Chapter 8
Daybringers Chapter 8
Winter had come to the Marukan alliance. The gentle hills and valleys, the spreading plains of the East, the brooks and the rice paddies were covered in a blanket of snow. Domesticated animals were kept in their barns, families huddled together about their hearthfires, and all the land seemed to lie dormant, waiting for the long spring ahead. All the world, that is, except the Daybringers.
Struggling down roads almost invisible beneath the spreading white, dragging their cart through muddy bogs and over frozen streams, the amalgams continued their mission. Early in the month of Descending Water, they pushed their way north and east of the Plum Blossom Retreat, searching for rumors of the sudden plague of small demons. They had already found and defeated a half dozen first circle escapees, doing more or less damage to the surrounding countryside in the process. More than one town elder wondered, later, whether the wiser course of action would be summon the wrath of the Daybringers on their village, or to learn to live with a demon or two.
Regardless, the team was now back in the field after a week of respite and... modifications. Already Wing had forgotten what it felt like to have dry boots and a warm room to sleep in. While waiting for the cart to be pushed over a low rise, he took the opportunity to lean against a scrubby tree and check his feet for frostbite. Sulking Yellow Dog, Selara, Yao Ye, and Toruna had each taken a corner of the wagon while Shu Zhuang lead the horses. The physician and Shifting Waves of Snow were doing their best to remain inconspicuous while the sorceress shouted a long stream of abuse against the cart, the horse, the road, the weather, and the entire Court of Seasons, exhorting them all to greater efforts.
“She certainly is enthusiastic.” Snow leaned over her knees, panting after their strenuous hike through the snow.
Wing laughed and rubbed the feeling back into his toes with one hand while shaking the slush out of his boot with the other. “I’ve heard that her fire comes from the heart of a volcano, deep in southlands, and I believe it. She’s no flower amalgam.”
She smiled in response, her cheeks flushed from her exertion and her eyes sparkling. “You mean that one,” she said, looking at Yao Ye, who was at that moment bodily lifting half the cart on her back, jerking it out of Yellow Dog’s grasp. “She’s not exactly the most delicate of the amalgams I’ve met, either.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised by how fragile she can be.” A distant expression came over his face. He pulled the boot slowly back onto his foot.
Snow looked at him for a moment, then began to speak slowly, picking her words. “Yes, I can see that about her, now that you mention it. Not that she has your gentle hands and calm face, but there is a certain... vulnerability. She must draw a lot of attention in the cities.”
“Ha! I suppose she might be attractive, to a certain type. Poor fools.” Wing shook his head and sighed, thinking back to their days in Varsi.
The young woman turned away and smiled slightly to herself, lowering her eyes. “She’s lucky to have you... you all... looking out for her, then.”
Wing coughed and said, “Yes, well... Ah, it looks like they’ve found something.”
A week before then, the team was still in the Retreat for a working vacation.
“Do you feel any different?”
“Should I?”
“I don’t know.” Rivers Between Us removed his hand from her forehead.
“What’s new?” Toruna sat up on her palette and swung her legs over the side.
“Essence. You should be able to make two castings of emerald countermagic or the chariot.” The sorcerer gave his hand as she stood. “As my mastery of essence increases, so will yours.”
“Comforting to know, that we are so dependent on you.” She gave him an icy smile as she stood.
The two sorcerers were in the Garden of Advance Submission in the Plum Blossom Retreat. Normally it was used for making offerings before leaving on journeys, asking for safe passage. Deep in the wild north woods of the upper terrace, it was a small hillock of stone. Only a handful of scrubby trees grew on its slopes, but the dome-like summit was surmounted by a ring of pillars supporting a ring of stone, open to the sky. In the center of the ring was the altar of sacrifice. Today it was used to refresh the sorcery that bound the amalgams to their holy powers as grandchildren of the sun.
Rivers picked up his cloak and belted it about himself against the cold. “I never did understand why a woman as independent as yourself accepted the second birth.”
“You never asked.” She laughed to herself and stretched out her stiff muscles. “Hmm... my skin has gotten harder as well.”
“Then let me ask you now. Why did you come to the Plum Blossom Retreat and ally yourself with us?”
“I had little choice. I’m Varangi, you know.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, there you have it.” She sighed and leaned against one of the marble pillars. “My horoscope was... unusual, to say the least. I was offered a choice, a rare thing in that city. If I stayed in the city, I would lead a long and peaceful life, and would never know want.”
“And if you left?” Rivers squinted at her sideways, chewing his lower lip.
“I would have the power of the heavens poured into me, and the name of my tribe would climb to the stars. I’d die before my thirty-third winter, but I would not live in vain.”
“No long and peaceful life...”
“No.” Her hard black eyes glinted in the morning light as she spoke. “When I found you, I knew what the last part meant. The rest seems to be falling into line as well.”
“Ah.” They began walking down the path back towards the Retreat, where the next team member would be summoned for karmic reinforcement. “I guess I see now why you were so determined to be a team leader, I think. Do you ever regret the decision?”
