Tales of the Three Kingdoms: Silver Falcon Falls

It felt like a long time before Sheriff was able to get the villagers of Black Altar back under control, and by that time, River and I had rejoined them. With a gesture, my wife, the newly-dubbed Lady of the Darkness, ordered them to silence.

It was already too late.

For hours we beat a fighting retreat down that road back toward the east, as every feral creature within a dozen li came down upon us. Luckily, they mostly came from the west, meaning we could fight some and outrun others.

We lost a few more good men and women, brave enough to form Sheriff's spearwall – the first line of defense between the creatures and the rest of the villagers.

In the end, we got good at fighting in silence.

No one roared as the last few creatures trailing us were cut down or smashed. No one clinked or cried out as we continued our exhausted shuffle down the barely-cobbled road that led up into the canyons that would take us back to the safety of the coalition's battle line.

We had learned fast and fought hard and never given in to hysteria or despair. That was enough to earn us a quiet night at the end of a long day of running and fighting for our lives.

We sat in small fireless circles just off the road, where the dead remnants of trees closed in tight around a dry lakebed, muffling the sounds of forty humans sleeping, or crying to themselves, or eating hard-cakes, or staring into space.

A woman sat next to me, huddled around her knees, while her baby – fat-faced and quizzical and seemingly unaffected by all of this – stared at me from beneath a frying pan breastplate and kettle helmet.

I smiled a tired smile at him and he smiled back. He began to laugh and his mother quickly hushed him.

My smile faded as my thoughts turned to my own son, some two or three days away yet. I could only hope that he was in good hands with Windstopper and the nursemaids. I also had to trust that Noble Lion was the perfect man to fight this new threat from the hills, to staunch this ugly wound on the Land Under Heaven, and to stop the infection that was the Rabid Dog Mandate from spreading any further than the City of Ash.

Because beyond that battle-line, and beyond the City of Ash, was the Plains of the Falcon, and everyone else who mattered to me: my father and the most loyal people of Iron Tower.

"You're an officer," said Sheriff in a low voice, gesturing to my silver and white armor, "In one of the great clans."

I had forgotten he was there, lounging in the dust and methodically breaking off bits of jerky, as if this were any other campaign, or even a simple hunting trip.

I shook myself as I considered his words: 'an officer… in a great clan.' For him, there were no layers to that statement. It wasn't an honor or a condemnation. It didn't care for the rise and fall of great houses. It was a simple statement of fact.

"I am… Now."

I looked at his spearpoint thrust into the ground beside him, a faded yellow scarf trailing in the dust from where it was fastened just behind the blade. I couldn't say for sure, but it seemed that scarf had seen its fair share of both marching and of blood.

"You were a rebel." I replied, after a while. I sought to make my words as simple a statement as he had made his, with no judgement behind them.

"I was… Once."

I nodded. He didn't need to spell it out for me but still I had questions.

"My wife, Shadow River she is called, told me of your Mandate. Did you manifest it before or after you joined?"

Sheriff looked at me levelly. "Before."

"And still you joined the Yellow Scarf rebels? With crystal clarity on what they were?"

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"I did."

I was at a loss. All I could manage was: "...How?"

"Not the question you should be asking?" He had finished his jerky and began inspecting and then mending a boot with a leather thong. He looked up at me long enough to take my measure once more. "What you should be asking is how I could choose to fight against your Empire after seeing things through my Mandate."

"That is what I was getting at."

Sheriff nodded slowly but otherwise still seemed equally interested in his boot as with me. "The Empire failed the people. The great clans they trusted to watch over the provinces failed the people. It's as simple as that. Maybe not your house, whichever one it is, but the one that looked after my province sure did."

"Which province?"

"Doesn't matter. All that matters is that I was able to look at them and then look at the General of Earth and say this 'rebel' gives me a better chance of living out the next few years, even if I do have to fight in nothing but a cloth tunic and sandals."

"But you didn't believe that they were chosen by Heaven. You couldn't have believed that with your gift."

"I don't have foresight. Nor can I claim to know the will of Heaven. I can tell you what I saw, and what I saw was them giving Mandates to people that didn't have any."

My eyes flicked up and locked onto him before I could stop myself.

The Sheriff seemed not to notice but waved the air, then nodded over toward where River rocked a woman's child while the exhausted mother slept. "They didn't dish out anything powerful. Nothing like what she's got. Tricks mostly. Turn cloudy water clear. Light a candle without flint and steel. Sharpen a knife with a gesture or mend boots without extra leather." He tied a strap off and examined his work. "I can also tell you that its no uncommon thing to want to be special. Even the weak – maybe especially the weak – would do anything for just a taste of power."

He looked at me and for a moment I would swear he was looking right through me. But no. He might have called his Mandate 'Crystal Clarity' but all that meant is that he could view the world without emotions, turn them off completely if his own explanation could be trusted.

"But you left before the Battle on the Yellow Plains."

It wasn't a question. Had the man called Sheriff been there at that last battle, when I had first made my mark on the Land Under Heaven, he could have been killed, or captured by Noble Lion's massive display of power, to encircle an entire army, nearly a million strong, with stone walls from nowhere.

No, if Sheriff were there, he might be branded now or worse. He certainly wouldn't have been free to walk away and find some new life in a village where the rebellion never happened. And least not this rebellion.

"We were losing. We all knew it," Sheriff said. "We didn't have it in us to face the Imperials head-on or to outlast them, but the Three Generals wouldn't accept that. The thing about my Mandate is that it lets me see what everyone else already sees, but won't accept. Everyone there knew we were losing, same as me but there was too much keeping them there and stopping them from saving themselves. Shame? Loss? Fear? I didn't feel a thing when I left my 'Brothers Under the Yellow Heaven' behind. I just made a decision and started walking. Simple as that."

"How'd you end up here? Or… back in Black Altar."

Sheriff shrugged.

"Maybe I can turn my emotions off. But I can't live without them forever. Maybe something about my time in the rebellion rubbed off, and something about Black Altar reminded me of what I left behind. Either way… it's quiet here. Or was."

I nodded, making a guess based on something I had read back when I was staying in the Imperial Palace and had access to some of the rarest texts in the Land Under Heaven. Texts that were now cinders, their knowledge lost forever. Knowledge, perhaps, that now only survived by virtue of me having read and remembered them. It was a weight I now felt, knowing that I alone might be keeping that knowledge alive, only so long as I lived. That weight was made greater by the fact that knowledge like this, dark and powerful knowledge, should never be held by one man alone.

"The Usurper, during the Dark Interregnum was said to be greatly interested in strange materials like your black marble. Perhaps there is some power in it. Perhaps it had something to do with how the Three Rebel Generals were able to give people Mandates."

"Not that I've ever seen. Course the old-timers here tell stories." Sheriff shrugged. "Nothing that I'd give any credence to."

"What kind of-"

A hiss from River cut me off. She quickly thrust the child she was holding back into the arms of his rousing mother.

The sound of the wind over the hills and through the trunks of the dead trees began to change. It was a sound we knew well by now. It was the sound of feral creatures, calling for blood. Only this time, it didn't come from the west.

This time, sitting on the shore of a dry lakebed, surrounded on all sides by an old dead forest and a ring of dusty hills, that horrid sound came from everywhere.

North, south, east and west. More voices than we had ever heard all at once. And they were already enraged, shrieking and howling for us.

***SPARROW'S BAND MISSION BRIEFING: BATTLE OF THE LAKEBED***

Primary Objective: Survive the hordes.

Secondary Objective: Save some of the Black Altar villagers.

Bonus Objective: Figure out a plan to cut the odds.

Fail Conditions: Everyone dies.