s why we became amalgams? There’s still a lot of Day left to... Bring...”
Wing groaned. “They get more alike every day...”
Their leader interjected, noticing Selara’s clenched fists, “We’re not well suited to... coexisting without a mission. It causes all manner of problems. How long should will we be stuck in this glowing rock?”
“Three days. If you can put it aside for three days, and you feel no compulsion, hear no voices, and experience no side effects, then you may have the hammer back.” Leaf Shakes the Wind leaned against the wall and rubbed his temples.
Yao Ye looked up at him and said, “That’s it? No more questions?” She was lying sprawled on the floor, half under the table, with a napkin draped over half her face. “How long have I been in here? What day is it?”
“I’ll be back in three days to debrief you. We’ll leave the hammer here and lock the room shut for the duration.”
The girl rolled up off the floor and stood by the table with the decimated dinner. She looked at the hammer, longingly, but shook her head and said, “All right, I’ll do it. For the team.”
And she walked out of the room, her head held high, leaving the dark tetsubo where it lay, leaning against the wall.
Bones Like Jade let out a deep sigh. “By the Sun, to think that a chit like that is supposed to be their demon-hunter. She wouldn’t make a mouthful.”
Leaf shook his head and began pacing along the far wall. “Apparently she’s found her own supplementary source of power.”
“Hmph.” The dragon flexed his arms for a moment and then strode over the hammer. He grasped the hilt with both hands and pulled, groaning with the effort. It did not move.
The spymaster scratched at his fierce sideburns and said, “We know that she sustained heavy injuries in her fight in the lake, but within a few minutes they had healed with no medical attention. The hammer is too heavy for even your augmented strength, but she wields it easily with one hand. She has no martial excellencies to assist her in combat, but she killed a second circle demon with one blow. A powerful artifact indeed, and it stinks of the yozis.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve claimed the tools of our enemy...” The dragon continued to struggle against the hammer, bracing one foot against the wall as he strained.
“You know I can’t afford to compromise with demons! I mean... we... have to be careful.” The night caste folded his arms uncomfortably, painfully aware of the skittering of two soulsteel automata next to his skin as they adjusted to his change in posture.
“It’s powerful, I’ll grant that, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s corrupting. You heard what she said; she just found it in that pit. Maybe it was the tomb of one of your fellow solar exalted. It could have been a great tool for justice.”
“I doubt it. There was something missing in her account. I can’t quite put my finger on it... She says it never spoke to her, never compels her in any way...”
“Weren’t you using your charms? I saw no demon beneath her skin... did she lie to you?”
Leaf toyed with a chakram in his free hand, thinking. “Not that I could detect... but you must admit that this thing is beyond our ken. How could she use the hammer without spending the necessary time attuning it to her personal essence?”
Bones Like Jade waggled his head indecisively. “Well, I could go kill her, if you want. Same difference to me.” He muttered quietly to himself, “though I bet you wouldn’t let me eat her... unless you needed to hide the corpse. Hmm...”
“No.” The spymaster stood and walked to the door. “Rivers told me I wasn’t to perform any summary executions, and he certainly wouldn’t allow you to kill one of his precious amalgams ‘just to be on the safe side’, no matter how troublesome she has proven.”
“Then our hands are tied?”
“Not entirely. Our failsafe mechanism should be arriving soon...” He chuckled under his breath and sighed.
“Failsafe? Keeping her on a leash now? Better be strong if it’s to withstand the force she now wields.”
Leaf hid the chakram on his person, then slipped his hand through his hair. A silken garrote seemed to materialize between his long, dextrous fingers. He drew it between his hands before his face and whispered, “Meet force with force, and you will someday fail. No, this will require a more delicate touch...”
“Hey up there!”
“Hello?”
“There’s something wrong with the bridge!”
“Hello?”
“I can’t walk on it. Is this some kind of joke?”
“You can’t get up on the bridge right now, it’s down!”
“What?”
“What?”
“That’s what I said!”
“What?”
Sulking Yellow Dog brandished his spear and whispered, “I am going to kill that man now, and even the Storm of Amber will applaud my temperance in waiting until I had a clear shot...”
