Tales of the Three Kingdoms: Silver Falcon Falls

A riderless horse milled about in front of River. It took a long moment of staring at it for her to realize why it looked familiar.

"Sparrow!"

She tried to dismount her own motionless horse but the sash she had tied to her saddle fouled her and she stumbled to the ground, before fumbling to free herself.

She crossed to Windshear and inspected the poor beast. There were bloody gouges from fingernails, human teeth-marks, and plenty of the more common types of superficial injuries that a warhorse could sustain. So much blood drenched the silver-white horse, the barding, the saddle… But River had no way of knowing if any of it was Sparrow's.

Well, she knew that at least some of it was Sparrow's. She had seen him take a blade through a bracer. She had seen him sag as the blood sprayed from his forearm.

If he was alive, if he hadn't been drowned by her demons or torn apart by the monsters that had once been the people of the City of Lanterns… If he hadn't been found by some remaining Gray Wolf patrol… If none of those very likely things had come to pass and he was still alive, he was hurt and alone and powerless.

After looking around to try to get her bearings – there were nothing but dark, stony hills in all directions – she bent to the earth to look for some sign of movement. She was no tracker. She was born in a village just outside the capital, her family practicing agriculture on a scale that amounted more to gardening compared to most of those who lived in the Land Under Heaven than to actual farming. She had grown up in a palace. She had been trained as a seductress and a courtier and an advisor to an Emperor. But the churned earth and gravel of two horses' hooves were unmistakable.

She took water, gave some to the horses, and mounted up once more on her own horse. Windshear was the faster horse, but she knew Forgotten Empress far better. They had a better understanding between them.

"In war," her father-in-law had told her, "an unruly horse will get you killed faster than a slow one." She hoped that's not what happened to her Sparrow. He always did indulge Windshear's free spirit.

As she kicked the horses into a trot back the way they had come, Windshear in tow now, her helmet bobbed from the strap around her neck and she removed it to tie it to her saddle. She would need her senses and her wits more than she would need to hide her feminine features. Then she checked her scabbard. Somehow she had lost the war-dagger, along with her straight-sword. She vaguely remembered them snagging on a face-plate and a visor, respectively. She reached into the small roll of supplies behind her saddle and found her last remaining weapon.

"Necessity" it was called, and remembering what creatures had come pouring out of the hills around them, she had never needed a weapon more. It had been forged by a matriarch of the Tan Ox clan, back when bronze had been the pre-eminent alloy for blades, and had been given to her by the last survivor of that storied bloodline, at least as far as River knew.

Now she untied the empty scabbards from her belt and left them in the dust behind her, replacing them with the shorter knife of well-cared-for bronze. "Necessity" was not a blade for fighting from horseback; it was a blade for killing up close. But it was all she had. And she had killed up-close before.

Her own horse's trail was not difficult to follow, though she questioned the prudence of following an animal's flight back to the thing that had sent it fleeing.

When she arrived back at what appeared to be the last scene of slaughter, Dreadwolf's war-wagon was gone, no doubt reclaimed by what little forces he had left to him. There were many more corpses of crazed citizens than she remembered, here on the track beyond the bowl they had fought the Demon in. It suggested that Sparrow had either fought long and hard before they had been separated, or Dreadwolf's surviving forces had needed to fight to reclaim their Prime Minister's standard… and his loot.

In any case, River only needed to see the track from a distance, crouched behind the crest of a gorge, to know that Sparrow's corpse was not among them. The colors of the Silver Falcon clan were so valiant and honorable and showy. They were about as subtle as a war-axe, and she would have seen Sparrow's armor from a li away, even if it had been covered in blood and grime.

He had not died here.

There were however, still dozens of what looked to be walking-corpses, milling about the carnage with distended bellies, or crouching to piles of rotting flesh in a never ending cycle of filling a burst stomach. She had no idea how long these creatures would survive under the influence of what the strange, unknown man had called his Rabid Dog Mandate, or if there was any cure for it. She didn't even know if it was the type of Mandate that might die with him, or if, once unleashed, it would ravage the land until everyone afflicted was cut down. There were too many unknowns with this one, but right now she didn't care.

All she wanted was to find Sparrow and get back to their child. All she wanted to do was hold little Ang in her arms. But she could not quit these hills until she was convinced of Sparrow's fate.

From the crest of the nearest row of hills, she could see the trail of hacked corpses that suggested the feral half-humans had chased Dreadwolf's cart for as long as their disease-ravaged bodies had been able to keep up.

There was also another, smaller trail of blood, dismembered limbs, and the occasional corpse that had capitulated to a blade. Sparrow – or at least someone – had found an opportunity to slip away, having to kill only a few more during their fighting retreat. That was River's best bet at finding her husband so she followed it, looping far around any surviving creatures.

The blood-trail led her deep into the hills. Then – to her relief – the blood petered out. There was no white-and-silver-clad body at the end of that blood-trail. Sparrow must have finally won free for long enough to bind his wounds. But that didn't mean Dreadwolf's men hadn't hunted him down somewhere up ahead.

It also meant that — for someone decidedly not trained in tracking — she was left without a clue as to which way her husband had gone.

She let out a frustrated groan and then took a deep breath, trying to put herself into Sparrow's state of mind. Wounded, hunted, alone.

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Some romantic part of her wanted to pretend that he would have turned around and tried to follow her trail.

But Sparrow wasn't an idiot.

She had taught him that gallant ends were still ends and he wouldn't have charged back into a horde of monsters just to tell himself that he had died alongside his love.

Maybe he would have, back when he was younger. Back before he was a father. Now, they both knew that pressing on without the other would be painful, maybe even crippling. But they would limp along for little Ang's sake.

