Fall of the Blue Spirit: 18

Part XVIII:  Of a Battle and a Face in the Mist

The wall of water arched over his head, rearing like a striking scorpion-snake.  Yǎn-sui swerved and kicked in an extra burst of speed; the river crashed down on the spot he had stepped only a moment before.

“Good!” he called out, speeding past Jiān, the goddess jumping in surprise at seeing him suddenly appear around the bend in the river through the rain.  “But one attack at a time isn’t good enough!  And you have to aim, not just rely on force alone!”

“Urgh!” Jiān replied, whirling and throwing her arms wide, splitting the river at his feet.

Yǎn-sui pushed off against the surface as it fell away, vaulting over Lhamu and Rinzen (asleep in the saddle), clearing them both easily.

“I’m sorry, Mumu!” Jiān exclaimed anxiously as Lhamu bellowed in surprise, thrashing awkwardly into semi-flight as the river nearly swallowed her.

“Huhnwhazzat?!” Rinzen blurted rather incoherently, sitting bolt-upright and befuddled as he tried to figure out what was going on.  He made a half-hearted attempt to disentangle himself from his woven straw raincloak before giving up.  He slumped forward with his chin resting on the edge of the saddle to watch the far more active pair, while Lhamu resumed her industrious upriver paddling as if nothing untoward had happened.

She was an exceptionally patient Beast.

“Yǎn-sui, that wasn’t fair!” his master exclaimed as Yǎn-sui jogged back, smirking despite the misting veils raining from the dark grey sky.

“If you intend to fight defending useless noncombatants who only serve as obstacles, it is,” Yǎn-sui replied, not even bothering to hide his smugness.

“Hey, us 'useless obstacles' can hear you, you know,” Rinzen informed him tartly with a poisonous glare.

Demon and goddess walked alongside Lhamu, the former striding along with the slightest hesitancy, still amazed by his ability to walk on water, the latter gliding serenely along, for she did such a thing every day of her life.

“Present company excepted, I’m sure,” Jiān replied soothingly.  She gave Yǎn-sui a sidelong glance.  “Right, Yǎn-sui?”

“Of course – you’re a very useful obstacle, Rinzen,” Yǎn-sui said semi-apologetically.  “My master would never learn how to fight properly otherwise without you here to get in the way.”

“I dislike you intensely,” the cranky airbender stated.  “Especially your obsession with having to do everything before the ass-crack of dawn.”  He threw himself onto the bottom of the saddle and yanked the raincloak back over his head with finality.

Jiān snorted with laughter and tried to hide it by coughing into her hands when she noticed Yǎn-sui growling ever-so-softly.  “He’s not being disrespectful to Agni, you know,” she said, half-placating, half-stern.  “Rinzen’s just… not a morning person.  I think it has something to do with his blood.”

“Maybe I can help with that,” Yǎn-sui suggested, stretching his hands so that the joints in his fingers popped audibly.

“No hurting humans!” Jiān exclaimed.  “I don’t care if he does insult Ag…!”

“Jiān, that was Yǎn-sui’s idea of a joke,” Rinzen called out in a wet-straw-muffled voice.  “Yǎn-sui: you’re no longer allowed to criticize my sense of humor.”

“Predicated on the assumption I was joking, human?” Yǎn-sui shot back, grinning.  

Rinzen’s reply was an overloud, dramatic snore to indicate that their battle of wits would have to wait until he had gotten more than three hours of sleep at one time.

“Yǎn-sui, Rinzen has done so much to try and help you – to help all of us!” said Jiān, sounding frustrated.  “I’m not telling you to thank him or be his best friend, but can’t you at least be more… mature?”

Yǎn-sui stared at her.

Jiān folded her arms, frowning as she met his gaze sternly.  “You’re older than he is: you should act your age!”

“*snort* AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~!!”  Laughter bursting from Lhamu’s saddle informed all living things within a mile radius that the airbender was not as debilitated by lack of sleep as he had insisted.

“Go back to sleep, human, or you’ll be of no use when we get there,” Yǎn-sui snarled at him.

Rinzen sat up energetically in the saddle; Yǎn-sui was beginning to think his inability to function in the morning was due more to whether or not the airbender had something to entertain himself with rather than any physical ailment.  “No worries, my friend," he said confidently through a brief yawn.  "This visit is really just a formality to follow up on the letter I sent, if I know Elder Yu.  He’s had to step into the mediator role more than once; he’ll definitely help, since everyone’s survival is at stake.  Other than Lady Jiān, he’s only person along the whole river who can convince everyone to go along with something.”

“I can only hope, since I certainly didn’t prove up to the task,” Jiān agreed, somewhat abashed.  "The Council demanded that Elder Yu speak for the Upper River before they will agree to make our stand on that island."

‘Somehow, I don’t think it would have been much of a problem if you just showed everyone you’re a goddess to be obeyed, instead of a mere human priestess who needs to wheedle and cajole this pack of idiots to see reason,’ Yǎn-sui thought sourly, irritated by Jiān’s self-effacing mannerisms, which he now saw to be part of her character, rather than a cunning ploy (which he would have preferred).  “What if he doesn’t agree with my plan?” he pointed out.  “I doubt I’ve “proved” myself to him so that I can count on his support.  He might simply tip the balance in favor of those idiots who think the demons will just leave them alone to prey on the uplands.”

