Sky Pride

Tian smiled a little more deeply, and dropped Uudam. “A little late, even if it’s sooner than I would prefer. Don’t say you wouldn’t do the same, because we both know you would do far worse. I will suspend my vengeance, not renounce it. Him, I do not forgive, and will not forget. But I won’t pursue my vendetta so long as you keep your agreement and this piece of shit never comes within five hundred miles of any city in the Kingdom. And I will know. I have left my mark on him.”

Tian had, too, burned with qi onto Uudam’s vertebrae, though he had no particular way to track it. But the Yuu didn’t know that.

Yalau opened her mouth, then closed it with a snort. She had a scribe brought over. To Tian’s mild surprise, it was a tribesman. He half expected some captured merchant or civil servant. The agreement was drafted, verified, signed by both parties, with copies sent to the City Lord and Wuusan, with Yalau and Tian keeping the originals. Liren hadn’t said a word the whole time, just looking around speculatively.

“Where is the hostage?” Tian asked.

“He will be delivered after we… aid you… with your enemies.” Yalau had her own nasty smile, now.

“And how will you do that?”

She didn’t answer until Uudam was carried away, then slung on a stretcher between two horses and carefully transported deeper into the steppe. The rest of the Yuu retreated with him. The camps had packed up already, the great host retreating like a tide. Tian spotted the ruined remains of the siege engines they were building, left smoldering in the grass. At least part of his plan had worked. Two parts had worked, in fact, and better than expected. But the key elements were still missing. He had lost the moment. In a way, the plan had been a failure.

In the space of an hour, Tian and Liren were alone with Yalau and the great spirits, barely a mile from the city walls. “Now then, sorcerer. I will fulfill the first part of our bargain. You wanted to know how we will assist you against your enemies? We shall deliver them to you, as we delivered you to them. Both of them. Quite delicious, selling you twice and each of them once, I must say.”

Yalau laughed, merry and cruel, as the echoes of a whinny tore across the empty sky. Spells burst apart, and the skies soon were filled. From the south floated five heretics, some on giant insects, others in rugs or flames or upon stranger things. North of them was a sky barge, not the giant Summer Torrent, but still large enough for a warehouse and the half dozen cultivators standing on it. All of whom, Tian noticed, wore the blue and white robes of the Inner Court.

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“They were here for days, just waiting for you to look vulnerable. I don’t think either knew about the other. Either outnumbered you more than two to one, but they still wanted you to exhaust all your means before launching an ambush. Your immortality brings you neither creativity nor courage. Such a pity!” She sneered, then turned her horse and raced for the horizon. Tian’s eyes widened sharply. With the exception of Starsieve’s flying board, he had never seen anything move as fast as Yalau on the back of her spirit horse.

The two sides in the sky quickly caught sight of each other. They didn’t shout, but you could feel their glares crackling the air. They were very plainly searching for the next unpleasant surprise; if they had been revealed, then surely there was another ambush to come.

“I can’t even pretend to work with heretics against the Long Clan. How do you feel about teaming up with the Long Clan against the heretics?” Tian messaged Liren.

“I’d sooner die.”

“You just might.”

She turned and met his eyes, a little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. They had said it all before. Now, there was only the killing left to do. Should it come to it, they would walk the road to Hell together. One last journey, one last great adventure, before being born again.