Kia Min swore, but the Lotus Assassins by the flyer were engaged in activities from idle conversation to monitoring other happenings about the vast and surprisingly empty port. This peace would not last long, for they all seemed to be waiting for this Lotus Assassin to finish unloading the imprisoned farmers within the flyer.
She quickly considered two options to tell Darting Lynx. Keep the farmers safe inside while she did battle, or get them out of there as quickly as possible? The numbers of the Lotus Assassins here were in the double digits, and she was only one warrior. The farmers had no skills. Darting Lynx was an acrobat and had admitted she never raised a fist against another soul. And not all of the Lotus Assassins would engage her in battle as the others escaped. There would be casualties.
No. There would not be. Not again. Not like Two Rivers. The innocents would live. She would make sure of it, even if it meant that she had met her fate at long last.
Kia Min gripped her staff. So be it.
"Lynx," she whispered, "help me get the farmers out of here."
"What?" came a surprised voice from within the flyer. "But..."
"I can't fight them all," said Kia Min. "And if I do fight them, I'll die, and so will you all if you stay in there. Or, you'll all be sold into slavery."
"So the way you see it, it's either slavery or death, or freedom or death," said Darting Lynx slowly. "I guess this is the better option. Alright. Let's get these poor people out of here."
The way Darting Lynx had put the options made Kia Min freeze for a moment. She had once wished that the Lotus Assassins who had come through Two Rivers had taken everyone prisoner instead of killing them all. At least they would still be alive, she had rationalized, and possible to rescue. But there was never a guarantee of that, was there?
She briefly imagined Ni Joh and his little sisters enslaved, and she could not bear the thought for longer than a second. No. Death was a sweeter freedom in this case. At least dignities would remain intact.
As Darting Lynx hopped out of the flyer and helped out the farmers inside, whose movements were all but hindered because of shackled hands and feet--this would be more difficult than Kia Min thought--one Lotus Assassin took notice of the abnormal behavior around the flyer. He widened his dark eyes and snarled, "The slaves are escaping! Get them!"
The others quickly snapped their attentions to the flyer and drew their swords. Not all of the farmers were out of the flyer yet. Kia Min sharply inhaled; this could be her last moment. All she needed to do was make sure that this was not the last of the farmers'. Darting Lynx could take care of the rest.
"Quickly, Lynx," said Kia Min as the first Lotus Assassin reached her. Bamboo was strong, she knew, but she rarely had the opportunity in Two Rivers to test its strength against sword. She dared not risk it yet. She could not be without weapon in this fight. Defense was her only option.
As the Lotus Assassin swung his sword at her neck, Kia Min ducked and swiped at his ankles with her staff. He rolled backwards some distance away from her, but he was largely unhurt. Kia Min took the opportunity to check on Darting Lynx's progress. All the farmers were out of the flyer and were struggling to run towards an opening in the far corner of the port. Darting Lynx led the way.
She wasn't in the back to make sure no one was killed behind her?
Two Lotus Assassins came at her this time, and she did her best to fend them off while keeping one eye open on the farmers. Sure enough, it was not long before Assassins headed their way with swords drawn, and Kia Min kicked one in the gut before she raced towards the farmers.
"Lynx!" she shouted to catch the acrobat's attention. Kia Min did not stay on her feet long enough to see if it had been effective; she gasped as her back suddenly seared with pain. As she fell to the ground, she rolled to her back and she cringed as the dirt stung into what she knew now was an open wound. A Lotus Assassin stood over her with the tip of his sword tinted red.
"Foolish, foolish girl," he said. "What did you hope to accomplish by freeing the slaves? Now they will die, and so will you."
Kia Min gritted her teeth. "No," she said, "they won't."
She hopped to her feet and thrust her staff towards the taunting Assassin, and she was surprised to see that she had moved just quickly enough that he could not dodge or retaliate. She swung again and again, and the Assassin fell to the ground, unconscious. Had Darting Lynx's training been that effective?
Darting Lynx... the farmers! Kia Min turned her attention back to the escaping group, and she saw two men slain and a woman's head rolling towards the exit the farmers were trying so hard to reach. No, no. She ignored the sharp pain in her back as she ran towards the remaining farmers, where some of them had chosen to fall to their knees to beg for mercy and others had continued making their way to freedom.
Where was Darting Lynx?
Kia Min ducked underneath an Assassin's sword about to come down upon a farmer's head, and she threw her staff onto the hilt of the sword and jammed a knee into his groin. As he doubled over, she jammed the tip of the staff through his chest. The staff was out before he hit the ground, and Kia Min turned her attention to another farmer about to be butchered by an Assassin. Again she blocked his killing blow, and again she retaliated, but then she heard an anguished yelp behind her.
She glanced over her shoulder to see a woman collapse, her face frozen in horrified pain, and blood gushing from her stomach. No, no, no. This couldn't be happening... she couldn't save them all. Could she save even one?
What had she done? Death was not a sweeter freedom. The farmers would have been safer in the flyer. They would have lived, and someone else, like Wu, could have rescued them. Wu would have done this differently, would have done this better, and she would have succeeded with flying colors, because she was Wu the Lotus Blossom. Wu the Lotus Blossom did not fail. Even when foolish, she did not fail.
As Kia Min dodged blow after blow of oncoming Assassin attacks--now she was surrounded by three of them--she remembered Two Rivers, and how she had fought to stay alive, because she was no use to anyone dead. How all the students fought to stay alive, to save the villagers later. But the students were all killed, and so were all the villagers. Master Li was taken away, and Two Rivers burned to the ground. And Kia Min could not do a thing about it. She had survived long enough to see Wu and Dawn Star return to the destruction, and she had survived long enough to find Ni Joh's broken body, and she had survived long enough to see that there had only been three survivors.
She had been no use to anyone alive. And now she was fighting for her life again, but instead of one Lotus Assassin to one student, she had three--now four, and now five--against her, by herself. And instead of parrying between defense and offense like she had in Two Rivers, she only dodged and she only blocked. She had no room to parry.
The new students always were defeated even by the weakest of their peers when they stayed on the defensive. Kia Min knew she stood no chance of surviving now. In Hehua, when she declared that she would rather die fighting than running, she meant it, but she also knew that she would win. Here, when she chose to fight, knowing her chances were slim, she realized she had counted on those slim chances.
This was not how she wanted to go.
Kia Min cried out, and she felt something through her, and she glanced down to see a sword through her side. As the sword withdrew, she grasped at the wound with one hand while keeping the other tightly wrapped around her staff as she swung wildly at the other Assassins around her as she felt blow after blow upon her body.
This was how she was going to go.
The world around her darkened, and she collapsed to the ground. She saw a flash of green trees and weeds overlooking a calm river, and a young boy in white farmer robes, their hands entwined.
And then she saw no more.