“Well, that’s why I said I was coming along, right?” Rinzen riposted.  “You’ve definitely got Lady Jiān on your side.  Elder Yu thinks I’ve got a good head on my shoulders ever since I beat him in Pai-sho, maybe he’ll trust my judgment as well.”

“And what if he doesn’t?” Yǎn-sui pressed, if only to ease the sting of wounded pride at having to depend on the support of one human to get recognition from another.  It was quite maddening, when he thought about it.

“Look, can you please knock it off with the pessimism already?” complained Rinzen.  “Think positively, my friend, and maybe fate will be kind to you.”

“Trusting in Fate is for the weak and cowardly,” was his reply.  Before Rinzen could retort, Yǎn-sui turned his attention to Jiān, who’d been watching the exchange with growing concern.  “Shall we continue our practice?”

“Y-yes, maybe that’s best,” she agreed.  “Only, this time, can you attack me for real?”

“… by which you mean…?”

“Well, I’m not asking you to try and cut my head off, but at least come at me with your swords,” Jiān explained reasonably.  “How do you expect me to defend myself from an enemy who will most certainly use weapons if I’ve never had to confront such a thing before?”

“Whoa, hey, Lady Jiān, I don’t think…!” Rinzen began to protest.

“You’re absolutely right,” agreed Yǎn-sui, unsheathing Tiào-fěi.  He regarded her over the blades.  “Please look at these closely, milady – they are capable of killing even gods.  They are tools for taking lives, and because I serve you, the means to protect them.  You must be willing to use your power in such a way.  Do you understand?”

Jiān hesitated before nodding.  "I do."

"Then be on the lookout," Yǎn-sui told her.  He eyed Rinzen.  "If you're so worried about seeing something unpleasant, ask Lhamu take you up into the clouds."

The airbender glared darkly.  "You know, demon humor is really..." he began, but Yǎn-sui had already taken off upriver.

Water blurred beneath his feet as he reached full speed; it was not unlike running across desert sand, if he had to relate it to something familiar.  He felt the whisper of Jiān's awareness, trailing just behind him.  She could easily track him by the bonds that tied them if she wanted, but she had promised to use only her sense of the river.

He did not know if her sincerity was as frustrating as her naïveté, but it was certainly a close contest.

'Enough,' he told himself sternly, leaping up a short series of rapids on algae-slimed stones that would confuse Jiān's tracking.  He did not need to dwell on her strange and impossibly illogical mannerisms any longer.  It was distracting and futile.  Had he not nearly drowned the last time he allowed his emotions concerning her to get the better of him?  And how many days had he wasted when he should have been concentrating on deducing what he knew of the enemy?

‘What do I know?’  Four demons had now made themselves known to him; it was possible that they alone were the ones wreaking havoc in the valley, given the pains Anu had taken to adhere to the precepts of honor, despite the fact he came only to verbally degrade Yǎn-sui.

Anu... easily as powerful as the rumors said, had hovered effortlessly over the river without so much of a twitch of his wings.  'His master, Sangmu, lives... but she was never disciplined.'  Yǎn-sui growled in remembered irritation at having to deal with air gods and spirits and their demon minions.  There was a reason Air beings were usually only assigned reconnaissance and took “special” missions at their discretion - their reputation as a mercenary lot was well-earned on both sides.  He supposed it was due to Sky-Mother Tian's abject refusal to choose between her two brothers, allowing her children to act as they saw fit.

It led to sloppy soldiery on the part of their demons... in most cases, at least.

Hau, that sand demon... now he was a puzzle.  His manner hinted at some sort of mental deficiency, while his size was most likely due to physical deformity.  However, Yǎn-sui knew enough not to presume ability without having taken his opponent's measure for himself.

The only opponents who had given him the opportunity to do so had exhibited above-average capabilities in spite of the fact he was almost certain both of their masters were dead.  Uutu, unrestrained as any whelp, had still pressed him closely.  Punga was cunning and fought without any sense of honor or bounds... not that he had reason to.  He was a water demon, after all, and Uutu had said Punga bore some sort of grudge against him.

'But how...?'  Yǎn-sui jumped up the last rock onto the projecting shore overhead, cutting into the young forest that crowded beneath the rising cliffs looming above the river.  Running on land was still easier than on water, even with Jiān’s cooperation, and it would be impossible for her to know when he turned about to commence his "attack."
He had told Jiān the idea of god-eating was preposterous, but...

Uutu declared that he had rejected the gods as masters, as had Anu.  

‘Anu I can see standing up to gods, but a young spawn like Uutu does not seem the type to rebel without help, let alone to fight alongside a water demon - he still wears most of his uniform after all.  I wonder what Punga meant when he said Uutu had been abandoned on his first battlefield...'

Four demons, four factions... and no divine presence other than Jiān's in the whole valley that he could detect, no matter how widely he cast the net of his consciousness.  Was there really such a god who could command obedience from such a disparate crew?  'Not likely.  Even gods have their limits.'

His fingers drifted to the leather, cloth-lined pouch strapped to his right bicep where he now kept Huí's horns at all times, having nearly lost them when he set Jiān's boat adrift.  What had Huí said?  “I can say it wasn’t nobody.  Or, at least I’d like to.  It had to be a demon, right?  But when I was… pushed aside… and my horns were taken and those words came out of my mouth… I felt nothing..."

Huí's head had been manipulated by demonic means.  

Punga, before fleeing their battle, had referred to “Milord,” forcing Uutu to abandon the fight as well.

Yǎn-sui nearly stumbled over the snakelike network of roots that traced the moist earth.  'Can it be possible that... Koh...?!'

