Shang-Li caught the sword between the sticks and turned the weapon aside. Metal slid along the reinforced wood but stopped just short of the Shou’s hands. He shifted the trapped blade quickly and put the tip against the ground. A sudden stomp snapped the blade like kindling, and Shang-Li jumped high into the air and swung a roundhouse kick into the man’s jaw. His head spun to the side at the impact and bone broke. He slumped into an unconscious heap.
“Your impudence has jeopardized our mission here.” His father picked up a fallen spear, expertly spun it to block the blades of two attackers, then knocked one of them out with the haft. He ran at the second, used the spear to leap above the man’s sword strike, and kicked him in the head. His father landed gracefully and spun the spear again.
“The mission isn’t jeopardized.” Shang-Li heard the survivors of their attack closing ranks, then charging at him. Driving his feet hard, Shang-Li ran up the wall of the nearest building. Just as gravity claimed him and stopped his upward path, Shang-Li pushed himself backward and flipped high in the air. He landed on one of the men, one foot on his opponent’s shoulder and one foot on the man’s head. Burdened by the unexpected weight, the pirate sank to the ground.
Moonwhisper sped out of the darkness and raked his heavy claws across the forehead of one of the men. The heavy sweep of the owl’s wings cracked in the air. The razor-sharp claws parted flesh easily. Blood ran down into the wounded man’s face and he retreated while clawing desperately at his head to find out how bad the damage was.
His father snorted disdainfully and swept the retreating man’s feet from beneath him, then rapped him on the skull.
Shang-Li cringed a little. There was nothing as irritating as that snort.
“You had to cause a scene, Shang-Li. You couldn’t leave well enough alone. You had to let that man know that he couldn’t control everything.”
“I think he believed it was an accident.” One of the Nine Golden Swords warriors halted a dozen paces away and unlimbered a crossbow. Shang-Li reached inside his belt and took out two throwing stars. He flipped them into the air smoothly. The disks whirred across the intervening distance and buried themselves in the man’s elbows. The armor he wore might have stopped them. The warrior howled in pain and the crossbow dropped from his hands. He turned and fled. Shang-Li allowed him to escape.
“Then why did Trolag offer an immediate bounty on your head even after you were fired? Why did you flee the Blinding Onion like a monkey with his tail on fire? And how could you possibly think we’d last any longer on our quest with you a wanted man?”
Shang-Li sighed. “The Pirate Isles are filled with wanted men.”
“They don’t want each other.” Kwan Yung elbowed one man in the face that had made it to his feet, then kicked another in the head.
The crashing serving trays and plates during the escape from the Blinding Onion had been impressive. The act of discretion hadn’t been one of Shang-Li’s better escapes. But any escape he could walk away from…
“I am not happy.” His father walked across the alley, which was now filled with unconscious Nine Golden Swords warriors.
Shang-Li shook his head in disbelief. “You’re never happy.”
“I trained you to always be subtle.” His father held his hand in front of him and moved it with delicate precision. “You are supposed to be like water. You flow. You do not cause disruption. You do not ruffle feathers.”
Shang-Li counted to ten in Shou, and then again in Elvish.
His father threw up his hands in frustration. “I blame your mother for this. She was impulsive. She could never pass by an opportunity for confrontation. You are like your mother.”
And you could never pass by an opportunity for discussion, Shang-Li thought, could you, Father? Arguments had filled their house while he’d been growing up. A casual onlooker might not have believed his parents had cared for each other as deeply as they had. But they had loved one another more than anyone else Shang-Li had ever seen.
“Could we not bring Mother into this? We still have a book to liberate from a wizard’s tower.”
“If that task remains possible.”
“It does.” At least, as possible as getting that prize initially was. “We know where the book is, and we planned to get it tonight anyway. Now we have time to get some rest before we break into the wizard’s home.”
His father snorted again. “You talk as if that will be easy.”
“You planned that part of the mission. You told me I had nothing to worry about.” Shang-Li paused but his father never broke stride. “I don’t have anything to worry about, do I?” He didn’t relish breaking into wizards’ homes. Thieves got killedor worsequickly while doing that.
“You cannot even serve a simple tureen of sauce without spilling it. How can you expect to break into a wizard’s home even if I plan everything?”
“I could have served the sauce without spilling it. A child could have”
“Hah!” His father wheeled to face him and threw a finger up into his face. “See? I told you that you angered Captain Trolag because you wished to.”
Shang-Li bit back a sharp retort.
“This is why I wished to come along on this task. You lack discipline and this task is important.” His father gazed up at him and the wavering light of the nearby street torch played across his face. Embers from the flaming bundles swirled from the iron cage but extinguished before they struck the ground.
The uneven glow highlighted Kwan Yung’s wrinkled features and gray hair.
When did he start getting so old? Shang-Li wondered. He remembered his father as the man that had taught him to fight at the monastery, had taught him his love of books and history. His mother had given Shang-Li his wanderlust and shown him the mysteries of the woodlands. Pirates had killed her when Shang-Li had been fourteen. That was when Kwan Yung had lost part of himself.
“I could have done this, Father.” Shang-Li spoke softly, hoping to prevent a further tirade. “But I am glad you’re here” Mostly. “We haven’t spent much time together of late. This could be good.” Gods, he thought, please let it be good.
That caught his father off-guard. Kwan Yung regarded him suspiciously.
“I’m not going to forget that you spilled the sauce on purpose.”
“That will make two of you.” Shang-Li smiled. “I made sure the sauce was very hot.”
Kwan Yung’s hand flared out quickly and tweaked Shang-Li’s nose hard enough that he barely kept from crying out or cursing. Either would have been a mistake.
“Pay attention.” His father’s voice lashed like a whip. “You need to focus. I would rather not report back to the monastery in shame after you ruin this opportunity to recover what was lost so long ago. Especially since the Nine Golden Swords might know about this prize as well. We cannot miss this chance.”
Shang-Li rubbed his stinging nose and concentrated on breaking into the wizard’s home. If he was fortunate enough to do that, there was a chance he might live to see morning.
Bayel Droust cowered in the chair of the small area where he worked. For all the years he’d spent under the sea as the Blue Lady’s prisoner, he’d never become so jaded that he lost his fear of her. As the Blue Lady strode into the hull of the ship, Droust’s guts threatened to turn to water, even though he’d asked her to come. He steeled himself and waited.
Outside the porthole by his desk, the verdant growth ran rampant, claiming the whole of the sea bottom that lay within the Blue Lady’s power. Twitching vines that moved over their own accord wreathed twisted trees and warped bushes where horrible monsters dwelt.
Droust had given names to some of them only so he could tell them apart. Perhaps the whiptails, eye-piercers, and slashsails had started their lives as something else, either in this world or the one that the Blue Lady had been forced from, but they no longer remained recognizable as anything Droust knew. Some of them had been changed by the Spellplague, but others had been changed by the Blue Lady’s protective spell over the area, and maybe others had simply lain under the sea so far that no one had ever before seen them.