The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom (130 page)

“Proof of your intentions?” he
snarled over the thunder of hoofs and the roar of the Ten Thousand. “Proof of
your intentions, indeed! We will kill you and feast on your horses for weeks!”

He raised
ala Asalan
to
the sky.

“Shoot them all!”

The sky was ripped apart by the
shrieking of arrows.

***

She leapt from her horse,
rolling across their backs until her feet found solid ground. She swung the
katanah,
taking off an arm, cut up with the
kohai’chi,
opening a belly. She
moved and pivoted, swung and struck. She was lightning, she was music, she was
steel.

A thud to her shoulder, heat.
Still holding the short sword, she yanked the bolt out of the flesh and leather
of her uniform, sent both arrow and blade into the throat of the nearest dog.
Sparing nothing, she leapt into the air, her high bootheel cracking the jaw of
another even as she swung her other leg to snap the neck of a third. She landed
in a crouch, blades crossed like scissors and she swept her arms wide, taking
out any number of legs and hips and waists as she moved. She could not think of
her husband, could not spare a glance. She was his steel and she would pave his
way in blood or die in the attempt.

Next to her, a wave of black, a
shroud, a shadow. Leaping and striking with palms and daggers and whisper-thin
blades. Untouchable, unstoppable, the
kunoi’chi
moved like the wind,
slipped like the ice, ducking arrows and bending steel and men fell at her feet
as she sprang from shoulder to back, dropping to the ground with soldiers
caught in her crossed ankles, swinging their torsos overhead to crash against
their fellow soldiers. Her foot would lash, take down another, spring backwards
onto her hands, cracking teeth and jaws with her heels. Ninjah with eyes as
black as her cloth.

Naranbataar rushed the Legion,
snatching bolts from fallen dogs, firing them before they found a home in his
bow. Heat along his ribs but he whirled, snatched the sword and nocked it,
sending it into the chest of its owner like a mighty arrow, its tip appearing
out the other side as the soldier went down.

The priest merely walked through
them all, robes whipping like banners, mane flying like wind. His arms were
stretched out at his sides, and dogs were flung to their backs as if struck by
invisible fists. He moved with deadly purpose and the Needle shrieked its glee,
perched high on the shoulder of the Storm, slapping the inky pelt with one
hand, holding on to the hood with the other.

The Storm swung a withered
stick, the Seer ducked easily. The Storm stomped the ground and everything
shook, yellow dust rose high into the air as if from a thousand horses. An
arrow thudded into its chest, disappearing into the folds as if it were never
there. A second arrow and Sireth could see the young dog racing through the
battle, his hands filled with soldiers but knowing their target was the Storm.

“Give me the eyes,” snarled the
Seer. “And we will leave you to your fate.”

“The eyes of the Magic for
the eyes of the Khanmaker!”
boomed the Oracles, the Storm a heartbeat
behind the Needle, creating an echo like lightning followed by thunder. And the
Needle disappeared into the pouch of skin, reappeared with five orbs, swinging
at the ends of white tendon.

“Come get them, Seer!”

The Needle cackled like a crow.

“Higher! Reach higher!”

“I will have them!” and Sireth
lunged forward, his long arms reaching for and grabbing the stick from his
hand. It was an arm, he knew it the moment he touched it and the current of
Necromancy ran through his body like the bite of a scorpion. He dropped it to
the ground, his own arm useless now and reached again with the other, as if
meaning to climb the mountain of dog but the Needle shrieked and held the eyes
high above them all. The Storm’s massive hand clasped the Seer’s throat,
drawing him close.

“Last Seer of Sha’Hadin,”
wailed the voices inside his head as a second massive hand fell across his
vision.
“You see nothing!”

“I see more than you, monster!”

“We take your eyes for our
pleasure!”

“You take mine and I’ll take
yours!” barked the Seer. “Mi-Hahn! Now!”

Suddenly, the Needle shrieked as
a falcon swept down from the sky, grasping the eyes in its razor talons. The
tiny Oracle wailed and batted but refused to let go but Mi-Hahn beat with
furious wings, lifting both eyes and Needle upwards.

