The Sack of the Summer Palace

Cloudcutter and the Ravening Stripe

In the 28th summer of the latter king—he was not called "Cold" then—the retinue had become small; the mandarins who had once trailed like peacock feathers for half a mile down the Road of Birds now remained, for the most part, in Rassha, as did the masters of the Rigors Martial, who found the king excessively hard to instruct in a location he consistently denounced as haunted. These worthies were partially replaced by lamas (principally novices) and, at the behest of the more senior lamas, by a detachment of the Demon Guard and several hired brothers of the Green Morning; the mandarins, drunk on the thought of balmy summers in Rassha, did not question the requisition. The princes and princesses remained in Rassha as well, leaving the bright-walled nursery of the Summer Palace free to house the fighting men. The constants were the royal attendants, the kitchen staff, and the king and queens themselves—except for Queen Abhaya, who had refused to remand her youngest to a wet-nurse and thus was unlikely to conceive in any case.

Recall that this pilgrimage took place a century and more before the Daughters' War; the fighting-men were men, the kitchen staff  mainly women, and the younger among them keenly valued one another's company. The profusion of clerics, chaperonish by nature, only added zest to their mutual pursuit, and it was common as pebbles for five or six tiny fires to spring up of an evening, nestled among rocks or groves well off the path, attended by a rotating roster of young men and women concentrated on the evaluation and, when appropriate, seduction of their counterparts. It was to one such fire that an eager young Green Morning brother named Lin Ben arrived, his dark-adapted eye struggling to pick out grace and curvature against the sudden onslaught of flame-light, in the middle of a story:

"—The last man was a student of the Crane's Migration Step—like many of you here," the maid said with a macabre cast of voice, sweeping a wicked gaze over the gathered Green Morning brothers, "—and a swift study; and he learned from his friends' mistakes. He resolved to tire the challenger with leaps and evasions, then land the coup de grace when the foe could move no longer. He was a brilliant fencer, this one, perhaps the most promising of his generation—"

"What was his name?" called another of the brothers, Lin Aden—of a similar age to Lin Ben, but taller and broader-shouldered, with a beard to rival of any albino barbarian and a style, Bear in Winter, earned in combat. (They were not related; recall that it was the custom of the time for Green Morning brothers to take the Gardener name “Lin,” which means “forest.”) "If he was that promising, his name should be famous."

The maid pricked Lin Aden's gaze with her own, and Lin Ben saw in the firelight that her cheek had a faint discoloration, about the size and shape of a mouse with its tail coiled around its body. "His name was Lin Dawa, his style Cloudcutter—and this is the story of why his name rings hollow in your ears."

At this the maid waited, as if in expectation. Lin Aden waved an indulgent hand, but Lin Ben could see that his brother-in-arms was unsettled by the rejoinder. Ben himself shivered a bit—but only from the cold, of course.

"They faced each other," the maid continued, "Cloudcutter, slim and pale, with his straight sword that looked like a needle, and the Ravening Stripe a gnarled stump with butterfly swords that looked like rusted cleavers. The Stripe charged; Cloudcutter evaded him with a leap straight into the air, high enough to black out a lesser warrior. But when he came down, the Stripe was on him, hacking away. He leaped again, over the Stripe's head and behind him, but the Stripe turned snake-swift and blows rained down from the pitted swords before Cloudcutter's heels could touch the ground. It was an eerie sight and fine, Cloudcutter flitting through the air around the Stripe like a green moth around a black fire.

“But the moth's wings tire in time. And so it was with Cloudcutter and the Ravening Stripe."

Lin Ben's fists were clenched, his shoulders tight, waiting for the death blow—or, more likely as he saw it, a surge from Cloudcutter, or perhaps an interruption to the duel (whose cause he still did not know, though he was not much troubled by the not knowing), an opportunity to learn the Stripe's flaws and vanquish him another day.