“Never. I believe in the cause, and in what your circle is becoming, although not necessarily what you are right now.” She walked in long strides, making it difficult for him to keep up.
“Well, I guess that’s... how old are you?”
Toruna did not speak to him again that day.
Over the next rise was a small valley running northwest to southeast. The floor was flat and even, with a small stream running along the northeast side under an overhanging bank of striated snow. The water ran swiftly; already the creek was swelling with the first meltwater of early spring as the deep snow drifts on the mountains to the west began to diminish. The valley extended almost a hundred paces long, narrowing to a ravine at its head but widening to almost thirty paces in the middle. Almost a dozen small A-frame tents were pitched in a semi-circle in the broadest part of the valley, with a smokeless cooking fire in the center that seemed a recent addition by the size of the coal bed. Upstream from the tents the snow was trampled to slush by a score of Marukan riders.
As the team unloaded their wagon, Toruna spoke with the leader of the camp. She was a lean, older woman with a long, roughly carved pipe clenched between gappy teeth.
“Blood is what brings us here, since you ask, and blood is what we seek.”
Toruna laughed coldly and stamped her feet. “You don’t have the look of a mercenary, Shimira.”
“We’re here for horses, not men. The horses of the Marukan are the fastest and the strongest in Creation, but they won’t stay that way for inbreeding. The blood we seek runs in the veins of the wild horses of the hills and plains, the very children of Hiparkes, that renews our lineages with fresh strength.”
“Ah. We wish you luck then. I hope you don’t mind us pitching our camp here tonight, it gets a bit...”
The old wrangler interrupted her. “Luck we have, but if you’ve swords, then they’ll serve us better.”
“Excuse me?” Toruna frowned and looked uneasily around the camp.
“You’re the Daybringers, right? You’re here to help us? We need swords.”
“Perhaps you should explain.”
“Hmph. Perhaps so.” She began walking with the sorceress into the camp. Men and women, most more than two score years in age, were crouched around the entrances of their tents, mending clothing and eating dry rations. “We’re not mercenaries, like you said, and no one knows how to follow the wild herds like we do. Every year we search for the strongest and the swiftest, always leaving strong ones to guide the herd through the next year. Our problem is the guild.”
“Hmph. If they don’t have your skill...”
“Then they’ll steal it. They’ve been following us; I don’t know how, but I think they have a witch with them. When we’re rounding up the herd, they swoop in and chase away our riders with their fire swords and arrows.”
“How many of them are there?”
“About twenty.”
“Hmm...” She looked back at her team, just in time to see Selara bodily throw Yao Ye at Yellow Dog. “Just the twenty, you say?”
“And a witch. You folks know how to ride, don’t you?”
Shifting Waves of Snow After the Blizzard calmly stepped away from the circle. “I don’t think she actually knows what happened there, but she’s definitely changed.”
“What do you mean?” Rivers helped her descend from the dais, lightly guiding her elbow.
“As you requested, I’ve studied the build of her amalgamation. She should be resilient, but nowhere near as puissant as she was in the fight. Her strength is greater than Selara’s, and she laughs away injuries that should have killed her instantly. All this while the hammer was still in containment.”
The sorcerer bowed his head and flicked his robe away from his feet. “This is grave news. She may not be aware of it, and Leaf has assured me that she is not, but more happened in that pit than she has told us. I’d like for you to stay with them a little longer, Snow. You now have an investigation excellency to assist in this.”
“Thank you, master.” The young woman gave him a small bow, and he nodded his head in response.
“I’m sorry to use you like this, Snow. I know that you were seeking a position in the Ministry of Ascendant Theology when you recovered from the trials in Three Hills...”
“I am more than willing to do anything that will help the cause that Master Storm has shown to us. I will sacrifice everything to that end, including my preferred method of service.”
Rivers Between Us looked at her strangely, then turned away from her to the overcast skies. He whispered to himself, just loud enough that she might hear, “How have we become such monsters of virtue? Shaped by our foes, our allies, or ourselves?”
She touched his shoulder, and he jumped slightly. “Don’t worry, Master Rivers. I have less virtuous reasons for wishing to stay with the Daybringers as well.”
“It’s time.”
Wing opened his eyes to see Shu Zhuang’s head retract through the tent flap, admitting a blast of cold morning air. Groaning, he rolled onto his side and began wrestling his boots onto his feet. “Hmm. So much for a freezing bath before our ride.” He plunged out of his tent and finished by stomping his heels into the soles of his boots.
The sun was only a suggestion of light in the East, but already the wranglers, under Shimira’s direction, were saddling their horses. Behind him he heard Yao Ye’s moan as she crawled out of the cart bed. “Horses sleep sometime, don’t they?”
Song lead a chestnut mare up to him; she was already seated in a roan stallion. “You almost missed us Wing. I saved you one of the best of their spare horses. Do you need any help getting on, or have you done much riding?”
Zhou Wing reached up and grabbed the saddle loosely in one hand, then sprang up into his seat with a practiced motion. He smoothed the mare’s mane reflexively and whispered to it in one ear, speaking lowly, “Hello, hello. We’ve placed to go today, but you’ll show me the way, right miss?”
