"Argh! Those two were about to do us both a favour." He shook his hands, trying to rid himself of the blood there, but to no avail.
"Are you unharmed?" Cho asked, and Ein nodded as he got his feet underneath him again. There was something close to panic on his young face. Cho turned a scathing stare to The Emerald Wind, but the man just shrugged and walked away towards the inn where a corpse lounged by the wall. He knelt down, wiped his hands on its robe, and then prised the gourd from its remaining hand.
The Emerald Wind sniffed the top of the gourd. "Yes! I can't believe they actually left the strong stuff with him." He pressed the gourd to his lips and drank deep. "Argh. Tastes off." Cho turned away, unwilling to admit the truth of what she saw until she knew Ein was all right. She found the boy looking up at her.
"Thank you. They were going to kill me."
Cho nodded, and felt her throat tighten. "You're safe now."
She looked at the corpse laid by the side of the inn, and suddenly the world seemed very distant, as though she were looking at it through a tunnel. The Century Blade, always so strong and vibrant in life despite his years, looked frail and worn in death. His eyes were closed, the skin of his face grey and sagging. Blood stained his blue robe and his sword hand was just a ragged bloody stump. He no longer looked like the greatest swordsman in all of Hosa. His hair was bloody and matted, his flesh sunken and thin as paper.
"Good riddance." Even The Emerald Wind's voice seemed far away. His comment should have angered her, but all Cho felt was an empty numbness. There was sorrow in there somewhere as well, bubbling beneath the surface.
"You're crying." Ein stood at her side, staring up at her.
"I'm sad," Cho whispered. "It feels as though some of the light has gone from the world."
"The sun is setting," Ein said, looking east instead of west.
The Emerald Wind laughed. "The sun rises over Wu and sets over Long, encompassing all of Hosa." He was sitting beside the corpse of the Century Blade and, Cho thought, looked very much like he belonged there.
"You say you know about heroes?" Cho asked Ein, her voice catching a little on her sorrow. She took a few steps towards the Century Blade and looked down on the body of her friend.
Ein followed her. "I had books about all the heroes of our age. I read them all. I think, I used to hope I would be one, one day. I used to wonder what my name might be. How my deeds might earn it. I suppose that's all past me now."
"Did you read about the Century Blade?" Cho nudged The Emerald Wind with her foot and he shifted a little, then she gripped the Century Blade by his ankles and dragged him away from the wall of the inn.
"Yes."
"I would like you to tell me about him." Dragging the corpse was hard work. He looked so slight and small now life had fled him, but still the was heavy. And the fire behind made her swelter.
"Which story would you like to hear?" Ein asked, sitting down on the chest of the fat man Cho had killed. She thought it strange that he cared so little about the dead man. "About how he battled the great wind serpent, Messimere? Or how he and Light and Po broke the siege at Laofen? Or the time he climbed the Thousand Steps of ShinWo temple, defeating a different master on each one." The boy became quite animated as he recounted the many feats of the Century Blade.
Cho sniffled, struggling to find her voice. Her cheeks were wet, whether from sweat or tears she couldn't tell. "I'll let you decide. Choose one that will honour him."
Ein seemed to think about it for a while, biting his lip and staring into the flames. Eventually he looked up.
"In the Forest of Falling Swords," he began, "it is said the trees grow so tall they reach up to the stars." He spoke as if reciting the story from memory, exactly how it was written. "Some are so large they can take an hour to walk around, with branches so wide a dozen men could walk them side by side. It is said there are people living up in those trees, an entire civilisation that has never once touched the forest floor. And they do not look kindly on surface dwellers. Yet the tree people are not the only ones who call the forest canopy home. There are other things up there, older than Hosa, older than man, older than time itself. For there is a problem with reaching so high. The stars are distant for a reason. In the darkness monsters hide."
The Emerald Wind groaned and struggled to pull himself upright. He swigged again at the gourd, winced at the taste, and stumbled off towards the inn's entrance, a deep frown on his face. Cho said nothing, letting the man go in silence. She finally pulled the Century Blade's corpse to the nearby grass and laid his body there. A sadder day, Cho had never known.
"Should I keep going?" Ein asked.
Cho nodded and sniffed back a sob. "Please do."
"The Century Blade, still a young man at the time, wished to meet with the people of the trees, and learn the secrets of their arts the Century Blade found a smaller tree and wrapped a cloth around its trunk, before securing it to his waist. And that was how he learned to defy gravity, by walking up a tree. Once he reached the first of the branches were reached, the climb became easier, and he traversed the canopies, moving ever higher along the network of branches."
Cho saw a shovel leaning against the back of the inn and retrieved it, along with a patchy blue sheet drying amongst a load of laundry. As Ein recounted the tale, she chopped off a lock of her hair and tied it into a knot and placed it in the Century Blade's hand, silently swearing a new oath. Then she wrapped the Century Blade's corpse in the sheet, and set about digging a grave. Even with the ground softened by recent rains, the digging took a long time, but he was worth the effort. She hoped the old master could find some measure of peace in her attempts to honour him.
"He searched for days, all alone save for chattering monkeys, and the stars looking down on him. When finally he found the treetop city of Unyun, the Century Blade was exhausted and certain there were things, formless creatures slipping through the trees, watching him from within the shadows. But the people of Unyun did not welcome him, not even when he pleaded for them to teach him. Instead they set him five trials, one for each of the great constellations.
"The first trial was patience, after the constellation of Rymer, the keeper of time. But the people of Unyun underestimated the Century Blade, for early on his training in Yoshi temple, he learned the art of true meditation. For five days and nights the Century Blade slowed his body and, without food, water or movement, meditated on what it meant to be among the trees.
"The second trial was endurance, after Fenwong, the drunkard. Five boys they sent to him, each one smaller and weaker than the one before him, and each one attacked the Century Blade. But again the people of Unyun had underestimated him. It would have been as easy as breathing for him to defeat them, but he weathered the storms of their assaults and each time was declared defeated. For up at the pinnacle of ShinWo, on the final of the Thousand Steps, the Century Blade had learned true humility, and that sometimes one can only be victorious in defeat."
Cho stopped briefly to wipe the sweat from her face. The sun was well and truly setting now, and they would soon be near blind if not for the fire and the light spilling out of the inn. It would, Cho had to admit, be far easier to bury the man in a shallow grave. But somewhere in the distance she heard a wolf howl, and she would not bury him only to be dug up by scavengers looking for an easy meal. Cho pulled off her sweat-soaked blouse and continued digging in only her under-wrappings.