A slight declination of the head from his charge was his only answer. The rider grimaced and bit a lock of his hair in frustration. “Right, right... Sorry.”
The two proceeded up the ramp into the manse, Yellow Dog muttering quietly, but not so loud that he could be heard.
The sun had set, and a clear night sky now unfolded above the aerie manse. Below them, Ruki Nü was receiving a delegation of local wind elementals, hoping to convince them to assist in communication within the manse. It was a balmy night, and four of the Daybringers had, at his suggestion, chosen to dine on one of the broad, sloping gardens on the roof of the manse. It was in this idyllic setting that Selara heard a faint whisper between two of the servants.
“First the Daybringers arrive, then the elementals, and now another amalgam. We’ve never had so many important visitors!”
As the two girls turned to leave, Selara grabbed the ankle of the closer of the two. “Hey, what do you mean, another amalgam? Is it one of the Qinglong alliance?”
“Oh, I thought you already knew.” The young servant blushed slightly. “She’s on her way up to meet with you in a few minutes, after she has refreshed herself from her journey.”
The other girl shyly covered her face with one arm of her blue kimono. “Ruki told us that he was expecting her, and that she was to have a room next to your own. We assumed she was with you.”
Wing took a sip from his sake, his brow furrowed, as the servants left with some of the empty dishes from their meal. “Hmm. I thought that Master Rivers was sequestered in the Infinite City, working night and day on some great project. Is he still making amalgams? Have you heard about this, Toruna?”
The sorceress picked at one of her onyx teeth. “What does a new amalgam have to do with us? The grandchildren of the sun are few and precious to the Master of the Plum Blossom Retreat. I wonder why I haven’t heard anything about this... Or why it’s taking so long for Yao Ye to eat this ‘special’ dinner.”
Wing, reclining on the grass, suddenly snapped his fingers. “Wait a minute... Yao Ye is taken away, and a new amalgam arrives? You don’t think...”
Selara slammed her fist into the ground. “They wouldn’t dare. The Daybringers is her life! If they start replacing us every time we make a poor choice...”
“...I’d have a new team, and far fewer headaches.” Toruna shook her head. “Stop jumping to conclusions.”
Shu Zhuang leaned back on his elbows. “Well, she has been gone for quite a while.” He squinted up at the sky. “What would any of us do? This has become our lives. Even if we found a home somewhere else, we’re marked forever with the Sun’s touch, and the Sun still has many enemies.”
Wing drank yet another bowl of rice wine, downing this one more quickly. “Still, Yao Ye needs to...”
“No!” Selara stood and kicked the warming bowl at the youth, splashing him with milky sake. “Don’t you dare talk about her behind her back if you can’t say a word to her face! She lost an arm for you, and don’t you forget it!”
Zhou Wing picked up a platter of cutlets swimming in oyster sauce and flipped them up into Selara’s face. While she struggled to clear the chunks of meat and liquid from her eyes, he blustered, “You don’t understand... I thought... and... shut up!”
Toruna’s leg lashed out, and the low table that was holding their meal spun and struck both Wing and Selara in the shins, simultaneously hurling a dish of rice onto Zhuang’s lap. The combatants both yelped and fell to the ground while the sorceress stood. “I’ve borne enough of this. No one is joining or leaving the Daybringers. That’s final!”
At that moment, two people arrived at their dinner. The first was a tall man with a broad chest, long sinewy arms, and piercing green eyes. He loosely held a short spear in one hand, and about his neck was a yellow cape.
Beside him, a head and a half shorter and dressed in brown robes, was a young woman. She had soft features, deep blue eyes that were large and round, and long hair of sapphire blue. Her skin was pale, but there was a slight bloom of color in her cheeks. She stepped in front of the man beside her and gave a slight bow, only then looking up at the Daybringers. The pink in her cheeks darkened a shade.
“Ah, hello...”
Selara, still hopping on one leg while holding the other, shouted, “What! Go away!” She punctuated her speech by flicking a slice of beef off of her face.
The woman flicked her sleeve over one hand and delicately covered her mouth. “Ah, excuse me, I had a letter for Toruna.” She ended the phrase with a slight uplift of her voice, as though asking a question, and produced a sealed envelope from her robe.