“Ha! I’m impressed. Even my father didn’t have such a light touch. You’ve more than a little experience riding!”
“Bah, that’s nothing! Let’s show them real skill, God-crushing Smash-hoof!” Wing and Snow turned to see Sulking Yellow Dog astride his pale, sleek Finest come galloping through the camp and leap over the Daybringers’ cart, trampling through the creek and sending sheets of water up on either side. The assembled riders were hard put to steady their own mounts as he rounded back through the narrow defile, laughing all the while.
Shimira cast him a foul glance, and he slouched lower in the saddle, slowing to a walk. “Right then. Day’s wasting, and the trail is fresh. The winter grounds for Seamane’s herd are just a half day’s ride from here. Let’s move!”
The valley was filled with the thundering of hooves as nineteen men and women rode to the head of the valley and up a narrow path toward the ridge line. In the rush of the horses, Wing could barely hear the sound of a shrill cry behind him.
“Hey, wait!”
Wing turned his horse and saw Yao Ye franticly trying to scramble up the side of a massive black stallion while holding her hammer with her left hand. The horse kept turning away from her, prancing in a slow spin as its eyes rolled with terror at the sight of the dark weapon. Wing sighed and slipped out of his seat, back into the snow, and walked slowly up to the pair.
“Easy, easy...”
“Maybe for you!” she shouted as she lunged once more at the terrified beast.
“I’m not talking to you...” He slowly pulled the approached the stallion and whispered, “You’re sure you’re Marukani?”
“I was a rice farmer. We couldn’t afford a horse.” She brandished her goremaul once again and shouted to the horse, “but that doesn’t mean you can push me around!”
“Would you just stay quiet and put down the hammer?”
“I need it! What if we meet those guild thugs?”
“We’ll get you into the saddle and then I’ll hand you the hammer. Ok?” He reached the horse and began stroking it’s forehead. “Which reminds me, I’d better bring a shockpike. All right, I think he’ll let you get on now.”
“Right... about that...” The girl looked up at the saddle, which was practically at eye level. There were no stirrups, no reins and bridle for the horse; it was equipped with only the bare essentials necessary for the proud riders of the hills and plains.
Wing sighed and slowly moved around the horse beside her. He knelt in the snow and cupped his hands. “All right. Just put your foot here, and I’ll boost you up.”
“Oh. Ok.” She stepped into his hands and leapt up at the horse. Wing made a high-pitched noise, somewhat like a shriek, as her coarse boots cut and bruised his hand with the force of her spring. The horse started, sidestepping away from them, and Yao Ye was left clinging to the saddle, half on the horse and half off, trying desperately to pull herself into the seat.
“Just... ah, by the Sun.” He stood and grabbed Yao Ye by the hips and pushed her up into the saddle bodily. She scrambled across the horse’s back and grabbed the horse’s neck. Her face flushed to a deep purple, and her eyes almost as wide as the horse’s, she turned to Wing, panting.
“Ah, uh... well...”
“You’re welcome.” He reached down pick up the hammer, but found he couldn’t move it. “Oh, damn.”
Yao Ye reached down, leaning low over the horse, and grabbed the haft with one hand. She paused there, her face inches from Wing’s, still breathing heavily. “I’ve got it.”
She stayed there, looking at him strangely. “Well, it’s nothing. You really should learn to uh... ride.”
“Well, as long as you’re around to help me up, I guess I don’t need to.” She laughed and broke the contact, flipping the hammer onto her shoulder and straightening unsteadily in the saddle.
As she rode away (or rather, as the horse carried her away), Wing walked over to the cart. “Hmm. You think that’s hard, wait until you have to get down by yourself.”
Rifling through the equipment, he hefted a well-worn shockpike to his shoulder and began attuning it to his essence.
“What is that thing on your arm?”
“This?” Rivers pulled back his sleeve to show the bracer on his left arm. Extending from wrist to elbow, it was a web of delicate orichalcum holding an array of colored panes of adamant, elegantly abstract dials and twisting clockwork. “It’s an amplifier for the spell I’m using. It’s what lets me fashion amalgams from such simple components and focus into them the collective essence of the entire host of the solar exalted. Without it, you’d know a great deal less about medicine, Wing. And now... archery.”
“I shouldn’t have asked.” He stepped away from the altar as Pai and Pei approached and layed their hands on their master’s shoulders, reinforcing his will and essence with their own reserves. He visibly straightened in a matter of moments. “I see that you’re adhering to your usual routine... over extending yourself for days on end and crashing into a stupor when your body can no longer support the demands.”
“You sound like my wife...” Rivers gritted his teeth as he heard the words slip out.
“It’s true then? You’d better not tell Yao Ye...” Wing laughed and punched his shoulder lightly. “Imagine if she found out that you were...”
“She knows, already.”
“Since when?” He drew back a pace, almost backing into one of the pillars of the sanctuary.
“When your team met us in Varsi.”
Zhou Wing looked down at the cold snow, the fading light of a setting sun refracting against it to make it dance with golden flame. “You mean... no... the whole business at the lake, her depression and the risks she took... it was all your fault? The whole mess?”
