Tales of the Spirit World: Fall of the Blue Spirit

Part XXIX: Of Cold Fire upon the River

In the darkest hour before dawn, the mists gathered in the highlands spilled in a ghostly flood of chilling grey damp into the river valley. On the island in the midst of the river, the humans awakened to weirdly-stifled sounds and mysterious echoes. Imagined phantasms writhed always just outside the corner of the eye, inspiring greater terror for their refusal to meet close scrutiny. Families clustered together within the crude wooden walls of the fortification, huddled for warmth around spare meals of cold salted fish and cakes of pressed grains. Mothers soothed infants and younger children with furtive murmurs; the elder offspring stared out into the shifting gloom with wide, frightened eyes, watching their fathers and oldest brothers moving to form up their squads for the oncoming battle. These men, and certain women who had lost both husbands and children to the demons, moved with surety and purpose that did not quite conceal their own fears from the watchful eyes of those they desired to protect.

Seated on the headland above the wakening encampment, Yǎn-sui stared out into the shifting opaque mass of fog flowing over him, motionless but for the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed. Sitting back-to-back with him, looking out over the island and the sea-bound current of the river, Jiān fretted with the fog, twisting and twining skeins of vapor around her fingers. “I gather and disperse it, over and over, but it just keeps coming! I’d say, ‘At least it’s not raining,’ only I’m sure the skies would open up,” she mentioned distractedly.

She was not expecting an answer, and thus startled slightly when Yǎn-sui said, “I would almost prefer rain to this… murk. Fighting an enemy you can’t see is doubly-dangerous for these humans, limited and terrified as they are. In battle, anxiety can triple the enemy’s strength before he even strikes.”

Jiān exhaled, leaning back against him, turning her face so that her cheek rested against his warm, bare back. He had not noticed before, but they were breathing in tandem; though her breath was cool, it contained none of the dread chill of the shrouds enveloping them.

He sighed and leaned slightly back against her as well. “You are not worried about the fog, or even the humans.”

“Mn, well, I have more confidence in everyone, including you,” she stated matter-of-factly. She paused, her mood shading somber. “But what he said, back there… Tell me: how much of it was scare tactics?”

Yǎn-sui sighed again, looking down to his lap at Tiào-fěi, secure in its sheath and belt. He was once more guised as a human, and his hand on the hilts of the blades looked ever more frail and pitiful. “I believe he believed every word of it, and that they will all fight with the utmost conviction to achieve his goals,” he answered carefully.

“Oh.” The silence stretched almost painfully. “Then we have even better reasons not to lose today.”

“Agreed…”

Several hours previous:

Koh… no, the one wearing Koh’s face as a mask ( ‘Only a mask!’) inclined his head deferentially to Jiān before returning his weird, cerise-tinted eyes to Yǎn-sui.

Dread scraped icy claws across the nape of Yǎn-sui’s neck. ‘His chi… even though I see him plainly, I question my eyes. Like the figment of a waking nightmare…’ He moved ever-so-slightly forward, shielding Jiān, his gaze never wavering from the Koh-faced intruder. Jiān had the water to her back; she would have time to defend herself if the enemy struck. “I said to approach ‘openly.’ Remove that mask or leave.”

“You would dismiss your son so quickly, father?” the Koh-face chided softly. The breeze stirred the shadows and the white mane framing the mask; the form beneath it, tall and gaunt within its pale reticulated armor, seemed to fade in and out of sight, like the flickering of a dying candle. “You don’t even have the Tiào-fěi at your disposal.”

“I doubt you’re worth the trouble,” Yǎn-sui rejoined scathingly. He braced himself for an onslaught of the nothingness that had overwhelmed him the first time he had laid eyes on this enemy, but the Koh-face seemed content to follow the spirit of the truce. “The fact that you don’t attack and break the truce means that you want very much to speak to me. And so you shall.

“But first, remove that mask.”

The scarlet lips, nearly black in the shadows cast by starlight, curled into a knowing smirk. “As you wish,” he said, clasping the pale facade with a pale paw.

The mask came away. Behind him, Jiān smothered a horrified gasp with her hand.

“You’re the first demon to look me in the face without flinching, father.” Lurid eyes gleamed sardonically in their pitch-filled sockets. “I’m touched.”

Yǎn-sui forced himself not to shudder or look away. The… thing in front of him, though he possessed horns which jutted from his temples in much the same way his did, could only loosely be called “demon.” Pale skin, like that of a corpse bleached by sun and sea, stretched taut over the skull. Other than the dual-pointed crest surmounting his forehead and the abbreviated bone ridgeline of his brow, there was none of the face-plating characteristic of demons. His nose was a fleshy, puny, half-starved thing like those of humans; the black of his eye-sockets gaped in mere pockets of skin. Delicate, needle-point fangs, the incisors hardly longer than the rest, dimpled his anemic lower lip.

“If I may…” He spoke, the deep vermillion of his tongue grotesquely counter-point to his cadaverous color. “Perhaps this mask is better after all, father?”

Yǎn-sui nodded, once, unable to restrain a sigh of relief once the Koh-face concealed the horror beneath it. He heard him, and smiled ever-more broadly, amused by his discomfort. “I must apologize. The… unique circumstances… of my breeding and upbringing marked me in more ways than one. I did not retain my mask to defy you, father. I thought only of sparing you and your master unneeded grotesquery.”

Jiān stiffened. “It doesn’t matter what you look like: he’s your father!” she declared.

The intruder stared at her, stunned; Yǎn-sui had a brief, insane moment of wanting to roar with laughter at the sight of Koh, Lord of the Abyss, gaping at someone in utter shock. “Yes, thank you,” he said, recovering his vaguely smug self-containment, “You’ve quite the naïve view of the world, but we can’t hold that against you, can we, father?”

“No, we can’t,” Yǎn-sui replied brusquely. The horror beneath the mask could be ignored for the time being, for he dared not to blink, let alone look away from the intruder. It was frustrating, he told himself, choosing to ignore the repulsion that continued to pluck at him with insistent claws. What little chi he could sense was vaguely familiar. ‘Like His… like Koh’s or the Nightmares… untainted by the Gods or Spirits, a thing changing, warped and twisted and darker than the deepest pit… malevolent…’ His breath suddenly seized in his throat; it was so clear, so perfectly clear. “You are the ‘Milord’ Punga spoke of, the first time we fought,” Yǎn-sui accused. Burning rage devoured fear and control as flame devours straw. “You were the one who stripped Hui of his horns. You manipulated his corpse like a puppet, spoke from his mouth, blotted him out.” His words were little more than incomprehensible guttural growls through the thunder roaring in his ears; he was nearly on all fours, his claws tearing at the earth as he fought against the urge, the need to rip the Koh-face to shreds.

The wearer of the mask understood him at least. “I admit to all those things, father,” he said, his voice grave, nearly apologetic, “There were reasons… but I fear it has quite embittered you against me, regardless.”

“Quite,” Yǎn-sui echoed, spitting out the syllable in a snarl. Red and black colored his vision; wrath was getting the better of him, playing into his enemy’s hands. ‘He wants me to attack… he wants me to expose myself, expose Jiān… I can’t even tell if he’s hiding a weapon of some sort – he’s slippery enough…’ He tried to drive the bloodlust back, rein it in with the deliberate calculation that had always served him before. But his emotions would not obey, rebelled against his will as if they acted by another’s bidding. ‘I… can’t…!’

