Tian smiled, thin and humorless, at the eagle. “I knew you weren’t dead. I assume Redspear and Stonesplitter are?”
“No, they escaped, but they will be licking their wounds for a long, long time. One advantage of you sorcerers, or a disadvantage.”
“How so?”
“You have the advantage of more time. We have the advantage of less. ‘Now’ has value for us. You lose that treasure in your greed for life.”
Tian smiled, a little more honestly this time. “Would you believe it’s a sign of poor cultivation? A proper daoist lives in the moment, unconcerned about the past or future. ‘Now’ is the only time that exists at all. Of course, none of us are proper daoists. We’re bad daoists, doing our best to be better.”
“Can’t say I’ve heard a sorcerer say that before.”
“I’m considered odd by the standards of even my own sect. What should I call you?”
“Enemy.”
“I’m going to call you Little Bitch then. And since I will likely live for more than a millennium, I will teach your descendants that your name was Little Bitch, start an educational campaign across the Steppes about the adventures of Little Bitch and his curious relationship with the male dogs in his pack, commission illustrated educational booklets showing exactly how you earned that name- did you know the kingdom has excellent printing presses and cheap paper? We do. I can have the pamphlets in every tribe within five thousand miles in less than a year, and I can keep it going for centuries. And I will, because I am very petty, and mortal money is worthless to me. You better hope you get buried with all possible honors, because your afterlife will soon be filled with people who know the legend of Little Bitch, and have the evidence to back their beliefs. I’ll run special editions made of gold, so they get buried as grave goods. That way everyone in Heaven can have a look at all the fun pictures.”
There was a long pause. “What sect are you from?”
“I decline to say. Though I can safely tell you that my teachers are the very best in their fields.”
“They taught you that?”
“One did!” Voidcatcher was an endless wellspring of good advice, and Tian had plenty of time to listen while the paralysis wore off, or his mouth was foaming.
“Uudam, Black Shaman of the Great Wolf Confederation. My proper address is Teb Tengri, but it would be too much to expect a sorcerer to understand these things.”
“Confederation? I thought you were a tribe?”
The eagle snorted. “Does that sound like a tribal name? We are a confederation of tribes. Before you ask, the Boruski are the leaders of the confederation.”
Which made it a confederation in name only, since the Boruski assimilated other tribes, with no exceptions Tian had heard of.
“Mmm. Any chance I can persuade the Grand Shamans to stay out of conflicts with the kingdom? I’d stay out if you did.”
“None.”
“Ah well.” Tian shrugged. “I didn’t think so, but I hoped.”
They flew through the sky in silence for a little while longer. Then Uudam asked. “Why are you here, then, if not to protect this city?”
“Hired hand. While I don’t care to see anything happen to this city, I’m not here specifically for it. Actually, option number two for having me and my companion just leave is throwing the heretics supporting you to us.”
That got a longer pause. “You mean the slave forts?”
“I mean the people behind the slave forts.”
That got an even longer pause. “They aren’t easily moved.”
“Oh? I thought for sure you would deny everything.”
“Why should I?” Tian thought the eagle shrugged, but surely that was his imagination. Uudam continued. “What’s shameful about setting one enemy against another, and profiting from both?”
“Mmm. I imagine the heretics thought the exact same thing. I wonder which of you will profit more in the end.” Tian shook his head and looked out over the swaying grassland. “Will the Yuu still be the Yuu after this? Win or lose, you will lose something.”
“How so?”
“Have you been into the Kingdom? Properly, I mean, the real farm country, and the floodplains of the great rivers.” Tian traced the lines with his fingers. “Endless food, from your perspective. Vast, near incomprehensible quantities of food for humans. But not so much pasture land. We have cavalry, obviously, but most mortals travel on foot or by boat. We build villages and cities next to farm land for the same reason that you follow the flocks to pasture land. That’s where the food is.”
He squatted on his sword, putting himself eye to eye with the enchanted eagle. “You will stop being nomads, Shaman. You will stop being people of the endless blue sky, stop being people of the Wolf and the Horse. Your grandchildren will be farmers, your great-grandchildren will be scholar officials, bitterly complaining that they are forced to drink mare’s milk wine at formal court events, and that their legs chafe in the saddle. All while lifting silver cups with soft hands never roughened on a saber’s hilt or a bow string.”
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Tian stood, straightening his robes. “You will prosper, for a time, but you will no longer be Yuu. You will simply become part of us. We win by losing, conquering by staying still. A very daoist strategy.”
There was a longer silence. The two flew through the skies together, both lost in their thoughts. Neither appreciating the vastness of the heavens and the earth, or the marvel that was Burning Flag City, managing to prosper at the edges of the kingdom.
“Have you ever starved, sorcerer? I doubt it, surrounded by that vast quantity of food you spoke of.”
“But I did, and often. I have lived on bugs pulled from the dirt and rotten wood. Eaten things that most would not consider fit for food. Fought wild animals to be the one to eat some fallen carrion, and ran if I thought I’d take more wounds than the food was worth.”
“Then you understand why we will attack, regardless of any danger or potential price. We must. For every sort of reason, but most simply so that our bellies will never be empty again. You speak of generations like it’s no time at all, but that means we had generations. It means that our families prospered and survived the only moment that matters. Now.”
