clattered along the fighting sticks but didn’t manage to find a way through Shang-Li’s defenses.
“The way I hear the story told,” Shang-Li said, “the ship was lost at sea and the woman was skilled enough to get it back to this harbor before it sank.”
“The ship wasn’t supposed to be lost.” Liu stamped his foot and thrust again, following up almost immediately with a backward slash.
Shang-Li dropped into a low horse stance and the sword cut the air only inches above his head. He thrust his right fighting stick toward Liu’s chest, but the man blocked it with his free hand and set himself to strike again.
“If she had done her job, the ship would have been safe.”
“Shang-Li, are you going to let them take the ship’s mage?”
Recognizing his father’s voice, Shang-Li focused on Liu. The man attacked again and Shang-Li defended himself against a flurry of sword blows. Then, when Liu lunged in again, Shang-Li swept the sword aside and charged forward.
Turning sideways, Shang-Li planted his right foot and lashed out with his left. Liu managed to turn away his face, but Shang-Li’s foot caught him on the temple and the neck. Propelled by the force of the kick, Liu slammed into the wall with a meaty smack.
After a quick glance to make sure his father and his friends were all right, Shang-Li ran to the window and peered out. The two men struggled with the woman on the slanted roof only a few feet away. Their feet slipped and slid on the damp wooden shingles. Obviously the woman was no stranger to physical encounters, but she was up against skilled opponents.
Shang-Li put his fighting sticks away and stepped through the window onto the eaves. His foot slipped, then found purchase. He found his center, concentrated on his balance, and stepped forward.
One of the men released the woman while the other stepped behind her and held a knife to her throat. The man holding the ship’s mage stepped back toward the roofs edge. Unfortunately, the Splintered Yards hadn’t been built on level ground. Tucked into the side of the steep mountain that formed Tidetown, the inn hung over a drop of fifty feet on two sides. The Nine Golden Swords warriors had run in the wrong direction. Or perhaps they’d expected their companions to win.
“Take another step, you diseased monkey,” the swordsman threatened in the Shou tongue, “and Kim will slash her throat.”
Swarthy and wiry, Kim looked the type to slash women’s throats. He grinned at Shang-Li and molded himself to the woman’s body to present a much smaller target. She tried to pull away from her captor, but his pressed his knife into her throat hard enough to start a trickle of blood that ran down into the hollow of her throat. She stilled.
Twenty feet away, the noise of the battle in the hallway still behind him, Shang-Li halted. He measured the distance and took a deliberate breath. He focused on being calm and stared at Kim’s face partially hidden behind the ship’s mage’s head.
“You will let us by,” the swordsman ordered.
“If you release the woman,” Shang-Li responded.
The swordsman held his weapon in front of him and slowly closed the distance. As he neared, he drew his blade back, readying for a quick strike.
“She will come with us,” he declared.
“No.”
The swordsman grinned and kept coming. “Perhaps I will let you have her. My master doesn’t care if she’s alive or dead. Can I interest you in a dead woman?” Thinking he had the upper hand, he lunged.
Shang-Li bent his left knee and threw his weight and balance to that side. He twisted his right shoulder back and let the sword slide past him. At the same time, he dropped a throwing star from inside his sleeve, caught it in his waiting hand, and flicked it toward the man holding the ship’s mage.
The throwing star glittered just for a moment in the sun, then sliced the skin over Kim’s right eyebrow. The razor edges nicked the woman’s ear in passing. Blinded by a sudden rush of blood, Kim dropped his knife and clapped his hand to his head while he staggered back, partially stunned from the impact.
Already in motion, Shang-Li stepped back and swept the long sword from his back. He turned, left foot forward and right hand gripping the sword hilt at waist level. When the swordsman attacked again, trying for Shang-Li’s groin this time, Shang-Li dipped his blade and blocked the attempt. Before his opponent could recover, Shang-Li whipped the long sword’s tip to the man’s chin.
“Drop your sword,” Shang-Li commanded, “and I’ll let you live.”
The man let go his weapon and sword clattered down the shingles to vanish over the edge. His eyes remained dark and sullen. “One day, monk, luck will not be with you.”
“Leave,” Shang-Li suggested.
The man turned and fled toward the opposite end of the roof.
“Don’t just stand there congratulating yourself, you oaf. Get over here and help!” the woman yelled. She stood at the roofs edge and fought the bloody-faced man off. He’d dropped his knife when the throwing star had hit him, but he hadn’t given up the fight. His blood-covered hand wrapped around her left forearm and his left hand flailed for her head.
Instinctively, she shoved him back from her. Then her hands worked in front of her and she spoke a word. A powerful gust of wind slammed into her attacker, driving him over the roofs edge. The ship’s mage managed to rip her arm free of the man’s grip as he fell, but he grabbed for the roofs edge and caught it with his elbows for a moment. Frightened now, he reached for her and caught her ankle. His bloody fingers lost purchase on the wooden shingles and he fell. She gestured again and a blinding flash of light hit the man in the face. Unfortunately he maintained his hold.
Dragged after the man, the woman fell prone across the roof and tried to find purchase. It was the same move she would have done on a ship at sea tossed during a storm. Despite her efforts, she only slowed her fall. The man weighed her down.
Shang-Li threw himself forward and grabbed her right hand in his left as she followed the man over the roofs edge. Her yells mixed with the man’s fearful screams. Shang-Li tried to hold all three of them on the roof but their combined weight outmatched the purchase he was able to find on the shingles. Several pulled free and clattered down the roof.
Even if Shang-Li had wished to, he couldn’t have let the woman fall. She had a death grip on his hand. Pain shot through his fingers and his arm.
He rolled onto his side and lifted the long sword, then drove the blade through the shingles and prayed it would hold. The sword tore through two rows of shingles without pause, then found a support timber and held. The angle was awkward and Shang-Li’s head and left shoulder had slid over the roofs edge.
At the end of his arm, the young woman’s eyes rounded with fear, but she remained calm and clear-headed. She swung her other arm up to wrap her hand around his wrist.
“Don’t let go,” she yelled at Shang-Li.
Shang-Li didn’t have the breath to respond. He strained against the weight and felt certain his arm was about to tear from his shoulder. If she’d had her hands free, she probably would have unleashed another spell.
The Nine Golden Swords man clung to her boots, but his bloody hand betrayed him and he slipped. Screaming in fear, the man fell forty feet onto the craggy rocks in the harbor at the foot of the steep edge of the coast. The screams ended abruptly.
“Don’t. Let. Go,” the woman repeated.
The sword split more wood and slipped an inch or so, but it held. The woman swung at the end of Shang-Li’s arm.
“Climb,” he told her.
“This is your idea of a rescue?”
“Actually, I haven’t yet decided if this is a rescue or if you’re just going to drag me down with you.”
Adroitly, the ship’s mage climbed up his arm as though scaling a ship’s rigging. When she was once more on the roof, she grabbed Shang-Li by the waist of his pants and hauled him back from the roofs edge.
“Thank you,” he said as he sat there a moment and drew a breath.
“You’re welcome.” The ship’s mage stood and headed for the other end of the building.
“You’re not going to thank me for rescuing you?” Shang-Li couldn’t believe it.
