In the hold of the barge Sparrow sat cross-legged surrounded by six candles. On his right Princess Jade lay face-down, motionless, with two of Piggy’s guards holding her down on his left the Emperor was propped up against the side of the ship. Lolling this way and then that. Sparrow rested one hand on Jade’s forehead then looked up at the two guards, ‘whatever you do, don’t let her go. She’s going to be a very angry princess when she wakes.’

Sparrow’s other hand found the emperor’s forehead. He closed his eyes and healing light shivered off him to the two wounded.

Creak. Sparrow raised his head and blinked until his eyes came into focus. It was Piggy, standing on a board at the bottom of the stairs. In each of his hands he held two bowls of steaming dumplings.

‘Sorry,’ Piggy said, ‘I just know how cultivation takes it out of you and – woah! His legs are coming back!’

‘Yeah.’

‘You’ve got really powerful.’

‘And you’ve got really rich.’

Piggy laughed the laugh of someone who enjoys good food, ‘You wanna hear how I got that way?’

Sparrow looked to the passed-out forms of Princess Jade and the Emperor slumbering beside him, ‘I've got all the time in the world buddy.’

‘The story begins on a rugged, windswept day when my best friend in the whole wide world left me to go learn from the roads. I was hungry and in my pocket was an apple pie I’d bought from one of the cooks in the kitchen. It was the sweetest, most delicious apple pie I’d ever tasted. Runny, tangy, with a sprinkling of icing sugar that you had to lick from your upper lip after you took a bite. I’d eaten half the pie when this little snotnosed price from one of the western principalities comes over to me and says he’d buy half the pie off me for a silver. And boom! That was it.’

‘Boom? What was what?’

‘Oh, sorry, boom – I was a businessman, I traded pies for silver, swords for gold. Gold for favors and favors for products to sell to my classmates. By the end of my schooling, I was the worst cultivator in the school, but I was paying myself three times as much as any of those stuck-up administrators. I set up stalls in every town I could, and within a year I had supply routes set up across the region. I had all the apple pies a boy could ask for and I fell in love with a woman who appreciates food almost as much as I do.’ Piggy passed the bowls of dumplings to Sparrow and the two soldiers holding down Princess Jade. The men relaxed and leaned back against the side of the boat, ‘Have you found love Sparrow?’

The hot, soy-laden dumpling squished between Sparrow's teeth and warmed his belly. He thought of Zoe and even Princess Jade.

‘Not really my friend. I’m just about as unlucky in that department as I was in schooling.’

Piggy’s chopsticks flashed from his bowl to his mouth, ‘The one who wrote the song – the one everyone’s been singing...’

‘Down by the stream, I first heard his hum...’ The guard next to Sparrow sang. He turned to look at Sparrow, ‘So you’re the one?’

Sparrow nodded, ‘Folks started making their own verses though. I’ve never faced an army of ogres with just a whistle on my lips and a piece of straw clutched in my hand. You can’t trust all that is in song.’

‘That’s what you get when you become a legend.’ Piggy said, ‘Your story becomes more than just your own.’

The noise of chewing and chopsticks on bowls and bones re-growing filled the air for a moment. Piggy put down his empty bowl and wiped his lips.

‘As I was saying... that one who wrote the song about you... sounded like she had the hots pretty hard for you.’ Piggy’s eyebrows wriggled.

‘You know how it happens... she loved me one moment, she was kissing another man the next. I have to admit that one did sting, especially when-’

‘AHHH YOU SNOT-DRINKING DONKEY’S PIZZLE OF A MAN-’ A scream filled the air of the hold as Princess Jade awoke. She was on top of Sparrow in an instant. Crack! The bone of her knuckle smashed into the fleshy part of his nose. His eyes swam as her fist came down for another crack! The blow sent his teeth cutting through the end of his tongue. There was the metallic tinge of blood and a hot, stinging feeling where the end of his tongue had been. He swallowed and felt a little strip of the end of his tongue catch in his throat. It tasted slimy like rusted iron.

Stoneskin.

There was no way to reason with a face like Princess Jade’s. Bottom lip biting her top lip. Eyes popping from her skull. Arm still fractured from the Horde’s axes.

‘That’s why you guys were holding her down.’

A dumpling fell from the right guard’s mouth and landed with a splat on the floor.

‘Come on Princess,’ the guard to the left said, ‘he was healing you.’

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‘Your life he saved,’ the other added, popping another dumpling into his beak.

Slap! ‘That’s the whole problem,’ Slap! Princess Jade said, ‘I ordered him to leave me with my soldiers and that bastard save my life.’

‘Daughter. Language!’

‘I should be dead!’

The welts on the side of Sparrow’s face bloomed, then healed, ‘It’s good to see you too Jade.’ Her right pinky finger jutted out at a ninety-degree angle from her hand. Gently, Sparrow reached for it and wrapped his hand around it. Jade tensed her left arm, her knuckles wrapped themselves into a fist and punched him in the right ear. A ringing filled Sparrow’s head and his eyes went all squinty.

His hand stayed around her pinky though and there was a cracking sound as her bones repositioned themselves and the finger straightened. Her eyes met Sparrow’s, ‘Let go of me.’

‘I’m not finished.’

She hit him again. Blood welled in his ear and dribbled down the side of his head.

‘For tsunami’s sake Sparrow, slip on stoneskin and be done with this.’ the Emperor said.

She hit him again, the hot blood from his ear dripped onto the floor. Sparrow kept his hand on her pinky, her blood vessels began to circulate and her nail regrew. He let go of her and she twirled her palm, flexing her little finger. Her left hand balled into a fist and Sparrow flinched.