“Wing, calm down. I regret the results, but not my actions.”
“You’ve gotten used to delivering commands to us, I see.” Wing noted this calmly as he began walking back down the path to the retreat.
“And you’ve grown comfortable enough with your past to pick up a weapon again.” Rivers said the words firmly, without malice, but never the less they cut him like a dagger through this chest. “You asked me to give you a tool to help fight back. I’ve granted your request, even though I’d rather make you a better healer.”
He walked up behind his servant, while Pai and Pei watched ominously behind him. He placed both hands on his shoulders and rested his forehead against the back of his neck. “You’re right though. Your freedom shouldn’t depend on my mood.”
Zhou Wing laughed hollowly. “You’re the chosen of the Sun. The world is yours to command. Perhaps you shouldn’t be so afraid of giving orders to your fifty essence constructs.”
“I’m better at requests. One last one I’ll make. Live without regret. I respect and admire your choice.”
As Rivers said the words, Wing felt the loyalty within him, the magic that bound him to the man, stir with the affirmation, but somewhere deeper inside was the answering echo of his own true respect for the sorcerer, the world-forging engineer that would not dare to seize the authority his power could so easily grant. The healer faced his master, his brow furrowed. “Maybe someday I’ll respect myself again, as well... but thank you.”
The midmorning sun was casting long shadows in the hills and canyons of Northeast Marukan. It’s chill light likewise concealed the riders on the heights until their voices rebounded against the walls below.
“Looking for something?”
Shimira spat in the snow and muttered, “Damn, they’re still tailing us. I thought for sure that if we stuck to the valley floors...”
“Take your time. We can wait.” Laughter echoed about the team of wranglers, emanating from the figures of riders on the crest of an overhanging cliff above them. Though little more than their silhouettes were visible with the sun behind them, it was easy to see the distinctive long vests of the guild on their shoulders. Two of them had full quivers and bows at their backs, and all had slashing swords at their belts.
Yao Ye looked up at the cliff and squinted her eyes. “I only see five of them. What are we waiting for! Hyah!”
Yao Ye drew back her heels and kicked the flanks of the horse with the toes of her boots. The dark horse’s eyes opened wide, it’s ears twitched and turned back, and in an instant it bolted away from the crowd of riders. Toruna coughed and covered her mouth, glancing nervously away.
The riders above turned to watch her leave. “You might want to help your friend before she breaks that horse’s leg,” spoke the foremost of the five.
Selara stepped off of her horse and strode up to the cliff. “Damn it, the Daybringers don’t take crap from a pack of silver-pinching guild-rats. Get down here!” She struck a deep stance, donning her essence fangs and scales. She inhaled deeply, sinking her essence through her stomach, her hips, her knees, and finally her feet, until her spirit was rooted in the earth itself, like a snake coiled in its den. Knot-like muscles rippled under her deep green skin as she hissed out a long, slow exhale, ending with an explosive “Kiyah!” as she lashed out with one fist, striking the base of the cliff.
Quickly and without delay, cracks radiated out from her fist, beginning as hair-fine webs in the porous granite, but rapidly growing to form a single great breach in the cliff face, rippling upward to the overhang above. Selara stepped away as the canyon wall shuddered. The five guildsman applied their spurs and fled to the North, just in time to avoid tumbling with several tons of stone down a thirty yard drop.
Shifting Waves of Snow gently muttered, when the horses had finally been calmed and the deafening roar had faded, “Perhaps a little diplomacy would have served us better...”
Selara glared at her with her one silver eye. “No one’s going to wait for you to think up a plan, girl. If you want to talk, talk fast, because the Daybringers gather trouble as fast as horse apples gathers flies.”
Rivers Between Us sat down across from her and took a long pull from his pint.
“You always do this after a long day of sorcery?” Selara’s eye held the flicker of a smile that didn’t touch her thin lips.
“I’ve tried before, and I’ve tried during. Tipsy essence shaping is a little too much excitement...”
Selara drank from her own mug and interrupted, shielding her face with her beer, “hey, I didn’t ask about your love life.”
“How did you... I only use sorcery for...” Rivers’ face began to flush as he fished for words.
“Drink.”
The two pounded back their beers. Selara slammed hers down to the table first. “Wait, you can keep speaking on that line. I know why I became an amalgam, but you have to admit that this whole program of yours has gotten out of control. The southern team has vanished, I keep hearing rumors about the northern team executing “missions” of goodwill that end in fistfights with Lookshy officers. Sometimes I think the Daybringers are the only ones out doing their jobs.”
“Oh... Ah...”
“Really, what’s your next move in this whole operation? Are there going to be more teams? I mean, imagine a legion of amalgamated soldiers...”
“What do you want to do, Selara?” Rivers set down the mug at last, blinking his eyes blearily. “What are you going to do with your strength, now augmented even more thoroughly.”
“Oh...” She leaned back on the bench. “Well... I’ve still got your directive... to Do Good... which is, ah... I was actually hoping you could clear that up...”
