Ken Liu - The Wall of Storms

He smiled at Gin. “Of course.”

Pékyu Tenryo lurched forward, and with a loud yawp, swung Langiaboto down directly at Dafiro’s head. Dafiro crossed his sword and war club and blocked the strike, and sparks flew everywhere. Dafiro stumbled back.

Instead of coming to Dafiro’s aid, Gin Mazoti remained where she was, her breathing labored. The tip of Na-aroénna rested against the deck; she had run out of strength.

“Your marshal is a coward,” said a grinning Pékyu Tenryo. “She dares not fight me. You have wasted your life to save someone who runs away from a battle.”

Dafiro said nothing. He continued to block each of Pékyu Tenryo’s strikes, backing up with each strike. His arms were losing feeling; blood seeped from his palms and made the handles of his weapons slick as the power of each blow from the pékyu’s war axe burst the blood vessels under the skin of his hands.

As he backed off one more step, Dafiro’s back leg buckled, and with two mighty swings of Langiaboto, Tenryo knocked Dafiro’s weapons out of his hands. Biter and Simplicity tumbled end over end, tracing two long arcs in the air before splashing into the sea.

The pékyu raised the axe again, bloodlust curling his lips into a wild grin.

Dafiro cried out and leapt at Pékyu Tenryo, meeting the oncoming blow of the war axe with his chest. The stone blade of the axe smashed through Dafiro’s rib cage and became lodged within, and Dafiro let out a blood-choked scream and wrapped his arms and legs about Pékyu Tenryo’s body. Blood erupted from his mouth and drenched Pékyu Tenryo. The two collapsed to the deck in a heap with Dafiro on top.

Gin Mazoti dashed forward, and with a mighty roar, plunged Na-aroénna through the back of Dafiro Miro and into the chest of Pékyu Tenryo.

Even with Dafiro blocking his vision, Tenryo sensed the coming thrust and managed to shift slightly to the side. The sword tip sank into his breast but did not pierce his heart.

Pékyu Tenryo laughed. “So that was your trick all along. You asked him to die to give you this chance.”

“Every cüpa stone can be sacrificed, as long as the game is won,” said Gin.

Back when she had first become the Marshal of Dasu, Gin Mazoti had whipped Dafiro Miro so that he could gain the trust of Kindo Marana. By bringing up that shared past, Gin and Dafiro were able to agree on a plan to defeat the pékyu.

“Too bad his sacrifice is worthless.” Pékyu Tenryo lifted up the dead body of Dafiro Miro until he had enough room to bend his legs and brace his feet against Dafiro’s chest. Gin watched with a sinking heart as she braced herself against the sword, trying to pin the pékyu to the deck, but Dafiro’s body slid inexorably up the sword.

He was going to kick him off along with the marshal. Gin Mazoti would have no chance against him one-on-one.

Gin looked up, and through the smoke and fire, saw the figure of Zomi Kidosu. She was holding the broken shaft of a silkmotic arrow, still attached to the diamond-tipped head like a short spear. The firework powder in the shaft had leaked out.

Zomi and Gin locked gazes. Dafiro’s body shielded the pékyu completely, and in another moment, the pékyu would be able to free himself.

The Ogé jar within the arrow required some force to break, force that could be supplied only if Zomi got a running start and struck a target head on. Dafiro’s body was too close to the deck.

Gin nodded at Zomi, her face calm. Every cüpa stone can be sacrificed.

Zomi rushed forward, aiming the arrowhead like a spear.

Gin held onto Na-aroénna even tighter, and a smile appeared on her placid face.

The diamond-tipped bolt plunged right into Gin’s exposed belly; her grunt was followed by the faint sound of glass smashing deep inside her body. The Ogé jar discharged.

The Marshal of Dara, the dead Captain of the Palace Guards, and the Great Pékyu froze. Bright sparkling arcs crisscrossed the three bodies connected by the Doubt-Ender.

The jolt, carried by the tip of the sword, stopped the pékyu’s heart instantly, and coursed through the body of the marshal. She held on to the sword as her body went rigid until finally she was thrown off and fell backward against the deck.

Zomi scrambled over the heaving deck until she was next to the body of the marshal. She cradled the dying woman in her lap. “Marshal!”

Gin Mazoti’s eyes were open, but they seemed to be looking somewhere far beyond Zomi Kidosu. “Is he… is he…”

“Yes, he’s dead,” said Zomi Kidosu.

“Good,” said the marshal. Then she closed her eyes.

“Marshal!” Zomi gently patted her face.

Her eyes still closed, Gin muttered, “Stop, Gray Weasel, stop!”

Her voice faded, her face relaxed, and her limbs went limp.

“Marshal, Marshal!”

The Marshal of Dara was no more.

This was a woman whose body deserved to lie in state and to be given the most solemn rites of burial.

Zomi looked up through blurry eyes. All around her she could see the ships of Dara and Lyucu milling about in confusion. Leaderless, the fleets of both sides were fighting on their own, uncertain as to the tide of the battle. Billowing smoke obscured the deck of Pride of Ukyu from their view.

The marshal’s spirit might have departed her body, but she still had to fight.

Zomi whispered an apology to Gin Mazoti and dragged her lifeless body to the prow of the ship. Half of the ship was under water now, and the prow was now the highest point. She propped Gin Mazoti up against the bowsprit, which was almost vertical, and lashed her to it securely.

She went back to the tattered canopy that had once held the sleeping figure of Emperor Ragin and retrieved the banner of Dara. She tied it to a bamboo arrow shaft, wrapped the marshal’s lifeless fingers around it, and secured the shaft to her hands with a length of silk.

The cruben-on-the-sea flag flapped in the shimmery air over the burning ship.

Crawling over the debris-strewn deck, she found pieces of bamboo and sinew from slingshots that she fashioned into harnesses for the marshal’s arms that would constrain and guide their movement.

She also retrieved several lengths of channeling wire from one of the broken silkmotic lances, and wrapped them around the marshal’s arms. She searched for and recovered more Ogé jars from broken silkmotic arrows and connected them together in parallel.

Then, ducking down out of sight, she picked up the wires with a pair of bamboo arrow shafts as though she was wielding a giant pair of eating sticks. Two sticks for noodles and rice, she seemed to hear the warm voice of her tutor once more.

Wires are like noodles, right?

She whispered a prayer for her teacher to watch over her; then she touched the wires to the exposed surfaces of the array of Ogé jars.

Just like the limbs of the frogs in the laboratories that moved through the water and swam with the power of silkmotic force, the marshal’s lifeless arms began to jerk and move, and, guided by the flexing harnesses, they waved the banner of Dara proudly through the air.

Again and again, Zomi touched the wires to the jars. The act felt like a violation, a desecration of the body. The smell of burning flesh filled her nostrils. She had to hold back her own nausea and continue, knowing that it was the right thing to do, that the marshal would have understood.

A breeze dissipated the smoke around the bowsprit, revealing the figure of the flag-wielding Gin Mazoti.

A lone cry rose from the deck of one of the Dara ships.

“The marshal is alive!”

“The pékyu is dead!”

Several voices joined the first, and then several more, until the wave of voices thundered from one end of the sea to the other.