Under Heaven

Killing him might have been the truest answer to what had been done to him, offering the kindness of release, but Tai didn’t do it, and didn’t allow his soldiers to do it. He wasn’t even sure this figure could be killed, and he really didn’t want to test that.

After a long stillness, barely breathing, he saw Meshag—or what had been Meshag—move one hand, in a gesture he could not interpret. The figure turned away from him, from all of them, living and dead and burning. Meshag didn’t laugh again, and he never did speak. He loped away, around the burning cabin and then along the shore of the lake, towards the fire-coloured autumn trees and the distant, almost-hidden mountains.

Tai and his men stayed together, watching him through the smoke until he passed from sight, and then they started the other way, towards home.

They had left the silk farm and the orange flare of the fox far behind.

The sun was going down, also orange now. Tai realized he’d been wrapped in reverie for a long time, tracing memory, the paths that had led him here.

Or, one particular path, that journey north: past Wall, past river’s loop, beyond the steppes to the edge of winter’s land.

In the eye of his mind, riding now with six companions on a glorious Sardian horse, he still saw Meshag, son of Hurok—or whatever he had become—shambling away alone. It occurred to him that, having seen this, having been a part of that day, he ought not to be so quickly dismissive of someone else’s belief in fox-women.

Or, perhaps, because of his own history, that was why he needed to be dismissive? There were only two people in the world with whom he could even have imagined talking about this feeling. One of them was in Xian and it was very likely he would never be able to speak with her again. The other was Chou Yan, who was dead.

No man can number his friends

And say he has enough of them.

I broke willow twigs when you left,

My tears fell with the leaves.

Wei Song was still up front. The stream they were following was on their left, a wide valley stretching from it, fertile lands, both banks. The forest that had flanked them to the south had receded. This was farming land. They could see peasant huts clustering into hamlets and villages, men and women in the fields, charcoal burners’ fires against the darkening trees.

Tai had come this way heading west, approaching Kuala Nor two years ago, but he’d been in a strange state of mind then—grieving, withdrawn—and he hadn’t paid attention to the land through which he rode. Looking back, he couldn’t say he’d begun to think clearly about what he was doing, what he intended to do, until he’d ridden beyond Iron Gate Fort up the long ravine and come out and seen the lake.

He needed to become a different man now.

Spring Rain had warned him so many times about the dangers of the Ta-Ming Palace, the world of court and mandarin—and now he had the army, the military governors to consider as well.

Someone wanted him dead, had wanted that before he’d received the horses. He couldn’t keep them, he knew he couldn’t keep them. Not in the world as it was. The issue was what he did with them, and—before that—how he could live long enough to claim them back at the Taguran border.

He twitched Dynlal’s reins and the big horse moved effortlessly forward to catch up to the Kanlin woman. The sun was behind them, shining along the plain. It was almost time to stop for the night. They could camp out again, or approach one of these villages. He wasn’t sure where the next posting station was.

She didn’t turn her head as he pulled up beside her. She said, “I’d be happier inside walls, unless you object.”

It was the fox, he guessed. This time he didn’t make a jest. He still carried the long day’s dark remembering, a smell of burning in his mind from a northern lake.

“Whatever you say.”

This time she did look over, he saw anger in her eyes. “You are indulging me!”

Tai shook his head. “I am listening to you. I retained you to protect me. Why hire a guard dog and bark yourself?”

Not calculated to appease her, but he didn’t exactly feel like doing that. It did occur to him to mildly regret hiring her. The soldiers from the fort would surely have been enough protection. But he hadn’t known that he’d be given a military escort.

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