“You’ve given us the courtesy of showing us your true face.” Jiān’s voice rang out, cutting through the vapors of his mind with the surety of honed blade. He sensed her move to stand beside him, her hand alighting on his shoulder, light, cool… calming. His wrath receded. “I respectfully ask you to give us your name as well. Or do you, having never served the Gods, have no name?”

‘She sensed it, too?’ Yǎn-sui told himself he should not be surprised, and silently thanked Jiān for her stalling tactic.

The enemy bowed slightly. “I am Qiōng-míng, named by my mother, so that I might better serve Him.”

“Your… mother?” Jiān echoed.

Yǎn-sui did not have time or inclination to puzzle out the tone of her voice. ‘A male demon, raised and trained by Nightmares, master-less and yet master of other demons… what mad scheme is Koh weaving now!?’ “That’s an even bolder claim than any of the others made,” he observed, standing straight, “What business do you have with my master, that you invade her valley and unleash rogues on humans under her protection? What business do you have with me, that you desecrate the corpse of my subordinate? How long have you squatted in the shadows, hiding away from combat, while your lackeys challenged me openly?” There was no denying the possibility that Qiōng-míng had heard everything that Hai-dao had told them, everything he had told Jiān. ‘If he knows, then Koh must…!’

“What is your Purpose here?”

The challenge rang through the clearing. The wind stilled, died; even the trickling of water from the pool down the mountain seemed muted by a pall of anticipation. Jiān’s hand clenched his arm, whether to restrain him or to assure herself, he did not know.

“… ‘Purpose’?” Qiōng-míng appeared bemused. “Right now… nothing more than to give you a chance to fulfill your purpose, father.” He held up his paw, his eyes flickering between Yǎn-sui and Jiān. “You know what it is, though you’ve been denying it all this time. You might even deny it now, though you know the full Truth of what has bound you to this goddess:

“Complete the Firstborn’s task. Deliver the child of La to the Abyss, or die as he did.”

“What I don’t understand,” Yǎn-sui growled, “is why he didn’t just kill me right then and there. He had every right, no, responsibility to! I freely admitted to planning treason against Him; other demons have been executed for less.”

“Maybe he’s just as honor-bound as you are. Maybe following the letter of the truce means as much to him as it means to you,” Jiān said, her tone suggesting she was trying to convince herself. There was a pause. “Or maybe he wasn’t sure he’d win, two-against-one. I don’t think he was even carrying a weapon, unless he was hiding it in his armor.”

“‘Two-against-one’?” Yǎn-sui craned his head to look at her. “You would have fought him?”

Jiān’s lips thinned to a severe line. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” she grumbled, poking him in the ribs. He flinched, half-humoring her, but her expression shifted back to pensive. “Yǎn-sui… how do you know he’s even your son?”

Yǎn-sui stared.

“… Never mind,” she said quickly, turning away and getting to her feet.

“You’re upset,” he observed.

“No, I’m n…! Yes. A little.” She pulled at a lock of hair and stared over his head into the fog. “What was… his mother like?”

Baffled staring only seemed to displease her further; Yǎn-sui pretended to inspect Tiào-fěi as he phrased his answer. “I do know there is some form of hierarchy among the females. It is likely she is a powerful Nightmare, to claim him from the place of the nameless and raise him.” ‘A female who raised her spawn to serve Koh alone – what did she pass on to him? Highly advanced chi-control at the very least, the ability to manipulate the bodies, perhaps even the chi, of other demons...’ The more he thought about it, the more terrifying Qiōng-míng became. “Other than that, I couldn’t say.”

It seemed to be Jiān’s turn to stare, only she looked more horrified than confused. “But… you… she… weren’t you…?”

Yǎn-sui felt a headache coming on and swore internally. ‘How in Lord Agni’s name am I supposed to explain demon mating to someone with human sensibilities?!’ Why was he even bothering? Qiōng-míng was his son and the mastermind behind Anu and the others as well as the desecrator of Hui’s corpse, beyond a doubt; everything else, particularly how he came to be spawned, was irrelevant!

‘But it matters to Jiān.’ “Females, as far as I know, take even less concern in raising their spawn than males. They exist to dominate, to control all that exists within the Abyss, for it is there that they have power. They are His daughters and His tools, extensions of His will, able to shift their forms as He does. Outside of the Abyss, they exist as malevolent shadows, hidden and hiding. They feed on terror, creating horrific visions in unguarded minds. They are Nightmares, terrifyingly beautiful or alluringly ghastly as they will. They mate with whom they wish, when they wish, mostly with males who have survived long enough to serve the gods. After I killed my father, He gave me over to them. I don’t remember how many.”

It might have been the fog, but something about Jiān’s color seemed off. “That disgusts you?” he asked.

Jiān startled guiltily. “It’s… not really my place to say anything, is it?” she replied, “I asked you to tell me. I can’t get upset because you told me the truth. I just wish…” She sighed and crouched beside him, staring up at him in a way that made him more than a little uncomfortable. “Are you really alright, fighting your son?”

“You bound me to eliminate the demons who attacked your people. Even if you hadn’t, Qiōng-míng used Hui’s head as his puppet and refused to fight me directly, two things I cannot forgive. Make no mistake, Jiān: I am eager to kill him.” ‘There’s a slim chance he hasn’t told Koh about you yet. Eliminating him and the others will at least cut Koh off from his most direct link to you.’

“… I thought you’d say something like that.” She sounded disappointed. Suddenly, she was very near, her cool skin warming where she pressed against him. Her lips were upon his once more, softly, then hungrily, sending his body humming as if caressed by Agni’s cold fire. “I… give you one order today…” she said huskily, parting her lips from his only far enough that she could form the words. Her eyes were open wide, dark with a riot of emotion. “Don’t die. Yǎn-sui, you must not die. Not for anyone or anything, not for me. Promise me this. Swear it!”

“… As milady commands, I obey,” Yǎn-sui responded automatically, unable to answer any other way.

Jiān seemed to realize this; at least, she turned her face away, burying it against his neck. He felt trickles of moisture run down his skin. “I’m going to hold you to that; don’t even think I’ll let you get away with a technicality this time!” She slipped out of his arms then, easily as mist and retrieved her hat from the ground. “They’re manning the rafts now. I’m going down there and do what I can to help.”

“The battlefield is yours to command, milady,” Yǎn-sui intoned, rising to one knee and placing Tiào-fěi on the ground in front of him. He bowed his head. “To victory!”

She passed by him in a whisper of fog and shrouds, descending to the river in one leap from the crest of the headland. Yǎn-sui rose, staring down into the gloom where he imagined he could just make out her white form. ‘I don’t intend to die on purpose if I can help it. Why must she always put such obnoxious, unnecessary burdens on me?’ he thought, growling in irritation.

‘“She does it because she knows you are one of those ‘death before dishonor’ idiots. Chaos, it’s like an infection among you spawn that go Fire-wise.”’

Yǎn-sui glared balefully at Tiào-fěi, affecting innocence in its scabbard. ‘How do you know it isn’t something I inherited from you? She is La’s daughter.

‘“Hardly. I dishonored myself a hundred times over, by any measure, fighting and surviving for her sake. I died for my own convenience, though I doubt you’re smart enough to manage that.”’

Yǎn-sui snorted and swept up the swords. ‘Says the madman. You have no grounds on which to lecture me.’

Tiào-fěi shivered in its sheath, annoyed. ‘“I’d rather be insane than stupid. If you die, for any reason, she will not forgive you. And believe me, a goddess can hold a grudge.”’

