Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 231: Not Friends

The corpses of demonics everywhere made it difficult for them to move forward. But eventually, they were free of the corpses and were climbing the long road to the fortress.

Soldiers stopped and bowed or knelt. Men in the field had begun to sing, and its strains rose like the casting of a unique view from the fields below. Soon, they arrived at the pavilion hall.

The Princess lay in bed in the hall. She raised her head and smiled.

The king released a sigh, as if he had been holding his breath.

Wuyi saw Liwei. She stood in the light of the window behind the hall altar. She appeared inhuman, a fairy of light and color, and she was, to his sight, sparkling with unique bloodline power.

The bloodline power in her had grown. He couldn't take his eyes off her.

She was healing each injured person brought to her. The power went into her as easily as breathing – she was using the consciousness and power of the pavilion to take energy from the river in her bloodline – releasing healing Qi in a cloud of rainbow light so that soldier after soldier approached her, knelt, and arose healed. Most stumbled away and went to sleep in the arms of their comrades.

She passed her hands over the king as if he were any other soldier, any of the women wounded in the desperate defense of the courtyard, any of the children injured in the collapse of the West Tower – and he was healed.

And then she turned, and her eyes looked into his. He sighed.

He had the foolish impulse to kiss her.

She touched him. "You must open yourself, or I cannot heal you," she said. She gave him a smile. "You were not this powerful a few days ago."

He sighed. "Nor were you," he said.

✶ ✶ ✶

Days passed.

Wounded men were healed, and slept.

Dead men and women were mourned, and buried.

The creatures of the demonic wild were burned, and their ashes spread over the fields.

The group was not entirely dead. A few Qi warriors were found wounded and healed. Yun Ming and Shen had not been part of the charge; Baijian and Meiying were untouched, although they each slept for more than thirty hours after their armor was stripped. But the archers were still alive, many of the attendants and servants.

Wuyi was very difficult to find. Some said he was drunk, and some said he was with his pretty novice, and some said he was taking service with the king, or of the warriors of the Lotus order.

None of these things were true.

Wuyi spent a great deal of time alone, and when they did last rites for the group's dead, they all stood there in the light rain – the survivors. Xueqin Yang, Qingyu Ni, Yinhai Hu, Zhai Jiang, Wuli Yuan, and Xianyu Ma. Warriors and attendants and archers and servants, men and women, soldiers and prostitutes and laundresses and farm girls and servants.

And to a man and woman, they looked at Wuyi and waited for him to speak.

He hadn't planned anything. But their need was palpable – like a spell.

"We won," he said, his young voice as harsh as the croaking of a raven. "We held the fortress against a Power of the demonics Wild. But none of these men or women died to hold the fortress – did they?"

He looked at Yun Ming. The man met his glance and gave him a small nod of agreement.

"They died for us. We die for each other. Out there in the world, they lie, and cheat each other, and betray, and we, here, don't do that." He was all too aware that sometimes, they did. But funerals are the time to speak high words. He knew that, too. "We do our level best to hold the line, so that the man next to us can live.

We – we who are alive – we owe our lives to these, who are dead. It could have been us. It was them." He managed a smile. "No one can do more than to give his life for his friends.

Every drink of wine you ever taste, every time you get to enjoy your companions' warts in bed, every time you wake and breathe the spring air, you owe that to these – who lie here in the ground." His eye caught the smallest bundle – Xuanxian Luo. "They died heroes – no matter how they lived." He shrugged and looked at Master Zhang.

"I suspect it's not a perfect farewell." He had more to say, but he was not sure what to say, and he bowed to all the members who had sacrificed themselves. When they joined him, they knew the cost. Some naive ones wanted glory, some wanted resources, some fame. But the truth was they all died for him. He had achieved his two goals that he wanted. But this loss was still weighing hard on him.

"Saints say, Heaven is the way, and the life," said Master Zhang in a calm, low voice.

Wuyi shut out the sound of his company praying.

And eventually, there was a hand on his shoulder. It was a light hand. But he didn't have to open his eyes to know to whom it belonged.

He rose, and she stepped back. She smiled at the ground. "I thought you'd just hurt your back again, with all that bowing," she said.

"What have you decided?" he asked.

She smiled. "I'll tell you tomorrow," she said lightly. "Open to me?" she asked, and he thought he heard an immense strain in her voice. He put it down to fatigue, and he opened his conscious door, and she entered in. She pulled him out of his own consciousness and into the wonder of her bridge – but it was no longer a simple greenish white.

Now it was more green than white, but there were other colors.

Overhead, the sky was a golden blue, and the sun shone in splendor in heaven, and the water that rushed under her bridge was clear as diamonds, and the spray was as white as the brightest cloud. The leaves of the trees were green and gold, and every tree was in flower. The smell was of clean water and brilliant air and every flower scent he'd ever imagined or smelled.

"Wow," he said, involuntarily.

She smiled at him with her slightly tilted eyes, and she passed her hands over him, and a dozen small knots were eased, and the lump at the back of his throat passed away.

"I'm not so arrogant as to heal your sorrow," she said.

He caught her hands. "You will heal my sorrow," he said. She smiled and put her lips on his, her eyes closed.

And after a time, she pulled away. "Goodbye," she said.

"Until tomorrow," he said. "I – I admire you."

She smiled. "Of course you do," she said with a little of her old tone. Then she softened. "I love you," she said.

She walked away into the rain, and he watched her until the grey of her cloak merged with the sky and the stone and the hillside.

With the successful defense of the fort and this glory now, Wuyi found his services very much in demand. He accepted a contract in the west, serving among the Huoyans with Zhai Jiang. They concluded the contract just a week after the day of the battle, after an hour of loud and apparently angry bargaining that had featured several cups of wine and a warm discussion at the end.

Then he picked up the seal of his command and walked out of his tent – the group was back in their tents on the plain, so that the Royal Household could occupy the fortress – and mounted a pretty Eastern mare that had belonged to Zhenyin. No amount of miraculous healing could fix his partially eaten leg, so the merchant would be bedridden for some time.

He'd been delighted to sell the mare for a profit.

Wuyi rode up the familiar road to the main gate. Royal Guardsmen held the post, and he saluted them. They returned the salute.

He gave his horse to a newly minted Royal attendant – somebody's younger son – and climbed the steps to the Commandery. No longer his office.

Master Zhang was busy in worship.

Wuyi waited patiently.

Eventually, Master Zhang rose and put his prayer beads back around his waist. He smiled.

"Your servant, young master."

Wuyi smiled back, reached into his cloak, and fetched forth a pair of heavy gilt-bronze keys. "The keys to the fortress and the river bridge," he said. "They were placed in my keeping by the pavilion mistress. I relinquish them to you in peace and triumph," he said formally. And then added, with a smile, "You owe me a sizeable sum of money."

Master Zhang took the keys and settled into a seat. He waved Wuyi into another, and Wuyi had the oddest feeling – one of having lived this moment before, perhaps from the other side of the seat.

Master Zhang took a writing set, checked the quill for sharpness, used a little ink, and began to write.

"You would not consider turning to Heavens, my son? Become a warrior of my order?" he asked, raising his eyes briefly.

"No," Wuyi said.

Master Zhang smiled. "So proud. Liwei tells me that you see Heavens as your enemy." He shook his head.

"Liwei has misinterpreted the information with which she was provided," Wuyi said. Then he shrugged. "Or maybe not. Your Heavens and I are not friends."