The little animals of the steppe fled from the stampede. The rabbits and antelope and deer all ran, but none ran fast enough. Tian tried not to watch what happened. It was easy enough to focus on the giant horse running through the sky. It seemed to be made of equal parts burning grass and orange flames, and cool starlight and the azure breeze. Why the breeze should be azure, Tian couldn’t say, it just was. At least, it was when the Great Horse Spirit’s mane flicked in the air, lit by the false dawn of the steppe fire.
The thunder was the hammer of the Great Horse Spirit’s hoof beats, the hot winds driving the fires below were its breath, the drifting ash its sweat. It was speed, and strength, and the promise that not anyone could ride it. It was power. It was proof of one’s capability. It was the steppe fire, and the horse, and everything about a horse that made a horse a horse. All thundering north, across the open grassland.
Below the Great Horse Spirit ran thousands of lesser horse spirits, and at their fore was a spirit horse in the flesh, racing towards Han and Gongsun. The immortals had flown up and back in their flying boat. This scene wasn’t for their benefit. Each could feel it in their heart.
“Ah. Ah! I could give up immortality, to ride at the head of such a herd.” Ma’s voice was choked. “They don’t want me. I wake up, the smell of horse sweat and felt in my nose, but it’s a dream. They don’t want me.”
“They are looking for someone to run with, not fly with. Not just anyone either.” Tian murmured. “I wonder if it’s Han or Gongsun.”
Liren kept backing the boat up. The Great Horse Spirit wasn’t attacking them, but it wouldn’t make any difference if they got in the way. They’d be trampled just the same.
Tian wondered if they could fly above it. The horse was huge, but it had a fixed size. He quickly shook away the idea. This didn’t seem like a horse that would allow anyone to stand over it. All you could do was get out of the way. Try to run from the pounding hooves.
Han and Gongsun thought differently. The two young men turned their horses towards the fiery horizon, and galloped into the false dawn. The immortals watched from high up, the thunder of the stampede beating on their ears. How much more terrifying must it be for the mortal? Did their chests ache with the noise? Did their hearts tremble in time to battering hoofs on the hard earth? How did they keep their horses in hand?
These were army horses, trained for the thick of battle, but the horse hadn’t been born that wanted to charge into a stampede, let alone a fire. Yet the two kept their calves tight around their steeds. The young men crouched over their horses’ backs, reins short. They watched the oncoming stampede over the ears of their horses. Ears that were laying flat back, not wanting any part of this. Ready to buck and fight and run like hell in any direction except towards that chaos. They ran towards the fire anyway. No whips, no spurs, no sabers slapping their haunches with the flat of the blade. This was a clash of wills. A test of destiny.
“What will they do when they crash into the herd?” Liren murmured. Tian shook his head, eyes glued to his student even with the onrushing Great Horse Spirit. The mortals and the spirits rushed for each other, neither slowing. Hong and Gongsun spread out, each moving wide of the spirit horse. He couldn’t figure it out, until he saw them start to turn.
“They are joining the stampede. They aren’t clashing with it, they are taming it! Little Hong is flowing with the fire! It’s a water dao, but he’s using it like fire!”
He didn’t catch what Liren said. His mind blazed with the scene. The two young men were moving with their horses, but directing them. Merging with the stampede, losing themselves in it, being overwhelmed by it, all to conquer it. Were they active or passive, initiating or reactive, defending or attacking, yin or yang? He couldn’t tell. All his reasoning fell apart and he was swept up in the moment.
Han and Gongsun caught up to the spirit horse, their own horses surely running faster than any mortal horse ever had before. Their own hoofbeats blending seamlessly, kicking up sprays of smouldering grass and flying sparks. They raced along the edge of the fire, enduring the heat, enduring the smoke. Tian could see Han and Gongsun’s eyes meeting. Were they asking each other a question? Issuing a challenge? He couldn’t tell. One of them was the chosen of the spirit horse. One could ride it. The other? Perish.
They raced with the fire, and the stampede and the spirits of the horses that roamed the endless steppes. Children of the endless blue sky and rolling green earth, shrouding both in fire and ash. They thundered on, the moment hanging. Only one could ride the spirit horse. Only one was destined for a life of conquest and a kingly crown.
Gongsun Zhu was a captain of an elite cavalry regiment, the son of a general trusted to suppress a region on the border. He was raised to lead armies, gather the trust of his subordinates, and suppress the rebellious. A cavalryman, from the top of his helmet, to the heel of his boots. And Han… was the tailor’s boy. The two met each other’s eyes, then Gongsun leaped from the back of his horse.
The young captain stretched his body, clearing the gap between his white horse and the red spirit horse. His leg crossed over, his left hand snagged the red mane. There was a moment. A long drumroll of hoofs when destiny was weighed on the scales. Then Gongsun’s calves clamped around the side of the spirit horse, and he found his seat like the born trooper he was.