With a jerk, he suddenly realized he recognized the scent and sound of the forest around him.  A few strides brought him to the edge of the brush, out upon a wide, rock-littered brown bank, where Jiān had first introduced him to Rinzen.  No children played there now, in the raining afterdawn.  He had gone further and faster than he had intended while lost in thought.  

Shaking his head over his carelessness, he stepped out onto the water, heading for mid-river.  There were no traces of Jiān's consciousness under the surface, which did not surprise him.

He inhaled in a deep breath and let it flow out of him, taking with it his confusion and anxiety.  It was time to focus on the matter at hand, which was to prepare his master for battle.  'Ready or not, here I...'

He drew Tiào-fěi just as the blade of a chain-sickle whistled past his ear from behind.

"Heads up, black-mane!"

Yǎn-sui whirled, bringing Tiào-fěi ’s blades up cross-wise to catch the returning sickle between them.  "Punga!" he shouted, scanning the riverbank for the hidden water demon.

There was a splash at his feet.

Without pause, Yǎn-sui released the sickle, leaping into the air as Uutu's bomb exploded in a thunderous burst that vaporized the water into boiling-hot jets of steam.   ‘Above!’

The blade of the young demon’s fiery saw-toothed pudao clashed on Tiào-fěi as Yǎn-sui raised it just in time to block the demon's overhead attack.  "Die, traitor!" Uutu screamed, bearing his full weight down on Yǎn-sui.

Both fire demons plunged into the still-frothing river.  Yǎn-sui kicked out blindly underwater, catching Uutu squarely in the solar plexus before breaking the surface.  He had only a moment to take a breath before he had to duck back under to avoid Punga's sickle as it sailed across the river.

'He can track me through the water?!' Yǎn-sui realized.  As if in answer, the weighted end of the chain-sickle lanced down, wrapping around his waist like a carnivorous lightning-vine.  Yǎn-sui was hauled up out of the river and tossed high like a toy snapped from the end of a child's string.

"Here's your chance, whelp!" Punga cackled, watching Yǎn-sui twist in mid-air.

Uutu launched himself from the small platform of ice he had been waiting on, the red-gold fire of his weapon crackling eagerly, the victorious gleam of a predator closing in on a kill blazing in his crimson eyes.

'Overzealous,' Yǎn-sui observed, disappointed.  'I invoke the Inferno.'

"Argh!" Uutu wailed, shielding his face with the pudao's wide blade as blue-white fire spewed from Yǎn-sui's maw.  The attack sent him flailing back down to the river, where he landed with a hollow smack! before sinking from sight.

"Now, that was just embarrassing," Punga remarked, whirling his chain-sickle, right-pawed, about himself in lazy arcs as Yǎn-sui touched down out of range downriver.  "Makes me wonder how in the Abyss you fire demons have been giving Tui's armies such a hard time."  His single eye scrutinized the glowing patch at Yǎn-sui's feet.  "Hm, seems like Anu understated things again.  You're popping around on this river like a flea-moth on hot coals, when he said you could barely take ten straight steps only four days ago.  I'd like to know how you managed that."

"I'll tell you when you tell me how you are able to see the river and walk about it with such impunity," Yǎn-sui suggested, noticing the water Punga stood upon seemed to freeze and refreeze as the river's current whirled around him.

"Ah, well, guess both of our curiosities will have to remain unsatisfied, then," said Punga with an air of disappointment.  With a flick of his left wrist, he sent a weighted chain sailing toward Yǎn-sui's mid-section, just as an enraged Uutu burst out of the water, swinging his pudao at Yǎn-sui's neck.

Yǎn-sui blocked the weighted chain with the flat Tiào-fěi's left blade, the impact shuddering up the length of his arm, and parried Uutu's pudao with the right.  Uutu was thrown back into the river's embrace and Yǎn-sui charged at Punga.

The water demon stomped on the river, rupturing the surface with an explosion of enormous ice shards that sprang up like the jaws and teeth of a dragon rearing from the depths.  Yǎn-sui skidded, slicing his feet on the razor-sharp crystals, spilling swathes of dark red blood; apparently, his bond with Jiān did not enable him to control the changed nature of her element.

Unfortunately, it seemed Uutu had been preparing for just such a situation.  Yǎn-sui whirled as the younger demon charged at him, sprinting down the length of the icy track with ease.  The impact of their blades sent him reeling backwards... right into range of Punga's main weapon.  The point of the sickle buried itself in Yǎn-sui's left shoulder-blade, piercing through the bone.  The weighted chain followed, snapping around his ankles.  Punga jerked the slack tight, yanking Yǎn-sui’s feet from under him.  Yǎn-sui toppled face-first onto the ice, only just managing to keep hold of Tiào-fěi as his breath whistled from his lungs.

"Now, Uutu!”

Uutu’s rapid foot-steps shuddered the ice Yǎn-sui lay on as he closed in, pudao raised to cleave Yǎn-sui’s head from his immobilized body.  Yǎn-sui let him come, feigning unconsciousness; the impetuous whelp would lose a leg, at the very least, for…

"Yǎn-sui!!!"