Toruna waved her forward and took the letter from her hand. As she began reading it, Wing (still drinking from a salvaged bowl of sake), gestured to her and said, “So, you’re the new Daybringer?”
She gave a short nod of her head and said, “I am Shifting Waves of Snow After...”
“Go to Malpheas!” He shouted and lobbed his bowl at her. It never reached its mark; Sulking Yellow Dog stepped forward and caught it deftly in one hand, then prepared to hurl it back. The young woman gently touched his elbow. He stilled.
She gave a final bow and said, “You’re quite right; it is an awfully long name. Perhaps we’ll finish our introductions in the morning.” She turned and walked away rather more hastily than she arrived. The rider looked at Zhou Wing and made a vicious face, then turned on his heel and followed the woman.
The doctor almost stood to follow, but Selara grabbed a pillow and threw it in his face. “You idiot, he’ll break your face. Can’t you tell that’s one of the Lightning Hooves of Hiparkes?”
“No one replaces Yao Ye. Even if she is... ah... well, no one!”
“I’m not certain that anyone is being replaced, as much as I might enjoy that.” Toruna folded the letter neatly and placed it in her sleeve. “All that this letter says is that she is to be joining us... apparently to help us deal with our social graces.”
Selara and Wing looked at her, then glanced at each other. Shu Zhuang nodded his head firmly three times, muttering, “Yes, yes. Good, yes.”
At that moment, Yao Ye arrived at the dinner party. She surveyed the dishes, the food splashed over the members of her team, and suddenly her face became severe. She kicked a bit of grass at them and said, with a haughty tone, “I leave for a couple of hours, and look what happens to you. It’s a good thing you have me to look after you again!”
Long after the table had been cleared and the women had left, the healer and the teacher remained, passing the jug between them. It was a clear night; the stars overhead shone brightly down on the grassy slope. Wing leaned back with his head in his hands. “Bah. Are we that offensive that we need a dedicated magical construct to do our talking for us? Just when I was getting used to the trouble we had, more comes along.”
The elder sipped his sake and tilted his head to one side. “She seemed polite and pleasant enough.” He nodded forward slightly, then woke again.
“All girls seem that way at first, but they always mean trouble. Gentle and considerate one moment, and the next...” He made a sour face and drank again, then poured himself another bowl.
“Hmm. Which girl are we talking about?” He looked slyly over at the youth, but he did not respond, his face set with lines of anger. “I don’t disagree, of course. Believe it or not, there was a time when this face was handsome enough for many a filly. I’m pretty sure each of my wives left me with exactly one wrinkle.”
Wing’s eyes widened, and sake spewed out of his nose. It was several minutes later when he had coughed enough that he was able to speak again. “First of all, Yao Ye is not...”
“Who is saying anything about Yao Ye? What is she to you?”
“Nothing!”
“You seemed a little concerned before, that’s why I was asking...”
“She’s my friend, that’s all.” He crossed his arms before his chest and nodded his head twice, quickly.
“If that’s the case, why aren’t you talking to her? If I didn’t know better... which I do, of course...”
The older man trailed off, watching his reaction. Wing gazed up at the sky, feeling more than a little light-headed. “Hmm... I guess it is a little silly... but I guess it’s been a long time since the last time I had that kind of relationship.”
He stood unsteadily, and began gathering the bowls together. As he did so, he considered his words and began speaking slowly. “About four years ago I was a ranger on the southern border, just after the fall of Thorns. It wasn’t a suicide job back then, but we were starting to encounter the Mask’s scouts, and this was back before we knew what they could do.”
Shu Zhuang rolled onto his side with his hand on his stomach. “Hmm. We...”
“Yes. We rode in pairs back then, safety before stealth. We... we were close. Closer than I’d been with anyone before. He was mentor; he taught me how to shoot and ride, how to light a fire with wet wood and no tinder... I guess it was a little silly of me.”
He lurched over to the edge of the terrace, where a low stone railing was all that separated him from hundreds of feet of empty air. “And it’s my fault that he’s dead now,” he said, faintly, suddenly sobered.
“No one’s to blame for a lost man in the South... he knew what he was risking...” Zhuang began.
