SEVENTEEN

 

 

 

THE NEW CAMPSITE gave Jebi the impression of a temporary fortress, which was probably the intent. They had expected Bongsunga to lead them into the forsaken woods that still blanketed the wilderness of Hwaguk, and this was in fact what happened. Jebi had ambivalent feelings about the woods, because they’d grown up in the city, and in all the folktales, either tiger-sages or regular tigers prowled among the trees looking for delicious children. They did not want to take the chance that they might smell delicious, even though they’d had a bath recently.

Palisades surrounded the camp, which looked as though it had endured for longer than a mere few days or even weeks. Jebi couldn’t imagine that anyone would be stupid enough to run up to a bunch of sharpened sticks. On the other hand, automata might be sturdy enough not to care about sharpened sticks.

When they expressed this thought to Vei, she said, “It’s meant to encourage a thinking opponent to channelize their attack down that passageway—see? And then the defenders can attack them with arrows or rifles.”

“We’re not allowed to own—” Jebi began, then shut up. Why would rebels care about the Razanei administration’s rules about armaments, other than as impediments to be gotten around?

Bongsunga called out a garbled-sounding passphrase, and a voice responded from within. She turned to Arazi, who had obligingly allowed the rebels to use it as a beast of burden for a great many of the tents, packs, cookpots, and so on, to the point that Jebi wondered if this had been an intended secondary use of the automaton. Would Hafanden, with his obsessive focus on Arazi’s thwarted capacity for destruction, have thought of something so practical? Or would he have insisted on using Fourteener laborers instead?

Jebi was about to ask Vei when Han gestured for Jebi and Vei to follow her. The last thing Jebi wanted was to disappear into a dingy hillfort, but they didn’t see that they had much choice.

“Arazi?” Jebi said, because they didn’t like the thought of the dragon being left exposed on the outside.

“There’s space inside,” Han replied, “if it can hunker down.”

{That’s no problem,} Arazi said, doing exactly that. It did occur to Jebi that it would almost certainly fit in whatever nooks and crannies could be found, if it disassembled itself into spiderlings again, but if Arazi hadn’t volunteered that information, it had good reason. Jebi felt disloyal keeping secrets from their sister and her lieutenant. Then again, that went both ways, didn’t it? And besides, it wasn’t their secret, it was Arazi’s.

Jebi watched in bemusement as Arazi snaked into the hillfort, following a grubby rebel whose expression suggested that he was afraid that it might eat him if he offended it. If they hadn’t witnessed it themself, they would have doubted that the dragon could squeeze into so little space.

{I won’t eat him,} Arazi assured Jebi, {unless he asks me to.}

Jebi wondered how literally to take the sentiment, then decided they didn’t want to know.

Vei rested her hand on their shoulder, more of a warning tap. Jebi looked at her, then followed her gaze to where Bongsunga had lifted a hand in greeting to a strange, tall person with ruddy hair. “A Westerner,” Vei breathed in their ear.

“That’s impossible,” Jebi said, even though Hafanden had warned them of their sister’s allies. Jebi hadn’t expected to see one wandering around Hwaguk. The person, despite being bundled up in the same grubby felt coats as the other rebels, stood out like a hoopoe amid a flock of magpies. Even their horsehair hat—traditional Hwagugin wear for elders—and the scarf wrapped around their neck did nothing to disguise the flyaway locks of that hair. Quite aside from the outlandish orange-red color, their hair formed even more outlandish coils. Jebi wanted to ask if they were wearing a wig or they’d done something special to get their hair to do that… any of that.

Vei nudged Jebi. “You’re staring,” she mouthed.

Jebi hastily pretended to be looking over the orange-haired person’s shoulder at a completely jejune weapons rack. Or at least it would have struck someone like Jia as jejune; it made Jebi’s skin crawl. They supposed they could hardly expect rebels to march naked into battle like monks plunging into ice water to prove their resilience. The old stories also said that fully trained battle monks could shrug off arrows as though their skin were made of stone. Jebi had their doubts, but with monks, who could tell?

Bongsunga had noticed their staring. “Jebi,” she called out. Jebi jerked upright and automatically walked over to her and bowed, trained by a lifetime of conditioning. “I’d like you to meet someone.”

The feeling isn’t mutual, Jebi thought, wondering if the orange-haired personage was hiding any other anatomical oddities or defects beneath that coat. Maybe that was why Western dress, as imported into Territory Fourteen anyway, featured such absurdly full skirts or coats and ruffles—to disguise such unnatural features.

“You must be the younger sibling,” the person said, and Jebi’s mouth hung open for a second before they remembered to close it. The Westerner spoke Hwamal, which wasn’t a complete surprise; presumably even foreigners could learn the language if they applied themselves. But instead of garbling the pronunciation—a prejudicial expectation, to be sure—they had a faint but definite Huang-Guanin accent.

