The wind whistles by, bringing along with it the scent of something…
Burning.
“Do you smell that?” I ask.
Feng tugs on the horse’s reins, turning her head from side to side to survey our surroundings with a suspicious squint. She sniffsthe air, just as concerned as I. It’s not until I look up once more that I realize those aren’t rain clouds I see, but clouds of smoke.
“Silence from here on out,” she says before shooting a pointed glare in my direction. “I know that might seem an impossibility for ye, but it’s for yer own good.”
I put my hands up in mock surrender, pressing my lips into a thin line. Contrary to popular belief, I’m capable of taking things seriously at times.
We continue forward down the beaten path until an obstacle halts our advance, lying strewn across the dirt path.
A body.
I dismount the horse, approach with caution, and crouch down to examine the corpse. It’s a fresh kill, the man’s flesh not yet cold. His end must have been a traumatic one. Cuts and bruises mar his face, nothing about his visage recognizably human. His nose is a broken clump of cartilage dangling from the center, his eyes gouged out, the front of his skull caved in. Shards of his teeth stick to his bloodied cheeks, his long hair shorn down to the scalp in an act of pure hatred.
There’s no thread around his finger; it has dissolved in the arms of death.
He looks to be a mere peasant, his ragged tunic covered in dirt and crusted blood. The man has no valuables on him, his pockets purposely ripped from their lining. One of his shoes is missing, knocked clean off. His left arm is bent the wrong way at the elbow, and bone pokes out of the front of his right calf.
This can’t be the work of an animal.
Or perhaps it is—the worst animal of them all.
Ahead, the piercing cry of a woman in distress.
My body moves before my brain has a chance to register what I’m doing. Feng shouts something, but her commands arelost on me. We can’t just stand idly by when someone’s calling for help.
I hear them before I see them—the voices of at least ten imposing men, speaking my own Northern dialect. I quickly throw myself into the cover of the jungle underbrush, watching with bated breath as a troop of Imperial soldiers surround what appear to be innocent civilians.
They’ve set up some sort of checkpoint, forcibly confiscating goods and trinkets from those attempting to pass. Several wagons have been set ablaze, these people’s whole livelihoods along with them. The soldiers show no mercy, punching and kicking the men and corralling the women and children as they beg for a reprieve.
Anger licks at the nape of my neck. “Bastards,” I hiss.
The huntress joins me in my hiding spot, keeping a watchful eye out. She’s momentarily left the horse behind so as not to attract any attention. “We’ll go around,” she whispers. “Another two days’ travel, but we should be able t’ avoid the worst of it.”
I frown. “You’d leave them to fend for themselves?”
“There’s nothin’ we can do, Leaf Water.”
“Do you mean to tell me that knife of yours is only for show?”
“This doesn’t concern us. Besides, would ye really kill yer own countrymen?”
A heavy weight bears down on my chest. I’ve never harmed another person in my entire life; I’ve never felt the rage that burns within me at present. How dare they torture the innocent and downtrodden? War is one thing, but this is another.
“We have to help,” I insist. “We can’t let them get away with this.”
“What’re ye going to do, hmm? Charge in there like a bull, and then what? Ye’d be stupid to play hero.”
The silence that lingers between us is punctuated only by desperate screams. As much as I hate to admit it, Feng has a point. Ithink back to when the emperor’s men nabbed me at the teahouse. I was no match for the five of them. I sincerely doubt that a head-on bout with ten will prove more successful. I might be a man of good intentions, but I am just that—a man.
I kneel there in the underbrush, stewing in my helplessness. I’m not strong, and I have no idea how to fight. The only thing I may boast to my credit is my inflated sense of wit and a sharp tongue—both useless against the threat of a blade.
“Please!” one of the women wails, clutching onto her husband’s arm. She places herself between him and a soldier, her tiny body a makeshift shield. “Take what ye want, but please, leave us be!”
The soldier strikes her across the face with a harsh crack, then moves in like a viper to snatch the man by the upper arm. “Out of the way, you swamp-water whore.”
