Tales of the Three Kingdoms: Silver Falcon Falls

The moment my small army – two hundred archers, fifty trappers, thirty-two peasant infantry, three horse, and one oxcart – trundled back up the passes to the east, out of the valley of the City of Ash at an unhurried pace, I knew I had made the right decision.

Uncle had once said that some things could be reasoned out, but other things you just felt in your gut. I had written it off as something someone would say when they didn't want to think things through. Now, I saw what he meant.

As my young son leaned up against me in the back of the oxcart, and my wife looked on from horseback, for once dressed as a lady and not as one of my officers, it just felt right. A blind boy of about 12 years shared the saddle with her, eyes now bandaged as River spoke softly to him of the things around us.

Upon the slopes of the valley leading into the City of Ash, surrounded by all of his dead and dying kinsman skewered upon long pikes, the boy had manifested a most peculiar Mandate, turning entirely invisible. His eyes had been taken from him by Dreadwolf, and the boy alone had been left alive to tell who did it, just in case Noble Lion couldn't put it all together himself.

Perhaps it was that I alone believed that boy to be doubly-cursed, once by earth and once by Heaven, the ability to see and to be seen by friends and family taken from him all in one fell swoop. The ability to become truly invisible was poor compensation.

Perhaps that was why I had named the boy myself, before we left.

"What's your name, boy?" I had asked.

The boy cocked his head, flanked by his two "protectors," indicating that he had heard me. But he said nothing.

"What family do you come from?" I tried again. He made no response.

I looked to left and right of the boy, trying to make conversation and humanize the two men I had set to watching the boy to keep him from disappearing and wandering the land injured and alone. "You've manifested, Longspear."

As the man called Longspear – one of the worst riders from the Plains of the Falcon, but rangey and good with the overlong spear he had fashioned for himself – looked to me, the small, strangely-spotted eagle sitting atop his shoulder turned its head in unison. "I have, milord. A Beastbond Mandate. Common enough but, it certainly makes up for my failings as a horseman, I think. Er, milord."

"The failing was my own, Longspear, for not seeing your potential. I'll never ask you to sit a horse again." I nodded toward him from my place within the bed of the oxcart then turned my attention to the second of the boy's protectors. "And you are, let me guess, Shortspear?"

A bad joke, to be sure, but children, I was learning from my own son, appreciate the sense of a joke, even if they don't find it funny, or even understand it. The boy's second protector, a squat, hairy man, robust, but apparently too short or unskilled to use even a regular-length spear, smiled indulgently.

"Roundshield," he said without mirth, then added with not a little bit of disdain, "Milord."

He had been a trapper in Castellan's employ, until recently, when he had shown up bearing orders from my cousin to report to me for duties that more naturally suited his skillset. What that skillset was-

Hot breath tickled my neck and I turned to find a wall of hair and muscle looming over the cart. I did a good enough job not to yelp, until that wall of muscle roared at me, exposing canines a span long. I was scrambling back to the far side of my oxcart before anything logical within me could intercede.

The boy with his two protectors was laughing in truth now. Physical humor, I had also learned from my own son, tracks very well with children of just about any age. I was chagrined, but I could do nothing now but laugh. I no longer had to lead these men into battle. So what did I care if I had to play the fool a bit in order to help a traumatized child find his smile.

"Also, a Beastbond Mandate, I take it?" I said, wincing as I resituated my bandages and the furs with the cart.

"Aye. But a different beast, as it happens."

"I can see that." Then I nodded as if carefully considering the names. "Longspear and Roundshield. Eagle and bear. Two powerful warriors with powerful Mandates to keep their charge safe." I did not mention that it would take the eyes of an eagle and the nose of a bear to keep track of the disappearing boy. "I wonder what they call the boy, special enough to have such formidable protectors."

The smile slid off the boy with the bandaged eyes as he realized I was talking about him. The boy looked to left and right and reached for the bandages, before remembering that he would not be able to see, even if he lifted them. His hands fell back.

"I… I'm nobody, my lord. Just the son of a bureaucrat who had the wrong cousins, I suppose. Truly, I'm not special."

"Hmm," I said exaggeratedly as I nodded. "I'm nothing special either. Now, my father was once a very important man in the Land Under Heaven. One of the most important in fact, before all this fighting. He would have loved to have a son he could call Longspear or Roundshield – something martial-sounding with a marital Mandate to go with it. Instead, he got me." This was coming dangerously close to admitting I didn't have a Mandate, but, based on advice from River a long time ago, the more vague I could be about my Mandate the more people would wonder and assume it was something dark and clandestine.

"You're the one they call Sparrow, aren't you?" Longspear nudged the boy and he added a, "my lord."

