CHAPTER 4

Dawn Star glanced around at the gray stone walls of the spirit cave and suppressed a shudder. Even without the ghosts, the cold stale air and dark shadows gave it an unsettling aura. She had boarded it up upon returning to Two Rivers, but now it would serve well for the purposes at hand. She walked along the coarse wall of the central cavern, passing her torch along a row of wall sconces. Their flames sputtered to life but did little to ease the gloom.

When she was done, she turned to face Ming, who stood staring up at the indistinct ceiling as if recalling his early training in the cavern.

"I found the first piece here," he said, touching the ornate amulet around his neck. "At the very least, I should take this off before we start."

"Keep it," she replied. "I've got one of my own."

"You've got a dragon amulet?" he asked, incredulous. Then he saw it, flickering in the light from Dawn Star's torch: a small, cube-like object suspended on a chain around her neck. It didn't look anything like his dragon amulet and, in fact, didn't even look like an amulet. If anything, it appeared vaguely mechanical.

"It's the heart of an inscrutable power source," she explained, noting his skeptical look. "It can store enormous amounts of energy, both spiritual and mechanical. Lord Lao gave it to me."

Ming nodded. Lord Lao, eh? Then I won't even bother trying to understand how it works. Nothing that mad inventor made ever seemed to make sense, but his inventions usually worked. That is, when they didn't blow up.

Dawn Star placed the torch in a holder and bent over and began stretching, first her legs and then her lower back. She noticed that he was watching her with a curious expression.

"What?" she said, feeling suddenly self-conscious. "We're not as young as we used to be, maybe you should consider stretching too!"

"It's not that," he replied. "I was just wondering why I left you. You look really good, you know, as good as Empress Lian." If she blushed, he couldn't tell in the flickering light of the cavern.

"Don't even start, Furious Ming," she warned in a low voice. "I won't allow you to hurt me again."

"I'm sorry," he said, and he meant it. "We used to flirt before, but obviously things have changed. It's just that I don't remember anything. Can you tell me what happened? After the fall of Sun Li?"

"I will tell you what I know," she said. "But first, defend yourself!"

She somersaulted forward quickly and without warning. He barely managed to step aside as she came out of the tumble with a quick kick. Legendary Strike. A solid martial style, but hardly a threat. He decided he would go easy on his old friend, switching his stance to that of Heavenly Wave.

"You do remember defeating Sun Li?" she asked, circling him carefully.

"Yeah, but that's pretty much the last thing I remember."

"Well, after that there was much celebration, and with our support, Princess Sun Lian became Empress Lian."

"Yeah, I figured that part out."

She came at him again, but he easily tumbled to the side, out of harm's way. When they had been kids, they had practiced tumbling, somersaulting, and backflipping for hours on end, and had often wondered if their master was preparing them for a life in the circus.

"What happened next?" he asked.

"We stayed in the Imperial City, helping forge a new empire. But… that just wasn't for me." Dawn Star searched her feelings on the matter. How could she tell him how she had really felt? The truth was, it had just been too difficult 'sharing' him with the Empress. "I asked to return to Two Rivers."

"I thought you said I left you!"

"You did. After you followed me to Two Rivers, professing your 'love' for me. I was… happy." At first, anyway. As she followed the memory, though, a frown came to her face. "But you quickly got bored." With me? With the peaceful life? What was it, Ming? You never told me!

With sudden fury, she unleashed a flurry of strikes. Ming recognized the Thousand Cuts style immediately but was a bit slow getting his block up, as her fist caught him squarely in the throat. He stumbled back, impressed.

"You went back to the Imperial City," she continued. "But even the beautiful Empress couldn't keep you from leaving. When the horselords attacked from the north, you and the Black Whirlwind took the Imperial Army to meet them."

"Ah, so I didn't join the army so much as I led them into battle?"

"Semantics, Ming." She feinted a backstep, drawing him closer, then kicked him in the shins. The blow did no real damage, but he grimaced from the ignominy of it.

"Are you trying to win or just embarrass me?" he asked, visibly annoyed.

"Your choice," she said, circling around him.