“No. I killed him.” He felt his stomach quivering inside him. “We were riding through one of those black pine forests on the border when we were ambushed. A spy fell on him while he was passing through a copse and was on his back with a giant black sword to his throat. I didn’t think, just knocked an arrow and fired... funny thing was it was just a girl, younger than me... I remember her red hair, even now...
“Anyway, at the last second he twisted, trying to throw her off... and... I don’t really know what happened next. She was gone, and there was blood everywhere... I didn’t know what to do except to cover the wound and to press down on it... I don’t even know how long I’d been doing that when I realized he was dead.”
Shu Zhuang watched his back as he leaned against the railing, staring down the side of the cliff face.
“I knew I couldn’t work with a partner again, much less fire a bow. I tried, about a week ago, but it didn’t go well. That’s why I volunteered for the amalgamation, so I could prevent things like that from happening again... I guess it was a stupid reason. Maybe that’s why I have so much trouble... I don’t know, connecting with people... until I met...”
His chain of thought was interrupted by something in the darkness. He stopped and stared at the bridge far below him. It was quite real at the moment, but a second later it became transparent. Now it was real again, now a dream. On again. Off again. On. Off.
“I agreed that I would allow you to escort me. Our journey is complete, so you are free to go.” Snow waved her hand over the panel and channeled a mote of essence. The gateway took on a slight azure tint, the eyes of the decorative lion dogs glowing with attention, and the ramp outside became solid.
Sulking Yellow Dog laughed and walked to stand opposite her and waved his own hand in front of the device. As the bridge shimmered into it’s dream state, the light fading from the stone statues, he said, “You agreed that I could be your escort. That I’ll be, and will continue to be, until the day you find a more... intimate position for my services. You saw the way they treated you. Isn’t it obvious that you’re going to need my protection... and my company?”
The young woman responded to his off comments with no hint of humor or annoyance. She summoned the causeway into existence again. “You’d best get your horse. We’ve discussed this before, and my mind will not change. I have given myself, body, heart, and soul, to help support the advent of the Third Age.”
He dismissed the bridge and said, incredulously, “Body, heart, and soul?”
Once more the ramp appeared. “Body, heart, and soul. You have your own duties too, or have you forgotten that you are one of the Lightning Hooves? Do you so easily forget your master?”
“Former master.” He reached out and snatched her hand. “My god is not so cruel that he cannot sympathize with my cause. When the spring comes, the horse knows it is time to seek a mate. How much more so the lord of horses?”
“Release my hand.” The words cut like a saw, and the air tingled about his ears as the command left it’s mark. He let go of her hand. “I’m sorry, Yellow Dog, but as I said before, I have pledged myself to a higher cause. When the Marukan is safe again, and when this time of war is over, if I have survived, then will be the time to consider rebuilding. You’d best find someone more easily impressed by your... less than subtle overtures.”
“You’ve never used a charm against me before! You see, I knew you cared...”
“Shh!” She flattened herself against a wall and glanced about herself with one finger pressed to his lips. “Did you just see something?”
“It’s a little late to try distracting me. You were better off using your essence...”
“No, the last time the bridge was up, I thought I saw a blur passing us.” A look of real concern spread over her face, and she began looking for a guard.
Sulking Yellow Dog frowned and flicked his long brown hair aside, licking his lips where her finger had been. “That’s impossible. To get all the way up here that fast, and slip by us, why, a man would have to know the very Principle of... ah...”
The two of them turned as one as they heard a blood curdling scream from deep within the manse.
Yao Ye hurled the sheets off her head and sat bolt upright, gasping for breath. Reflexively she reached for her hammer at her side, but it was not there. She was in a warm place, quiet and faintly lit by dim starlight. She was alone. She stood up and grabbed her robe from the floor where she had left it and threw it on her shoulders.
She couldn’t remember all of the dream, but she knew she was in the pit again, impaled on the spikes. The hammer was there, but she heard a voice this time... not like the first time... or was it? As she tried to remember, the dream faded. She was still standing in the dark, but now she felt a chill deep inside. She felt the need to find someone, anyone. She opened the door and stepped outside into the hallway.