I nodded before remembering to speak aloud instead. "Yes. I am. Do you know why he named me Sparrow?"

The boy shook his head.

"Because he saw what I truly was. I am a Sparrow among Falcons. And rather than die by the gifts the Heavens didn't grant me, I survive by the gifts they did."

Again, I was basically saying that I didn't have a Mandate, but the wording only served to deepen the mystery around me for any who were listening, including the boy and his bodyguards and the others milling around the oxcart as they prepared to depart.

"You say you are nobody…" I went on, reaching down from the cart and touching the boy's brow in formal naming ceremony.

In lieu of any living relatives, it was not uncommon for the naming to fall to the boy's lord, or to a nobleman who had witnessed the manifestation.

"...Then see yourself for who you truly are, and the power inherent in that clarity. 'Nobody' I name you. When we reach Iron Tower, you'll learn from my own tutors. And if you prove talented, one day, you will be one of my advisors."

The boy beamed at that. Maybe once he had dreamed of being a Hero of the Times. Maybe he would have been, with a Mandate to disappear, if Dreadwolf hadn't taken his eyes. But now, more than a name, I had given him purpose. I had given him a chance to strive for something that he wouldn't need eyes for. So long as he could listen, and learn, and tell me of things that he heard when people thought themselves alone…

I winced again and waved a hand toward Longspear, who guided the boy away, still beaming, newly named and – if I could make out enough of his expression beneath the bandages – newly driven.

Now, as the cart trundled along the road, taking me back from the city where I had cut my teeth, to the place of my birth, I thought often of Nobody, the blind prodigy, and his two late-blooming infantrymen.

Feeling the chill of the Weeping Wall as we passed through the now broken and melted portion in the middle, I reached a hand into the fold of my sleeve to find that my robe crinkled. I groaned and pulled the piece of paper that had magically appeared from it.

***WHAT AN ACHIEVEMENT!***

TITLE: BUYING LOW

DESCRIPTION: Whether it be age, talent, or rank, you've gained the loyalty of someone at their lowest point in life. Time will tell if the investment pays off.

VIRTUE: +25

Truly the values of this system could be baffling, sometimes. The moral values it expressed were certainly conflicted, as it could simultaneously say "good job for being nice to a blind boy," while also calling that same person an "investment." But in this case it was also the literal, numerical values that seemed absurd.

Save a village? Plus ten. Be nice to a single boy? Plus twenty-five? I could only assume that this was a case where some level of precognition was apparent in the system, not to mention more than a little elitism. I had saved a member of the Imperial family, once, by a few words at the right time, and apparently that prince's life had been worth 100 'Virtue.' Villagers, it seemed, were a bronze-disk-a-dozen, perhaps because their lives were small on the grand scales of Heaven, while hundreds of thousands lived and died upon the word of an Emperor.

Now, whoever or whatever entity was responsible for these messages seemed to be hinting that this young blind boy – Nobody – was destined for much greater things than the life of a villager. And I must say that I had to agree.

I sighed and settled back into the cart, following a rest and a breaking of camp, as Windstopper bellowed, "Go. Ox."

Nobody had taken to walking alongside the column, his two protectors guiding him as he learned to walk without his vision. So young, was the blind boy from an obscure branch of Noble Lion's house, to be named and manifested. But it had cost him so much.

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My entire life I had put such pressure on myself to manifest a Mandate, to rise in the Imperial ranks, to carve out some place in history and some kingdom in the Land Under Heaven. There was only one trade that could accomplish those goals for me – at least in the time and place and political environment I had been born into – and that trade was war. I had built up such a wall of scar tissue in the pursuit of those glorious goals that I didn't even realize that I woke up every day dreading the heinous acts I would have to commit in pursuit of them. Or even just to hold onto what little security I had.

The system of virtue underscored those compromises, brought them before my eyes and forced me to reflect upon them. I could take a little jeering. Growing up without a Mandate had inoculated me to ridicule, and I had, eventually, learned my own worth, will of Heaven be damned. But when the words in the 'achievements' were true… when its analyses of my crimes were correct…

It doesn't matter any more. It's behind me.

Now, walking away from the battlefield – in a figurative sense, as I could not, in fact, physically walk yet – I had never been happier. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be free of the weight of nations. I had never even known what it was to wake up and choose what I would do with my day. For now, my job was to heal and to ride in the back of the oxcart as it made its slow progress back east and to play with my son. Once we reached Iron Tower, my only job would be to raise the boy as a smart and virtuous young man.

