Prologue: Soldiers
"For thousands of years, humanity has battled against dragonkind. Dragons, however, have never been humanity's greatest enemy."
History burned. Stone pathways that had been walked by countless generations melted away and raised pagoda towers that had stood for a thousand years crumbled into ashes. The great stone fortress of Caihong, which had withstood the tests of time and antiquity, was incinerated in minutes, ravaged by blue flames.
Kang gasped for breath, choking on air so dry that it was like breathing in sand. Steaming tears burned his cheeks as they rolled to the base of his chin. Everywhere he looked he was surrounded by the dead; blackened and ashen.
“N-No!” Kang rasped. “Everyone! Everyone is...!” He couldn’t feel his legs, and so crawled forward on sweaty hands and scraped elbows. “Why is this happening?! How?!” Smoke stung his eyes, continuing to elicit misty tears until his eyes were as dry as the air. “No...” he whimpered. “No!”
Thunder boomed in the distance. No, not thunder. Gunshots. Someone began to scream. Kang willed himself to crawl faster, pulling himself with every modicum of strength he had left. He heard a yelp of pain followed by an echoing pop. The screaming stopped.
“This isn’t supposed to be happening. Damn it. Damn it!”
He turned the corner. Lines of men came into view; a parade of olive uniforms, conical straw hats, and boots darker than mud. A red phoenix was prominently displayed across the front of their uniforms.
“Bastards!” Kang said, softly at first, unable to gather the strength in his lungs. He inhaled, ignoring the urge to cough and sputter. “You bastards!”
His voice rang as crisp as any gunshot, drawing the attention of the soldiers, who began to turn and face him. His cries drew more than the attention of soldiers. Long, dark silhouettes began to appear within the smoke, serpentine and with glowing eyes. Growls rolled from the throats of colossal beasts, more potent than any thunder or gunshot.
How did this happen? Kang thought. How?! He thought back, trying to remember how his nightmare had begun.
Everything had happened so suddenly. It had been quiet in the fortress at first, tranquil as it was on most nights. Like most nights Kang and the other dragonsquires had been curled up in their futons, asleep in rows of shared cabins, four per cabin. At that time the only sound had been their rolling snores.
He had been fast asleep and in the midst of dreaming about beautiful Mei, the butcher’s daughter who worked a town away, when he was awoken by someone shaking him.
Kang stirred, groaning as he rubbed dreariness from his eyes. “Uhhh... what?” His vision came into focus, revealing a bald man with a wide chest and sturdy shoulders, a thick black mustache on the man’s upper lip. “Master Zhonghua? What are you doing here?”
“Wake up, all of you,” the master dragonslayer said, shaking some of the others. “We need to leave. Quickly. Quietly.” There was an urgency in his voice that put Kang on edge.
The four dragonsquires rolled out of their futons and dressed. Together, the four scampered on cat’s feet into the courtyard outside their cabin.
“Wh-What’s going on?” Aiju stammered.
“Soldiers,” Zhonghua said.
“Soldiers?!” Fang exclaimed in disbelief. “Who?!”
Aiju began to whimper. She was a mousy girl, thin with a head of soft, brown curls. Though she excelled in training Kang was reminded that the eleven-year old was still only a child, unaccustomed to violence.
“Imperial army,” Zhonghua said. “We don’t have long. They’re already at the gates.”
Kang met Fang’s eyes, finding a fear in his twin sister’s expression that mirrored his own feelings. “But why would Taixang attack us? The Phoenix King is our ally!”
“Phoenix King Luang-Hei is dead.”
“What?!” Luhui asked. “How?!”
“There’s no time to explain. You all need to hide.”
Zhonghua led them through the ancient, stone pathways that composed Caihong. The outside was dark except for the garish smolder of fire in the distance. Men could be heard yelling from afar. Kang’s lungs filled with sizzling air as the five of them exited from the barracks, acrid smoke and a foul miasma stinging his eyes and throat as he tried to breathe. He stifled a cough. His skin felt dry and flaky from the heat.