Essence refraction and amplification gave the halls the brightness of silver candlelight. She knew the rest of the team should be staying nearby, but who could she talk to at this hour? Wing immediately flashed before her eyes, but she dismissed the idea out of hand. He wouldn’t listen to her now.
As she walked down the hall, she saw Selara coming from the opposite direction with Toruna. Both were already dressed, but still bleary eyed. Yao Ye ran up to them in the hall and latched onto Selara’s arm, walking with her. “Hi! Nice night for a walk, right? It’s already so late, why don’t we wait for the sun to come up? Or maybe get out our sleeping mats and pretend like we’re on the trail, just like old times, and all sleep in the same room. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Selara ungently tried to shake the girl off. “Old times? That was last night, and I still have a bruise from when you stepped on me on your way outside in the middle of the night. No thanks.”
The sorceress glanced about herself. “You didn’t happen to hear that scream a few minutes ago did you?”
“Why, no... of course not. Why would someone scream in the middle of a peaceful night in the most secure manse in the Marukan? She would have to be...”
A shout echoed through the halls, distant, but clear. Selara and Yao Ye took off at a sprint down the hallway, racing around the corner. A moment later, Toruna overtook them in a gleaming chariot of azure essence. “Get in,” she shouted, and the three careened through the Gatehouse of the Five Winds.
Shu Zhuang supported Wing as they walked back through the hangar deck to their rooms. The two of them stumbled past bins of rare and impossible to replace reagents, partially completed ship segments, and stockpiled essence weaponry. Occasionally the youth would fall asleep, his feet beginning to drag at first and then finally sliding to the floor (in spite of the loremaster’s heroic efforts to support him). After a couple of these incidents, his face was fairly well bashed and lumpy, which did nothing to help sober him.
That is, until they found the body.
Lying behind a section of the half-completed airship they saw one of the technicians. There were no marks, and there was no blood... but the neck ended in a blunt stump, half dissolved and faintly drained of color. Zhuang glanced at it and slowly stopped walking. Gently he jabbed at Wing’s ribs with one elbow.
From across the room, they saw the new amalgam enter through one of the large archways that lead to the entrance of the manse. The rider with the yellow cape was beside her, and both began scanning the hangar area. They noticed the Daybringers, and the man shouted, “Ah, say, did you see anything pass by here? Something... fast?”
At that moment, entering through the halls at the eastern end of the construction area, the azure chariot burst into the room with rays of gleaming essence splashing across the ceiling. Yao Ye was shouting, “...three people? I think you ran down that last one for fun...”
Toruna cut her off. “When you see terrestrial circle sorcery coming, you move! Everyone knows that!”
They skidded to a halt by the rest of their team, the chariot dissolving into ribbons of light. Selara dropped into her form and snarled out, “Did you see anything? I know screams, and that wasn’t a good one.”
While Wing propped himself against the hull, Zhuang pointed to the body. Snow and Yellow Dog ran up to the spot to survey the damage. Yao Ye glanced over it and muttered, “Demon.”
Toruna nodded, adding, “Or possibly one of the fair folk, or...”
“No. I smell demon.” She looked around herself with Spirit Detecting Glance, feeling behind herself with one hand for her missing hammer.
The sorceress grabbed a sheaf of spidersilk and covered the body, then turned to the new amalgam, “Listen, ah...”
“Shifting Waves of Snow After the Blizzard.”
“Really?”
“I did say that it was long. It would not have been my first choice.”
“Ah. Anyway. You should go to your quarters and keep the door sealed. This could be an invasion force... there might be dozens...”
“There’s just one.”
The Daybringers turned to look at her as one, while Sulking Yellow Dog twisted aside and scratched his back, idly glancing about for a weapon. Snow continued, “It... I’m sorry, I’m entirely at fault. And now...” She tried to continue, her throat working, but her head dropped to her chest, her hair covering her face as tears welled from her eyes.
Toruna coughed, and said, “Well, I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. Did you get a good look at it?”
Sulking Yellow Dog clapped his hands loudly and said, “It went by like that. Snow said she thought it was grayish...”
“...with the head of a lion, hands like clubs, and no clothes?” Yao Ye pointed up at the prow of the ship.