He paused, about to sling the strap over his shoulder. ‘If keeps her out of Koh’s grasp, it is enough. But do you think so little of me, Father, that you believe I will let my spawn kill me before I have dealt with Him?’

“Master Yǎn-sui, forgive me; am I interrupting your meditation?”

Yǎn-sui fastened the leather strap across his chest as he turned to Lien. “No, I was just fi…”

Lien became oddly flustered under his stare. “We… that is, my generation, never had to fight in a war the way our elders did,” she said quickly, fingers hovering just above the black band painted across her face, from temple to temple; twin, finger-length bars of white, outlined in black, slanted down her jaw. “But since we’re fighting for our homes, they thought the symbols our ancestors wore into battle couldn’t hurt.” Once again, she had removed her headscarf, tying her long hair back at the nape of her neck with a strap of leather. Her dress had been exchanged for clothes of a fisherman: a simple, short-sleeved tan tunic tied with a sash at the waist, over baggy, black calf-length trousers.

“You look fierce,” Yǎn-sui said, grinning. The war paint certainly brought out the fire in Lien’s eyes, so that they seemed to gleam in the darkness with the desire to fight.

The young woman flushed and bowed her head, her bangs swinging over her face. “Speaking of clothes!” she exclaimed, stepping forward and abruptly thrusting a bundle of black cloth at Yǎn-sui, “Elder Yu wanted me to deliver this to you. It wasn’t finished until after you and the lady-priestess and Master Rinzen went to the shrine. It was decided that sending the lady-priestess’s champion into battle in nothing more than cast-off trousers would reflect poorly on us.”

“Ehrm… I don’t have a good record of keeping clothes gifted to me intact during combat, you know,” he said, after shaking out the bundle to reveal a tunic similar to Lien’s, albeit of thicker black cloth and much shorter sleeves, with Jiān’s seal embroidered across the back. The scent of many different hands was upon it. “Women of several villages did this?” he asked.

“They pooled their thread and cloths, what they had,” Lien explained, “That’s why the colors are so uneven.” Her cheeks were darkly pink, but at least she was looking up at him again. “Is that all right?”

“Yes. I am indeed honored,” he replied hastily and, to his immense surprise, honestly. He unbelted Tiào-fěi and shrugged into the tunic.

Lien drifted closer to the edge of the cliff and peered down into the twisting mass of mist. “I suppose you’ve fought in many battles?”

Yǎn-sui cocked his head as he fastened the last clasp of the sword belt. “Hundreds.”

“… against demons?”

“Naturally.”

“Then… are you certain we can win, today?”

The similarities in conversations unsettled him; he sensed that Lien was searching for something from him, but even Jiān was easier to understand! “If by “winning,” you mean that the demons will be eliminated with minimal casualties, then yes. Even if humans aren’t up to defeating demons one-on-one, there’s enough of y… of us here to tip the scales.”

He expected the conversation to end there, for Lien to bow and hurry back to her squad. To his surprise, the young woman straightened and looked up at him with searching eyes. “And after the battle, what then? I’ve heard you speak to the Elder, and what was said at the Council; do you really mean to leave this valley… and the lady-priestess, after we kill the demons?”

“It is something I must do,” he answered.

Lien inclined her head, her eyes guarded, piercing. “Does that mean… you don’t want to leave?”

“I…” The words seem to stick in his throat. ‘I have no choice! It’s not a question of wanting, after I kill my spawn and the rest, there is nothing that holds me here…

‘… nothing?’ And for once, it did not sound like his father questioning him, but his own doubts, his own desires. ‘There’s nothing I can do about it!’ he retorted, balling his hands into fists, ‘I must win the battle, I must leave the valley, I must return to Lord Agni… I must never see Jiān again, after this day…’

“Master Yǎn-sui, are you alright?” Lien’s hand rested on his arm, gentle, warm pressure against his skin.

Yǎn-sui dug his nails into his palms, slamming the door on his wild thoughts. “What I want or do not want is not the issue,” he said brusquely, “The enemy must be defeated, and I must return to where I came from.”

Lien’s hands slid into his and suddenly her head was resting against his chest. “What if you had a better reason to st…?”

A high-pitched scream of bloodthirsty laughter tore through the fog, the echoes resounding from every direction at once. Lien gasped and whirled around, flames flickering in her upraised palms. “What’s…?!”

The insane cackling grew louder and louder. Yǎn-sui could hear other voices joining in: the booming roar of a typhoon; the ear-splitting shriek of ice shearing against ice; the howl of flames ripping through the air. The cacophony trembled in his bones, reverberating agony in his sensitive ears. He instinctively clapped his hands over them, but flesh and bone proved an inadequate shield.

Lien, too, clutched at her head to block out the din. As the battle cries reached a final crescendo, she fell to one knee, apparently overcome. Yǎn-sui reached down and pulled her to her feet, but she pushed him away, her face pale beneath the paint, her eyes blazing with fury as she grimly held her ground.

The horrific screams and howls silenced as suddenly as they began, though the echoes continued to shudder the damp air. “They think so little of me that they resort to such a crude tactic?” Yǎn-sui snarled, pressing his thumbs into his ears to lessen the ringing.

“If they think yelling their heads off is going to scare us, they’re wrong!” Lien snapped, her lips twitching in a feral, ecstatic sneer, “Listen!”

As if conjured at her command, the bugle of dragons rising to the skies sounded from below. Yǎn-sui slewed around, taken off-guard. “Listen!” she said again, hoarse with excitement. A great shout, hundreds of voices raised as one, crashed over the trumpets like a wave. The trumpets sounded again, winging high over the tumult, shouts of wild abandon interspersed with incoherent, rhythmic chants. Lien joined her voice with theirs, a high, ululating cry like that of a tiger-hawk on the hunt.

Swept up in the moment, Yǎn-sui opened his mouth wide, adding his own battle cry to the others: the roar of a bull-dragon over a defeated foe.

The braying of horns carried on, sometimes one, sometimes two or three together, brash, defiant, urgent. “I begin to see why Lord Huánglóng favors your people!” Yǎn-sui exclaimed. His blood sang and pulsed in anticipation for worthy foes and carnage. “Come, the dawn! Bring forth the enemy!”

A rush of wind parted the fog momentarily, and a dark mass descended on the headland.

“Whoa, hey!” Rinzen protested, nearly falling off Lhamu’s head as Tiào-fěi flashed from its scabbard. Lhamu “hahrrn”-ed in agreement, glaring reproachfully at Yǎn-sui.

“Oh. You.” Yǎn-sui, disappointed, sheathed his weapon.

“Didn’t mean to let you down, Sunshine,” the airbender grumbled with his customary early morning ill-humor; the shadows under his eyes gave the rest of his face a grey, washed-out look. “If I’d known you were being literal, I’d have sent the demon crew along with my salutations instead.” He held a hand out to Lien, voice suddenly, oddly strained, “I can give you a lift back to your squad. Everyone else is in place already, and dawn’s only a few minutes away.”

Lien looked up at the saddle. “Xing, have you seen the demons yet?”

The boy’s head popped into view. “No. Not like we can see anything in this sh- stuff, anyway.”

“Lhamu is eyes and ears enough for all of you; follow her lead, and you will likely live to see tomorrow,” Yǎn-sui said. He turned to Lien, as she climbed up Lhamu’s foreleg. “Thank you for your people’s gift, I…”

Slender arms twined around his neck and soft, feverish lips pressed against his. “Thank me when this is over, Yǎn-sui,” she murmured. Before he could reply, move, or even blink, she swept up into the saddle and out of sight.