He was a baby when his mother had died on my father's doorstep, barely able to eat solid foods. He had been babbling throughout that horrid winter we had spent basically besieged in Iron Tower. He had taken his first steps as we marched to war, and spoken his first words while his mother and I were at war council. The things I hadn't missed in favor of my other duties, I almost hadn't even noticed, so enthralled was I with keeping us all alive.

My father might have thought Little Ang's life, so far, a fitting start to the life of a future Imperial Protector of the Falcon Plains. But we no longer held much of the Falcon Plains. If the Emperor was still naming Imperial Protectors of any provinces, no one was listening to him unless it suited their own agendas.

So it came as a great surprise to me, and to Tongs ambling beside my oxcart, when a rider came barrelling down out of the passes behind us, just as we were leaving the old boundary of the Tan Ox clan and crossing the old boundary of the Falcon Plains. Who now owned these lands or how they drew their border didn't interest me any longer.

I told Tongs to lower his bow.

When the rider pulled up to us, riding light, panting from prolonged effort, and covered in old blood to hand me a scroll bearing the Yellow Dragon seal of the Emperor… I could not exactly ignore it.

Still, I was reluctant to open it. I turned to the rider instead. "You came from the City of Tombs?"

The rider nodded. He was armored for battle in the five colors of the heavenly stars, indicating that he was a servant of the throne. His exquisitely sharp polearm looked like it had seen much use lately.

"You must have fought hard to get here."

Again his answer was terse as he looked back the way he had come. "The dead still roam the hills."

"I would know what to call a man who could cut through them single handedly."

The man hesitated. He was making a good show of composing himself, but still he must have been exhausted from the long ride, not to mention the sea of living dead that he would have had to cut through just to move between the City of Tombs and the City of Ash. Despite all that, he looked eager to be back on the road.

"I am called Stormblade. Now if-"

"By Heaven, what a name!" laughed Tongs as he walked along beside the cart, chewing on a strip of jerky. "Stormblade! Now if I had been named something like that, you can bet I'd be a Hero of the Times by now. Might even be the Emperor's own bodyguard!"

"I chose neither my name nor my Mandate," said the man. "I choose only to serve. And to whom I serve."

I nodded, noting again the splendid Imperial armor.

"How fares the Emperor?"

"Alive," said Stormblade, "when I left. He takes great risk in both sending me away and what he sends me with. I must return to him, immediately."

"Of course." I wanted to ask what was so important, but that would have been a stupid question, given that my answers were likely sitting unopened in my hand. Besides, the rider known as Stormblade was already off, speeding back up into the passes toward one capital in ashes, and ultimately back to his imprisoned Emperor in the City of Tombs.

Dead or aflame, was the Land Under Heaven, depending upon which capital you checked. Loyalties to the current boy-Emperor could be summed up similarly.

I shook my head, considering dropping the missive into the dust. If it was another summons to free the Land Under Heaven, like the one I had forged so many months ago…

"Well?" asked Tongs. "How often do you get personal notes from the Emperor?"

I grimaced but had to give Tongs that one. One did not ignore messages from the Emperor. It was a great honor to receive anything from the son of heaven. A gift from the Emperor was expected to be defended with one's life. And a message directly from his grace would be treasured as an heirloom.

I very carefully broke the dragon seal, so that it would still be clear that it had belonged to the Emperor, and unfurled the message.

I blinked and re-read it.

"Come on, Sparrow!" said Tongs.

I didn't realize I had been holding my breath, and let it out in a laugh. I held the Emperor's missive out toward Tongs. He had the good grace to wipe the jerky from his hands before taking it.

"I don't get it. It doesn't even say anything. It's just a standard 'Rank Up' and not even a very big one. Well, for you. For me it would be something. But for you, it's only one rank."

***RANK UP!***

SPARROW

RANK 9: Noble Officer → Rank 10 Chief of the Masses on the Flank

WORTH: 450 dan → 500 dan

CLAN: Silver Falcon | STAR: Black | FATE: Fire-Water "Verge of Destiny"

MANDATE: None

BONDS: Shadow River, Windstopper, Castellan, Flashammer & Tongs

ALLIANCES: The Empire of the Land Under Heaven

DISTINCTION: A brilliant tactician and heir to Iron Tower, this veteran officer and his men saved the Land Under Heaven from a terrible calamity, at great cost to himself and his fighting forces, earning the Emperor's pardon.

I laughed again. "It means, Tongs, that even though we fought against Dreadwolf, even though I was part of an assassination plot aimed at him, and lost pretty much everything in the process, somehow this wiley young Emperor was able to pardon us, no longer treating us as "The Rebels East of the Pass," as they no doubt called us in Dreadwolf's camp but as members of the Empire again. It means, not that I care anymore, that Dreadwolf's power over the Emperor might not be so absolute anymore. It also means that no one will hunt us back in Iron Tower. We're not rank 0 rebels. I'm a Rank 10:Chief of the Masses on the Flank. He's given me leave to return to my life in Iron Tower. One would even say I have his blessing, if he's promoted me."