Crouched there on the half constructed gunwale, the body of another victim dangling from its mouth over the side, was a gray creature roughly the size and shape of a man, though only a sorcerer would describe it with such generous terminology. The head was indeed distinctly leonine in shape, with great liquid black eyes that swirled with vermillion tints. Where hands might be, the forearms terminated in thick, rocklike stumps.
The Daybringers leapt into action. That is to say, two of them leapt into action; Yao Ye and Selara scrambled up the side of the hull, while Shu Zhuang lifted a panel of alloy and began sliding under it unhurriedly. Toruna turned and ran for the entrance she had just come through. Wing shouted after her, “Wait, where...?”
“We need the shockpikes! Hold it off till I get back!”
“Oh...” He turned to where Sulking Yellow Dog was standing. “Say, aren’t you a fighter or something...”
“Let the girls handle it. My job is protecting Snow.” He smiled charismaticly, then noticed that at that moment his charge was ungracefully diving headfirst over the gunwale to the deck. Wing sighed and followed her up, while Yellow Dog leaped bodily onto the railing and began running down it at full speed. “Damn it, I’ll take it on myself then!”
The demon was watching the two amalgams warily as they fanned out across the deck. Yao Ye picked up a sledge hammer and held it loosely in her left hand, crouched low and tracking it sideways. Selara took the lead and approached it directly. Her feet slid in circular patterns across the deck while the demon looked at first one of them, then the other, before dropping the headless body over the side and snarling gutturally at them. They began closing in, when they heard Yellow Dog’s whooping battle cry.
The Lightning Hoof of Hiparkes took a flying kick at the demon. The demon ducked slightly, lowering its body against the ship. The Lightning Hoof of Hiparkes sailed off the side of the ship. From below, there was the sound of a crash, and muttering. “Where’s my horse...”
Yao Ye and Selara glanced at each other. The martial artist shrugged, and then charged forward. She threw three quick strikes at its head, followed by a low, sweeping kick. The demon slid back with cat-like speed, almost dancing away from her blows before clubbing her in the neck, knocking her to her knees for a moment. Yao Ye darted in, swinging the sledge hammer like a baton. She shouted as she attacked, “Today’s your unlucky day, malphean imp. We are the Daybringers, and we’re here to Do Good, Be Awesome, and Annihilate... hey, hold still!” It whistled over the creature, then slammed into the deck, lodging itself a foot deep into the synthetic hull. The demon lunged forward and slammed into her with its foreclubs, smashing her in the chest and bouncing back from her to the prow. “Ug. Too fast, and this hammer is too slow. Can you hit it?” she muttered.
Selara spat back, “Watch where you swing that thing!” She lashed out with another jab, but it struck the gray skin, solidly, and failed to leave a mark. She backed away a couple of paces, shaking her hand. “It’s like stone!”
“I’m fine, thanks for asking!” Yao Ye picked herself up from the deck and staggered to one side, cinching her robe more tightly around her waist. “Ribs were holding me back.”
The battle continued on the prow of the ship, while Wing helped Snow over the side. The two watched the warrior-women fighting the thing unsuccessfully, taking hits more often than they were given. Soon the demon’s club-hands were smeared with blood. Snow watched with agony in her expression. She grabbed his sleeve and whispered, “There must be something we can do... it’s killing them!”
Wing gave a nervous laugh and looked around himself. “What, that? That’s nothing. They beat each other up worse than that fighting over the leftovers.” Another heavy strike landed on Yao Ye’s jaw, spinning her almost completely around. “Well... maybe... but the problem is that amalgams are like the tools of the Sun. We’re really only made to be good at one thing... and fighting just isn’t our thing.”
As they said this, both looked down, shame-faced, and then realized that there was a small essence cannon half-installed at their feet. Snow looked back up at him and said, “Wait, we could...”
He looked down at it. “Well, I suppose...”
“Are you a good shot? I’d heard that you used to be a ranger...”
“No, that’s not an option...” He turned away and saw Selara trapped under the creatures paws while Yao Ye beat at it with her fists, ineffectually.