Yǎn-sui cocked his head, puzzled, then shrugged. ‘She did insist that I prove myself worth trusting.’ “Rinzen…”

“Yeah, I know, I got it the first dozen times; we keep Anu occupied as much as possible, take out his crossbow if we can, and try not to get killed,” Rinzen interrupted curtly, jerking the reins around his fists, “Don’t you think you’d better keep your head in your own fight, General?” Not giving Yǎn-sui time to retort, he whistled to Lhamu and the sky-bison lurched into the air.

Yǎn-sui shook his head after Lhamu vanished into the fog. ‘I give up – understanding humans is hopeless. Thank Agni Lhamu’s a sensible Beast.’ He brushed the last traces of Lien’s warmth from his lips and drew Tiào-fěi. Closing his eyes, he reached out with his chi, the granted fire within him growing as it sensed the approaching dawn. He breathed in, out, letting the fire flow through him like blood through his veins. ‘Confer upon thy slave, Eye of Glorious Agni, the devastation of your incorruptible Fire, that I shall wreak judgment in thy Glorious Name. Grant that the Flame bestowed upon thy slave will, this day, consume the renegades, the blasphemers, the desecrators. Release unto me thy destruction, oh will of Heaven’s Flame!’

Shrouded in cloud and fog, dawn broke. The heavy thud of massive wings, a slow, dreadful tattoo beating the air, growing ever nearer, sounded high above. “I invoke the Inferno!” Yǎn-sui roared, unleashing a towering column of bright blue-white flames, burning away the mists over the small island.

Something plummeted from the revealed sky, straight through the fire. Tiào-fěi blazed to life and met the massive blade as it crashed down. “What’s the matter, Uutu?” Yǎn-sui sneered up at the young demon between their crossed swords, “Was the air so thin up there that you forgot how to summon your fire?” He side-stepped, swinging Tiào-fěi to topple Uutu into the ground.

The black-skinned demon flipped over the blades, landing in a crouch and thrust his pudao up at Yǎn-sui single-handedly with the speed of a striking spider-snake. ‘Wha-?!’ Yǎn-sui ducked just enough to avoid getting his head split in two; one of the teeth of the pudao ripped through his left ear. He stabbed at Uutu with his right blade, but Uutu’s reach was longer. The pudao plunged, nearly chopping Yǎn-sui’s left arm off. He twisted his body away, the large blade carving the air over his torso and slamming into the ground.

Before Yǎn-sui could counter, Uutu swept the pudao to one side, endeavoring to cut through Yǎn-sui’s legs. Yǎn-sui leapt and landed out of Uutu’s range. ‘No hesitation! No confusion!’ “You’ve decided,” he remarked to the younger demon.

Uutu charged. Yǎn-sui found himself hard-pressed to deflect the Uutu’s strikes; he wielded his ridiculous weapon with one paw as if it was a dagger. ‘I can’t read his intent, I can’t sense his anger! He’s not even…!’ Yǎn-sui dropped to the ground, rolled past and behind Uutu, tried to slice through his hamstrings. Uutu avoided easily and nearly decapitated Yǎn-sui before he could recover. He only saved his head by flinging himself out of the way, nearly falling over the edge of the headland in the process.

‘He should not be able to fight like this!’ Yǎn-sui sprang to his feet, dirt and stones shifting and crumbling warningly under him. Far below, water roared and crashed over the shouts of humans cheering for their water-priestess; Jiān was more than holding her own against Punga.

Yǎn-sui scrutinized his opponent. Uutu had shed every last vestige of his uniform, even his ammunition belt. “What have you done with your father’s horns?” he demanded, “Answer me!”

Uutu’s only reply was to bring his pudao to bear for another charge. Yǎn-sui spat fire and whirled out of the way. Uutu seemed oblivious to the heat that seared his skin and ate away his mane, attacking again without pause. ‘He feels no pain. He doesn’t even bother to defend himself!’ The answer came to Yǎn-sui. “Berserker.” He caught the descending pudao, Tiào-fěi’s crossed blades snagging the teeth and locking the blades in place. Uutu pulled at his weapon in vain, a mute snarl of frustration twisting his lips. His garnet eyes were shadowed, lifeless, opaque even in the glare of Tiào-fěi’s flames. “No, not even that,” Yǎn-sui realized. “You’ve given up everything, even the “freedom” you claimed. He’s made you his puppet, just like he did your father!” Wrath engulfed him. “QIŌNG-MÍNG!!” he howled, ripping Uutu’s pudao out of his grasp and hurling it away into the fog beyond the headland. Uutu lunged at him, now-empty paw outstretched and fangs bared. Yǎn-sui sliced through the other demon’s arm, severing it at the shoulder with dismissive slash. Uutu did not cry out, merely stared insensibly at the cauterized stump.

Sickened, Yǎn-sui raised Tiào-fěi. “Be gone,” he rasped.

White flooded his vision and Tiào-fěi clashed on an obsidian blade. “You called me, I am here,” Qiōng-míng said beneath his Abyss-born sword, the red, red lips of his Koh-mask curving in a dreadful grin. “But I can’t let you kill him.” His bare paw shot out, palm connecting with Yǎn-sui’s chest. Numbness radiated through his body and he staggered backwards, Tiào-fěi’s flames flaring weakly before they extinguished.

“What did you…?!” But Qiōng-míng, and Uutu, had vanished.

“Yǎn-sui, look out!” Rinzen’s shout came an instant too late; three iron quarrels slammed into his chest and shoulders, toppling him head-over-heels down the steep slope. He heard and felt Anu sweep low, following. Yǎn-sui buried Tiào-fěi into the scree, gritting his fangs as his arms were nearly wrenched from their sockets. Before he could regain his footing, the rocks turned to sand under him. Hau, shrieking with bloodthirsty laughter, fell on him, claws ripping into his back. Yǎn-sui snapped his head around, caught Hau’s calf between his jaws, scoring deep rents into the flesh. The sand-demon screamed and twisted so violently that he squirmed free, scampering away into the ever-lightening pall of fog.

“Damn! Demon on the ground, from the headland!” Yǎn-sui bellowed, alerting the humans ahead of him. Another crossbow bolt whistled past his head; Yǎn-sui whirled, flames licking in his maw as he fixed on Anu.

“GAAAAAAAOOORRWF!!” Lhamu bawled, slamming headlong into Anu before the wind-demon could take another shot. Xing leapt up out of the saddle and let fly a fireball that engulfed the weapon. Anu tossed it aside and swiped at him, only to howl in pain as Rinzen, diving in from above, tore through the membrane of his outstretched wing with a bladelike blast of wind loosed through his staff. “Take care of Hau, we got this!” Rinzen yelled down to Yǎn-sui, snatching Xing in mid-air and landing in Lahmu’s saddle just as the sky-bison head-butted Anu in the torso. Demon, beast, and humans careened into the mists over the water.

Screams in the direction of the fortification snapped Yǎn-sui out of his daze. With an oath, he ripped the crossbow bolts from his flesh, turned and sprinted in the direction of the skirmish.

“Demon! Demon! FIRE!!!!” Yǎn-sui dove to the ground to avoid the volley of fireballs that barreled out of the brush ahead of him.

“What are you idiots doing?!” he shouted, springing to his feet as two squads of humans crashed into view, nearly surrounding him, “The sand-demon’s penetrated the first line, fall back to th…!”