Rivers smiled and shook his head. “You’ve already got more than I started with.”
Shu Zhuang knelt in the snow and pressed his fingers into the hoof prints. “Closer,” he murmured, and then belted his robe more tightly around his waist. The lad beside him nodded his head.
“Two days ago they grazed here, and then took the northern trail. The leader, Seamane, was with them. You can tell by these hoof prints here, the big ones, because none of the other horses came near him. We’re on the right trail.”
“Yep, horsefeet. Smart boy.” Yao Ye lifted the visor on her gunzosha armor and looked at the ground suspiciously.
“I’m not a boy, I’m a man. Shenji Araki, scout and wrangler, and this is my fourteenth winter. I know I’ve seen more than a pup like you, even if I don’t have Lookshy armor to hide inside.” He stood and threw open his rabbit-fir coat, showing his tanned and bare chest beneath a defiant grin.
As she spoke she wriggled on the horse’s back, trying to keep it from wandering under a low-hanging branch. “What? You... I’m sixteen, I’ll have you know, and I know... lots... just not so much about horses... boy!”
“Sixteen. Really...” He gave her an appraising look, like a trader examining a mule’s teeth. “Well, if you can cook, I’m sold!”
“Damn!” Having failed in her endeavor, she was slowly being peeled off the horse’s back as she clung the tree branch with both arms, letting her hammer fall to the ground. “Wing! Help me! It’s going to turn around and bite me, I just know it!”
Sulking Yellow Dog rounded the bend with Shimira, looking in on the scouts in the dry river bed. “Hmph. Here they are. If you found something, you should have told us. We have to move fast before the guild catches up to us again. Even their trackers could follow a trail this fresh.”
Shu Zhuang stood from the prints and turned to face them, brushing off his hands on his pants. Almost absentmindedly he lead Ye’s stallion back around underneath her dangling legs. “Can’t be far now. Shenji found a...”
As the two riders rounded the bend, the early afternoon light struck them at a high slant. The aged loremaster’s face fell, as though suddenly the weight of his age had struck him with full force.
“Shimira, how long has your shadow been missing?”
At that moment, they began to hear shouting coming from the party behind them.
"That was quick." Toruna watched Shu Zhuang as he walked down the garden path. In the early morning air, low mist still hung in the hollows and tree branches of the Plum Blossom Retreat. The loremaster acknowledged her with a nod, but continued walking past her. "He didn't give you the same rigorous debriefing that the rest of us endured?"
"Not much to say. He'll be going soon, so he gave me a charm and a mission." The sturdy old man stopped in the path and heaved a sigh.
"Leaving? He didn't mention anything about that to me..."
"And you didn't tell me either."
"Ah." The sorceress looked down and pursed her hard lips, half smile and half frown. "I see he has discussed my horoscope with you. I would have preferred that he could have kept that secret closer to his chest."
Zhuang walked heavely over to the bench where she was seated in a small alcove beside the path. "You know your life isn't your own. We're caught up in the changing of the ages; we can't afford private lives any more."
"I'm not your pupil, stump. I don't ask why you took that name, or why you're playing father to every child you meet. Besides," she said as she flicked her head up to the bare tree branches above, "I admit, I was hoping to get out of that part of the prophecy."
The old man laughed, his gnarled features twisting with the effort. "All this time, almost a year that we've been traveling together, and I thought you were the solid one. Here I find you're the most reckless of the lot. We've all chosen the hard and glorious road, but you already knew where it would end."
"Not yet." She stood and walked away from the loremaster, her feet almost seeming to lift from the ground as she drew herself to her full height, pulling her robes about herself. "As long as I'm alive, I will serve. The cause of righteousness, the 3rd Age, the Marukan Alliance, the Master, and the Daybringers."
The thirty guildsmen fanned out around the party of wranglers, half of them with bows at the ready, but all armed with swords or lances. They were young men and women, some with the dark skin of the distant south, some with the deeper brown of the far east, pale northerners and tattooed islanders. All wore the long guild vests over their riding clothes, and though none of them sat in their saddle with the effortless confidence of a Marukani, they looked familiar with their weapons.
At their head were two men in steel lamelar armor. The one on the right had a faint orange cast to his long, wavy hair; it hung lank over his shoulders, free and untamed by the confines of any helmet. He had a wide brow, steely eyes, and thick lips that were curled in a fiendish sneer. The one on the left had chalky gray skin and a spiny green trihawk. He held the reins of his horse loosely in one hand, while spinning three prismatic orbs between the bejeweled fingers of his right hand.
"Thanks again for your assistance, Shimira. Seamane's herd is legendary, both here and in Nexus, both for the strength of his bloodline and his elusive winter haunts. I assure you that it's not flattery when I tell you that we couldn't have done it without you."
"Her shadow, you mean." Old Zhuang's brow lowered as he spoke. "I was wondering how you managed a trick like that. Here I was afraid you were using celestial sorcery, but it looks like you've just got a first age trinket."
