Does the Luan Prepare to Take Flight?
Gong'an was thrown into an uproar.
The cause was a tremendous incident raised by Lady Sun, who had been comparatively quiet since the affair with Zhang Lan.
Had the watch grown slack? Not in the least. The man guarding Gong'an was Zhao Yun himself, and the administration of the city lay under Zhuge Liang's direct charge. Yet even with the finest administrator and the finest guard officer Liu Bei could boast, Lady Sun had succeeded in abducting Liu Shan.
The march into Shu had left an inevitable gap in manpower, and Lady Sun, with an almost innate instinct, had slipped through the instant the guard thinned. Brandishing the force of her armed maidservants and her station as Liu Bei's wife, she secured Liu Shan and made straight for the place where a boat lay ready.
What awaited her there, however, was not the men her elder brother Sun Quan had sent.
"You're late, my lady."
How could she forget the girl who addressed her so, the sailors already bound at her feet? Grown startlingly tall before anyone had quite noticed, the girl was waiting with a company of soldiers at her back.
"Zhang Lan……."
Lady Sun spoke the name low. Displeasure at having her movements read, and the shame that the one who had read them was the very girl who had already humiliated her once, flushed her face red.
"A farewell ought to be offered. The one in your arms, however, will have to stay."
"Hah. A greeting? Meaning to greet me with steel again? I don't see any troops lying in ambush. You mean to stop me with barely ten?"
As Lady Sun said, Zhang Lan had not brought many soldiers. This was no military operation granted formal leave. The realm's foundations were not yet fully set, and the men each general led were still closer to private retainers than to an army, but moving more than a hundred armed troops into Gong'an, where the official residence stood, would have been asking for trouble. The ten-odd soldiers following her had come solely to obey her orders—to put it harshly, they had left without leave. She had brought only those who had become wholly hers, men willing to follow even knowing they would be punished for it.
Zhang Lan answered with a calm face.
"Those who grasp what's happened will send a pursuit before long. Time is on our side. Send Adou over here, and I'll open the road without a fuss."
"We'll see how long you can keep talking like that."
Lady Sun—no, Sun Lin, who had now cast aside her marriage to Liu Bei—drew the sword at her waist. The well-kept blade flashed blue-green in the sun. As her maidservants drew after her, Zhang Lan and the soldiers gripped their own weapons.
A hundred against ten was an overwhelming disadvantage, yet there was no fear on their faces. They were men, larger in build; they had the river at their backs and comrades to watch their flanks, so they need only hold whatever came at them from the front. They had only to endure. Neither side had the slightest thought of yielding, and so all that remained was the clash.
"Strike!"
My opponent was Lady Sun. Two years ago, not yet even ten, I had judged myself no match for her and sent Chokbaek in my place. This time she closed the distance while genuinely wary of me. Of course she did. The difference between then and now was almost impossible to believe.
The average height of an adult man in this age was roughly a hundred and fifty centimeters—an estimate, and a hundred and sixty at the outside. Those who set it low went as far as a hundred and forty, so a hundred and fifty was probably about right. Women were smaller by blood to begin with, and in the lean years of a chaotic age they ate even worse than men. How tall could they grow? Even Lady Sun, born of the outstanding warrior Sun Jian and raised on good food, stood only a little over a hundred and sixty.
And I, at eleven, was still close to a hundred and fifty, as if I were a person of the twenty-first century. Honestly, back then that would have been five or six centimeters above average at most. Here it was a transcendent rate of growth. Considering my father stood near a hundred and ninety, era or no era, blood really was supreme.
But I was not the only one who had inherited good blood.
Clang!
"Hup!"
"Ngh!"
The instant the swords met, Lady Sun and I thought the same thing.
Why is this woman so strong?
To her I was an eleven-year-old brat. To me she was a pure third-century woman, no cheats attached. Each of us had been counting on victory, and when the other proved stronger than expected, bewilderment crossed between us. I was the one who shook it off first.
With Sun Quan it might have been different, but since she had come over to Jing Province, Lady Sun's opponents had amounted to the maidservants who attended her. None of them would have been stronger than she was. If one had been, she would have broken through us and boarded long ago.
I was different.
I spar with that monster Zhang Fei every single day!
Skrring!
Her edge rode up along mine. Swordsmanship is not merely the clashing of swords. Blocking a blade with a blade is the inferior plan; if you don't know what to do after the steel meets, the only rule left is that you take the blow. But Lady Sun was no common soldier. True to the daughter of the Tiger of Jiangdong, she shook my sword off at once.
Her strength did seem a little greater. Either that, or crisis had lent her a monstrous force.
Near enough to even, then.