“FIRE!!” cried a wild-eyed man Yǎn-sui dimly recognized as Xun under his warpaint.

‘They’re panicking – they can’t recognize friend or foe.’If they lived through the day, he would discipline these humans severely. He hurdled over the nearest bunch just as they loosed their volley, landing behind them and bounding into the brush. They gave chase; Yǎn-sui snorted at the irony as he neared the fortification.

“Watch your feet, he can burrow through stone!” Yǎn-sui exclaimed, bursting into the cleared area around the fortification. He brandished Tiào-fěi at the squad of humans who were gaping stupidly at him, “Where’s your signalman? Alert the squads inside the forti…!”

“FIRE!!” Two walls of fire, from fore and behind, crashed over him. Yǎn-sui had no choice but to collapse the flames around him into a single mass, flinging it up into the air where it exploded.

“He’s the fire-demon Master Yǎn-sui warned us about!” Ning yelled excitedly, stabbing his finger at Yǎn-sui, “Be careful everyone, surround him but stay out of range until we have enough people to finish the job!”

“Sound the horn, call for reinforcements!” Xun bellowed.

“What in the name of the unholy Abyss are you idiots doing?!” Yǎn-sui howled, Tiào-fěi spouting dark blue flames, “Can’t you see that…?!” Yǎn-sui stared at his upraised arm. Blue. His skin was blue. He grasped Tiào-fěi in his paw, ivory claws gleaming in the firelight. His human guise had dissolved. ‘It can’t be! Jiān…!’ Sanity reasserted itself; if Jiān had been killed, his life, bound to hers, would have ended as well. ‘… I suppose I know one more ability that whelp obtained.’ “… Shit.”

“Elder Yu, stay back, he’s…!”

“Idiot, Elder Yu can deal with him with just one bolt of lightning!”

Yǎn-sui slewed around just as the ring of humans surrounding him parted slightly to admit the frail old man. Elder Yu had not painted his face like the rest of the humans, but to Yǎn-sui, his presence alone was ten times more frightening as he cast aside his cane and assumed the beginning stance of lightningbending. “Demon, receive the judgment of Heaven’s Flame!”

There was no other option. Yǎn-sui sheathed Tiào-fěi and dropped to one knee. “Elder Yu, I am not who I seem. I am Yǎn-sui, servant of the priestess, I…”

“What did he say?!”

“Liar!”

“How dare he…!”

“Kill him!”

“Did he say he was…?!”

“He’s trying to trick us!”

“No, wait…!”

“KILL HIM!”

‘“What are you doing, idiot spawn?! Run! That old cripple will kill you in a moment!”

‘No! Hau can be anywhere!’ Yǎn-sui lowered his browridge to the ground. “Elder Yu, listen to me! I am your ally! You must listen to me, the sand-demon has already…!”

“Silence!”

The babble of human voices hushed. Yǎn-sui cautiously raised his head. Elder Yu slowly approached, his old-gold eyes never wavering from Yǎn-sui’s. “Demon… you claim to serve the priestess?” he asked sternly, pausing several swordlengths away, “You claim to be our ally?”

“I do, Elder.” Yǎn-sui grit his fangs, snorted. “Please… by Lord Agni’s Flame, I serve Lady Jiān. I am Yǎn-sui, your student, though I have yet to master the cold fire!”

Elder Yu’s eyes widened. “Master Yǎn-sui?” he whispered, aghast, “Are you really…?”

The ground at the old man’s feet exploded in a blinding cloud of dust and sand. Elder Yu cried out, shielding his eyes and thus did not see Hau spring from the earth, claws and fangs extended for the kill.

“No!” Yǎn-sui howled, lunging forward, knowing he was too late, too late…!

“HAAAAAAAOOOORRRAAAAAHHHHH~!!” Oh’s massive head, twin pairs of yellow eyes blazing, shot out of the ground, knocking Yǎn-sui aside. Her jaws snapped at Hau even as the rest of her bulk heaved into view, scattering the humans. The sand-demon screeched angrily, springing away from his prey. Oh dove at him, but Hau was too quick for her. Zig-zagging across the ground, he scittered under her maw and leapt at Elder Yu.

“I don’t think so!” Yǎn-sui’s elbow slammed into Hau’s nose-plate, shattering it. Hau, shrieking and gibbering, plunged into the ground like a scorpion-lizard down a bolt-hole.

“GET BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE PISSANT!!”” Oh screamed, diving after him in hot pursuit.

“Elder Yu, are you injured?” Yǎn-sui asked, kneeling beside the old man as the elder shakily sat up.

“I… I am alright,” Elder Yu murmured dazedly, “But I think… I think that demon bit me…” He held up his left arm, the sleeve of his tunic torn and soaked with blood where Hau’s fangs had pierced his forearm and wrist. The skin was already turning black around the fang-marks, veins of purple threading an ever-widening web of poison through his body.

Yǎn-sui grabbed Elder Yu’s hand and unsheathed Tiào-fěi. “There’s no time,” he said lowly, holding the doubled blades just below Elder Yu’s shoulder, “I have to cut off your arm before the venom spreads any fur…”

“GET AWAY FROM HIM, DEMON!”

Yǎn-sui tucked Elder Yu under him, shielding him from the burst of yellow-white fire that roared over them. “Lien, stop!”

“I SAID, GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Lien shouted, upraised fists limned with tongues of white fire.

“Lien, don’t, it’s me, I…!”

“Hey, girlie, step aside! I got first dibs!”

“Get down!” Yǎn-sui shouted, scooping Elder Yu up in his arms and countering Punga’s blast of freezing breath with his Inferno. Suffocating clouds of steam inundated the clearing.

Punga strode through the thick miasma, sweeping it aside with casual flicks of his weighted chain, paying no heed to the humans who warily sidled away from him, torn between flight and attack. “Here’s the thing black-mane,” he announced, a manic grin contorting his blood-bespattered face, “It’d been loads of fun, playing tag with the goddess, but I only have a little bit of time where I can actually come up and kill you before I get found out, so do me a favor and drop that old sack of bones so we can fight.”

‘How did he get past Jiān? Some new trick he’s been hiding all along?’ Yǎn-sui, not daring to look away from the crazed ice-demon, edged back to Lien and transferred Elder Yu into her arms. “Tie a tourniquet around his upper left arm; it may be enough to keep the venom contained until Jiān can see to him,” he told her under his breath.

“I said, enough with the damned talking, FIGHT ME!” Punga bellowed, hurling both the weighted chain and the sickle directly at Yǎn-sui.

Yǎn-sui hastily split Tiào-fěi into its two halves, the right swinging low to deflect the weight aimed at his legs, the left catching the sickle aimed for his head. Lien and the other humans cried out as ice burst from the chains, showering them in razor-sharp shards. Yǎn-sui shook his head, snorted, dislodging the dozens of ice splinters lodged in his face.

Punga whooped and snapped the weighted chain back, whirling it over his head as he drew his chain-sickle tight. The fog and steam streamed around him, spinning faster and faster, colder and colder.

Yǎn-sui had no idea what the ice-demon was planning, but he did not care to find out. “Punga!” he yelled, wrenching his blade free of chain-sickle and charging.

“Hee.” Before Yǎn-sui could close the distance, Punga slammed the weighted end of the chain into the ground between them. The white mass of fog followed, folding up into itself into a tall, thick sheet of solid ice. Yǎn-sui battered it down with two strikes from Tiào-fěi, leapt to avoid the blast of Punga’s ice-breath, and thrust at Punga’s head.