Shimira gritted her teeth while she lit a fresh bowl. She backed her horse between the Daybringers and whispered, "I should have noticed, but in the winter you never see the sun, so shadows are harder to find. The one on the left is Gonsun Zeng, their leader, and a creepy bastard too. That's his lapdog with the orange locks, Lu Xiu. Be careful about him."
"You can be on your way now. We can take it from here." Gonsun Zeng pocketed the orbs in a pouch at his hip. "Stick to what you know: finding us horses, not dying."
"Not this time, little dragon." Shifting Waves of Snow lifted one hand from her horse's back to point imperiously at the guildsmen. "You have come to the Marukan, and so you'll face Marukan justice, as delivered by the grandchildren of the sun. Submit, and you will be fined and exiled. Resist, and you will..."
"Damn. I don't believe it; it really is the Daybringers. There's no reasoning with those madwomen. Bring them down!"
"Yah!" the guildsmen shouted, as they urged their horses forward against the wranglers. With Shimira at their head, the riders scattered to the north, easily outrunning the less skilled riders from Gonsun's band, even if the warriors of the Daybringers hadn't interposed themselves. And this they did. Sulking Yellow Dog lowered his spear and charged into their ranks, spilling the first rider that he met and blunting their attack. Selara shakily stepped onto her horse's back and adopted the snake form, leaping in crushing kicks and elbow strikes from horse to horse as she pressed the attack. Yao Ye dismounted entirely, falling like a sack of potatoes to the ground, but rebounding an instant later with hammer raised, sweeping men from their horses and flinging them a dozen paces away with each strike. Their archers raised their bows to respond, but Toruna and Zhou Wing both began cracking shots from their shockpikes, forcing them to seek cover.
Gonsun Zeng frowned as he watched his mercenaries break before a force a fifth their size. He looked to Lu Xiu and spat out, "Who are these people you hired?"
"They're more than enough for pushing around these horse-lovers." His brow beetled and his hand strayed to his side.
"Well I'm not paying them to get their asses handed to them. Step aside." He stretched out one hand before himself and clenched it into a stony fist. His lips twisted as he began spitting out the arcane syllables, while dust began to billow up about him. Lu's horse shied to one side as strands of faintly glowing essence began to filter out from the clenched fist of the terrestrial.
Too late, the guild's mercenaries realized the danger, turning and shouting in horror as the air behind the sorcerer began to shimmer with faintly visible forms. When they coalesced into a cloud of obsidian butterflies, some lashed their horses and tried to flee, while others threw themselves to the ground in terror. Of the warriors in the fray, only one stood and faced the sorcerer. Toruna gestured once with an imperious thrust of her arm. The obsidian butterflies rushed towards them in a phalanx, but radiating between her fingers came shafts of piercing green light, shimmering like dragon scales. They flickered into the midst of the butterflies, and where the light touched, the black winged creatures turned to heavy ash, smashing themselves into dust as they crashed against mercenaries and amalgams alike.
"The light within me will not tolerate such base attacks. Terrestrial sorcery? Not in your first century will you prevail with such tools against me. We are the Daybringers!" Toruna leveled her shockpike warily, the guild mercenaries scattering behind her.
"...and we're her to Do Good..." Yao Ye shook one of the men off of her and advanced, hammer raised, "...Be Awesome, and Annihilate..."
Zhou Wing watched her approach the two leaders and noticed the fire dragon's hand straying under his vest. "Ye, watch out!"
She laughed and swung the dark goremaul in a whistling arc. "I'm sixteen, and I've got the power of the sun and a really big hammer. What's he got?"
Lu Xiu's lips barely parted as he spoke a single word. "Range."
The orichalc'-chased plasma repeater whipped into his hand and fired.
"Ha! Is that your... oh..." Yao Ye's gauntleted hand reached up to cover the perfectly round hole in her gunzosha armor, less than a finger wide, centered over her shoulder. At that moment, she began to feel the alchemical fire within the armor piercing round. Yao Ye began to burn within. She dropped to her knees and began panting, gritting her teeth.
Zhou Wing's pale face twisted into a knot of rage as Lu Xiu advanced the chamber of his repeater. "Hurts, doesn't it? If I were you, I'd say your good-byes, girl. And that goes the same for anyone else that so much blinks at me funny."
Sulking Yellow Dog twisted his hands around the shaft of his spear. "You damn horse-thieving Nexans. It doesn't matter how far you run, the Lightning Hooves of Hiparkes will track you down and make you pay..."
"I think we've heard enough from you." Gonsun Zeng spat and grimaced. "Our wrangling days are over now, that's for sure. Without those worthless fools Xiu hired, we’d never get enough horseflesh back to break even. But that fancy magitech you’re tricked out in, that will fetch a nice chunk of jade. You there, greeny, take off that armor. Blue hair, you can strip off the brat’s duds.”
While Selara began jerking off her suit’s gauntlets, Snow dismounted and knelt beside where Yao Ye writhed on the ground. The girl was hissing with the pain in her shoulder, but she would not cry out. Snow whispered in her ear, “Yao Ye, I need to take off your armor if we’re going to get the pellet out of your shoulder. Don’t worry, Toruna will think of something!”