“You may call me Red, if you like,” the Westerner went on. “I will be leading the mission.”

“Red?” Jebi asked, because curiosity overcame them. “But your hair is orange.” Unless it referred to something else?

“Red for the blood of my enemies,” they said, winking disconcertingly. “No, actually, it’s because my hair color is called ‘red’ among my people, even though it isn’t, from a painter’s standpoint.”

Jebi suppressed a twitch. How much had Bongsunga told this person about family matters, or was that just a figure of speech?

Vei, less distracted by trivialities, was studying Red intently. “What’s the mission?”

“The manufactories are heavily guarded,” Red said. “Our saboteurs have had a hard time getting through, and our earlier leadership just made things worse by putting the Razanei on alert. We’ve limited ourselves to keeping watch, for now.”

“Then—” Vei asked.

“Less well guarded are the expeditions of archaeologists and art collectors,” Red went on. “They have a few guards to protect themselves from bandits and petty thieves, but they’ve been relying on secrecy most of all. After all, marching around old temples and tombs with squadrons of blues or automata would only signal that they’re protecting something important.”

“Quite correct,” Vei said. “But it’s not a strategy without its risks.”

“You and your lover are to assist us in the raid,” Red said.

Vei stilled. “I am a master of the sword,” she said. “Return my sword and take me, but leave Jebi in camp. They don’t have any martial training that I’ve ever been able to discern.”

The words would have stung, but Jebi had learned that they had no business getting into a fight. Perhaps they should have asked Vei’s father for a quick lesson. Unfortunately, they also knew that fighting, like painting, wasn’t something you picked up overnight. And besides, Vei was trying to protect them. They fretted that it looked bad for Vei to argue with someone the rebels trusted, orange hair or no, but Vei knew what she was doing.

“Hardly,” Red returned, and there was more than a hint of iron in their voice. “Your lover”—Jebi was starting to hate the epithet, as though that defined them—“may be no duelist of renown or marksman, but they were instrumental in the cave-in that destroyed the Ministry of Armor and the surrounding gardens, weren’t they?”

The gardens? Jebi thought faintly. They hadn’t had a chance to survey the extent of the damage. Just how much of the complex had they destroyed?

“How did you find out about that?” Jebi demanded.

“Word got out from the survivors,” Red said with suspicious lack of specificity.

If the gardens were ruined, how many survivors had there been? They hadn’t spared the other artists any thought—until now. Mixed nausea and guilt speared through Jebi’s gut as they thought about Shon, the lovers Tia and Mevem; hell, all the staff who’d only been guilty of accepting shitty menial jobs in service to the Razanei so they could feed their families.

I was desperate, Jebi thought; but that was no excuse.

Red and Vei were still arguing.

Vei: “Freak accident.”

“Accident nothing,” Red retorted. “Hwaguk has rainfall and seismology records going back continuously 767 years; even longer, in the former case, than Huang-Guan. The capital is sited in an unusually geologically stable location on a generally geologically stable peninsula. That was—” They used a term that Jebi couldn’t unpuzzle, although it had the singsong sound of Huang-Guan’s language. “And your ‘painter’ is the source of that power. They can damn sure invoke it on the rebellion’s behalf.”

“What’s it to you?” Jebi demanded, because they were tired of being talked over like an adolescent at a matchmaker’s meeting. “You’re a foreigner, what do you care?”

Bongsunga’s gaze cut sideways in warning or rebuke. But Red nodded as though they’d fielded the question many times before. Probably had, and suddenly Jebi felt like a boor.

“The Western lands aren’t a monolith,” Red said, their voice thick with suppressed emotion, “whatever you may think.”

Jebi bit the inside of their mouth to keep from shouting that they barely had any idea what the world looked like outside of Huang-Guan, Hwaguk, Razan. While they’d glimpsed the map that Hafanden used to keep on the wall of his office, who knew how accurate it was?

“I come from a people who lived on the uneasy border between two nations,” Red continued. “They were divided and swallowed up by war. I ran; went into exile. I was going to be a priest. I loved studying books and medicine. But it takes more than books and medicine to survive, so I turned mercenary until I found a second home.”

“Do you feel welcome here?” Vei asked.

“I’m homesick sometimes,” Red said. “But this is home now, and I will fight for it.” They raised their chin. “Will you help with the mission, or not?”

“I can do it,” Jebi said before Vei could stop them. “I’ll stay out of the thick of the fighting. I’m not completely stupid.” That was not entirely true, but Vei didn’t mention the many stupid things that Jebi had done in front of a stranger. Partial stranger. “I’ll need my supplies from the bag.” The pigments, in particular.