But she didn’t hit him, she stumbled to her feet and walked off. There was silence in the bottom of the barge as the guards, Piggy and the Emperor stared at the blood leaking from Sparrow’s ear.

Sparrow staggered to a sitting position and laid his hand on the Emperor’s stub of a foot and as he started to heal it said, ‘You know. I think Jade and I are starting to make some progress.’

****

Stormwater was a fortress of rock sitting in the centre of a vast lake on the edges of the Emperor’s kingdom. Walls and turrets and peepholes had been built into the edges of the keep. Three paddocks brimming with rotting vegetables, scrawny chickens and diseased pigs fed the inhabitants and a single freshwater spring made the island completely self-sufficient.

This is possibly the ugliest place I’ve ever been, Sparrow thought as he walked the streets with the Emperor, Princess Jade and Piggy to the castle at its center. Everything about the city was falling to pieces, the people gave you the stink eye from where they squatted in the streets pooping, and two men fought each other over who could eat the dead body of a street cat. Overhead, flags with a single orange kraken painted on them hung limp from flagpoles.

‘Desperate times call for desperate measures,’ Piggy grinned as he stepped over a dog with one leg chewing on a rat with no legs.

As they stepped into the main keep a man with a homemade trumpet attempted to play a welcoming tune. He was unsuccessful.

‘Ahh, my emperor, I welcome you to my humble keep,’ said a man with a rat-fur coat and an old branch that was painted gold in his right hand. behind him hung a banner with the same orange kraken rippling up from the water. The banner was coated in burnmarks and stains.

‘You’ve let the place go a little bit,’ said Princess Jade.

‘All by design lovely Princess,’ the ratty man grinned, ‘bandits are taking the east, the horde the west, and we are safe because there is nothing of value here but rats and rotten turnips.’

‘And we are glad for the refuge Rhino-Xi,’ the Emperor nodded and began to speak of the defences they’d need to put in place. But Sparrow couldn’t hear another word, he was staring, open-mouthed at the ratty lord of Stormwater – the boy who’d once thrown poo at him and Piggy – Rhino-Xi.

Rhino-xi still had the same arrogant turning of his upper lip. Same bulky physique, but age had not been kind to him. His mustache looked like a shriveled slug, and his eyes were piercing black like a drowned rat’s.

He watched as Piggy approached Rhino-Xi and they talked. Rhino-Xi's head dipped as he spoke to Sparrow’s friend indicating respect. Piggy was all confidence, smiles and offering to pay for everything, food, weapons, men, but... especially food... ‘I’m not very keen on rat I must admit.’

Princess Jade was explaining her plan to raise another army and intercept the horde before they could reach the east.

‘Perhaps we can strike a deal with the bandit's father? They too fear the horde,’

‘Perhaps,’ the emperor had his fingers running through his long, grey beard, pulling out the streaks of blood that remained, ‘I would like to hear Sparrow’s thoughts.’

Sparrow blinked twice as he realized that they were all staring at him. Did Rhino-Xi recognize him? The man’s dark eyes were blank. Dull. Surely he didn’t. He recognized Piggy though... but Piggy was at school longer and...

‘Sparrow?’ The Emperor said.

‘We can’t stop them,’ Sparrow managed, ‘we can’t attack them, we can’t defend against them, we can’t even run away from them for very long. Jade, you saw what happened to the academy – to the strongest cultivators in the land. We barely survived.’

Princess Jade gritted her teeth and walked to the door, ‘So what? We lie here and take it? Not all of us are quitters like you Sparrow. ’

She walked out of the room and her footsteps echoed down the stairs. The Emperor sighed, ‘She’s right Sparrow, our only hope is to keep fighting.’ He turned and he left.

Sparrow sighed, and turned to the others, ‘Well, back to the road I guess.’

‘No you’re not leaving,’ Piggy said, ‘because I can see your face Sparrow and I see that you’ve not given up, not completely anyway. You’ve got a plan, something that you’re going to do.’

‘Its best you don’t know Piggy – I'm almost certain I’ll fail.’

‘Oh yeah, you’re definitely going to fail.’

From his motley throne Rhino-Xi laughed

‘Oh... well, thanks for the confidence booster I guess-’ Sparrow began.

‘-You’ll fail if you go alone,’ said Piggy, ‘That’s why you need someone by your side.’

Sparrow stared at his friend, ‘Are you offering to come with me?’

‘No. I’m telling you I’m coming with you.’ Piggy laid an arm on Sparrow’s shoulder, ‘I cannot fight, I can barely produce any magic, but I’m not bad at cooking and I can carry your stuff.’

Rhino-Xi looked from one friend to the other, and hefted his golden stick into one hand, ‘I’ve been stuck in this remote island for way too long-’

‘-oh no, two should be fine,’ Piggy began, ‘right Sparrow?’

‘Yeah totally,’ Sparrow said, ‘Two’s a group, three’s a crowd, isn’t that what they say?’

Rhino-Xi laughed, ‘I see what you’re doing, you’re trying to keep me safe by pretending you don’t need me. Ha Ha Ha... but I’m coming anyway.’

Piggy groaned and ran a finger along his throat, ‘Rhino-Xi, seriously who’s going to look after all the rats and one legged dogs around here if you come with us.’

‘They’ll look after themselves,’ Rhino-Xi said, ‘I’m coming with you whether you like it or not.’

Sparrow and Piggy’s shoulders slumped, don’t worry, Sparrow told himself, he won’t last long on the road.

****

‘So,’ Rhino-Xi said as he and Piggy strapped packs full of food and weapons to their shoulders, ‘where exactly are we going?’

‘Those creatures are not of this earth. They were made, left in a box, and then uncovered.’

‘So, where are we going?’

‘To find the God-Scientist, the man who made them, and to force him to erase his mistake.’

****