Lu Xiu snarled, “Now you two, drop those shockpikes. And no more talking!”
Toruna’s flinty eyes did not stray from the plasma repeater. “You’ll just kill us all as soon as we’re disarmed.”
The flameslinger sighted down the barrel of his weapon at the sorcerous. “Who said I’d wait that long?”
Toruna nodded her head and slowly lowered the tip of her pike. As it hovered near the ground, a strange look came over her face. “All right then, if you want it that bad, catch!”
She tossed the shockpike up, spinning end over end, high over the two dragon-bloods. Lu’s head tilted up for a moment, just long enough for her to shout a single, terse word. “Wing!”
He was ready. Sparks of essence fell from his hands as he twitched the shockpike up and fired one excellent crack of essence. The distracted dragon took the shot in his shoulder; his hand jerked up and the shot flew harmlessly over the amalgams’ heads. He slumped over his reins and kicked his horse, flying through the middle of the party on his wild-eyed steed. Gonsun Zeng’s horse reared back, pawing madly at the sky, but he wrestled it to the ground and fled in the opposite direction.
Toruna turned and shouted, “Yellow Dog, follow the wizard, he has the crystals!” The rider nodded with a tight-lipped grin and bolted after the fleeing terrestrial. “Wing...” she shouted, but he had already thrown himself down from his horse, tossing his shockpike aside before reaching where Song was supporting the badly wounded Yao Ye. Shu Zhuang quickly searched his saddlebag and removed a small, thin bladed knife and tossed it to the doctor.
The armor removed, Wing quickly examined the seared edges of the entry wound. With a surgeon’s precise strokes, he cut away the shoulder of her robe and dashed fresh water from his canteen over the bloody injury. “This is going to hurt...” he murmured. “Snow, she needs something to bite down on.”
Breathlessly she cast about herself, then pulled off one of her fine-grained leather riding gloves and twisted it into a bar. “Here!”
The leather clenched between her teeth, Selara holding down her arms, Yao Ye’s wide eyes looked up with terror and agony into Wing’s eyes. He could see her fingers scrabbling desperately at the ground, the nails bleeding; her legs twisted and her chest heaved with the pain. Zhuang pushed firmly down on her good shoulder, and Toruna tried to grab her legs to keep her from struggling, but she proved too strong for them, breaking free once again.
Zhou Wing wiped his stinging eyes, then desperately grabbed her hand in his own. Her grip nearly crushed his fingers, but she began to still, gulping deep, sobbing breaths. The doctor leaned over her, his gaze locked with hers. “Yao Ye, I know it hurts. I need you to show me your strength now. Afterwards, I’ll let you scream and beat us as much as you want, but right now I’m going to need you to be very still so I can help you. Ok?”
The girl blinked once, then nodded her head in a quick jerk. Wing turned and whispered, “Snow, could you take her hand?”
Snow gulped and nodded, sliding her delicate fingers over Wing’s own as he transferred Ye’s hand into hers. The doctor wiped his lank white locks behind his ears, readied the blade, and then began his work.
She reached the top of the dais, but only saw a small youth with cropped brown hair seated on the altar, turned away from her, a civil servant by the look of his robes. She nearly shouted out to him to get off the sacred stone when she felt the faint tug in her heart of recognition. Yao Ye had never realized how short he was. Perhaps she had just grown since last they met.
“Rivers?”
She saw his head dip (as it slipped out of his supporting hands). He turned and blinked at her, then slid off the altar. “Ah... uh...”
“It’s all right, Rivers. I won’t...”
“I didn’t think...”
“I mean, I’ll always...”
“Yao Ye, you have to understand...”
“I know but...”
“There is a part of me...”
The two stopped, two paces of cold air between them, neither one capable of speaking nor allowing the other to speak. After a long minute, Rivers gestured to the long black thing that hung from Yao Ye’s hand. “So that’s what’s been causing all of the fuss.”
Ye set it on the ground, haft up. “Yes. I’ve found my own strength now.”
“I had heard. Even so, you have developed a distressing habit of getting torn apart on a regular basis. Let’s see if I can’t fix an ox-body technique into the fabric of your essence.” He gestured to the altar, and she approached with her head slightly bowed.
River’s lifted his braced forearm, and it began to hiss with sapphire energy. He chuckled faintly and said, “I hope you’re comfortable, because this will still take another four hours...”
There was a snap, and a faint sizzling sound. Rivers looked down at the elaborate clockwork artifact on his arm. Green sparks began to fall from the cogs, trailing down to the ground in glittering showers. “What...”
And then it cracked, the artifact bursting into silent green flame with a puff of sulfurous smoke. “Ow, ow!” He began clawing it off his arm, then stomping on the burning wreckage.
Yao Ye leaned over to look at the mess. “Uh... is that how it...”
“No, that’s not how it works. Crud, I’ve no idea what he used for reagents... it’s...” He looked up at her with an expression of shock and fear. “It was... you. You rejected...”
“No... how could I?” Her eyes flicked over to the hammer, nervously.
“I know...” He looked back at the dark artifact and shuddered, then turned back to her. “Yao Ye, touch your nose.”