"Fine. So, did we beat the horselords?"

"Obviously, since the empire's still here. The battle was legendary, but it also marked your fall from grace."

"Tell me more."

"Well, there was no Glorious Strategist to concoct the perfect strategy. But you decided that you would take a small force ahead to harass the main horselord army from behind, to distract them while Black Whirlwind brought up the main army."

"Fast moving skirmishers. A good strategy," Ming said, taking his first few jabs at Dawn Star. She easily avoided the clumsy strikes of Heavenly Wave.

"Yes, you took about eight hundred soldiers and circled around behind the horselords. You were successful, and when you struck them they turned their entire army to face you, leaving their rear exposed to Black Whirlwind."

"I'm brilliant," he said, then leapt completely over her, spun and landed a fist on her solar plexus just as she turned to face him. She gasped and staggered back, clearly slowed by the blow but otherwise unharmed. He felt his blood rise, and he had to restrain himself from following up with a more damaging attack.

"Unfortunately," she managed to cough, "your scouts had failed to alert you that the horselords had also split their army. You successfully turned the main force towards you, but the other part trapped you when your group tried to leave."

"So we had to fight our way out. How many horselords are we talking here?"

"Forty thousand."

"My eight hundred troops got surrounded by forty thousand horselords? How many of us made it out?"

"Only you."

Ming dropped his fists and stopped fighting. "I was the only survivor?"

"Yes, everyone else was killed. But not before taking half of the enemy with them. When Black Whirlwind arrived with the rest of the Imperial Army, he swept over the remaining horselords like ants. To hear him tell it, he found you fighting all by yourself, bloodied beyond recognition but fighting nonetheless, a thousand horselords circling around you and another thousand dead at your feet. From a military standpoint, it was a great victory… only eight hundred casualties to turn back an entire army. You would have been a hero, Ming."

"Would have been? What happened next?"

"Apparently you decided not to return with the army, and the rumors of your destructive ways followed soon after. Some said that you had gone mad."

Ming let his gaze fall. Perhaps I am mad. He didn't feel like fighting anymore, and turned his gaze away. He was just about to sit down when something caught his eye. He looked up and his eyes went wide. He had no time to react, only to shout in anger and surprise as Dawn Star's flashing crescent blades came down at him. The first one cut into his shoulder, and the second barely missed his neck, slashing his chin instead.

He felt the warm blood splash into his mouth, and an indignant rage boiled through his veins. He could heal himself easily enough--their master had taught them both how to channel their energies to repair injuries--but that wasn't the point. How dare she attack me when I'm not looking? And when I don't even have a weapon!

He didn't have long to ponder his indignation as she came at him again in a whirl of flashing metal. He managed to duck the first few strikes but she was much faster than he ever remembered and felt the sting of pain as her final blow cut into his thigh. He felt himself cry out as he stumbled backward.

"What are you doing?" he roared.

"I hate you, Ming, and I've waited a long time for this," she rasped. "It's time for you to die!"

He looked into her eyes and was shocked at first, then enraged. There was no emotion on her face, only a cold, hard stare. She had tricked him into an unfair fight and revealed that she meant to kill him. But he was the empire's best warrior, had defeated the brothers Sun, a thousand horselords and countless other enemies. He would show her the true meaning of pain.

He switched to Thousand Cuts style and unleashed his own onslaught of punches. To his amazement, she deftly dodged and blocked his blows using a weapon style he didn't recognize, finally side-stepping his rush and swinging viciously at his midsection. He looked down in disbelief as an enormous gash opened beneath his ribs. Before he could even think about blocking, she plunged the other blade into his gut, twisting it savagely.

Ming howled in pain, grabbed at the wounds and tried to heal them. She struck again, this time burying her sword in his right lung and forcing him to the ground. He grabbed the blade with his hands and managed to force it from him, again focusing on healing the wound, but it was too late… He felt the Other rising up from a hidden well of bile and rage deep within him. He realized with horror that this was what he could never remember, except during these transitions. This had happened before, and although he had resisted it every time, he could only watch helplessly as he lost control of his body.