“Zhou Wing, if you can help, now would be the time.” She began pulling the cannon out of its mounting. She tossed the cannon at his chest, and the amalgam was forced to grab it to keep from being crushed under the yard long tube of alloy and essence lenses. Snow summoned her essence to her aid, and whispered lowly, “Please, Wing, I made a mistake tonight, and people died. I have to do something, now. Can you help me make this right?”
Whether because of the charm or the impact of her words, Wing nodded his head. He knelt on the deck and shouldered the cannon, sighting along it as well as he could. Surveying the battle, he shook his head with gritted teeth. “I can’t... they’re too close to it.”
“Wing...” Snow knelt beside him and put her hand on his back, gently. “You can. I know you can.”
He squinted down the cannon. Selara was still trying to keep the thing’s maw away from her face, while Yao Ye beat it about the eyes. He shouted, “Ye! Drop!”
Yao Ye instantly flattened to the deck. Zhou Wing concentrated and focused his essence through cannon’s collecting coils. The essence lenses gathered his mystic power and focused it into a piercing beam of golden light. It intersected with the lion head just above its right eye, continuing on for another fifty yards before it struck the hangar wall. The thing slumped forward, sluggishly rolled onto its side, and then was still.
Shifting Waves of Snow hugged Wing around the neck and breathed a deep sigh of relief while he slowly exhaled. Yao Ye leaped up into a crouch, looked at the demon, gave a whoop of joy, then looked back at Wing. “Great shot, Wing! Oh...” She bit her upper lip and turned away to help Selara out from under the beast.
Moments later, Sulking Yellow Dog and Toruna arrived. The rider was mounted on an enormous chestnut charger and had a lance tucked under his right arm. He glared fiercely around the room. “Where is it? Where did it go?”
Toruna chuckled and dropped the brace of the shockpikes in her own arms. “You’ll have to be faster than that to keep up with these women.”
It was a solemn gathering when the two dead technicians had been cleared away. They gathered on the hangar deck in a circle while Wing treated the injuries of the amalgam warriors. Hot sake was brought to steady their nerves.
Selara gritted her teeth as he set her leg. “What a night. Are all demons that creepy? Thing hardly made a noise, even when it died. What was it doing here, anyway?”
Snow shook her head. “It just snuck in... it might have been waiting outside for a long time, before it saw its chance...”
Shu Zuang gripped her hand comfortingly and said, “It would have happened eventually, then. We’re lucky you were there and saw it enter... otherwise, many more might have died before we found out.”
Wing laughed to himself. “Well, everyone in the Daybringers gets at least one free foul up, anyway. Except Yao Ye.”
She glared at him icily. “I see that you’ve decided I’m worth talking to again. I suppose I should be thanking you for nearly taking my head off with a piece of artillery.”
He smiled and reached up to wipe a bit of thick, gray, demonic effluvium from her cheek with his thumb. “For you, any time.”
Snow laughed nervously, her eyes shining. “So, I am a Daybringer, then?”
Toruna nodded her head firmly. “There was never any question. We’re happy to have you on our side.”
Sulking Yellow Dog stuck his hand inside his tunic and rubbed his chest, saying, “You do realize that people use that name as an insult in taverns all over the Marukan?”
Selara made a face and said, “Who are you again? What are you doing here?”
The team burst out laughing while Sulking Yellow Dog... sulked. The exhausted team shared one last round as the walls began to glow once more with the pure light of the dawn.
Leaf Shakes the Wind bowed his head. “Since you seem to have had no adverse effects, no compulsions or consequences after avoiding it for three days, you may use the hammer.”
Yao Ye skipped across the room to her weapon and hugged the cold, black stone to her chest. “Yeah,” she whispered.
“It sounds like you’ve a lot of work ahead of you, anyway. When the Shadow Racer returned, it brought back news of almost a dozen demon outbreaks across the east. You’re on it, Yao Ye. We’re counting on you.”
“Right, right... I have to run. Snow hasn’t seen my hammer yet!” Yao Ye raced for the door, then turned back and shouted, “Thanks, Leaf! You can rely on us!”
With the door closed, Leaf thought for a moment and shook his head. “Why do I think we made the wrong choice?”
Bones Like Jade chuckled for a few seconds, then realized that Leaf was not smiling. “Oh,” he muttered, and nodded his head solemnly.