Their stomach roiled at the thought of killing people, but maybe if they created an earthquake some distance away, it would scare the Razanei off without hurting anyone. They kept this plan to themself, since they were sure Bongsunga had no such compunctions.

Vei lifted one shoulder, let it fall. “It’s your choice,” she said, resigned. “I will keep the hostiles from touching you. I will cut down anyone who so much as stirs a hair on your head.”

Jebi was torn between saying You are embarrassing me and I am going to take up my brush and make a painting of you that they will talk about for the next 10,000 years. They said neither.

Vei added to Bongsunga, despite Jebi’s vexation, “I expect you will cut us down if we stray from the mission. It’s a loyalty test, isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t trying to make a secret of it,” Bongsunga said.

“I’m family,” Jebi said, not because they thought it would change her mind but because they had to say something.

Bongsunga said, “The name certificate.” That was all.

“You must be very certain of Red’s loyalty,” Jebi said, because it was someone else’s turn to be talked over for a change.

Bongsunga and Red looked at each other for a long moment, and then Jebi knew what they were to each other. The last time Bongsunga had looked at someone like that had been while Jia still lived.

“Don’t make me regret this,” Bongsunga said.

Jebi didn’t know whether she was addressing them or Red; didn’t want to know.

 

 

THIS WILL BE easy, Jebi thought while the squad assembled. All I have to do is follow orders.

Arazi emerged from the fort in short order, which made Jebi wonder why they’d crammed it in there in the first place. Then they saw that the rebels had rigged the dragon with a more elaborate version of the harness that Vei’s parents had improvised. Arazi knelt like one of the tame jaguars in an imported tapestry Jebi had seen years ago, and three rebels clambered up to take their seats upon its back.

“Now you,” Red told Jebi, “and the duelist after.” A stony-faced rebel handed Vei’s sword back to her, with a scowl that implied that she had better be careful who she hacked up with it.

Jebi did as ordered. Climbing up was less nerve-wracking than the first time. They figured out as they strapped themself in that Red wanted Vei behind Jebi to keep her from cutting down an actual useful rebel in front of her. Significantly, Red took the last seat, right behind Vei’s.

I should have bought a lot more mae-deup charms for luck, Jebi thought as Arazi sprang into the air with no more difficulty than when it had been carrying only two people.

Arazi flew lower, barely skimming the treetops. Jebi couldn’t decide whether the thought of plummeting to their death on the first flight, or crashing into pine trees on this one, intimidated them more. Maybe the dragon thought they’d avoid being sighted by scouts, especially if they were primed to check the sky. Woods-wise people kept an eye on the patterns of migrating birds in all the stories Jebi had ever heard; presumably unexpected incoming dragon was the kind of thing one wanted lookouts to warn one’s soldiers about.

This time, instead of admiring the landscape and thinking about the pigments or brush techniques they would use to paint it, Jebi tried to view it as a soldier might. Features that had previously appeared picturesque or charming took on a more ominous cast. Ridges behind which enemy soldiers might be hiding, for instance, or half-frozen rivers over which it would be difficult to retreat. They kept their observations to themself, not least because the battle-hardened rebels would have found their attempts at reading the terrain comical. Even Vei might have cracked a smile; if it had just been the two of them, Jebi would have exaggerated their uncertainty, just to see it.

At one point Jebi leaned to the left to get a better view of a dappled boulder, so perfectly in harmony with the surrounding contours of the hills that they suspected someone had moved it there for the aesthetic effect. Vei grabbed their arm and gently but firmly hauled them back into line.

“We’re almost there,” Red said at the same time, almost inaudible over the hiss of the wind. “See?”

Jebi didn’t see anything remarkable at first, until Vei pointed it out: an unnaturally symmetric hill. It must be a tomb from one of the old dynasties, back in the days when people believed in interring the highest of the scholar-aristocrats, and the occasional conquering general or favored entertainer, with miniature grave goods for the life beyond. The oldest and most valuable of those artifacts, like the ones Hak had displayed at that party, had by now vanished into the lairs of thieves or collectors. Only in the last several decades had people become interested in the symbolic and generally nonfunctional tokens of clay that the less prestigious tombs contained.

Beyond the hill Jebi spotted an encampment not much different than the rebels’, except better organized, with the tents forming neat rows. The Razanei influence, they expected. Even Bongsunga’s hillfort had lacked this obsession with right angles.

Arazi circled just out of sight. It couldn’t hover in place, like a dragonfly. “The approach?” it asked, weirdly audible like a chiming of metal despite the softness of its voice.

“Take us straight in,” Red said, “right in the center of the camp. They won’t be expecting that.”

Neither was I, Jebi thought faintly.