"Hm," said Tongs. "We never bothered sending any messengers through the passes."

I had to think about that for a moment. How could the Emperor have known? Ah.

"It must have been Lion. Whatever else he decided to do – keep fighting the feral horde, take back the lands of his father, go find Goat and smack him around for betraying him… Wherever Lion took his massive army, he must have written to the Emperor and given me all the credit for stopping the Rabid Dog Mandate."

"So… no hard feelings from the Emperor. And no hard feelings from Lion?"

I nodded. Tongs was a warrior and a logistician. He was not a politician. He was basically still half-bandit, even as his brother… or cousin – I could never quite sort out the Xiahou side of the family – was growing into a true noble officer. Maybe my last act as a warlord should be writing to the Emperor recommending a promotion for them. Who knows? After what Flashammer had done in the Dead Hills, he was probably worth Rank 115 or higher, a Hero of the Times… If anyone would believe what he had done. And same with River. In any case, if I deserved promotion, so did my five officers, along with Sheriff.

I shook myself and remembered that Tongs had asked a question.

"Oh there are probably hard feelings all around. The Land Under Heaven will be in constant war over who is the actual Imperial Protector of what. But for now, we have the Emperor's leave to go back to Iron Tower and live our lives in peace."

"Hm," said Tongs, resuming his snacking.

As for the future, well…

When the chips all fell in the Land Under Heaven, my son would probably grow into a Magister of the mid-sized county of Iron Tower at best. At worst, he might be a petty warlord in a broken nation, with a tower that no one in their right mind would bother trying to take. Especially if anyone got close enough to see what his mother could do, or his uncles Flashammer and Windstopper.

In any case, Little Ang would not be the great lord that my father was, and nor would I. Even though it had once been my greatest fear to either cause or to helplessly preside over the diminishing of our clan's status, somehow, that no longer bothered me.

We would be something better than lords. We would be safe. And happy.

In fact, as we made our long, slow way into the rebuilding farms on this side of that invisible line between Oxfields and the Plains of the Falcon, it was almost freeing to think that I would never have to manage lands too distant to see from my window, that I would never have to put down any more rebellions started by hungry people, or bandy words with a snake who had designs on a contested piece of a province.

I could grow things, nurture friendships, and raise my son in peace.

I lived that dream for almost exactly four weeks.

The crown of Iron Tower came into view far in the distance, peeking above the nearby millet sprouts. The sight of the Land Under Heaven producing grain again was a reassuring one, and one that spoke to my soul far more than any furrowed fields of battle, or any swaying banners of war. The last time I had come this way, I remembered bloated corpses and packs of dogs. Now, despite the unrest only a province away, the people here were unmolested in their fields. I smiled as I looked them over.

But for some reason, the farmers wouldn't meet my eye much less smile back. Some even went as far as to drop their tools and leave the fields as they spied our small column approaching.

My expression changed at that.

"They Do Not Look So Happy To See You, Sparrow." said Windstopper, from where he sat at the front of the cart, driving the ox.

"Ah." It didn't take a Mandate for empathy to understand why. "When we left here, we had given these people land to work, but we had also taken many of their sons and brothers, husbands and fathers away to war. They must have heard that few of them are going to come back."

"Did We Make A Mistake."

Always such bald-faced questions from my bodyguard. I had to think about it for a bit before responding. "In a way, yes. I did make a mistake. At least one big one. And probably a lot of little ones along the way, too. But I suspect I'll be old and gray before I can be certain of what paths I should have taken." I laughed at an image of a crotchety old version of myself sitting beside a fire, telling war-stories. "Although I would bet that even then, my certainty would be false, obscured by the patina of time."

"If We Fought Harder We Could Have Protected More People."

It was Windstopper's way not to change his inflection as he spoke. Each word was exactly as important as the next. Sometimes, it made figuring out when he was asking a question damned hard. In this case, I took his words to be a statement of fact.

"We can never know what would have been, without a very very powerful Mandate. And even then, I'm not sure I would trust the man who could wield such power. But from this point forward I'm making it my duty to use all of my strength to protect the people closest to me. Let someone else try to wrap their arms around the whole Land Under Heaven."

"That Is A Good Plan Because The Land Under Heaven Is Too Big And Your Arms Are Not Big Enough. Even My Arms Are Not Big Enough."

"I can never replace what these people have lost. But maybe, in time, I can make their sacrifices…"

My words died on my tongue as the grain-stalks gave way and I got my first good look at Iron Tower.