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No saddle, no bridle, but he rode with the horse, not on it. The two moved as one, never missing a step. Tian could see the way his muscles clenched and relaxed, the way the horse gathered its legs under it, then exploded outwards again. Over and over, expanding and contracting, but always moving forward. Gongsun’s right hand dropped down to his waist, and he drew his thick, straight saber. The brutality of the blade fixed the eye and bound the light. The black cord wrapped handle fit snug in his hand, and the polished silver of the steel caught the light of the fire behind him. The saber became one with the fire. One with the stampede. Then with a chop, he drove the flames forward.
The Great Horse Spirit whinnied, and the rest of the herd called out as well. The red horse stretched its neck out and elongated its stride. Tian could hear a change in the rhythm of the hoofs, some indefinable shift in the maddened drumbeat that shook the ear and the heart alike. Tian wished he were down there. He wished he was on the back of one of those mighty horses, sweeping across the grassland. He wished he had his own saber, his own howling war cry, his own spear and bow. He wished he were falling on unsuspecting villagers, slow and sedentary, hacking down all who resisted and carrying away the rest. A life of glorious motion and bursting vitality.
“A dao rhythm! It’s not a stampede any more, he’s leading a charge!” Tian heard Liren yelling something, but he was lost in the moment. His blood sang, his nerves were afire with the feeling of the wind and an ache to hold things in his hands. A sword. Liren. He wanted to grab her and throw her down and see what all those so-called marital manuals were on about. Dragon and Phoenix contending? Damn right!
He looked over at Liren, eyes burning, heart burning. He had been very good, he felt. Very patient. His body was screaming to make use of everything he had worked so hard to get back, but he had been holding it down because Liren was worth it and they had forever.
To hell with forever. He wanted now. And from the look in her eyes, she wanted it too.
“You will look amazing in a red dress.” Tian heard a voice growl, realizing a moment later it was him.
“So put me in one. If you can.”
Tian stepped on the bench, his hands stretching like claws as he got ready to leap, and Daoist Ma would have died an extremely unjust death in the ensuing crash were it not for the whinny of the great horse spirit. The sharp sound pulled them out of the rhythm of conquest, and woke them from the fire in their veins.
“Ah. It wasn’t Gongsun’s herd after all. Naturally he can’t be allowed to lead it.” Liren’s voice sounded quite business-like, firmly glossing over whatever might possibly have been about to happen.
“Look at them run off. It’s like they are getting farther away, in a direction I can’t point to. My stomach is in knots tied by my eyes.”
“Ooops. I think Daoist Ma might need your attention.” Liren jutted her chin at Ma, who was slowly sinking to the bottom of the boat, his eyes rolling up into his head. “And not to rush you, but we are almost out of water qi, and there is no way I can condense more, so if you could just… do that… that would be great. Because if you don’t, it’s land or fall out of the sky.”
Tian laughed and shook his head as he took Ma’s pulse. With each steady breath, Tian drew in the water qi in the bone dry air. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing either. The steppe fire was still burning, but the rate of spread had fallen hard. Without the horse spirits driving it, the flames struggled to light the green grass.
“Too many mental shocks. Let him rest a bit, and when he pulls himself together, I’ll give him some calming herbs. Maybe prescribe a yin diet to balance out that rush of yang.”
“I could go for some lettuce wraps. Maybe some ground tofu instead of chicken or pork. Cooling foods.”
Tian nodded. That did sound good. “And, Liren? I will put you in that red dress. I don’t know how to make it clearer to you that you are the one I want. And not to be, you know, crude, but there are lots of ways to have naked fun that don’t end in pregnancy.”
Liren glared at him. “Scandalous! Beast!” Then she grinned. “And, good. Also, I’m guessing you don’t know the symbolism of a red dress.”
“I do not.”
“Marriage. The husband wears a red robe, the wife wears a beautifully embroidered red gown.”
Tian jolted so hard he almost fell out of the boat. “You don’t say!”
“Yep. Funny that most cultivators don’t get married so much as they just shack up with their dao companions. But some do.”
“Do you want to get married?”
“Not really. Or not for a long time.”
Tian patted his chest. “Good. Good. I would be stressed out trying to host a banquet and all that. Don’t you have to drink a lot of wine toasts?”
“Traditionally. You can’t be worried about wine hurting your body at this point. You’d just have to learn to appreciate the flavor.”
“You don’t drink it either.” Tian glared at her.
“Because who would I drink with? Because of you, my wine appreciation has fallen way behind my peers. Make it up to me.”
“How?”
“Thats for you to figure out and for me to silently judge you for.”
“I wonder if Gongsun can slip me into the army. It’s a peaceful life, being a trooper in a war zone. Comparatively.”
“Are your legs long enough to hang onto a horse?”
“Ah. Instead of romance, you have chosen violence. Let’s fight a dozen rounds and see if I can’t fix what ails you.” Tian waved his fist, to which Liren responded with a snort. The two fell into comfortable bickering over the twitching Daoist Ma, Tian having done far too much foaming at the mouth to worry excessively about others doing the same. Poling their boat through the sky, as two men and three horses did their best to outrun the fire nipping at their heels.