“Got ya.” The chain-sickle snaked around Yǎn-sui’s ankle, the blade burying deep into his calf. Punga side-stepped, whipped the chain-sickle back and flipped Yǎn-sui in mid-air, slamming him on the ground. He stomped down on Yǎn-sui’s throat and drove thick shafts of ice, summoned from the mist, through his arms and legs, pinning them to the ground.

“I really wanted to make you suffer a lot more than this,” Punga growled, eye alight with bloodlust and madness, “But that’s how it is, black-mane.”

“… J… Jiān… wh-what…?” Yǎn-sui wheezed as his windpipe collapsed under the weight of Punga’s foot, bursts of light and black cascading over his vision. Every twitch of his body, every strangled gasp, burned like dragon-fire. ‘How did you get past her?! How? Have you taken her? Have you captured her? Why doesn’t she summon me? What did you do to her?!’

“Oh, Anu knocked her around a bit, enough for me to get past her guard. You should be proud, black-mane; you did a great job, bringing her lethal streak to the surface. Pity she’ll never reach her full potential…”

“No!” ‘Jiān… Jiān! Don’t you dare, don’t you touch her…!’ His blood was freezing around the ice; the fire retreated to his core, fleeing from the chill. The black was sweeping him under. ‘No! No! Fire of Agni, Flame of Heaven… Tiào-fěi! Father! Please…!’

“Flail all you like, black-mane. No, I’m serious! Keep trying to live, to fight, to save your precious goddess!” Punga chortled, giving one of the ice-spears in Yǎn-sui arm a twist. “Hee hee hee, you don’t even care that you’re about to die, do you? All you can think of is saving her.” His face fell, as if he was suddenly seized by a different mood. “Now you know what it’s like. You’re the reason she’s going to die, and there nothing you can d…”

“FIRE!!”

Fire, phoenix-bright, engulfed Punga, devouring mist and ice. The ice-demon howled in pain and surprise, stumbling away from Yǎn-sui. Air rushed into his lungs and he heaved himself upright.

“Melt the ice in his arms and legs!” Lien shouted, jumping over him, loosing a swath of white fire from her foot at Punga. “Form the line! Quickly! Fi- !”

Punga barreled out of the mist on all fours, pounced… and collapsed just short of Lien in a heap, snorting and yowling as his limbs refused to obey him.

“Everybody, get back!” Jiān strode into the clearing, the luminescent billows of her shrouds dissolving the mists. The blood-marks on her skin shone as though freshly painted and a terrible light gleamed in her midnight eyes. She held her hands up in front of her, fingers contorted, claw-like. “Punga… You didn’t really think you’d get away that easily, did you?” Her right hand snapped up and Punga bounced into the air like a limp doll jerked by a string around its neck.

“Gah… get your slimy hands off my blood, bitch!” the demon snarled, crimson dribbling from the corners of his maw.

Yǎn-sui scrambled to his feet, stumbling as he summoned Tiào-fěi to his paws. ‘She took control of his blood? Is this what Punga meant…?’

“Lady-priestess…?” Lien said hesitantly, eyes flicking back and forth between Jiān and Punga as if she did not know who the more dangerous one was.

“Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t think of this sooner,” Jiān said, scowling at Punga. The ice-demon grunted, his entire body twitching as he tried to break free of the goddess’s control. The other humans stared in mute horror at their priestess. “Yǎn-sui, what happened?”

Yǎn-sui shambled up behind her, his wounds healing as approached. “Uutu is down… I think. Qiōng-míng grabbed him away, and in the process… you see the result. Hau attacked Elder Yu, but Oh intervened before he killed him, and now they’re Abyss knows where,” he reported under his breath, “Anu…”

“Lhamu, Rinzen, and Xing are keeping up with him, far as I know. Punga got away when Anu attacked me, but then he left all of a sudden, so…”

Punga spat a curse that made Yǎn-sui flinch. “Figures. The bull-horned asshat probably heard the little bilge rat screaming for help and hared off to the rescue.” Foam dribbled down his lips; lines of deep red broke and spider-webbed across his green flesh as he strained against the hold of his own blood. “So, girlie, you gonna kill me now or what?”

“… Kill?” Jiān’s upraised hand trembled ever-so-slightly, her eyes widening.

“Jiān, you must,” Yǎn-sui told her, lowly, urgently, bending over her shoulder, whispering into her ear, “This was not a time to question methods. Think of all the people he’s killed. Your people. It’s your duty to render judgment, avenge them. You can’t hold him there forever.”

“Yes, ‘render judgment’ – you Gods love lording that over all creation, don’t you?” Punga mocked. “How you gonna do it? Make my blood go backwards, burst my insides? Or are you going to rip it all out of me at once? Are you?!”

“I…”

“Now, Jiān. You must kill him!”

“Do it!” Punga bellowed, cackling madly, “Do it! Blot out those Signs on your skin, once and for all, become a proper God like your daddy and brothers and sisters and paint yourself with Death!”

“Jiān!”

A low, incoherent moan floated from Jiān’s mouth; the dread light around her dimmed, shrank into her form. “I…!”

Punga bared his fangs in a manic grin. “Alright, if that’s how it’s going to be…” With a deafening howl, Punga surged forward, blood sheeting over his skin as he ripped free of Jiān’s binding. Yǎn-sui leaped forward to meet his charge. Punga swerved suddenly, a blur of crimson and green and ivory.

“Lien!”

The young woman, swept up under Punga’s arm, shrieked, flailing desperate flashes of fire as she and her captor were swallowed up in the fog.

“Lien!” Jiān screamed. “Yǎn-sui, after him!” Before Yǎn-sui could stop her, she sprinted into the brush.

Shadowed eyes and red lips in a white face smirked at Yǎn-sui from the far edge of the clearing as he followed his master. When he looked back, the apparition was gone.

‘What is he thinking?!’ Yǎn-sui wondered, galloping over brambles, brush, trees, and people in pursuit of Jiān, Lien, and Punga, ‘Why take Lien captive? Why flee? He could have escaped Jiān’s bloodbending at any time, why did he insist she kill him? Did he know she wouldn’t? Was it something Qiōng-míng ordered him to do?’ He almost made it sound like he was trying to get around Qiōng-míng… If so, what hold does that whelp have on him?’ Punga, battle-crazed as he was, had seemed completely self-aware, pursuing whatever vendetta his twisted brain had concocted against him.

“He’s gone over the edge!” Jiān shouted, just as Yǎn-sui reached her. They had chased Punga to the extreme southern end of the island. The demon and Lien were nowhere in sight, but Yǎn-sui could hear Lien’s cries somewhere out on the river. Without pausing, Jiān vaulted off the island, the river surging to meet her. Yǎn-sui jumped desperately after her, dimly noting that several of his wounds were still spilling dark streams of blood into the grey-green water.

“Jiān, you know he might be luring us into a trap,” he said as they rode down the crest of the wave and resumed their pell-mell run.

Jiān flicked at sidelong glance at him, face and voice taut with anger. “Yes. But what would you have me do? Sacrifice Lien?” The silver web of her chi expanded in ever more threads, lancing out in all directions as she sought to entangle her quarry.

“Yes,” Yǎn-sui replied without hesitation, “We must regroup for the next attack. Scattering our strength like this is exactly what the enemy wants.”