“What, is there something on it?” Her eyes began to cross as she tried to peer down at her own face. Suddenly she blushed and reached up, grabbing her nose. “I mean, yes... master.”
“You just ignored my order.”
“No, I mean, I tried to, but I got... uh... a pain, in my chest, from trying to resist the magic. Oh... the pain...” She beat her chest and yowled unconvincingly.
Rivers approached her cautiously. “You’re still an amalgam, but you’re not under my control...”
She bowed her head and sighed, then suddenly brightened. “Well, that’s good. I mean, you don’t have to feel guilty for your secret love for me...”
“This is serious! Do you think if my circlemates knew that you had broken my control and had a Malphean artifact in your hands that they wouldn’t do something?” He grabbed her shoulder and shook her gently.
“You wouldn’t... tell them, would you? They’ll kill me, I know it!”
“I won’t tell them. I don’t know what they’d do... but you... all of the amalgams, are my concern. But that doesn’t mean it won’t come out. They’ll find out...”
“But you’ll protect me!” She reached out to touch his face, but he pulled back.
“I can’t. Yao Ye... I’m leaving.”
She left her hand in the air, her eyes falling slightly. “...Leaving...”
“Tomorrow. Only Zhuang knows... I didn’t want them to worry. You know how the sorcery works.”
“Oh, I know.” She laughed ruefully to herself. “But what’s worse... I now know what part was sorcery, and what part...” She sighed, unwilling to finish the sentence, and felt something drain out of herself, like a blister being lanced. “It’s her, isn’t it? That’s why you’re leaving... you really do love her?”
“Yes.” He tore the burnt remains of his sleeve away from his robe. “Yao Ye, I’m worried about her... but I’m also worried about you. I don’t think you know what you’ve got yourself into.”
She shook her head. “Whatever I’ve done, it’s only been for one reason. I don’t regret it.” Her head tilted downward, but she looked up at him between the petals that overshadowed her eyes. “Not one bit of it.”
Proud and fierce, rippling with lean muscle and taut sinew, the four horses that Shimira returned with were beautiful to behold and equally wild. The wranglers had their work ready for them; it took five of them to guide in each horse. Their leader watched with admiration. It had been a day since the conflict with the guild.
“I can’t tell you how much we owe to you. You don’t know what they do with those horses when they drag them back to the market in Nexus. They only manage to train half of them... they eat the rest.”
Toruna, standing beside her, only said, “We are the Daybringers. This is what we do.”
She turned away and walked back into camp. Shu Zhuang fell into step with her, making long tracks in the damp snow. “That was some trick you pulled back there. I’m starting to think you’re eager to meet this prophecy of yours.”
“I do my work, Zhuang.”
“I see. So all of the women on this team have a death wish.”
“You teach, they fight, and I lead them. Do you want to change that?”
Zhuang stopped trying to keep up with her long steps and watched her stride past the camp. “No. No, I don’t,” he muttered, irritably.
As he entered his tent, Snow stepped away from the wranglers to see the slouching form of Sulking Yellow Dog approaching from the south on horseback.
“What happened to the leader?” She called out to him, confused.
He tossed her three dark orbs of crystal and began tending to his horse. Snow approached him. “You let him go?”
Yellow Dog faced her and sniffed, his eyes like chips of stone. “Snow... he was a horse thief.”
“Oh...” She looked away, her hand at her throat. For a moment she felt a wave of nausea, but at the same time, her heart fluttered slightly with a strange warmth.
Meanwhile, in her tent, Yao Ye finally awakened. As she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the pale face of Zhou Wing bent over her, checking her pupils and lightly touching her wrist at the base of her thumb.
“Oh.” His lips twitched into a half smile. “You finally decided to get up, now that all the work is over.”
“Why did it have to be you...” she sat up slowly, rubbing her shoulder. “Why couldn’t we get a doctor that actually cared about his patients?”
Wing’s eyes narrowed and he leaned back. “Hmph. It could be the Cerulean Sage himself, and you’d still wring every drop of compassion out of him. I should hack off your legs for pulling another stunt like that... do you know how deep that pellet went? Didn’t you hear me warn you?”
“Don’t pull that attitude with me.” Yao Ye winced as she pulled the blankets tighter about herself and leaned back again. “I seem to recall you taking some rather unseemly liberties when I was incapacitated. Cutting up my clothing!”
Wing’s pale face took on a rosy tint. “What? Do you really think...” he blustered.
Yao Ye did not listen, trying her best not to giggle too vigorously and jostle her injured shoulder. It was several long moments before Wing joined her, shaking his head as he caught the infectious laughter. At length, she sighed and said, “Well, what do you know. My life isn’t over after all.”
“Of course not. Not with me watching out for you.” He stood, a faint look of professional indignation on his face. “If you’ll excuse me, I wouldn’t mind getting a little sleep myself, now that I see you’re in such high spirits. Perhaps I’ll come back later with something for you to eat. Perhaps!”
Yao Ye pulled the blankets up over her lips and closed her eyes, for once grateful for a moment of respite, no matter what the cause.