Agony ripped through him as the sickle buried in his back was torn away.  The ice he lay on cracked and dissolved as the river beneath bucked and shuddered as if alive.  Yǎn-sui kicked free of Punga’s suddenly slack chain, regaining his footing on the water, shot through with the silver threads of Jiān’s chi.  There was no time to look for her.  With a roar, Yǎn-sui hurled himself forward, passing directly under Uutu's descending strike, his left horn lodging into Uutu's side.  Uutu grunted heavily, bringing his knee up sharply into Yǎn-sui's nose, cracking it.  Yǎn-sui's head whirled in pain; Uutu's fist slammed down on his head, dislodging Yǎn-sui's horn from his torso, globs of his blood showering Yǎn-sui.

Yǎn-sui rolled out of the way before Uutu could think to follow up with either his pudao or bombs.

"Yǎn-sui!"  Jiān was beside him, hauling him to his feet with one hand around his right wrist.

"Back!" he yelled at her, swiping off the burning crimson liquid with the back of his other hand before it could leak into his eyes.

Jiān misunderstood, dragging him along as she retreated some ways downriver.

"No, I meant...!" Yǎn-sui growled, struggling to shake himself free of her grasp as he saw Punga create another ice platform for Uutu.  They would attack any second and he needed to...!

"Yǎn-sui! Jiān!"

"Rinzen!  Lhamu!" Jiān shouted, looking up as airbender and sky-bison tore out of the cloud-cover overhead.

"Boat!" Rinzen yelled, pointing upriver, past the two demons.

Yǎn-sui swore as the small craft appeared around the jutting finger of reed-covered riverbank, not two hundred yards behind Uutu and Punga.  It was rowed by a woman and a young boy, momentarily oblivious to the danger they had stumbled into.

Jiān had bound him to protect humans, at any cost.

"Yǎn-sui, what-?!" Jiān cried as Yǎn-sui suddenly lunged out of her hold.

“Lhamu, follow me!” he shouted.

"What the...?!" Punga blurted as Yǎn-sui and Lhamu (with Rinzen hanging on for dear life) hurtled toward him and Uutu.

Uutu automatically reached back into his dragon hide pouch, drawing out two metal spheres, and threw them directly into Yǎn-sui's path.  Not to be outdone, Punga hurled his chain weapons up at Lhamu, adding a flight of ice shards for good measure.

Yǎn-sui did not even bother to swerve as he leaped, sheathing Tiào-fěi and clearing the pair as twin explosions tore air and water into tatters of white steam and froth.  Lhamu banked and climbed, avoiding both weapons and ice, her bawl of anger nearly drowning out Rinzen’s stream of invectives.

The woman was standing up, balancing precariously in the flimsy boat as she gathered handfuls of orange and yellow flames, her amber eyes wide with something between rage and fear.  The boy stayed crouched low at her feet, in such a way that his weight steadied the craft while allowing him to see above the side.  He was shouting something to the woman that Yǎn-sui did not catch.

He landed lightly beside the boat, between the humans and the demons; the woman cried out in surprise, the flames she had summoned crackling and spurting confusedly.

"Who...?!"

Yǎn-sui hauled the boy up by the sash around his waist and tucked him under one arm, then grabbed the woman's wrist.  She shrieked and kicked, pulling away from him with all her might.  The boat rocked and nearly upended.

A high-pitched whistling sound cut the air; Uutu had thrown another bomb, straight at his back.  'No time!'  Yǎn-sui heaved forward, knocking the woman backward before he grabbed her, leaping over the boat as it overturned, slinging the child around so that both would be shielded by his body.  The woman screamed as the bomb exploded around them, fire roaring hungrily and licking at her hair and clothes.  Yǎn-sui grit his teeth, channeling his granted fire through his horns, counteracting the chaotic flow of red-gold flames.  They obeyed, swirling and collapsing in on each other until a single blue-white flame hovered above him before vanishing.  Not sparing a moment, Yǎn-sui leapt with all his might, straight up into Lhamu's waiting saddle.

"Yǎn-sui, are you all right?!" Rinzen called over his shoulder as Lhamu wheeled up into the air to escape volleys of fire and ice from below.  "That thing exploded right on you!"

Yǎn-sui deposited the trembling, white-faced woman and stunned boy in the bottom of the saddle.  "Get them to Elder Yu.  Jiān and I will hold off Uutu and Punga, but in case Anu and Hau attack while we do, make sure the humans are prepared to defend themselves."

"... Got it," agreed Rinzen, sparing him a glance and a nod before returning his attention to the fore.  "Lhamu, circle back to Jiān, quick!  Yǎn-sui's...!"

"He already jumped out," the boy informed him as the woman beside him gaped at the black-haired figure who had just landed on the river, forty feet below, as lightly as stepping off a dock onto a boat.

"Never mind," Rinzen sighed, nudging Lhamu's reins rather unnecessarily; the sky-bison had already turned her head upstream.

"Your clothes are smoking and your shoulder’s a mess, but other than that...?" Jiān asked tensely as Yǎn-sui ran up to her side.  Her dark blue eyes were trained on Punga and Uutu, her hands raised, ready to bend the river to her will.

"Some minor injuries; they're already healing, milady," Yǎn-sui assured her, drawing Tiào-fěi although his right shoulder spasmed tortuously at the motion.  

Lhamu and her passengers had already disappeared into the mists.  Uutu and Punga did not move to attack, however.  Instead, they seemed rather...

"Hold on one damned second," Punga sputtered, sounding bemused and almost angry.  "That little chit is the river goddess?!"  He stabbed a claw at Jiān, disbelief clear on his face.

"You will address my master with respect, Punga!" Yǎn-sui snapped, somewhat discomfited that Punga had used the exact term he had mentally applied to Jiān upon their first meeting.

