“Surenqalan,” said Otgar. “How long has this been happening?”
The man’s ger was empty. Completely empty. I cannot remember another time I’ve seen something like it—stark white felt walls, with no furniture to speak of save the door and the frame keeping everything up. After seeing the corpse of that man from earlier, I shivered.
Something was very wrong with this clan.
“Great Kharsa,” said Surenqalan, tapping his forehead against my mother’s boots. “Wall-breaker, slayer of men, Burqila Alshara, I am unworthy to be in your presence.”
Otgar rolled her eyes. My mother tapped her lips, then held her fingers out.
“Get to the point,” Otgar said.
The old man took fistfuls of the rug at his feet. Shaking, he looked up at my mother. Did he see a woman, I wonder, or a legend? Did he see the Uncrowned Kharsa, the woman who breathed Dragon’s Fire? Or did he see something darker—perhaps the woman who killed her own brothers rather than submit to their authority? For my mother was all those things and more, and sometimes I had trouble figuring out which woman I spoke to.
But from his eyes wide as pebbles and his cheeks paler than the walls of the ger, I had an idea what he saw.
The Destroyer.
“Burqila,” he said with a trembling voice, “I fear the Generals have come for my clan.”
“Don’t be silly,” Otgar said. My mother’s hands were still; this was Otgar’s opinion alone. “Of the six remaining clans, yours is the smallest. One of the Generals would never bother coming all the way up north unless they wanted a fine fur coat. We cannot be dealing with a General.”
I nodded. The Generals—four demon lords in the service of the Traitor—made appearances only in the most dire of times. When armies of blackbloods marched, a General led them. When the Traitor’s forces tore through old Shiseiki as an arrow through paper, the Generals strung their bows.
But for a few hundred Qorin up near the mountains, barely scraping by on whatever food they could scavenge?
It made no sense. What would a General want with this clan?
Not to mention the remaining three were trapped beyond the Wall of Flowers. Everyone knew that. The Daughter’s creation kept them from rampaging through the rest of Shiseiki Province, kept them sealed within the borders of northern Hokkaro. The last time actual demons set foot on the steppes was when Tumenbayar was Grand Kharsa.
Blackbloods would not be surprising.
But blackbloods did not leave this sort of mess. They left carnage, blood and broken bones—not empty husks.
If demons were out on the steppes again …
My mother’s fingers moved in soft, small gestures—meant for Otgar and not Surenqalan. I did not catch all of them, but I understood enough. We will make a diplomat out of you yet.
“What else could do this to a man? To many men?” Surenqalan protested. As he continued, his voice cracked like a child’s. I felt a pang of pity for him. For my people. There were not many of us left; less than the population of even a small Hokkaran city. Every life lost was notable now.
“A demon,” Otgar said. “But it’s not a General. There are only four of those, old man, and Burqila killed one with Naisuran. We would have seen it by now if it were a blackblood, too—they’re not good at hiding. So it must be a demon. It cannot be a blackblood.”
“A demon?” said Surenqalan. He attempted to get to his feet. My mother tapped her foot, and he stayed where he was. “How could they get past the Wall of Flowers? Demons are a Ricetongue problem, not one of ours.”
Moving shadows against the ger’s walls. A featureless face smiling at me.
“Not for long,” I said.
Otgar and Alshara both shot me a look. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.
Curiosity written on my mother’s features—who taught me anything about demons?
I licked my lips.
My mother is silent because of an oath, but I simply don’t like talking.
More to the point—I had no idea where that bit of information had come from. Do flowers know, I wonder, when it is going to rain? If so, I imagine they felt the same way I did whenever I thought of the demon.
*
THERE I WAS, my mother and Otgar staring at me, waiting for me to elaborate.
I cleared my throat. Say what you mean the first time, and say it plainly.
“I saw the demon last night,” I said. “Our deaths amuse it.”
Alshara beckoned me closer. I stood next to her. She sniffed both my cheeks and squeezed my shoulders. Gone was the accusing look. In its place, concern. In its place, hiding beneath the surface of her dark skin: worry and fear.
Otgar, too, hugged herself a bit tighter. She spat on the ground. By some miracle, she did not hit Surenqalan, who still prostrated himself at my mother’s feet.
“Barsalai,” he said, “you have seen the thing that stalks us?”
I nodded.
“Can we kill it?” he asked.
I looked to my mother. Alshara and Shizuru slew one of the Generals in their youth. Of the Sixteen Swords that set out from Fujino, only they returned. If anyone could kill Shao, it was my mother.
She nodded. She raised her hands to about chest level and gestured again, her fingers flying through forms and motions as a tongue shapes syllables.
“Burqila will slay this demon,” Otgar said. “She will set out tonight and she will return with its head. In exchange, you shall provide her with one of your sons, or your grandsons—whichever is the right age to perform his bridal duties. He will stay with—”
Otgar paused though my mother continued signing. And then she did something I did not expect.
She began signing back.
The two of them went back and forth for some time. Otgar’s motions were choppy waves; my mother’s rising tides. Otgar’s whole arm moved when her hand did, throwing more volume behind her silent words. Eventually she stomped her right foot, crossed her arms, and glowered for a few moments.
“He will stay in our ger and perform his duties there,” Otgar mumbled. “And in two years’ time, if he is not horrible, he might find himself married to me.”
Surenqalan did not know what to say. He chose the wise man’s course and said as little as possible.
“As you wish, Burqila.”
My mother continued signing, but Otgar refused to translate. She turned on her heel and left the ger, her footfalls like a colt’s. When my mother saw this, she stopped mid-motion and put a palm to her forehead. She grunted. For her, it might as well have been a speech.
For my part, I did not want to focus on personal matters when there was a demon on the loose. Especially not a demon that knew me.
So I shrugged in the direction Otgar had gone and reached for my bow.
My mother nodded. To get Surenqalan’s attention, she tapped her foot by his head. He looked up; she inclined her head. That was all the good-bye we offered.