The master dragonslayer brought them to one of the training halls, a large square building of scarlet colored stone supported by tall columns. Zhonghua pushed open the massive set of wooden double doors that barred the entrance, taking care to open the doors slowly so as to avoid the creaking that came with rusted hinges.
As they moved Kang tried to piece together what was happening. It just didn’t make sense. The Order of the Dragonslayers had always fostered a good relationship with the imperial nation of Taixang. What was more, attacking the dragonslayers’ fortress of Caihong was a fool’s errand even for such a superpower. Ordinary soldiers were no match for dragonslayers. A master dragonslayer such as Zhonghua could face a dozen men alone and win.
That was if the invaders even made it that far. The Order made its home atop Mount Yulen, the tallest mountain on the Great Continent. The imperial army’s winged pixius couldn’t fly that high, and scaling the mountain normally took days even for those accustomed to the harsh climb.
Led by Zhonghua, the dragonsquires stole into the training hall on tiptoes. Inside was pitch black, forcing Kang to squint just to make out the barest, most vague shapes.
“Where’s everyone else?” Luhui whispered. At seventeen, Luhui was the oldest from their cabin. He had trained the longest among them and his experience cemented him as the leader of their group. Kang had looked up to him for as long as he could remember. Hearing the terror in the older boy’s voice now induced a cold dread in the pit of Kang’s stomach.
“Some of the other masters are hiding your fellow dragonsquires elsewhere,” Zhonghua replied. “Most are already fighting.”
They rounded the corner into another room. The glow of fire outside seeped into the room through the skylight, illuminating rows of terra-cotta barrels that normally served as water storage.
Zhonghua lifted the lid from one of the barrels and nodded toward it. “Get in. Tallest to smallest. Kang, you first.”
“Fang is just as tall as I-” Kang began to protest.
“In,” Zhonghua cut him off.
Kang scowled, peering into the dark of the barrel.
“Quickly!”
Kang groaned internally., He pushed his hands up against the edge of the barrel, steadying it, then climbed in and curled into a ball at the bottom. To his chagrin he found that not all of the water had been emptied. He grunted, but before he could complain Fang clambered on top of him.
“Move a little,” she ordered.
“Give me a damn moment,” Kang protested. “Hey, wait! Stop that! Damn y-” The bottom of Fang’s foot quashed up against his cheek, icy on his face. Kang grimaced, though no one could see his expression.
“I’m going to look for stragglers,” Zhonghua said as the others began climbing in. “All of you stay here quietly until I return.” In the distance, gunshots echoed in succession, like staccato thunderclaps.
“Why aren’t we fighting?!” Kang demanded.
Solemnity calcified across the master dragonslayer’s face. “I fear that Caihong is already lost. The best we can do now is ensure that all of you survive.”
“I want to help!” Kang insisted. “Why can’t we-”
Zhonghua cut him off by replacing the lid of the barrel, enshrining the dragonsquires in darkness. They waited like that for two hours, unmoving inside the barrel. The sounds of gunfire and men shouting were constant throughout the night. Aches accumulated in Kang’s body from his tight position at the bottom of the barrel, until his back and shoulders screamed at him. I have got to get out of here.
“Why are we hiding?” he hissed irritably. “We should be out there with the masters, fighting!”
“Quiet!” Fang snapped from above him. “Do you want them to find us?”
He growled. “If they do, I’ll kill them all! Every last one of them.”
“Shut it,” Luhui ordered from above Fang, his voice like ice. “Stupid boy. You’re going to get us all killed.”
“We can take them! When have regular soldiers ever been a match for dragonslayers?”
“We aren’t dragonslayers yet,” Luhui reminded him, “or does the potential to get Aiju killed not matter to you?”
Kang wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so he didn’t. Realizing that Luhui had a point, however, did nothing to quell his rage. The reality was still that Fang’s feet were pressed against his face and that his home, the only home he had ever known, was under attack for reasons that he couldn’t even begin to puzzle out. He could smell the earthy must of sediment on Fang’s bare soles. He cursed himself silently, wishing he’d handled the last couple of hours differently somehow.
