Sky Pride

Liren looked up at the circling eagle. “Going to kill it? Actually, do we know how the shamans use them to watch people?”

“Nope. I don’t know if a shaman is looking at us right now, getting messages from the bird, or what. And no, I’m not going to kill it. I want to talk to the shaman controlling it.”

“Tracking an eagle across the sky seems tough.”

“Who’s tracking anything? It’s a mortal bird. Besides, I want to see if the shaman can talk through it.” Tian grinned.

Liren shook her head. “Where has this mischievous streak come from? You were always such a serious child.”

Tian swiftly decided there was no good answer to that, and threw out his flying sword. It might be the stupidest way to fly around, but it did make for a speedy escape.

He flew up towards the eagle in lazy circles. It was higher up than he usually liked to fly. Without an eagle's eyes, details of the ground started to smooth away. The rolling steppes flattened, only hinting at their truth by the fall of shadows. It was still beautiful, still wild and open. It just felt different up in all the blue. The horizon was so much further away. He could understand how it would scare Liren. There was nothing to tether yourself to up here. No reference point but a distant ground. It would be so easy to fall up into the sky.

The eagle was a lot bigger than he expected. Brown body, with black feathers at the very tips of his wings and tailfeathers. White feathers filled the middle of the wings and the middle of the tail, while the brown head seemed to be streaked with gold. Not a brilliant gold, but there was a brightness to it in the sunlight. Its fierceness went without question. It really was a damn big bird. If Tian had met it in the junkyard, it might have flown off with him.

The eagle didn’t want to be near him. Tian entirely understood. He didn’t care. He flew upwards and put himself eye to eye with the bird, gliding silently through the high air. It felt right, in a way he couldn’t quite explain. Like he was finally a heavenly person, a real transcendent daoist cultivator. Like he had finally transcended that boy in the dump.

He smiled a little, seeing his reflection in the eagle’s eye. He certainly looked nothing like the boy in the dump. But when he touched his heart, it beat just the same. The sky was still filled with the same wonder, even if he could now wander through it. The courage and resolve he had earned there was with him still. As was the ruthlessness.

Twenty three dead. He dissolved some in acid, destroyed the brains of others with Thunderous Palms, taking care to leave their corpses as intact as possible. The memories came pouring in, obliterating his good mood. He could see it in the bird’s eye, the smile washing away from his face, his eyes going as cold and dead as the brick floor in the warehouse.

“If sir can hear me, kindly wiggle the bird’s wings, or speak to me through him. I think we would be more comfortable this way. Otherwise, I have to track your qi and discuss matters with you in person.”

“Who’s a sir?” A woman’s voice, sharp and accented, came from roughly the area of the eagle’s beak, though the bird had its mouth firmly closed.

“My apologies. Is your bird also female?”

“Obviously.”

Tian cupped his fist and bowed. “My ignorance has led to my inadvertently giving offence.” He bowed very politely, not minding that he was bending over a void hundreds of feet high, held up by a single piece of metal. After more than a week of traveling on a sword, he had grown used to it. The eagle’s spiritual rider, less so.

“How do you not fall off?”

“How do you speak through an eagle? My normal is magic to you, and your normal is magic to me.” Tian shrugged.

“Hah. Wordplay and games.”

“No, I’m quite literal and direct. It’s daoist magic, utilizing the five elements and specific crafting methods to create a tool capable of carrying a daoist through the air. Provided they are strong enough, of course. And I really have no idea how you are speaking through this eagle, other than it has something to do with spirits.”

“You had no trouble spotting me, though.”

“No, no trouble.” Tian didn’t mention that he was slowly finding the trail of qi from the eagle to a point far in the distance. It was faint, and not always visible to his senses, but he was getting better at finding it.

“So what do you want, sorcerer?”

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“I want to find the people who are moving the tribes.”

He was fairly sure that the eagle looked startled, but it was hard to tell. He didn’t really know eagles as well as some other birds. He’d have lots of opportunities to study them now, of course.

“You mean the kings? No, a sorcerer would want the Grand Shamans.”

“Them too, but no. Something has changed, and it’s more than just the seeming vulnerability of the Broadsky Kingdom. I want to find the people who have made the change.”

Tian felt increasingly sure that what he was seeing was surprise. Eagles spoke with body language, of course, and the shaman wasn’t making any big moves, but Tian felt confident about what he was seeing.

“You really think that?”

“Yes.” Tian nodded. “Any idea where I should start looking?”

“In Hell.”

“Or I can start in your camp. Mmm. Let’s see if I guessed right.” Tian had been silently communicating with Liren, who shot off over the horizon.