The Storm roared and released
the cat, raising his arms to the skies but bird and dog were high up now. The
Needle was swinging with his free hand, grabbing at wings, grabbing at tail
feathers and it managed to pull itself up to Mi-Hahn’s thin legs, closed on
them with its toothless mouth.

Mi-Hahn cried out and swung her
lethal beak down and into the remaining eye of the Needle and the wail could be
heard inside all their heads. In fact, Sireth dropped to the ground, hands
clutched against his temples and the shrieking went on and on. He could see it
as if with his own eyes as the struggle was waged in the air and here on the
ground, the Storm howled in agony as Naranbataar put arrow after arrow into his
back.

Releasing its hold, the Needle
plummeted to the rocky earth and hit the ground with a crunch. It lay for a
moment, twitching and convulsing, before pushing itself up onto shattered arms
and over onto a broken back. Blood bubbled on its tongue but there was also an
eye, as white as the moon. It cackled and closed its toothless mouth, bursting
the orb and spilling jelly out through the gums.

It did not move after that.

There was silence for a moment
on the Plateau of Tevd before the Storm opened his mouth and at the sound, the
mountains fell into the sea.

***

Kirin held his breath as the sky
was blackened by the arrows of the Enemy, the whistling drowning out all
thought, filling his heart with dread and the desire to flee. That was the
intent, after all. But he knew his people, knew they waited for the shattering
of the arrows upon the Shield.

They shattered.

In a hailstorm of splinters, the
Shield held and he silently gave thanks to the gods, to Dharma and fate and the
Empress, that he had not killed Yahn Nevye when he’d had the chance.

A second wave came, brought with
it the nightmare howls of banshees, the screams of dying rats, steel claws
dragged across stone. Again they shattered but there was motion to his left and
he turned to see the Oracle and the jaguar struggling on the back of the horse.
Together, they pitched from the saddle and Kirin knew the Eyes of Jia’Khan were
working their dark magic. Heart in his throat, he glanced over at his brother
but Kerris shook his head and Kirin knew beyond a doubt when the third wave
came, there would be no Shield to stop it.

***

“Shar!” cried the Oracle as Shar
Ma’uul arched his back in the rocks. It was growing dark but his robes were
darker and she tried to find blood with her hands. There was none. “No Shar.
You fight. Shar strong fighter!”

“The arrows,” he cried. “I feel
them all…”

His white eyes were wide, seeing
nothing and his breathing was coming in quick, shallow gasps.

“There’s twelve. Twelve! That’s
not a holy number. Why?”

“Shar, no. You fight.”

“I’m falling! Falling from the
Mouth of God…”

“No, Sherah save you. Silence
save you.”

“Don’t look at my hands. Please,
don’t look.”

She gathered his hands into
hers. They were not scarred. He was not bleeding. It was Necromancy and it was
killing him.

“Eye of the Needle,” he
whispered. “Eye of the Storm.”

She squeezed his knuckles.
“I
save you, Shar.”

“Eye of the Needle, Eye of the
Storm, Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Storm.”

“Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat.”

“Eye of the Needle, Eye of the Storm.”

“Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat. Say it.
Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat!”

He gasped for breath, smiled
quickly.

“Say it, Shar!”

“Blue Wolf.”

“Say it!”

“Blue Wolf.”

“Again!”

“Blue…”

Gasped, then was still.

“Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat,” she
said to herself. “Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat. Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat.”

She rose to her feet, pulled the
dagger that she had taken from the Lieutenant of the 110
^th
Legion of
the Khan. Turned to look over her shoulder at the Ten Thousand at the Field of
One Hundred Stones.

“Blue Wolf, Yellow Cat.”

And she sprinted across the
yellow plains as the third wave of arrows was released.

***

The whistles of nightmare
started once again.

“We fight!” shouted Kirin and he
spurred his heels into Shenan’s blood-red sides. “Now!”

Kerris turned on Quiz’s back,
shouted to a
Chi’Chen
guard in the rear and men began to move in the
Army of Blood as a third wave split the darkening sky. The ground shook to as
sixteen thousand soldiers rushed together across the plain and from the sides,
seven thousand horses thundered into the battle, with nineteen leopards and one
terrified tigress at the helm.