Arazi dived like a stooping hawk, so swiftly that Jebi’s eyes swam. It landed in an explosion of dust and dead leaves right in the center of the encampment, crushing two unfortunate tents in the process. Jebi trusted that no unlucky camper had been caught inside. The impact jolted up through the dragon’s metal limbs and jointed vertebrae and all the way up Jebi’s own spine, causing their teeth to chatter unpleasantly. They were going to have a bruised tailbone for the next week.

The guards below, dressed not in the blue uniforms of the Razanei army but the shabbier patchwork wear of mercenaries, shouted in comical dismay. They ran around, getting clear of Arazi’s viciously swinging tail—Jebi was sure it missed them on purpose—while fumbling for their weapons. One, better prepared than the rest, unsheathed their sword and swiped it at Arazi’s hind leg, only to swear viciously when the blade broke.

“Disembark,” Red ordered. “That includes you, artist.”

Jebi would rather have stayed safely on Arazi’s back, for values of ‘safe’ that included getting slung around like a sack of rice. But despite their personal preference for strategic cowardice, it would have been ungracious to refuse to join the others in their fight. Even if they wouldn’t, strictly speaking, be fighting.

Besides, if some stray bullet took Vei out and they weren’t at her side, they would never forgive themself.

Arazi, considerate of people climbing down, stilled and lashed out only with its tail. The guards recognized the opportunity and regrouped, this time directing their attacks against the dragon’s joints. Perhaps they weren’t as stupid as Jebi had assumed, just befuddled by an unexpected situation.

Jebi, distracted by the fighting going on around them, lost their grip on a handhold and fell a meter to the ground. They bit their tongue when they landed, and tasted blood. At least they hadn’t landed on their neck—they were reminded of all the gruesome stories Jia had loved to tell about people who died or became paralyzed after bad falls from horseback—but either they’d twisted their ankle or broken it. They dragged themself underneath Arazi, the only shelter anywhere in the vicinity, and dug in their pack for the precious pigments.

Vei, more dextrous as always, had not only disembarked safely but had leapt from the second-last foothold and launched directly into an attack. If Jebi hadn’t been miserable with pain and the conviction that they were two breaths away from dying, they would have admired the sheer elegance of her movements. They were struck silent by the way Vei’s sword described gleaming arcs that ended in lethal sprays of red.

All of Red’s squad had successfully dismounted Arazi and had joined the fray. Jebi paid them little attention, although Vei would later tell them it would have been an excellent opportunity to assess their fighting skills. Excellent opportunity for Vei, anyway; Jebi couldn’t tell a good fighter from a bad one except by reading commentaries, most of which made abstruse references to fighting forms and techniques in jargon so thick it would have put sailors to shame.

Vei paused, which was so unusual that Jebi gaped at her. Without turning, she said, “Jebi, are you still there?”

“Watch your back!” Jebi yelled. They’d caught a glimpse of a blur just beyond one of Arazi’s legs while they were setting up to summon an earthquake, a process that took more time than they liked.

Vei whirled too late. An arrow whistled by and embedded itself in her right shoulder. Vei was right-handed. Jebi’s throat went raw with pain, and only a moment afterward did they realize that they’d screamed her name as they ran toward her. The injured ankle gave away, and they landed sprawling in the dirt at Arazi’s feet.

Jebi didn’t see what happened in the next several moments, although they heard more shouts, several clanks—sword on sword, sword on dragon, something else?—and some thuds of the kind that suggested people had either been knocked out or outright killed. Sobbing at the agony in their ankle, they forced themself up to a kneeling position. If Vei was dead—

Vei was standing over them, having switched her grip so she was wielding her curved sword left-handed. More or less left-handed. It was a two-handed sword. Jebi wasn’t clear on how that worked, either. Vei had not done the thing they always did in the epics and yanked the arrow out by its shaft to fling at her enemies, or even better, stab one, and Jebi wondered why.

Should there be this many guards? Jebi thought.

“No, wait, stop, we can talk this over!” yelled a shrill voice.

Jebi didn’t recognize the newcomer at first. Sheer nervous sweat was fouling their eyesight. After wiping it away on the sleeve of their coat, they squinted at Vei. A short plump woman ran straight at her.

Too late Jebi identified her. “Vei, no, stop!” they cried. “I know her!” They reached out to grab Vei’s leg, to keep her from doing the inevitable thing, but as always she was too fast for them.

Vei saw the figure running toward her as a threat either to herself or to Jebi, even if Jebi did not. If she’d heard Jebi’s entreaty, she was either too focused to acknowledge it, or disregarded it as unimportant. In a single practiced motion, she beheaded the woman.

Jebi began to cry as Hak’s body staggered several more paces only to come crashing down before them. In death, three fox tails sprouted from her backside. Her head, mouth still open in a surprised gape, rolled to a stop nearby.

“She was my friend,” Jebi said to Vei’s back. “Her name was Hak, and she was my friend.”