"So... she's the one who...?" Uutu chimed in, sounding at least as befuddled as Punga as he gaped at Jiān.

Something about his expression sparked a momentary sensation of familiarity; Yǎn-sui blinked, certain he had to be imagining things.  The river surged under his feet as Jiān bridled, jerking him out of his odd rumination.  "So what if I am?” she declared.  “This is my river, I demand that you and your friends leave immediately, and harm no more humans in this valley!"

A space of awkward silence swallowed the echoes of Jiān's demand.

"BUA-AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~!!!" Punga roared, his entire body shaking with laughter.

Uutu seemed suddenly preoccupied with examining his pudao; Yǎn-sui would have expected him to be railing in much the same manner as Punga, but the whelp seemed rather out of his depth.  His ears were twitching in what Yǎn-sui could only guess was mortification at his partner's disgraceful behavior.

"Don't," Yǎn-sui muttered to Jiān, who had taken a step forward, hands balled into fists as the water thrashed with echoes of her anger and embarrassment.  Flying into a rage would only play into Punga's hands.

He remembered the way Punga had tossed Huí's horns into the dust with such seeming carelessness.

"Don't you dare laugh at Yǎn-sui!" Jiān shouted before Yǎn-sui could stop her.  "You’re the ones who could only fight him two at a time!”

"Whooaaaa, you're a feisty little girl, ain'tcha?" Punga returned, his sneer contorting into a leer.  "You'd be interesting if you had more meat on you, chicky."

"Punga!" Uutu exclaimed, glaring at him in disgust, "Enough of this!  We are here to fight Gen… the Blue Spirit, not trade insults with his..."  Uutu's ears twitched violently as he uttered in a low voice, "...master."

"Whoo-hoooo... Abyss, this is priceless!" Punga observed, ignoring Uutu.  His eye went from Yǎn-sui to Jiān and back again, sniggering.  "Bit of a switch, serving glorious Agni in all that shiny armor of yours, to be reduced to fighting in this backwater in those rags, obeying the orders of that teeny thing, eh black-mane?"

'He's baiting you again, don't fall for it, don't fall for it, he's only...!'  Tiào-fěi's hilts trembled eagerly in his hands.  

"And I bet you have to obey eeeeeevery order she gives you - that's how a life debt works, right Uutu?" drawled the water demon, narrowing his eye to a slit.

The hairs at the nape of Yǎn-sui's neck prickled coldly.

"How should I know?" Uutu demanded, bewildered.  "I've never...!"

"That was a rhetorical question, you twit," snarled Punga, baring his fangs triumphantly.  "A life debt binds by life owed... or by service equal to life owed.  And since your dear General Black-mane literally tore himself away from the missy to snatch those humans out of the way..."

'No...!'

"... looks like we'll be destroying that village a little ahead of schedule.  Let's go, Uutu!"

"NO!"

"Jiān, direct your attack - immobilize Punga!" Yǎn-sui shouted to be heard over Jiān's yell and the roar of the towering wall of river she raised with a single sweep of her arm.  Not waiting to see if his words had any effect, he raced up the arc of the wave, aiming for Uutu, who had swiveled about on his shaky ice-floe to stare at the oncoming water in shock.

Catching sight of Yǎn-sui, the young demon roared in anger and frustration, leaping straight at him, fiery pudao raised over his head, exactly as Yǎn-sui predicted.  He kicked off the wall, accelerating even faster as gravity claimed its motion, coming in under Uutu's guard.  The pommel of Tiào-fěi's left hilt slammed into the wound Yǎn-sui's horn had gored into his side.  Uutu screamed in pain as Yǎn-sui bore them both down to the river's shallows, the wall of water crashing down behind them.

"Missed me, girly!" Punga cackled, bobbing up out of the water where he had simply submerged, waiting for the wall to pass overhead.

"I won't this time!" Jiān cried, gathering a length of water like a whip in one hand as she charged at Punga.

"You, Uutu!" Yǎn-sui shouted, balancing on the river as Uutu thrashed to his feet in water that only came up to his knees.  "If you think you are worthy of claiming Huí's horns, you will fight me directly, with honor and without the water demon's trickery!"

"I never intended to fight you any other way, traitor!" Uutu raged.

"Then catch me if you can!" he taunted, jumping onto the shore and sprinting into the brush.

"COWARD!!!" Uutu shouted after him.  "PUNGA! Leave her be!  She is not ours to deal with!  General Yǎn-sui has taken flight!"

"That's because..." Punga dodged another of Jiān's flails with ease, dancing about the river and casting arcs of ice at her with his chains like a child tormenting a cat with a stick.  "That's because he wants you to...!"  He looked up just in time to see the thick foliage swallow up Punga's brilliant red topknot.  "Why did I have to be paired up with the idiot?!" he demanded.  Without even a backward sneer or last taunt to Jiān, the water demon sprinted after his young partner.

Jiān blinked, suddenly alone on the wide river.  "That was...unexpected…"

---

‘That’s it, follow me…’  Yǎn-sui grinned as he sensed Punga join the chase.  He had been right: in spite of his constant abuse of the younger demon, Punga, whether for honorable reasons or otherwise, would not allow his subordinate to face him alone.

It had been a bigger risk, leaving Jiān behind – Huí’s head had said Jiān would be “dealt with,” but Anu had been content with a mere threatening insult by way of salutation.  Punga had mentioned a “schedule;” Yǎn-sui gambled that Jiān’s life was a latter aspect of the enemy’s operation.