***

Fallon heard the shriek of the
arrows, saw the rush of the Army and she dug her heels into her painted horse.
It rose up on its hind legs, pawed the sky with its front then leapt forward,
began to churn up the ground toward the dogs. Three thousand
four hundred and ninety nine others followed.

***

Arrows rained down on them,
killing many, wounding more. Feline and
Chi’Chen
armour took even more
but as the Army of Blood charged, most arrows struck dirt and rock and
emptiness.

One little mountain pony did not
move.

As thousands rushed past, Kerris
stared at the One Hundred Stones towering above them on the mound. Dust and
pebbles began to circle around his fists as the tallest of the Deer Stones
began to move.

It began to rise out of the
ground with a noise like the grinding of great wheels before tipping and
crashing down onto another, which shattered into pieces and rained to the
ground, crushing several dogs beneath the weights of stone. Another pushed up
from its bed, tipped and fell, crashing into a second and third until soon, the
entire Field of One Hundred Stones were falling and the Legions scattered like
rice at a wedding.

He gasped as an arrow thudded
into his thigh. A second and third struck the pony. Quiz squealed and bolted
and for the first time in living memory, Kerris fell off and onto the stone.

Forgotten by the Khan, Swift
scrambled out of the way and unnoticed by anyone, Jalair Naransetseg raced into
it as the armies collided with a sound like thunder.

***

Sireth leapt to his feet and
back into the reach of the Storm, slapping his palms against the sides of the
creature’s head. And suddenly, there were two other hands added to his, long
and strong and spotted with the pelt of a cheetah and Sherah al Shiva scaled
the arrows to climb up the back of the mountain, wrapping her long legs around
its neck.
 
She began to spin black
silk cords around the massive throat, over the jowls, under the jowls, across
the eyes and pushed-in nose and mouth. Saliva swung in strands from its lips.

She brought her face down next
to its ear.

“You are beaten,
sidi,”
she purred. “Release your claim on the Magic and the Eye of the Needle will be
spared.”

It wailed but no words came.

“Release the Magic.”

Sireth closed his eyes and
leaned into her hands.

“Release the Magic or my falcon
will
eat
the eye of the Eye of the Needle.”

“Nooo…”
moaned the voice
inside their heads.

“You may have his eye,
sidiStorm,”
hissed the cheetah in the tiny twisted ear. “But only if you release the
Magic.”

“We never release the Magic,”
it gurgled.
“We ARE the Magic…”

And it dropped a massive hand to
the bonestick and swung it up like a spear into the neck of the cheetah.

***

The Blood Fang swung, the Jade
Fang sang, and he moved through them all like a wheat field. Arrows whipped
past his face, thudded into the yori but still he moved. It was a dance, the
dance of war, the
Chai’Chi’Chuan
with other dancers struggling for the footing
but he would give none. Take the legs out from under one, take the arm off of
another, he moved slowly but steadily through them all in his inexorable search
for the Khargan. He could hear the screams as the horses ran men down, their
hoofs lethal, their fangs deadly, their bodies alone unrivaled weapons on the
battlefield. Once again, he missed alMassay, his best friend for so many years.
He prayed the stallion was fighting battles wherever horses went when they
died.

It was dark and lightning flashed
down from the skies. Kerris, he knew, using whatever he had to take these
enemies down. And truth be told, the dogs were enemies. There was nothing that
could change that simple fact. Step, swing, slice and block. There was no road,
there was no glass, there was no eye of the needle. There was only life and
death and how the Bushido played out in between.

He would kill every last dog on
this field as he danced this dance toward the Khan.

***

The eyes of the Khargan. She
wanted the eyes of the Khargan.

The Oracle slipped through them
like a weaver, her dagger leaving holes in flesh the way a needle leaves holes
in fabric. Dogs, cats, monkeys, she did not discriminate, all were victim to
her borrowed blade. From the corner of her eye, she watched the lion, watched
how beautifully he killed. It was like a dance, she realized, a dance of blood,
so she set her mind to do the same, to kill as many as he did, if not more.