I used the moment she drew back to take in the fight. So far the soldiers were holding the maidservants well. Neither side could openly go for a kill, and the flow was turning our way. Both sides dimly understood that the moment someone died, this would become an official matter. Blocked by me and growing anxious, Lady Sun bit her lip and shouted.
"Killing is permitted! Open a path, whatever it takes!"
She had crossed the line at last. Unlike a moment before, killing intent poured off her as she brought the blade down.
"Don't hold back on your side either! Stop them even if you have to kill!"
I roared it. I could not lose a single one of them. They were the few people I had—precious bonds who believed in me and followed, even under a father that harsh. Far too dear to lose here.
This time I attacked first. I had spoken of time being on my side as if I had room to spare, but that only held so long as neither side struck to kill. If my people died, buying time or not, it was simply a loss. A grievous one.
I will not let them die.
Even against the sudden attack, Lady Sun stayed composed. A bowstring of tension, drawn taut, joined the two of us. Whoever cut it first would be the one to fall. Blade met blade; we let them slide, we dodged, we traded passes. And when the contest of strength came again, she used finesse to turn the line of her edge—a flexible attack that overturned my expectation that she would stake everything on being the stronger.
She had said the soldiers might be killed, but it seemed she could not bring herself to kill me. The blade surged for my shoulder. For her it was a masterstroke, a gamble thrown under the press of time, a way of fighting that strongly resembled the past, when I had still been a child.
A pity. That was a blunder.
Tang!
Her edge never reached my shoulder. A guard drawn out longer than on an ordinary sword—the collar of the hilt—stopped it cold. Han swords had collars too, but they were small. The sword I used had been lengthened into something like a crossguard, to suit the longsword art I had learned. An alien swordsmanship in this age, and the advantage an alien sword could bring. I did not miss the opening.
Liechtenauer's art was a composite discipline, sword joined to wrestling and the arts of the body. I seized her wrist as it was, twisted, and turned it. With her arm caught, Lady Sun had no time to resist before the edge touched her throat.
"Everyone, stop!"
The magnificent volume I had inherited from Zhang Fei rang across the landing. The maidservants, seeing their lady subdued with a sword at her throat, let their blades droop in blank despair. However important the mission, their master was Lady Sun. The moment her life was taken hostage, further fighting became impossible.
"Set your swords on the ground and fall back to one side."
They hesitated, glancing at one another. For a moment I thought they might be setting orders above her life, and the air that had loosened with my shout drew tight again. It would have been simple if Lady Sun gave the command, but she kept her mouth shut even with steel at her throat, as if she knew I could not kill her.
A hair-trigger moment. The maidservants who had been drawing back watched the two of us and began, little by little, to edge forward again.
Dudududu!
"They're here."
Hoofbeats—the cavalry of which Ji Han had precious few. The sound was an alarm announcing that time was up, and the sound that made our victory all but certain. Lady Sun heard them drifting in, seemed to understand there was no more hope, and resigned herself. Her rigid body went slack.
"It's too late now. Drop the swords."
Only then did the maidservants let their blades fall, one after another.
Ching. Clatter. Clash.
I took the sword from Lady Sun's hand as well and then released her. Two soldiers stayed at her side, so it was hardly a full release. I passed her to them, walked between the disarmed maidservants, and approached the small boy they had been holding.
Liu Shan, six years my junior, was tiny in a way that fit his five years. Smaller even than the little sprout at our house, he stood there with dignity, not even crying, as if none of this frightened him.
Incompetent he may be, but a lord's blood doesn't go anywhere, does it?
Even people who barely know the Romance of the Three Kingdoms know that Liu Shan was incompetent. His childhood name, Adou, later became an insult for a fool. And yet the gap between that stupid Adou and the boy staring at me with bright, clear eyes was so wide I wondered if they were different people.
"Young Master Liu."
I knelt to meet his eyes. He had been gazing fixedly at my face, and his mouth fell open wide as a basin.
"Pretty big sister……."
At the words he muttered, my expression crumpled, and my brow furrowed before I knew it.
"Pfft."
I followed the sound to see who had dared to laugh. Zhang San, who knew perfectly well that I hated being treated as a woman, whipped his head aside in a panic. I would deal with him later. Unaware of his fate, he watched me and Liu Shan with keen delight, like an auntie glued to a youth drama.
Things did not go as he hoped.
The hoofbeats swelled, the pursuit came into view, and a magnificent shout rolled out of it.
"Lady Sun, halt!"
The general who appeared with that thick, ringing cry—how many men were there who rode a white horse, tall enough to rival my father, with a handsome face full of manly spirit? Zhao Yun had come.
For all the drama of the entrance, there was nothing left for him to do. The matter was already finished. All that remained was to take Liu Shan home. He confirmed the boy's safety first, and only then turned his attention to me.