“Hey Kang,” Fang whispered, “scoot a bit. I want to adjust.”
“What?” Kang replied. “Are you kidding? I can’t-”
Fang began to wiggle.
“Stop that!”
She shifted, destabilizing his position and causing him to abruptly lurch. The left side of Kang’s face plunged into the water at the bottom of the barrel. He opened his mouth to curse her, but doing so caused water to flood into his mouth. He tried to breathe, but got water up his nose. Kang struggled to move and get his face out of the water. “Fang,” he protested, his voice bubbling as water seeped into his mouth and down his throat.
There was an abrupt crashing sound just outside. Kang and Fang stopped squirming.
“What was that?!” Luhui asked.
Suddenly everything disappeared in an explosion of sound and light.
Awaken. Survive. You must survive...
Kang awoke to the sound of his beating heart, his face caked in sweat. He opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by darkness, immobilized by pressure from all sides. He grunted, struggling against the pressure to try and force himself free. Nothing budged. Kang cursed. There was a sharp pain in his ribs when he moved or breathed. Was something broken?
His head was pounding as if someone had slammed a warhammer into his skull. He tried to remember what had happened. The last thing Kang could recall was practically drowning at the bottom of a terra-cotta barrel. He was no longer in the barrel, he realized. He vaguely remembered some crashing sound, a scent like smoke. Had something blown up or collapsed the training hall?
A ray of light broke through the darkness. A lone hand stretched out before him. He seized the hand and was pulled from beneath piles of rubble and ash. Kang emerged outdoors, dry night air biting exposed skin. He stumbled to his feet, lightheaded. Zhonghua clasped his hand. “M-Master!” Kang exclaimed. “Master, what’s going on?”
Zhonghua said something, but Kang was too stunned to make it out. His ears rang with a shrill whine that dulled other sounds. He felt dizzy, disoriented. The fire and the outside air were overwhelming, seeming to assault his senses. Zhonghua helped to steady his squire’s footing. Kang began to drink in his new surroundings: piles of rubble that appeared to have once been wooden support beams and other foundational pieces of a larger structure. The debris and wreckage all but confirmed Kang’s theory that the training hall had caved in. What could have done something like that?
“Fang!” Kang exclaimed suddenly, realizing his sister wasn’t with him.
“Here!” Fang exclaimed. She and Luhui stood a few feet away, faces and clothes caked in mud and soot.
Kang rushed toward them and seized Fang in an embrace. “I’m so glad you’re okay!” His ribs stung as he hugged her but he ignored the pain. She clutched him tightly, holding him for an extra second before they parted. “Where’s Aiju?” His heart sank as both of his fellow dragonsquires refused to meet his gaze.
“The situation is worse than I thought,” Zhonghua said. “We have to leave Caihong. Now.”
Kang abruptly vomited, gagging as a wave of despair washed over him. He turned away from the others, then paled as he caught sight of the state of Caihong. The training hall was far from the only building to have been destroyed. All around splintered stone tile floors were littered with piles of scorched debris from collapsed buildings. Worse, the ground was littered with blanched black statues that had once been men. In death their physical forms had calcified, burning away from the inside as their souls left their bodies. Kang’s head felt light. He began to hyperventilate.
Zhonghua seized him by the shoulders. “Focus! There will be time to grieve. Right now we need to go.” Kang nodded absentmindedly. “Stay close together,” Zhonghua ordered.
“Yes sir,” Luhui said on behalf of the dragonsquires.
The group of four began picking its way across the ruins of the compound, taking care not to lose their footing. The ground in this area ran downhill and had been pulverized into a million pieces. What had once been smooth, stone walkways had been reduced to countless tiny shards of minced rock underfoot, making for a slippery descent.