Maybe that's what she should do now — limp back to the City of Ash and take little Ang away from all this. The monsters, the war, the land divided – leave it all behind for a hut in the Lost Province of Shepherds.

"One more watch," she told Forgotten Empress. "We make our best guess and search for one more watch." Empress pawed the ground in annoyance, judging her, perhaps.

Windshear chuffed too.

"Oh don't you start. If you were a truly loyal steed I could let you off your tether and you'd lead me straight to him. But no. You're a big coward aren't you."

She scratched Windshear and gave him half of what little fodder she had. He was a magnificent beast, but he was a bit of a coward as far as warhorses went. Not that she blamed him. They were all mad for having faced the Demon and his elites head-on. The world had gone mad too, if this Rabid Dog Mandate were any indication.

She gave the other fistful of grain to Forgotten Empress, shifted the saddle to prevent the same spots from chafing the horse's belly, and then, at length, re-mounted.

"Path of least resistance?" She asked her horse, wincing at where she was chafing.

Empress nickered and began moving forward of its own accord. River gave the beast no real direction from the reins but allowed her to bend between the two nearest hills and follow the low track. If Sparrow was weak, he might have sought distance at the expense of all else. Sparrow was a military man, and logical. He knew that the path as the crow flies was usually fastest, but braving steep hills and sheer gullies for the sake of a straight line would net out as the slower option.

"Path of least resistance, it is." It was as sound a method as any. In truth, her only other option was to pick a random direction, or make some half-hearted calculation based on the moon to point herself back toward the City of Lanterns. She hoped distance from the creatures was Sparrow's first priority, and then getting home was the second.

She was dozing in the saddle, the days of forced-march catching up with even her, when Forgotten Empress's hooves began to thump on more solid track, almost a road.

River blinked herself awake and checked her surroundings, chastising herself for allowing her guard to slip. Seeing nothing but more hills around them, she directed her attention to what had awoken her – the sounds of Empress's hooves on packed earth.

"Clever girl," said River. Perhaps there were no horse-tracks or wagon-ruts on this ground, but it had undoubtedly been frequented by human feet. Why there would be a village out here, she had no idea. Nor did she care. All she knew was that if Sparrow had found his way here, he would have probably chanced to follow the road. He was a member of the nobility, and a natural-born leader besides. He would seek out the populous and stake his life on his authority and wits, rather than try to make the days-long march alone, injured, and on foot.

It might have turned out to be a mistake.

As River followed the packed-earth trail, she heard a sound like rushing water. Only when she turned around the last hill did she recognize the sound for what it really was: the sound of dozens of feral voices in a frustrated rage, clawing against a flimsy village gate.

It appeared to be some sort of quarry town, the nearest hills streaked with black veins in the tan, dusty stone. The town itself seemed to be built into a high crest of rock, half cut away by the quarrying operation, with only a small semicircle of stone left to form what appeared to be an impenetrable, natural wall of stone, all of a single piece. The wooden gate was the obvious weak point. There were no trees for miles, and who knows when the last time the wooden beams had been replaced or repaired.

Probably the last time trees grew upon these hills. Which looked to be a generation or two ago.

As the small knot of feral humanity pushed up against it, the gate bucked in place, and River could hear villagers shriek in fear on the far side. There was a voice, too far to recognize but definitely commanding, that lifted up above the sounds of frustrated predator and fearful prey. At its command, it seemed the villagers on the far side threw themselves against the gate and it steadied for a time. But it would not hold. This village was undoubtedly lost and River made to turn away.

But big dumb cowardly Windshear chose that moment to squeal in fear and several of the feral gazes turned to locate them.

Forgotten Empress backpedalled in place.

River could outrun them back the way she had come. But then what?

The first of the rabid creatures gave up on the gate and began to stumble toward her.

She could kick the mounts forward and skirt the village. There were two other tracks that appeared to be wider and better trafficked, one perhaps leading back toward the City of Ash. But which one? She had dozed and didn't know how many times she had changed direction in the night.

The former humans had broken into a run and she gripped her dagger. Only a dozen or so stayed pressed up against the gate. The rest streamed from the unattainable feast of the village toward the unprotected morsel that was River and her two horses.

She would charge through and pick a track away from the village. One of them would take her back to her child.

Just at that moment the gates fell inward and the monsters that had been pressing up against it fell forward – right into a row of spears. Villagers streamed past to do battle with the feral creatures, caving in heads with pickaxes or improvised clubs.

River made a gut decision. She kicked her horses forward, Empress reacting immediately but Winshear digging in for a moment before River's horse tugged him along and into a gallop. Empress barrelled over the first of the creatures, and Windshear seemed to find his courage at her example.

No. Not courage. Fear of a greater threat.

For behind River and her two horses, the sound of rushing water, of coursing humanity began to grow louder from the track they had just quit. Had they followed her? Had the sounds of struggle drawn them all the way from the battlefield in the bowl? Or had the man with the Rabid Dog Mandate found himself more feral creatures to torment the hills, perhaps another village he could turn into his inhuman monsters? It didn't matter. They were behind her now and she had to choose.

An open gate and stone walls? Or a track that may lead her closer to home, or perhaps deeper into hostile territory?

River snarled.

"Out of the way!" she shouted to the first of the villagers, who appeared to be getting the better of the small band of creatures that had been at their door.

"Fall back to the village!" she called. "More coming! Fall back!"

"Back you bastards!" echoed a tall rugged man, with a spear streaming a piece of sun-bleached cloth that may have once been yellow. "Leave it, Saltlick! There will be plenty more where that one came from."

The rugged man grabbed and threw a dirty young miner back toward the gate. The lad had lost himself to battle frenzy, smashing a feral creature's head again and again with a shovel.

With one last look toward the two roads – one in either direction – River's horses streamed through the gate and they slammed shut behind her.