“Incidentally, I’d clench my teeth if I were you. Assuming I got it right, of course.” Tian nodded companionably to the bird.

“The hell are you-”

Ah, he had been wrong before. This was what surprise looked like on an eagle. Those feathers were jutting out like crazy. He could feel the connection to the bird suddenly fade, but not vanish entirely. Interesting. Tian lazily reached out and grabbed the eagle. The eagle was not impressed by this course of action, but really didn’t get to have a say in things. Tian knocked her out with a gentle pulse of qi, then tied her to his belt with a bit of rope.

It was immediately awkward. He had a vague notion that it would be like tying a dead pigeon or pheasant or wild chicken to his belt. The blasted bird nearly reached his ankles, and the wings spread out eight feet wide. A bit of string was employed to truss the bird into a tidy bundle. It was still awkward, but at least it was manageable. Impressively light for something so big and with such huge claws.

“Somehow, this never came up in the Temple. Teacher didn’t cover it either. I can’t believe I’m the only one who has this problem. I just can’t be.” Tian muttered. “At least I’ll be able to shut up anyone who complains about me ‘hoarding junk.’ How awkward would it have been if I didn’t have just the right bit of string to truss the bird, hmm?”

Tian knew he was hiding from the memories of the warehouse. He could feel the pressure of the images against the barriers his mind was desperately making, using distraction and detachment. It worked but it would be painfully easy to slide into depression. No, he had slid into depression. He had done it often enough. He just hadn’t noticed.

He could feel depression settling on his shoulders and wrapping around his heart and covering his head like a painfully heavy hat. He had thought he had outgrown the bony hand of memory wrapping around his throat. Reaching the heavenly realm, surely he should have grown too great for it to grasp him. Yet here it was again. Nightmare memories and the grey room of depression, just the way it was before. It seemed that it might be one of those things you had to be six foot one to be free of.

He flew after Liren, not rushing, not dawdling. Somehow, he couldn’t see the blue sky anymore, nor the green grass, or the silvery mugwort. They were still there, but it was all grey now. A place stripped of meaning. Not a painful place, an empty one. It wasn’t a nice place either, but that was the thing about depression. It was dissolving in a bath of lukewarm acid. You knew it would kill you, you weren’t comfortable, but it was so damn cold outside you couldn’t stand leaving it.

“I completely reforged my body three times over. My hands are healed, the chains on me have shattered, and I’m still a yin man to my core. I really thought… but I am wrong about a lot of things. This was just one more.”

The camp was a scattering of wide, round tents. Tents didn’t really do them justice- they were bigger than some peasant homes he had seen, easily big enough to sleep a large family. Undyed felt, if he had to guess, and some hides mixed in here and there, though not every tent had hides on them. Most had a hole in the middle of the roof. He could see smoke rising through some of them.

There were also more horses here than he had ever seen in one place before, outside of an army. Sheep too, but he had seen large flocks of sheep. This was horses by the dozens. It was a small-ish tribe, and they had enough horses to fill a provincial horse market. Incredible.

Little ponies, he noticed, and the shaggy fur of the Grand Shaman’s horse was here too. None of the ones here were green, though, and nothing had a meaningful amount of qi in it. Of course, he now understood how misleading that was. For example, the man pointing a bow at Liren had a purely mortal level of qi, but there was something in the arrow he didn’t like. It didn’t feel strong enough to hurt Liren, but… he had been wrong before.

Tian sent the sword into a dive that would have done the eagle proud. As he fell, he called out the Heavenly Sparrow darts, letting them swarm around him. Liren was holding a skinny, small woman by the neck. Her robes were a vivid yellow, with green ropes hanging down from her neck like a string of necklaces had been broken. On her head was a hat that came down over her forehead, a cluster of tall feathers sticking straight up from it. He could see there was an eye painted in white on the blue, feathered hat. He sent the darts forward, swooping down on the bow and the bowman.

He saw the bowman’s fingers letting go of the string. He saw the goose feather arrow leave the bow, twisting through the air, a snake looking to bite Liren between her brows. The Heavenly swallows dove down fast, fast, fast as he could but he was still too far away. Everything was moving in slow motion, the arrow twisting through the air towards Liren’s face and he wasn’t going to get there in time!

Liren casually tilted her head to the side. The arrow slid past her, barely stirring her veil, and burying itself in the dirt. She looked like she was stretching her neck, or curious about something someone just said. There wasn’t a speck of fear on her. But Tian couldn’t think such complicated thoughts. Liren was still alive. He had time to save her. He just had to kill the bowman.

Liren tilted her face up, and watched Tian dive out of a clear blue sky. His eyes were fixed on the bowman. He didn’t see the look of horror on her face.