"And who might this young lady be?"
Come to think of it, two years had passed and we were into the third, and this was the first time I had laid eyes on Zhao Yun. Zhang Lan's memories still held his face, if faintly. That he did not know me at once made me feel how much I had truly grown. Reflection could wait. I answered him with a clasped-hand salute.
"I am Zhang Lan, eldest daughter of the General Who Conquers the Caitiffs."
"Zhang Lan? General Zhang's daughter? Hah… to think that little girl has grown so much. I failed to recognize you. Forgive me."
"Not at all. A great deal of time has passed. More importantly, settling this place ought to come first."
"You're right. We'll share the rest on the way back."
Zhao Yun had his soldiers recover every weapon from the maidservants, then turned to Lady Sun and offered her a greeting. She had committed an incident this grave, and still his manner toward her was exceedingly polite. His tone was not.
"This action of yours has crossed the line."
"Hmph! So you'll seize me and drag me off, will you?"
"Return. And convey this: that the affair went too far."
"…You dare try to intimidate the house of Sun!"
Rage filled her. She ground her teeth and cried out sharp as a blade. Zhao Yun was speaking courteously, but the pressure of the anger carried in that very courtesy must have been considerable. Lady Sun was Lady Sun, after all. Still, does a tiger take fright because a black leopard rampages? He stepped right up to her and spoke in a voice that did not waver.
"Convey it clearly."
"……."
The one who lost the contest of spirit was Lady Sun. She avoided his eyes, spun about, and harried the blameless maidservants.
"What are you standing about for? Release them and get aboard!"
The maids scurried to free the sailors I had already taken and to make ready to board. Numbers being what they were, the cleanup ended quickly. Just before she stepped onto the boat, Lady Sun shot a glare my way. At our first meeting her eyes had held at least some goodwill. Now they were nothing but venomous and fierce.
"You certainly talked Chokbaek around."
The maid handed over as the stake of our wager. Who wouldn't know that her real purpose had been to watch me and my father?
"My lady must have known there was no chance of being taken in by someone who already understood."
"If not for you, I would not have failed."
I was silent at that. In truth she was caught only after Zhang Fei himself was brought in, and even then it was a near thing. But the mere fact that the first line—Zhuge Liang and Zhao Yun—had been breached gave her words weight. What she had said was that the affair had been carried out on thorough preparation, and it only raised the merit of having stopped it beforehand. Arguing back out of feeling would do nothing but cut into my own credit. I didn't know what she was aiming at, so I did not deny her. I acknowledged it as it stood.
"Maybe so."
She seemed to know as well that any further excuse would only be shabby. Without another word she boarded. The sail spread, the anchor came up, and the moored boat began to move. The pursuit, still dismounted, watched it go. She would not be their lord's wife for much longer, but perhaps this was courtesy toward one who had been, for a time. It was a courtesy possible only because Liu Shan had been brought back safe.
When the boat had drawn far enough off, Zhao Yun spoke.
"Everyone, prepare to return."
At his word the pursuit mounted as one, with the swiftness of well-trained elite troops.
"Lan'er, what will you do? It would be best if you returned with me."
An incident of this scale meant that, merit or no merit, I would have to be taken to the official residence and questioned. That he made it a suggestion rather than an order was his consideration for me.
"I'll accompany you."
"Good. There's a spare horse. I'll lend you that."
So they could pursue without rest, changing mounts the moment a horse tired, each of them had brought two. Even with the ten-odd of us riding, horses remained.
"Thank you. My soldiers don't know how to ride, though, and they'll fall behind. May I lead them and follow at an easy pace?"
"Do so. I'll arrive first and pass word to the Military Advisor."
"I'm grateful for the consideration."
I took the horses from the pursuit and gave the soldiers one apiece. They had picked out the gentlest beasts they could, so although it was the men's first time in the saddle, they somehow managed to mount. I was about to climb up myself when a commotion rose behind me. It had all ended cleanly—what now?
"No!"
"Young Master. We must return now."
"No!"
Liu Shan had become a little parrot of refusal, and Zhao Yun, whose dignity of a moment ago had gone who knew where, was utterly at a loss. At Changban he had held the child so preciously in his arms and come through a land of death, and still, for all his entreaties, Liu Shan kept throwing a tantrum.
"Young Master, if it's that you wish to play in the water, I'll ask the Military Advisor when we return…"
"It's not that!"
I snickered to myself. Yes. This was Liu Shan. Not crying even at five, that unfazed bearing and the clear, distinct speech were surprising, but a child was still a child. And he was the sort who listened to his ministers uncannily well, so I thought it would end after a suitable fuss—until his bright voice struck my ears.
"I said I want to go with the pretty big sister!"
"Ah?"