“I thought the enemy wanted me,” she retorted. Her hands traced the air in front of her, slashing through the mists, lashes of water rising sentient from the river, streaming forward to cut off the way ahead. “Well, they’re getting what they asked for. I’m ready for them.”

‘Are you?’ Yǎn-sui did not ask aloud.

From the way she bent into a run that literally flew over the face of the river, Jiān understood anyway. “Punga!” Yǎn-sui spotted the ice-demon ahead, about to descend the last series of rapids before the river emptied into the ocean, still some miles distant. The mists were gone, but the sky above lowered dark and grey, Agni’s eye little more than a wavering white pearl suspended over the tree-tops. The banks of the river closed in on either side, rolling shoulders of giant, shrub-encrusted boulders. The slight breeze from the river mouth smelt of rain and the tidal flats beyond.

Jiān flung her hand skyward; the white water of the cataract reared up and doubled over, arcing high over Punga’s head. The ice-demon, who had paused to look back at his pursuers, backpedalled just in time to avoid the wave as it crashed down, then altered course for the near bank of the river. Yǎn-sui sprinted to cut him off, Tiào-fěi flaring warningly.

“Took you long enough to catch up, black-mane,” Punga sneered, sidling away from Yǎn-sui toward midstream, his eye flicking between the demon and the goddess. He held Lien under one arm, pressing her face against his bone-breastplate with his other paw. The young woman no longer struggled, but Yǎn-sui could hear the frantic hammering of her heart and the rush of her breath. “I was halfway to the North Pole. Wounds slowing you down?”

“Let her go, Punga!” Jiān demanded, hands half-raised, almost defensively. Yǎn-sui wondered why she did not immediately bring the river to bear and have done with it.

Punga half-turned toward Jiān, keeping Yǎn-sui on the very edge of his vision. “Touch me with those tentacles of yours again and I twist her head off, girlie,” he retorted. Lien bit down on a shriek as Punga’s grip tightened just enough to prove his point. Yǎn-sui glanced at the river and saw the silver threads of Jiān’s chi fade, retreating back to where the goddess stood. “Same applies to you and your noxious spit, black-mane.”

“Why are you doing this, Punga?” Jiān asked softly, her expression gently puzzled, “Your argument is with me and Yǎn-sui: why involve anyone else? Isn’t that dishonorable?”

“Pft, if you’re trying to screw with my head, don’t think I’m anything like your pet black-mane,” Punga spat, “Honor’s got nothing to do with me! I’m not a slave to you gods and your hypocrisy any longer!”

“You still haven’t answered my question, Punga,” Jiān pointed out.

“Screw you and your question, goddess,” he retorted. "Black-mane, I would stop moving if I were you." His claw pressed into Lien's temple, drawing blood. Lien gasped, whimpered.

Yǎn-sui froze, muttering a curse; he had hoped to edge into Punga's blind spot while he was ranting at Jiān. "Punga, let her go. Whatever grudge you have against me, we can settle it without interference, here, now."

Punga snorted, rolled his eye. "Yeah, I was trying to do that earlier, if you remember, when this bint..." another bright red stream trickled down Lien's cheek, "went and interfered."

"Punga!" Yǎn-sui stopped short as Punga tightened his grip dangerously. "You can't! She's pregnant!"

"Mmm-hm, I noticed," Punga returned gleefully. "Funny thing about humans when they get like this, black-mane: they don't really get much stronger. They don't get much nastier. They do however, get weaker in some ways. Take our females - if they spawn a weakling, something deformed, they kill it. Simple and clean. Humans are different. Sometimes, they keep the weak, deformed ones around. Not to take care of them, oh no." He laughed under his breath, a chilling, choked gurgle of madness. Lien moaned. "They torture them. They cast them out, they shun them, they make every miserable day of their miserable lives hell! And when they’ve had their fill of suffering, then they kill them! And they have the gall to call us “monsters”!

“Tell me, girlie," he hissed to Lien, his paw fumbling over Lien's tunic, fingers digging into her belly, "if this spawn of yours comes out twisted, can you love it? Can you protect it? Can you?!"

Lien writhed, sobbing, "No, no, no, let me go, please, no, don't! Please, don't!"

"Is that a 'no'? Was it? Maybe I should cut it out for you, so you don’t have to deci...!"

Yǎn-sui was already moving. 'All I need is one second, one second to blind him, one second to save her...!'

"PUNGA!!"

Punga's eye wavered from Lien for a split second... widened... a shimmering bolt of silver pierced it, snapping his head back, and suddenly, Jiān was there, sweeping Lien out of his numb embrace as his corpse slowly, so slowly, fell back over the whitened water and sharp rocks of the cataract, whirling away to the sea.

'What just...?' "Jiān, what did you...?"

"I didn't have a choice, right?" she asked, pleaded. She held Lien up out of the water, the young woman sobbing as she burrowed her paint-smeared face into Jiān’s neck. Jiān’s eyes were wide, desperate, almost panicked. "He would have killed her. He would have tried to cut her open, and I... I ... I had to kill him, right?!"

"But how...?" he managed, somehow still unable to believe his eyes.

"I bended my blood," she replied in a vague, faraway voice, "I couldn't use the river, he would have sensed it and killed her, so I used my blood... I... I threw... I shot it through his eye, and..." She clapped a trembling hand to her mouth and gagged.

"Priestess...?" Lien gasped, looking up at Jiān.

Jiān clenched her hand into a fist and tried to smile at the young woman. "Let's... let's go back. To the island. Everyone's waiting, right?"

Lien nodded mutely, pressing her tear-stained cheek against Jiān’s hair, lean brown arms twining tightly around the goddess as she sobbed in relief.

Jiān bent her head over Lien's shoulder, took a deep breath. "Yǎn-sui... let's go. The battle… isn't over yet."

He had never heard such exhaustion in her voice. 'I was wrong... Was I wrong? Punga needed to die. She saved Lien. But somehow... I was wrong...' Yǎn-sui twitched his head angrily. This was not the time to entertain doubts that sounded like they were infected by Rinzen's "pacifism." 'Speaking of Rinzen...' "Jiān, we should track down Anu bef..."

It came in a sudden rush of wind. If he had taken the time to think, to do more than react, they would have been dead. Yǎn-sui threw Tiào-fěi as Anu dove out of the cloud cover, his maw gaping in a soundless roar, deadly, piercing winds spiraling from his wings. The blades, trailing flames like the tails of twin comets, slammed into Anu’s shoulders, knocking the wind-demon from the sky.

‘One chance – I’m right, I know I’m right!’ Yǎn-sui thought as he stepped forward, the blue fire kindling on his fingertips. The fire changed, elongated, flowed as Jiān’s chi, tied to him, tying him to the river, melded with it, binding Fire and Water… he breathed in, his arms moving in perfect circles around his body, harmony in motion, balanced…

… Anu crashed into the river, his wings flapping pathetically as he struggled to find purchase against the river bottom, against the current…

… ‘There is parity, there is Balance – Darkness to Light… Fire to Water… Life…’

… the wind-demon had broken free of the river’s embrace, scrambling into the air, sky-blue eyes now tinged with red as he set his sights on Jiān…

… ‘Life… Agni… if it must be, let it be me… that she will live…’

Sound. Time. Breath. Self. All had vanished. All, together…

… ‘Life… to Death.’

