Ken Liu - The Grace of Kings

He reentered his tent, where Mira sat, working on her embroidery.

Mata stepped behind her and saw that she had only a single black thread on the cloth. It twisted and turned in a jagged path around the white field, but there seemed nowhere for it to run. No matter how it moved and feinted, the round edge of the embroidery ring held it in like a caged beast.

“Mira, can you play some music? I don’t want to hear the singing.”

Mira set down her needle, thread, and cloth, and plucked the strings of a coconut lute. The hegemon clapped his hands to the beat and sang.

My strength is great enough to pluck up mountains.

My spirit is wide enough to cover the sea.

Yet the gods do not favor me,

My steed has nowhere to gallop.

What can I do, my Mira? What can I do?

A line of tears crawled down Mata’s face, and the eyes of all the soldiers standing outside the tent glistened in the torchlight. Ratho reached up and wiped his eyes, hard.

Mira continued to play, and began to sing herself:

The men of Dasu surround us.

The songs of Cocru break our hearts.

If only you were a fisherman, my king,

And I still a farmer’s daughter by the sea.

Mira stopped playing, but the song seemed to linger in the air as the wind howled outside.

“Kuni is known to be generous with prisoners,” Mata said. “When you are captured, make sure to speak of how cruel I’ve been to you and how you’ve been mistreated. He’ll be good to you.”

“All your life, you think everyone betrays you in the end,” Mira said. “But it’s not true. Not true.”

Mira’s voice grew faint as she neared the end of her speech. Mata, who was facing away from her, turned around as her voice faded to a whisper. He rushed to her as she collapsed. Her hands held on to the handle of a slim dagger made of bone: the blade of Cruben’s Thorn was plunged deep into her heart.

Mata’s howl could be heard for miles. It mixed with the singing voices of the men and women of Cocru, and all who heard it shivered involuntarily.

Mata wiped the hot tears off his face and laid Mira’s body gently on the ground.

“Ratho, gather all the riders who still wish to follow me. We will break through the encirclement.”

It was like Wolf’s Paw again, Ratho thought. Eight hundred riders of Cocru rode down the hill like a pack of wolves, and they were halfway through the camps of the dozing Dasu army before alarm sounded, and men rushed to cut them off.

Ratho could feel the familiar battle-lust taking over his body. He no longer felt cold, afraid, or hungry. Despair was gone, replaced by joy at once again riding by the side of his lord, the greatest warrior to have ever ridden through the Islands of Dara.

Did he not once run at the side of Mata Zyndu and defeat the invincible Kindo Marana? Did he not once fall out of the sky next to Mata Zyndu and almost catch the treacherous Kuni Garu in bed? Did he not wield Simplicity, the blade taken by Mata Zyndu from the only opponent who ever made him stumble? We have not even begun to fight.

Onward, onward the eight hundred riders of Cocru thundered through the tightly packed fighting men of Dasu. They bashed like a battering ram through flimsy doors. Though riders kept falling off horses behind him, Na-aroénna continued to swing like a sliver of moon through the swirling snow and howling winds, dropping those who dared to stand in his way like weeds before a sickle. Though fewer and fewer stayed by his side, Goremaw continued to strike like the fist of Fithowéo, crushing those who dared to lift their weapons like walnuts under a hammer.

As dawn arrived, Mata finally broke through. Around him, less than one hundred riders were left.

They rode on, toward the south, toward the sea. The swirling snow made everything look the same, every direction identical. Mata was lost.

He stopped at a fork in the roads and knocked on the door of a farmer’s house.

“Which way to Çaruza?” he asked.

The old farmer stared at the great man standing in his doorway. There was no question as to the stranger’s identity. His height and girth, his double-pupiled eyes. There was no other man in the world like Mata Zyndu.

The old man’s two sons had fought and died for the hegemon in his endless wars. The old man was sick of talk of valor and honor, of glory and courage. He just wanted his sons back, strong boys who had worked hard in the fields. Boys who did not understand why they had to die, only that someone told them it was sweet and fitting to do so.

“That way,” the old man said, pointing to the left.

Mata Zyndu thanked him and got back on his great black horse. His riders followed.

The old man stood at the door a little longer. He could hear the hoofbeats of the pursuing Dasu army. He closed the door and extinguished the candle on the table.

The road that the old man directed Mata Zyndu to led into a swamp. Many of Mata’s men had to jump off their saddles as their horses sank up to their stomachs in the mud, snorting and whinnying in fear and pain.

Mata retraced his steps and rode the other way; only twenty-eight riders now were with him. They could see the torchlights of the pursuing Dasu army.

Mata Zyndu led his men onto a small hill.

“I’ve lived on the back of a horse for ten years,” he said to his men. “I’ve fought in more than seventy battles and never lost a single one. Everyone who’s ever fought me has submitted to me or died. Today, I’m on the run not because I don’t know how to fight, but because the gods are jealous of me.

“I’m willing to die, but I’ll fight with joy and gladness in my heart first. All of you have followed me this far, and I release you from having to go any farther. Go, and surrender to Kuni Garu. I wish you well.”

None of the men moved.

“Then I thank you for your faith in me, and I will show you how a real warrior of Cocru should live. Kuni Garu’s men are going to surround us soon, yet I will kill at least one commander, capture one of their flags, and break through their lines. All of you will then know that I die not because I lack skill, but because of fickle fortune.”

The pursuing Dasu army arrived and encircled the hill. Mata Zyndu formed his men into a wedge shape, with himself at the head.

“Charge!”

They plowed down the hill, into the thicket of Dasu soldiers. They rode straight at the figure of the Dasu commander, whose eyes widened with fear. But before he could retreat, Mata split him in half from shoulder to belly with one swing of Na-aroénna. Mata’s men cheered, and the Dasu soldiers scattered like snowflakes in the wind.

Mata Zyndu pulled back hard on the reins of Réfiroa, and the great black steed reared up on its hind legs. As Mata Zyndu rose high above the surrounding throngs, he let out a loud war cry:

“Haaaaaiiiii!”

The cry hung over the battlefield, reverberating against the eardrums of the Dasu soldiers and stunning them into silence. All around him, the men of Dasu backed away, as sheep backed away from a wolf. None dared to meet his piercing eyes.

Mata laughed and rode straight at one of the standard-bearers in the Dasu ranks. He reached out and grabbed the waving cruben banner from the terrified soldier and snapped the pole in half. He threw the battle banner on the ground, and Réfiroa gladly trampled over it.