A hundred thousand leagues from Sparrow, a little rabbit sat nibbling on the leaf of a curled mountain grass. It glanced up at the grey sky above where a fletched eagle circled, eyes trained on the ground.
The little mountain rabbit froze. Its fluffy white ears curled back as it hugged the ground not daring to move. The eagle tightened its loop, eyes never blinking until it was directly above the rabbit. Its wings folded into a perfectly streamlined formation as it dropped towards the rabbit in a hurtling mass of feathers, precision and beak. Then, just as its talons were reaching for the rabbit, an arrow shot through the eagle’s heart and the magnificent beast dropped to the ground with a squark and a spray of bright crimson blood.
The little rabbit's nose twitched. It been saved from certain death, but by what? The fluffy creature didn't have long to think that thought because a crossbow bolt shot from the mountain brush drove through the rabbit’s head pinning it to the earth.
From out of the brush three men in all black with long, sharp swords attached to their belts moved. They skinned the rabbit and plucked the eagle. The tall one spoke first.
‘We eat well tonight,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow we move in on the target. The next day we feast like kings.’
The other two black clad men followed their leader’s gaze down to a small village that hugged the mountain valley floor. The village was surrounded by fields. There was some rice, a little mountain carrot, but mostly the fields were dedicated to turnips.
****
In the turnip growing village nestled in a mountain valley an old woman opened her eyes. She hadn't slept well. She never slept these days anyway. Any chance of a dream had been driven away by thoughts. There were the usual thoughts; A swarm of flying mountain locusts had damaged the turnips of another mountain village two valleys over and the emperor's taxmen had visited earlier this year and demanded more coin than usual, apparently there was some war going on. But beyond those surface thoughts, there was another big thought that had haunted her dreams since she'd left him. How was Sparrow doing?
She couldn’t write to him and she wasn't even sure he knew the way home. She wondered about his teachers. She hoped they were being hard on him, but not too hard. You needed to be tough in this world, but not too tough. She wondered whether she'd done the right thing. He'd been scared. He was so, so small, so fragile so... then she remembered his eyes. There had never been a boy so eager to see the world. Sparrow will be fine, she told herself the way she told herself every night and every morning, he will be fine, he is fine.
Out of bed, that was the best thing for it. Her knees clicked as her feet touched the cold stone floor. She shuffled over to the fire, stoked it back up with rolls of dried yak dung, and then shuffled outside to find the men of her village standing around.
‘Look at you,’ she said, ‘You all expect food cooked, fires going, yet you are outside lazing about.’
But even as the words rolled off her tongue, she knew something was wrong. There wasn't a man or boy, without a stick.
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Han, her oldest son, carried a garden fork - the same weapon they used against mountain lions.
‘There are men on the hills,’ Han said, ‘Three with swords, twenty with bows and crossbows.’ He pointed up towards the skyline, ‘And here they come.’
The men from the hills wore all black, and their right arms swung in a rhythm that suggested they had been part of an army. Some had scarred cheeks, others were missing fingers. They stopped two huts away from Sparrow’s Grandma and stared at the villagers.
‘We are the brothers in black. Your village is now under our protection.’ The tall, scarred man at the front of the group said.
‘Protection? Our village is well protected already,’ Han said, holding up his garden fork.
The man in black raised his voice, ‘For protection, you will be required to pay a silver coin every new moon, plus when my men come by you’ll feed and host them – at any hut – and any bed they may choose.’
Chuckles rose from the black-clad invaders, and their smiles only grew as Sparrow’s grandma hobbled over to the leader.
She cleared her throat, gave a rasping cough and then spat a thick wad of phlegm between his feet, ‘I have an alternate offer for you, boy. You and your little band of lovers and actors will leave us with two golden coins, a written note saying how sorry you are for trampling on those turnips earlier and perhaps my boys will be kind enough to let you live.’
The tall man that led them didn't even smile, ‘You mean these peasants?’
He picked her up by her throat and hoisted her a sword-length above the ground. A volley of swords and arrows met Han and his brothers as they tried to attack the leader. The tall man jerked his head towards the peasants and their pitchforks and sticks, ‘These men haven't fought a day in their lives, we’d slaughter them if they weren't simply here to provide us with taxes, food and money and women.’
‘Wait till the Dragon River Emperor hears of this.’ Grandma croaked
‘He'll do nothing.’ The leader pointed his finger over a high mountain pass. ‘We came from Tukson, the village over the hill. They pleaded with us to pay the protection money. You see, the Dragon River Emperor has been attacked by a force like you've never seen before. While his armies are busy in the west, we disgraced soldiers have decided it's our turn to become lords in the east.’
He lowered the old woman to the ground, and Grandma clutched at her throat which rasped like it was filled with burning coals, ‘I should warn you.’ she swallowed, ‘while those who are here may be peasants there's one from our village who has been accepted into the Swan Academy.’ she laughed, ‘Yes, I caught that look on your face just then, eyes wide open, teeth shaking and shitting your pants. You know what they teach there, don't you?’
One of the black-clad lieutenants – a man with no eyebrows sneered, ‘We're not scared of no cultivators.’
But the leader turned, ‘Shut it.’ He stepped forward, so Sparrow’s Grandma had to gaze up at him, ‘When is this boy back?’
She blinked, ‘Tomorrow, or the next day... definitely sometime this week.’
The man licked his lips and turned to his men, ‘On the battlefield, a single apprentice is worth 200 trained men. If you are telling the truth, we will leave this village be as long as the cultivator is here, you will stay in peace.’ The man frowned, ‘But, we will be watching and if within a week the cultivator does not show up, we will be back and your sons, your daughters, your children, all of them will pay.’
And with that, the man in black turned and left. The villagers watched his henchmen go. When the black shirts were up the hill Han turned to Sparrow’s Grandma, ‘what are we going to do? Now they’re going to be really mad.’
‘We had no way to pay them anyway, at least now we have a week to prepare. We'll take the women and the children into the caves. We'll bury our possessions and those of us that can fight will fight,’ Grandma said.
‘And what about Sparrow?’ Han said, ‘with Sparrow, we might stand a chance.’
Grandma stared at the distant mountains that marked the route to the Swan Academy, ‘It's four weeks in either direction, we cannot afford to lose anyone.’
‘Then we shall die good deaths.’ Han said, ‘fighting for the people we love.’