Light, blinding light, shattered the very air. Silence poured into the vacuum, leaden, crushing, until it, too, splintered into a deafening roar, louder than the ear could comprehend. Yǎn-sui felt it in his bones, liquid, liquefying, lethal, terrifying. ‘Ah, there was a price I had to pay, after all…’ he thought, falling to his knees as the blue-white blinding light finally faded.

Anu hovered above him, scorched and buffeted, Tiào-fěi jutting from his body like some macabre ornament. “What…” he gasped, crimson streaming from his ears and eyes, so that it seemed he wept blood, “What have you done, Yǎn-sui?” He held out his cupped paws, the trembling fingers parting to reveal the black, twisted, smoking ruin cradled there.

‘… Hau?’ Yǎn-sui’s addled brain queried, noticing the pitiable stubs of horns still visible on the corpse’s exposed skull.

“All this time, I tried… I tried to keep him, to keep all of them alive…” Anu seemed to have forgotten Yǎn-sui was there as he stared down at Hau’s body. “I was strongest, I could have done it… why, Hau?! Why?!” he screamed, lunging at Yǎn-sui.

The river swallowed them, Anu bearing down on Yǎn-sui, his wings churning the water to blinding white froth, his claws scoring Yǎn-sui’s body as he tried to tear him apart. Yǎn-sui fought, bit, writhed. ‘Tiào-fěi… Tiào-fěi!’ Yǎn-sui ripped free of Anu’s grasp just as his back slammed into the smooth, rounded stones of the river-bottom. He twisted to one side, gathering his feet under him… sprang upwards, paws seeking… clawing over Anu’s body… ‘Tiào-fěi!’… his left paw closed over on blade, pulled… Something, whether Anu’s wing or fist, slammed into his temple, knocking him away, but Tiào-fěi stayed with him…

Yǎn-sui clenched his fist around the hilt. ‘It ends. NOW!” He slashed through the water, Tiào-fěi’s flames flaring to life, steam heat flashing over his skin… blade bit into flesh, into bone, singing through flesh once again into empty water and grey-green twilight became crimson darkness.

The headless mass of Anu’s body drifted to the river-bottom, paws twitching, one last, futile attempt to grasp at the life already fled. Yǎn-sui, head hammering as the last of his breath burned in his starving lungs, ripped Tiào-fěi’s other half from the corpse, and kicked for the surface, oh-so-far above. No matter how he struggled, he seemed only to drift, weightless, senseless, motionless, fading… the light was growing dim… ‘Jiān… call to me… beside you… bid me…’

As if in answer, silver chords descended toward him, caressing feather-light as they bound him, lifted him, brought him toward the light he had no more strength to reach. Light bathed him, scattered, and then he was on paws and knees on the water’s surface, gasping, choking on rain-laden air, achingly sweet, body screaming in agony as his bones had to take up his weight again, but he was alive, alive!

“Yǎn-sui!”

Yǎn-sui raised his head, which felt like it was encased in solid iron. Through the raindrops, Jiān’s face hovered over him, white streaked with crimson, black hair streaming midnight skeins over her deep blue eyes. “Yǎn-sui…” she whispered, horrified, relieved, hesitantly exultant.

He hacked, spat blood, swallowed another gulp of air before he raised himself up on one knee, bowing his ponderous heavy head. “The wind-demon, Anu… is defeated. Hau… is defeated. By… the grace of Agni, I have…”

“Enough, Yǎn-sui.” Jiān laughed, though it sounded more like a sob. She hitched Lien’s arm more securely around her shoulder. “If you’re tired, take a breath. You don’t need to rest on formality with me, of all people.”

Yǎn-sui chuckled to himself and heaved his body upright, stumbling only slightly on the river’s unsteady surface. He saluted her with Tiào-fěi. “I rest when… the enemy’s defeated. Let’s go.” He sensed Jiān shaking her head behind him; with any luck, she would save any further lectures until after they had dealt with Qiōng-míng and Uutu, if the whelp still lived…

“Hey, Yǎn-sui! Jiān! Lien!”

The trio looked up. Lhamu, Rinzen and Xing waving down at them from her back, swooped down from the clouds, skimming over the river before landing smoothly beside them, paddling back against the current. “Thank Tian!” Rinzen exclaimed, swiping rain-drenched bangs out of his eyes as he stared at them (Yǎn-sui noticed that his gaze kept returning to Lien), “When Anu flew off like that, after Oh disappeared, I…!”

“Oh?” Jiān repeated, “What happened to her?!”

“Hey, what’s that demon doing here?!” Xing cried, pointing at Yǎn-sui.

“Xing, I’m…”

“Xing, he’s Master Yǎn-sui,” Lien said quietly, “Master Yǎn-sui is a demon.”

“But…!” Xing sagged against the side of Lhamu’s saddle, staring, his mouth working soundlessly in disbelief.

“Rinzen, please, what happened to Oh?” Jiān insisted.

“I’m not sure,” the airbender replied, shrugging helplessly, “She was going at it hammer and tongs with Hau and Anu together, so much that we were hanging back to just stay out of her way, when all of a sudden, she… I don’t know… she opened her mouth like she was howling in pain, and then she just vanished!”

“And right after that, the little yellow demon jumped on the big brown demon’s shoulder and they flew off like an arrow-shot!” Xing interjected, snapping out of his astonishment, “Lhamu tried to catch them, but the flying demon did something and we were whirling around like someone caught Lhamu by the tail and was spinning her around and around, and wouldn’t let go! And finally, it just stopped, and Lhamu flew off in the direction she thought Anu took, and that’s how we got here.” He narrowed his eyes at Yǎn-sui, suspicion threading through the confusion.

“So, did you run into them?” Rinzen asked, “Why’s Lien all the way out here with you? What about everyone on the island?”

“Rinzen…” Yǎn-sui began.

“Lien, can you get into the saddle?” Jiān asked the young woman.

“I… Yes.” Lien grasped a tuft of Lhamu’s fur, pulling herself up on Lhamu’s shoulder. Rinzen hastened to steady her, while Xing pulled her into the saddle.

“Rinzen, please take her back to the island, as quickly as possible,” Jiān requested in a low voice, “Tell everyone that Yǎn-sui and I are going to find the last two demons and take care of them. But don’t let your guard down, not until we come back.”

“‘Last two’…? You mean you already…?” Rinzen gaped at Yǎn-sui and Jiān. He passed a hand over his face and shook his head ruefully. “I was thinking you looked pretty torn-up, Sunshine – you sure I can’t offer you a lift as well?”

“No way!” Xing shouted, “Master Rinzen, why the hell are you going to let a demon ride with us? Are you crazy or something?!”

Rinzen fixed Xing with a stern stare. “Look, I get where you’re coming from, Xing, but if you’d open your eyes for one second, you’d…!”

“LHAMU, FLY!” Jiān shrieked, casting the water beneath the sky-bison up in a white-plumed column, “Yǎn-sui…!”

His wounds slowed him down. The freezing of his blood, the battle beneath the river, the lightning, had dulled his mind to lead. He had not even sensed it, until Uutu’s presence was just behind him, the younger demon taking advantage of his own limited control of Jiān’s river.

“General Yǎn-sui…” Hot breath on the nape of his neck and an arm like an iron band snaking around his chest, crushing his ribs. “I’m sorry. You, my father… I’m sorry, I was confused… it’s too late for me now…”

“Uutu, wait!” Yǎn-sui exclaimed.

The world exploded in red-gold fire, and then… nothing…

A/N: In all honesty, killing off so many characters like this was REALLY PAINFUL. D; Next chapter will be Anu's narrative, so please look forward to it!