Cho sighed and nodded once. "Yes. But I wasn't alone. I had help."
"Your duel with the Brothers Venom atop Quiet Eye Mountain…"
Cho raised a hand to quiet the boy. "My death at the hands of Flaming Fist and his bandits."
The boy's smile faded. "You are alive again now."
"Mostly."
"Mostly."
Cho glanced back towards the sanctuary. She needed to see if the people of Kaishi had survived. She needed to find the Century Blade. "What's your name?"
The boy shuffled closer a step, a smile tugging at his lips. "Ein."
Cho knelt in front of him. Meeting his pale stare was unnerving, but she held it. "Ein. I need you to tell me the truth. I truly died here? You truly brought me back?"
"Yes. The shinigami gave me the power to bring back heroes to help me."
"Why?"
Ein fell silent, his stare so pale and unnatural Cho struggled to hold it. She turned from him and knelt beside Hundred Cuts. Hosan prayers were foreign to Cho, so she uttered an Ipian prayer instead. Different language, same stars. Afterwards, she offered the same prayer to the Red Bull, in the hopes their souls would find peace in the darkness between the stars.
"One man?" Cho asked as she stood from the Red Bull's corpse and glanced at the boy.
Ein nodded enthusiastically.
"Is he a bad man?"
Again that enthusiastic nod. "He'll destroy all of Hosa unless I stop him."
"Fine. In light of the debt I owe you, I swear I will do this for you, Ein." Cho drew Peace into her right hand and used the blade to cut off a lock of her hair. Then she slid the sword back into its saya and repeated the oath to the boy, tying the lock of hair into a knot and handing it to him. "Proof of my oath to you. When it is done, you burn that to tell the stars I have kept my word."
Ein slipped the lock of hair into a pocket.
Cho dipped her head in a slight bow. Little did the boy know how meaningless her oaths truly were. "But first…"
The boy brushed past her and Cho felt a chill shiver. He started up the sanctuary steps. "You need to see with your own eyes, that they are all dead."
Chapter 3
They moved quickly through the sanctuary, ignoring the corpses of the townsfolk at their feet. The doorway to the secret tunnels hung open, the painting that had once hidden it slashed and defaced. Cho rushed along the tunnels, desperate to find what had become of the townsfolk. One more oath she had sworn. She had to know whether it was one more oath she had failed to keep.
The rushing waterfall blocked both the sight and sound of the horror that awaited them. Cho edged around it, her back against cold stone, feeling the spray on her face and enjoying the coolness. She set a furious pace, unwilling to slow at all, and yet Ein kept up. He made no complaint, nor stumbled even once despite the jagged rocks below carving bloody wounds into his bare feet. Cho decided she would need to find shoes for the boy and soon. No sooner were they past the waterfall, than the full scene of Flaming Fist's fury spread out before them. Cho stopped, a strangled gasp coming unbidden from her throat.
The river before them was choked with the bodies of the townsfolk of Kaishi, and there were hundreds of them, clogging up the river. Occasionally a body broke free from the others and joined the current, tumbling away from Kaishi into the churning pink rapids below. Tears blurred Cho's vision and she wiped at her eyes. Carrion birds flitted amongst the corpses, both those in the river and those on the banks, pecking at bloated flesh. A few mangy dogs stalked through the dead, worrying at the choicest bits with sharp teeth. She wasn't certain whether the people of Kaishi had anything to do with the disappearance of Flaming Fist's daughter, but they had certainly paid the price either way. An entire town reduced to rotting meat and ghosts in a single day. There were monsters in the world, Cho knew that well enough, but none were nearly so monstrous as man.
Ein tugged at her blouse. He pointed towards the riverbank where it looked as though the people of Kaishi had put up some resistance. She counted dozens of dead bandits down there, left along with the people they had killed.
"I need to go down there," Ein said, tugging on her blouse again.
Cho saw no movement from the bodies, just a few birds digging into dead flesh. "They're dead," she said slowly. The full scope of the massacre had her in shock. She couldn't imagine how anyone could do such a thing; these were innocent civilians not warriors. And Cho had been unable to stop it. She had failed the people of Kaishi. Failed another oath.
"So were you." Ein tugged at her blouse again and Cho relented, allowing him to drag her down the last few feet of rock onto the soft mud below. She walked in a daze. Their feet squelched with every step, bloody mud sucking at her sandals. The shock of the scene finally started to wear off and Cho stepped in front of Ein, one hand resting on the hilt of Peace in case any of Flaming Fist's bandits still lived.
"There was a battle here," Cho said as she passed the first of the bandits, cut almost in two with a single sword stroke.
"The Century Blade tried to buy enough time for the people to escape," Ein said, plodding along behind Cho, struggling through the mud. "But there were too many even for him."
"You saw it?"
"I watched from the top of the waterfall. I had to make sure they were all gone before bringing you back."
Cho almost choked on the question she needed to ask. "Did he survive?"
Ein paused for a moment too long and Cho turned to him, pressing down the weight of grief struggling to rise within. There was both respect and friendship between Whispering Blade and the Century Blade; it went deeper than the time they had spent together. She viewed him as a mentor and a true hero. She liked to think he viewed her as a peer, someone worthy of standing beside him in battle.
"He was still alive when they dragged him away," Ein said eventually. "All of this was his doing." Dozens of bandits lay dead at their feet. Cho would expect nothing less from the only man in the past hundred years to have slain a dragon.
"In his prime he would have killed them all," Cho said. "Flaming Fist included." They walked between the bodies. Ein appeared to be searching for something, though he gave no indication what, so Cho continued. "I came to Hosa after hearing the story of his battle against the Ungan hordes. I had met him once before but I needed to see him again, the one man worth a thousand. And I did. He was always so humble, despite his accomplishments and fame." She felt tears in her eyes again and wiped them away. If the Century Blade was still alive, she would find him.
"That one!" Ein rushed past Cho towards one of the bodies lying in the mud. He was a young man, tall and handsome in life, with a thin dangling moustache and long dark hair matted now with mud. In death his features looked sallow and waxy, his stare vacant and clouded. He wore stained leathers and a faded green, scale hauberk. The scales were split and dented close to his heart, a true strike that would have killed him before he even realised his armour failed him. Ein began fumbling at the armour, pulling at the straps. "Please help me."
Cho swept her gaze across the river of corpses once more, but none save the birds and dogs moved among them. Then she knelt next to Ein, muddying her stolen britches, and helped him remove the front section of scale from the dead man's chest. "Why are we doing this?"