‘And if it is indeed Koh behind this…’  He intended to find out for certain.

Yǎn-sui ran at less than full speed – he was much faster than both demons, and their size was a disadvantage in the closed confines of the shadowy forest.  ‘Especially with that ridiculous sword the youngster carries,’ he thought, rolling his eyes as he cleared a massive tangle of creeping thorns.  A few seconds later, he heard Uutu crash right through them with a violent oath and burst of rage-induced flame.   ‘If I ever find out who was responsible for training that whelp, I’m going drag him by his thumbs over the Northern Ice Wastes and leave his carcass for the tiger-seals to gnaw on!’  Such lax discipline got many warriors needlessly slaughtered.

He was searching for the right place to turn and fight, one that was far enough away from humans that Punga could not force him to break away to obey the bond of his contract, but also a place narrow enough to limit their elemental abilities as well as their weapons.  He would take Uutu alive – he was the one most likely to talk, given the right encouragement.  Punga was too dangerous to be left alive, as he was clearly the brains of the pair.

The ground was sloping upwards, the forest pressing up against the cliff.  There!  The smell of water that was not quite the river’s.  A small stream, meandering its way from the uplands down to the valley, through a defile by the sound of it, with high ground for him to claim: a perfect trap.

Yǎn-sui glanced over his shoulder; Uutu was falling behind, stymied by the undergrowth.  He had expended vast amounts of energy to hack, slash and burn his way just to keep pace with Yǎn-sui, and the wound in his side was probably giving him more trouble than the gouge in Yǎn-sui's own shoulder.  ‘Just to make sure, then…’  He turned about sharply, halted.

Uutu burst upon him headlong, nearly running past him in his zealous pursuit.  Yǎn-sui could hear Punga crashing toward them in the near distance; he was slower on land than Yǎn-sui had expected.

“Why are you preying on the humans of this valley, Uutu?” Yǎn-sui asked the younger demon, who had jerked to a rather clumsy stop, his pudao catching in a tangle of branches overhead before he yanked it free.

“None of your business, traitor!” he snarled, leveling his pudao at Yǎn-sui, a threatening gesture rather undercut by the saplings that got in the way, snagging in the wicked teeth of the blade.  “If you’ve had enough of running, return the horns and fight me!”  Flames crackled and danced upon the pudao.

Rather than drawing Tiào-fěi, Yǎn-sui folded his arms across his chest.  “Why should I, deserter?”

“Be-Because you have to!” blurted Uutu, sounding frustrated, blade-flames shivering in response.  Blatant confusion overwhelmed anger on his face for a moment and Yǎn-sui’s breath lanced in his lungs; it could not be his imagination.  

‘By the Abyss… I should have guessed from the color of his fire…’

Uutu suddenly remembered he had weapons other than his pudao.  His paw flew for the pouch at the small of his back.  "Give me the horns, damn you!" he snarled, sounding desperate.

"I will," Yǎn-sui found himself saying, "in exchange for..."

Shards of ice flew through the air, slicing bracken and young trees to splinters, burying in Yǎn-sui's palms as he raised his hands to shield his eyes.  "Get down, whelp!" Punga roared, galloping toward the two fire demons, wielding his scythe like a deranged farmer, mowing down trees like they were blades of grass.  His maw gaped wide.

'Freezing breath!  But how, he was not nearly high-ranked enough to...! Yǎn-sui slewed around, unsheathing Tiào-fěi  and slashing through the tangle of bracken he had been standing in front of.  The stream was just on the other side and he took off up the heights.  Killing frost nipped at his heels as everything in the path of the polar cold Punga had unleashed turned to solid ice.

The slope of the defile was more like a series of steps carved into the cliffs for giants. Yǎn-sui leapt up and up and up again, dodging hails of ice and freezing breath that paralyzed the stream and what life it embraced in crystallized death.  The chain sickle sliced at his arms and legs, but this he evaded as well.  He was waiting, relying on the one tactic he knew his opponents had to use…

One of Uutu's bombs sailed overhead; Yǎn-sui sprang up, whirled in mid-air and slammed the iron ball with the flat of Tiào-fěi 's left blade, knocking it back down the escarpment.

*BOOM!*

Yǎn-sui, though thrown back by the concussion of the explosion, landed safely on an outcropping and looked down; the steep walls of the cliffs on either side cracked and trembled, raining stones down into the billowing white cloud of smoke that had swallowed Punga and Uutu.

"*COUGHCOUGHHACK!!!* DAMMIT, UUTU, WHAT DID I JUST SAY ABOUT NOT THROWING THOSE THINGS IN HERE??!?!!" Punga railed, slapping away the stubborn wisps of smoke and the scorched ends of his beard.  “You almost brought the damned cliffs down on us!”

“It’s not like you were doing any better, with that ice-breath you were bragging on and on about!” Uutu argued, looking much the worse for wear; in addition to the spreading bloodstain soaking nearly the entire right side of his once-white uniform, his proud topknot had been knocked askew, his ebony hide dulled by grey dust and ash.

“Bet you thought that was pretty clever, black-mane?” Punga demanded sourly, casting an evil eye up at Yǎn-sui.

“Less clever than if I’d known about your freezing breath beforehand,” replied Yǎn-sui.

“Oh that, well… live long enough you pick things up here and there,” replied Punga in a manner that played at modesty, shrugging.