Tian sighed. He tried. He didn't have many expectations, but it would be nice to be wrong. “Feel like profiting by setting one enemy against another?”
“Gladly. I will have one of the traders deliver a package with everything I can gather about Threadcutter.”
“The heretic is called Threadcutter?”
“Yes.”
Tian nodded. “Did you hear about what we did over by Fort Askarmand?”
The eagle paused for a moment. “No.”
“Find out. Because I will be doing the exact same thing to each and every tribe I find within six hundred miles of Burning Flag City as I head out, and each and every tribe I encounter along the way, and if I even suspect an ambush, I will immediately turn around and start doing it at random to every tribe I can find on the steppes on the way back. In an odd sort of way, I will be helping your confederation to grow faster. But you won’t thank me for it.”
Tian turned to head back down, but paused. “Tell me, does the wolf spirit have any notable doctrines? Are there laws and rules you aspire to live by, even if you see yourself failing to live up to them at times?”
“Yes.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t feel like telling you.”
“Hah. Goodbye, Uudam.”
“You don’t look worried by the fact that my fellow grand shamans could well kill you.”
“We can well kill them too. I wonder if I can put a bridle on the Horse Spirit, and a collar on the Wolf. Not really my field, but I am a quick learner.”
“It would be funny to see you try. Go to your Fort Vermilion Bird. A child of the horse spirit lives there. We want him, but so does Threadcutter. Start there, if you can’t trust my words.”
Tian nodded and flew back down towards the city walls. He reckoned he would have to be severely kicked in the head to take the Shaman’s word for much of anything, but that was fine. He wasn’t one for tricky games anyhow. He had threatened to bridle the Horse spirit to provoke a reaction. He wasn’t expecting what he got. The old shaman was a wily creature. No degree of caution would be too much.
Tian returned to the ground in a thoughtful mood. “Let’s pause climbing training for the moment.”
Liren looked inquisitively at him.
“Just need to do some thinking, and I don’t like all the options in our hands. Did we ever finish going through the loot from the last batch of heretics?”
“Not all of it. You want to do it while I keep figuring out the dye situation? So far, the flour clumps up too much to be properly dusty when the bag hits. I’m experimenting with colored powders now.”
“Sensible. We can’t waste Student Han’s terribly limited time, though. Let’s do mental strength training. We will have him practice enduring the suppression of immortals. That should also help when he confronts spirits, ghosts, monsters, emperors and other minor figures like that.”
“You really don’t like the emperor, huh?”
Tian sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “You walk around the city, and you see people working their hands raw trying to make things better. Check the hospitals- they are rolling bandages every day, making medicine, trying to organize more bed space because one day soon, it will be necessary. I overheard some old timers plotting ways to make granaries even more resistant to insects and rats. Then you have that bum on the throne doing… what, exactly? The only thing he’s done that I really approve of is backing Hanshen all the way. For now.”
Han was given a ‘simple’ assignment- draw the route from the courtyard to various places in the city. To the east gate, for example, or the grocery store with the best tasting vinegar. Then another map from that store to the barracks for the Red Plume Army. From the barracks to the inns where the caravan masters slept. All while being bombarded by threatening auras. In Tian’s opinion, the youth sweated more sitting with his brush than he did climbing with his sword.
Perhaps it would be different when he had to climb with his spear.
Tian sorted through the rings. Most of it was trash, literally or metaphorically. Heretics might be a little richer now than he remembered from his days in the wasteland, but they were still the sorts of people who spent fortunes on collecting the right types of blood, or insects, or more vile things. He was briefly hopeful when he found a small boat, barely big enough for one person to sit in, and a rowing pole. He was a lot less hopeful when he realized the boat was in such poor condition that it would be fair to describe it as “Diseased.”
Fishing gear, lures that all managed to be colorful, shiny, and sinister, a selection of aquatic parasites, some venoms he wasn’t familiar with but were sealed in a way that made Tian suspect they were considered especially nasty. All very ordinary, very boring. There was a manual in there. He nearly skipped over it, as it looked profoundly unhygienic. It smelled, an aroma somewhere between “marsh” and “fishing pier after the birds have been at the fish guts but before things were cleaned up.”
Still. You never knew. He firmed up his resolve, and gingerly opened the book. He quickly focused on the page, turning them increasingly quickly. He shot to his feet.
“This is it! This changes everything. Everything! The fools dared caper before me but now… damn it, hang on.” He pulled out a notebook from a ring on his string and checked an old memory. “The fools dare caper before me like imbecilic apes, but now, I, your grandfather, (not yours, Student Han,) can finally reveal my true strength!”
He got strange looks in stereo.
“Your true strength?” Liren asked.
“Yes! By making you labor in the sun. Truly an unrivaled technique.”
“Indeed. Student Han, you are in charge until I get back. Just need to see about getting some frog brains from the local pharmacists. An old family recipe for curing diseases of the brain.”
“You laugh, but this is a real treat for you. Read the inside cover.”
Liren did, quickly frowning with an intense “HMMM! This changes everything! We can now display the full power of our equipment.”
“Right?”
On the inside cover of the book, written in sloppy, scratchy handwriting was the name Drowned Dame’s Ferry. An art for rowing a boat over water and air. At long last, they could use their folding boat.