The Silent Guard (mxm)

Chapter 41

"Eunuch Hong," prince Yuen greeted as they stepped out of his Laughing Crow pavilion and into the crisp night air. 

He'd had no idea where his spiders had planned to take them, and had intentionally not given them specific orders on the matter after they'd been called by Zen to help assist with their escape from Ashong. His father was extremely good at understanding people, and considering how he'd worked at his side as his assassin for so many years, he didn't want to have any say in where they surfaced if he could help it. 

It had been a complete surprise to them both when their spider finally surfaced beside the hot spring in the back of his property. Most of his outdoor birds greeted him with sleepy chirps and a few curious squawks, drawing a smile to his lips as he guided Lee Shaan inside his pavilion. They quickly changed into more suitable dark blue robes, then stepped out the front doors... and right into the path of the head eunuch. 

The man was no fighter, but he was the emperor's most trusted informant.  

He already knows we're on the palace grounds. Perhaps he doesn't know exactly where, though. 

At least, not yet. The man before them looked surprised to see them for the briefest moment before he masked his expression and calmly clasped his hands behind his back. 

"We need to take care of him, now," Huang said as he blurred down the stairs, unsheathing his sword as he moved. 

He didn't hear Lee Shaan following him, but that was fine. They fought differently, and he wouldn't try to tell the man what to do. He was no novice when it came to battles... he'd learned that first hand. 

Liall, I need your assistance to form a barrier around the pavilion, please. 

His spiritual familiar flared to life within his body seconds before its translucent wings erupted from his back. It was generally much safer to channel a familiar somewhere calm and free of distraction to avoid injury, but he didn't have that luxury at that moment. The bird quickly pulled itself free from its master's bleeding back as Huang's sword clanged loudly with eunuch Hong's blade. It climbed only as high as the surrounding trees, then began to circle as its black color started to fill in.  

Huang sparred with the man for several minutes as he waited for a sign that his barrier had worked. It came after exactly four minutes, when eunuch Hong abruptly channeled his spiritual energy into a blinding light directed above his head. Huang leaped up to try and catch it before it would be visible to the others looking for them, but before he could even consider reaching it, a strong arm wrapped around his waist as darkness blurred forward and smothered the light in an instant, then shattered into purple and black particles to be carried away by the wind. 

"Always showing off," he muttered as Lee Shaan landed on a patch of soft grass with ease, then set him down with an unabashed smirk. 

Lee Shaan opened his mouth to respond, no doubt with something sarcastic, but a loud hooting screech from one of his larger birds drew their attention back to where eunuch Hong had been standing. He was no longer there, but Huang wasn't too worried now. 

He kept an outstanding menagerie of birds at his pavilion, and while the more dangerous ones had been moved to his other residence while Qi and Zen had occupied the building, he had made previous arrangements to have them returned as soon as the two had left. Thankfully, his father seemed to have thought nothing of it, and had lacked enough foresight to realize that they could be called upon to be used as weapons should the need arise. 

In all honestly, he had not expected the mountain ice owl to make an appearance, though, as it tended to hunt less complicated prey on his property such as the devil's koi, but he definitely appreciated seeing the giant light blue and white bird, and quickly followed it before it alighted on a branch to loom over the startled eunuch that had been trying to escape. Its head swiveled this way and that as it eyed up its next quivering meal.