“When do you intend to stop scuttling away like lizard-tarantula under Agni’s eye and fight us, traitor?” Uutu demanded, squeezing past Punga.

Punga smacked him on the back of his head and shoved him to the rear.  “In case you haven’t noticed, puppy, he’s done just that.”  He smirked at Yǎn-sui.  “Or do you intend to talk us to death?”

“I only need one of you alive,” Yǎn-sui stated.  “Punga, whatever grudge you bear with me, let us settle it now.  And Uutu…”  Uutu straightened unconsciously, which cause Punga to snort and roll his eye, “when I have killed him, and only then, I will answer your demand for my comrade’s horns as befits demons of fire.”

Uutu's eyes went wide.  “I...I understand.”  He solemnly turned to Punga.  “I will not interfere, not even to come to your aid, Punga.  The Blue Spirit has offered an honorable challenge.”

“… Tell me, how do manage to talk, let alone swing that over-sized knife of yours, with that spear rammed up your ass?” the ice demon wanted to know as Uutu jumped down to the next lowest ledge.  Punga unslung the chains wrapped around his torso, now holding a weapon in each hand. “So, one-on-one, eh?”  The chain sickle whirled into a blur, but Yǎn-sui kept an eye on the second weighted chain.  “Let’s go.”

“Agreed.”  Yǎn-sui breathed out slowly, and Tiào-fěi ’s halves blazed with blue fire.

Punga grinned.  “You finally being serious, or is this just common courtesy for me showing you one of my newer tricks?”

Yǎn-sui shrugged.   ‘Left or right… or neither… whatever move he makes, I have one chance to take him from above, force him around, use the Inferno to…’

“Pity we won’t be trading tiles anymore.”

“Wha-?”

The rock beneath his feet suddenly went soft and he sank immediately up to his mid-calf.   ‘Sand…?!?’  The ground behind him exploded in a flurry of dust and a yellow and orange blur slammed into him.  Sharp fangs sank into his stomach, long claws burying in both of his thighs as the weight of his assailant sent him tumbling over the edge of the outcropping.

As he fell, Yǎn-sui thrust down with Tiào-fěi , endeavoring to impale the back of Hau's neck, but the diminutive sand demon had a lighting reflexes.  He tore himself off Yǎn-sui, taking cloth, flesh, and blood with him, landing in an ungainly crouch just as Yǎn-sui crashed into the ground.

"Kee-hee-hee!" he giggled, baring his bloodstained fangs and licking them with his tongue.  He had dispensed with the formless tunic, for easier movement through the rocks.  Yǎn-sui heaved to his feet, bit back against the scream of pain that tore against his throat.  His vision swam, but he grimly fed the flames that encircled Tiào-fěi .

"Back, Uutu!" Punga barked, thrusting his paw against the younger demon's chest as Uutu sprang up beside him.

"You said you would fight him one-on-one!" Uutu growled, shoving against Punga.  "This isn't...!"

"Change of plans," replied the ice demon shortly as he rammed Uutu into the side of the cliff, his single eye fixated on Yǎn-sui and Hau.  "Unless you want to get between Hau and blood he's tasted."

Uutu's ears twitched as he stared at Yǎn-sui, who could barely stand upright.  "I..."

'I didn't sense him at all - he didn't even stir the ground before he attacked!'  Yǎn-sui shook his head violently.  His sight was fading in and out and he felt weakness like veins of poison spreading through his limbs.  "Where... is Anu?"

"Anu drop Hau off.  Said Hau ask to eat too many times, that Hau could eat black-mane if he shut up."  Hau delicately licked the congealing blood from his long claws, easily half again as long as his paw, looking for all the world like a grotesque cat grooming itself after a hunt.  Pinprick green eyes dilated and he gurgled in pleasure.  "Black-mane... tasty."

Yǎn-sui blinked; Hau had vanished.

'Underground again?!' Yǎn-sui inhaled deeply, though it made the healing wound in his gut gush more blood.  'Focus!  Find him!'

The sound of sand trickling... he slammed Tiào-fěi 's blades into the ground at his feet, whirled, and blasted the cliff-face behind him with his fire breath.

Hau barreled out of the stone, shrieking incoherently, springing from rock to rock like a demented leaf-hopper.  "Hot!  Hot!  Hot! Hot!"  He landed splayed in front of Uutu and Punga, who both drew back warily, but his attention was only for Yǎn-sui.  "Eat you now!" he screamed, swiping at the air, bloodlust gleaming in his eyes.  His maw frothed pink with spittle and blood.  "Eat everything!  Eat humans!  Eat you!  Eat goddess!" he gibbered.  "EAT THEIR BONES!  DRINK YOUR BLOOD!  EAT HER HEART!"

"Hau, you idiot," Punga yelled, lunging forward to grab hold of Hau, "she'll he...!"

"GGHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRR!!"  

The earth trembled and shook, rocks falling from the heights.  Hau looked about, blinking owlishly.   "OOoooo...?"

Raw spirit energy like a tsunami slammed over them, knocking each of his feet.  Yǎn-sui was thrown into a natural alcove recessed into the stream's fall, the back of his skull cracking against the wet stone.  The world heaved again, and he dimly wondered if it was just his own imagination.

The spirit monster hurled itself into view, a gigantic Beast-form, shaggy moss-and-grey-green, with two pairs of violent yellow eyes on either side of its elongated skull, jaws like a saber-moose-lion, only at least as large as a dragon's, paws large enough to crash down the gates of the Heavenly Court.  Crushed beneath one these paws was Hau, his maw agape as he squealed in pain and horror.