Caihong was a massive compound. The buildings were contained within a sprawling courtyard complex–red stone fashioned into a giant, octagonal plateau, south-facing, that housed dozens of tall towers with dark, raised pagoda roofs layered upon green and yellow curled eaves. Many of those buildings now burned.
As they traversed the compound Kang was hit by the caustic stench of burning flesh and rotting filth. He had accompanied his master on nearly a dozen missions, facing not just dragons but all manner of horrible demons and cursed spirits; from the changui, a sinister spirit which sought to kill women in childbirth, to the man-eating gudiao bird. He was no stranger to death, and had seen men, women, and even children killed in gruesome, often unusual ways that would cause even the most steadfast men to lose their stomachs.
Despite that experience Kang was not prepared for what he saw now. He had never seen so many dead. Countless soldiers and dragonslayers lay intermingled in a macabre tangle, their remains scattered without rhyme or reason. Battling demons and cursed spirits was one thing. In those cases even the worst was relatively contained. This was different. This had been no battle, but a massacre.
Kang stopped and dry-heaved, trying with all of his strength to overcome the nausea that gripped him. Soldiers often spoke of the smell of the battlefield, how for veterans the scent of shit and piss and men bleeding never left their nostrils. Kang was beginning to understand.
“There’s no time to get choked up,” Zhonghua urged. “We have a job to do.”
Kang gulped and nodded, and the group continued. Stepping over the remnants of the lost proved arduous due to the sheer number of dead. Kang’s legs ached increasingly with every step, his calves and joints screaming in protest. They turned the corner and were met with a cadaverous pile ignited by blue flames.
“Impossible!” Luhui exclaimed.
“No...” Kang murmured, horrified.
The blue fire burned with its own distinct, putrid odor, a stench reminiscent of countryside villages burned to quarantine plague. The smell, of course, wasn’t why the blue flames were so fearsome. Blue flames didn’t just kill. They burned anything and everything, incinerating body and spirit alike. Those killed by the blue flames did not ascend to Jingshen. Men could not wield such fire. The only ones who could do that were...
“Dragons!” Fang said out loud at the same time that Kang realized it. “The imperials are working together with dragons!”
Zhonghua nodded. “It seems they’ve allied with the Survivor.”
The color drained from the faces of the dragonsquires. They had seen evidence of the seriousness of the attack on their compound, but dragons represented a whole other kind of danger.
“That’s how the imperials got up the mountain so quickly...” Luhui realized.
“But how?!” Fang exclaimed. “Why?!”
“I don’t know,” Zhonghua said, his face solemn.
“They’re... They’re really going to kill us all...” Kang said. “They’re really...” He began to whimper softly, then clamped a hand over his mouth to silence his cries. Tears flowed across his face and into his hand. He realized how foolish his earlier bluster had been. Any bravery he might have had instantly evaporated.
Fang grabbed him by the shoulders. “Hey! It’s alright. I’m here. We’re going to be okay.”
He met her gaze, finding comfort in the earthy glint of her eyes. “I’m sorry... I just...”
“I understand,” Fang told him. “I know this is scary. But we’re going to be brave, and we’re going to get through this, okay? Remember what we promised?”
Kang sniffled. “Stay together?”
Fang laced her fingers in his. “Always.”
Rain began to fall. The warmth of his sister’s hand was a soothing contrast to the cold droplets pelting them from above. For a moment all was well with the world. As long as he still had Fang he could get through anything.
Suddenly a voice shouted from nearby. “Over there!” The ground shook as thousands of pairs of boots beat down like a wardrum. Zhonghua cursed. A bunching of shadowed figures appeared against the blue fire’s simmering incandescence. They carried sleek, brown repeater rifles, shorter than the five foot long jingals that the Order often deployed against large demons. These were rifles designed specifically for killing men. Enemies holding those lethal weapons emerged from all sides.
“SOLDIERS! ENCLOSE!” a sharp voice crackled.
“HOO-RAH!”
The dragonsquires bunched together, back to back. They were surrounded.
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