dead here, and two more.
He ignored his sheathed swords, they were too far. He whipped out the open door and to his right, towards the firewood by the goat pen. He had leaned his shovel on that wall. A gravedigger’s shovel against two Kanlin swords. He got there. Claimed it, wheeled to face her.
The woman was running behind him. And then she wasn’t.
Because the faint, foolish, desperate idea he’d had before entered into the sunlit world, became real.
The wind that rose in that moment conjured itself out of nothing at all, without warning. From within a spring afternoon’s placidity, a terrifying force erupted.
There came a screaming sound: high, fierce, unnatural.
Not his voice, not the woman’s, not anyone actually alive.
The wind didn’t ruffle the meadow grass at all, or stir the pine trees. It didn’t move the waters of the lake. It didn’t touch Tai, though he heard what howled within it.
The wind poured around him, curving to either side like a pair of bows, as he faced the woman. It took the assassin bodily, lifted her up, and hurled her through the air as if she were a twig, a child’s kite, an uprooted flower stalk in a gale. She was slammed against the wall of his cabin, pinned, unable to move.
It was as if she were nailed to the wood. Her eyes were wide with horror. She was trying to scream, her mouth was open, but whatever was blasting her, claiming her, didn’t allow that either.
One sword was still in her hand, flattened against the cabin. The other had been ripped from her grasp. She had been lifted clean off the ground, he saw, her feet were dangling in air. She was suspended, hair and clothing splayed against the dark wood of the wall.
The illusion, again, of a moment outside of time. Then Tai saw two arrows hit her, one and then the other.
They struck from the side, fired from the far end of the cabin, beyond the door. And the wild ghost-wind did nothing to mar their flight, only held her pinned to be killed like a victim for sacrifice. The first arrow took her in the throat, a flowering of crimson, the second went in as deep, below her left breast.
In the instant of her dying the wind, too, died.
The screaming left the meadow.
In the bruised stillness that followed, the woman slid slowly down the wall, crumpled to one side, and lay upon the trampled grass beside his cabin door.
Tai drew a ragged, harrowed breath. His hands were shaking. He looked towards the far side of the cabin.
Bytsan and the young soldier called Gnam were standing there, fear in their eyes. Both arrows had been fired by the younger man.
And though the wild wind-sound was gone, Tai was still hearing it in his mind, that screaming, still seeing the woman pinned flat like some black-robed butterfly, by what it had been.
The dead of Kuala Nor had come to him. For him. To his aid.
But so had two men, mortal and desperately frightened, riding back down from their safe path away, even though the sun was over west now, with twilight soon to fall, and in the darkness here the world did not belong to living men.
Tai understood something else then, looking down at the woman where she lay: that even by daylight—morning and afternoon, summer and winter, doing his work—he had been living at sufferance, all this time.
He looked the other way, towards the blue of the lake and the low sun, and he knelt on the dark green grass. He touched his forehead to the earth in full obeisance, three times.
It had been written by one teacher in the time of the First Dynasty, more than nine hundred years ago, that when a man was brought back alive from the tall doors of death, from the brink of crossing over to the dark, he had a burden laid upon him ever after: to conduct his granted life in such a manner as to be worthy of that return.
Others had taught otherwise over the centuries: that survival in such a fashion meant that you had not yet learned what you had been sent to discover in a single, given life. Though that,
He ignored his sheathed swords, they were too far. He whipped out the open door and to his right, towards the firewood by the goat pen. He had leaned his shovel on that wall. A gravedigger’s shovel against two Kanlin swords. He got there. Claimed it, wheeled to face her.
The woman was running behind him. And then she wasn’t.
Because the faint, foolish, desperate idea he’d had before entered into the sunlit world, became real.
The wind that rose in that moment conjured itself out of nothing at all, without warning. From within a spring afternoon’s placidity, a terrifying force erupted.
There came a screaming sound: high, fierce, unnatural.
Not his voice, not the woman’s, not anyone actually alive.
The wind didn’t ruffle the meadow grass at all, or stir the pine trees. It didn’t move the waters of the lake. It didn’t touch Tai, though he heard what howled within it.
The wind poured around him, curving to either side like a pair of bows, as he faced the woman. It took the assassin bodily, lifted her up, and hurled her through the air as if she were a twig, a child’s kite, an uprooted flower stalk in a gale. She was slammed against the wall of his cabin, pinned, unable to move.
It was as if she were nailed to the wood. Her eyes were wide with horror. She was trying to scream, her mouth was open, but whatever was blasting her, claiming her, didn’t allow that either.
One sword was still in her hand, flattened against the cabin. The other had been ripped from her grasp. She had been lifted clean off the ground, he saw, her feet were dangling in air. She was suspended, hair and clothing splayed against the dark wood of the wall.
The illusion, again, of a moment outside of time. Then Tai saw two arrows hit her, one and then the other.
They struck from the side, fired from the far end of the cabin, beyond the door. And the wild ghost-wind did nothing to mar their flight, only held her pinned to be killed like a victim for sacrifice. The first arrow took her in the throat, a flowering of crimson, the second went in as deep, below her left breast.
In the instant of her dying the wind, too, died.
The screaming left the meadow.
In the bruised stillness that followed, the woman slid slowly down the wall, crumpled to one side, and lay upon the trampled grass beside his cabin door.
Tai drew a ragged, harrowed breath. His hands were shaking. He looked towards the far side of the cabin.
Bytsan and the young soldier called Gnam were standing there, fear in their eyes. Both arrows had been fired by the younger man.
And though the wild wind-sound was gone, Tai was still hearing it in his mind, that screaming, still seeing the woman pinned flat like some black-robed butterfly, by what it had been.
The dead of Kuala Nor had come to him. For him. To his aid.
But so had two men, mortal and desperately frightened, riding back down from their safe path away, even though the sun was over west now, with twilight soon to fall, and in the darkness here the world did not belong to living men.
Tai understood something else then, looking down at the woman where she lay: that even by daylight—morning and afternoon, summer and winter, doing his work—he had been living at sufferance, all this time.
He looked the other way, towards the blue of the lake and the low sun, and he knelt on the dark green grass. He touched his forehead to the earth in full obeisance, three times.
It had been written by one teacher in the time of the First Dynasty, more than nine hundred years ago, that when a man was brought back alive from the tall doors of death, from the brink of crossing over to the dark, he had a burden laid upon him ever after: to conduct his granted life in such a manner as to be worthy of that return.
Others had taught otherwise over the centuries: that survival in such a fashion meant that you had not yet learned what you had been sent to discover in a single, given life. Though that,
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