"DEMON!  SO, THOU HAST REVEALED THY TRUE INTENT AT LAST!  THIS ONE SHALL MAKE THEE RUE THE DAY THOU HAST COME TO MY FATHER'S LAND!"

He could feel the monster's roar tremble in his very bones, its wrath like hammer blows.

"COME OUT, YOU OTHERS!" it demanded.

From somewhere above, Punga's voice sounded: "We're right up here, Spirit; we're not going anywhere until you give him back to us!"

"DEMON, COME AND CLAIM HIM!"

"We do claim him, as is our right."

Yǎn-sui started, recognizing Anu's voice.  The world suddenly righted itself as anger and hatred flooded him with intoxicating strength.  Not caring if the spirit monster saw him, he scrambled from the alcove into the open.  "Anu!"

The wind demon, hovering almost directly above the spirit monster on his opened wings,  merely spared him a glance and a sneer.  "Our agreement was with thy honored father, milady," Anu addressed the spirit monster.  "Until thy father hast dissolved our mutual promises, thou art but yet a neutral party."  He bowed his head.  "Lest thou wish that I here and now fight thee for my comrade's life, with all my power..."

The spirit monster growled, a terrible sound indeed, but it was laden with the sullen acknowledgment of defeat.  Hau scrambled out from under the paw as it slid off him, clambering up the side of the cliff and taking a flying leap onto Anu's shoulder, clinging to Anu's horn and gibbering like a frightened lemur.

"GO HENCE, DEMON, BUT KNOW THIS: THIS ONE CALLS THEE "ENEMY" FROM THIS MOMENT FORTH."

Anu saluted the spirit monster gravely.  "Punga, Uutu... we leave now," he said, lofting slightly higher into the air.

"Wait!" Yǎn-sui howled after him in helpless rage.  "Fight me, Anu!  Come back and... argh!"

"Pathetic," Anu muttered as Yǎn-sui fell to one knee, dropping one of half of Tiào-fěi  to clutch his stomach as dark crimson liquid welled up between his fingers.

Yǎn-sui glared after him, saw him sweep his wings so that wind howled up the narrow passage between the cliffs with such force that Uutu and Punga were borne aloft.  The four demons ascended on the wind into the low clouds, vanishing almost immediately.

"Hah... damn you...!" Yǎn-sui hissed, heaving himself to his feet.  "Damn you!"

"So..."

He glanced to one side, where the spirit monster should have been.

In its place stood a giant bear-dog, twice as tall as he at the shoulder, her fur the color of the monster's (her other form, he realized), her single pair of amber eyes scrutinizing him.  Her thin black lip curled in much the same way Anu's had.  "Thou hast fought thy second battle with these interlopers, and yet thou hast failed, yet again, to slay any of them.  This one told Jiān she was a fool to bind thee."

Yǎn-sui released his stomach and, calling Tiào-fěi 's fallen blade to his hand, faced her squarely.  "You speak so lowly of my skills, Spirit, yet you had one beneath your very paw and did not crush him."

The spirit snorted wryly.  "Thou, at least, hast returned as thou promised," she said, looking at Tiào-fěi .

He had the oddest sensation that she was talking to the blades... and that they were listening.

"This one shall do what is possible to safeguard thy behest for some time longer, until this... other..." her gaze flicked momentarily to Yǎn-sui, "decides to take his oath seriously.  Demon..."

"My name is Yǎn-sui, servant of Lord Agni of..."

"Demon.  Thou willt bid thy master, the Sky-bison, and the Child of Air to come to the headwater of the river at the rise of the new moon.  Make what preparations are necessary to defend what humans there are remaining alive to defend themselves: thy enemy is but five, and they are each stronger than thou canst possibly imagine."

"'Five'?" Yǎn-sui echoed, "Who is...?"

The spirit tossed her head and melted into the stones.  "At the rise of the new moon, this one shall answer to thy master, and perhaps to thee."

Her presence was gone.

Yǎn-sui looked at Tiào-fěi .  "She spoke as though she knew you; I hope for our sakes it was a companionable acquaintance."  He shook his head disgustedly and sheathed the blades, glancing about the defile as he did so, more out of force of habit than any expectation that the enemy would reappear.  'Fate would have to start favoring me first.'

His wounds were healing, but it would take some time to return to Jiān.  Perhaps she would think to summon him, and save him the trouble...

His right arm suddenly burned with sharp, blazing heat - Huí's horns, burning!  Yǎn-sui tore at the sleeves of his robes to rip the pouch away, only to find that there were no flames.   'An illusion?  Am I going mindless from bloodloss?' Yǎn-sui wondered, trailing his fingers over the leathern pouch. But no illusion produced such real pain, like a white-hot knife through the muscle and bone, he could still...!

... suddenly it vanished.

All of his pain vanished.

Nothing.

Fear should have gripped him, but his ability to feel at all had been swept away between one breath and the next.

"But when I was… pushed aside… and my horns were taken and those words came out of my mouth… I felt nothing..."

Moving as though in a trance, Yǎn-sui slowly turned, looking up, up the climbing heights, to where ragged ends of depleted rain clouds moved in a serpentine dance.

From the mist, a bloodless white face stared down at him through pink-red eyes ringed by smudges of grey-purple shadows.  Red, red lips parted and whispered a single word:

"Soon."

The world went dark as he fell senseless to the ground.

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