The Last Dahlia

010

Man and bird descended down the stone steps, with Yuehwa lighting the way using one of the torches that had been lining the walls. At the bottom of the stairs was a long, narrow passageway that extended beyond the eye could see. Yuehwa quickly made her way down, observing curiously the puddles of water pooling at her feet. The walls of the passageway felt increasingly damp as they went along. Reaching out her hand, she swiped some of the water off the wall and dabbed it onto the tip of her tongue.

"Salty," she remarked. "Is it me or are we under the sea?"

Death by drowning, brilliant, her feathered friend replied.

As they neared the end of the passageway, Yuehwa could hear the sounds of swords clanging against one another. They emerged out of the passage and into a huge cavern, and the first thing that greeted their eyes was the sight of Shoya embroiled in a fight against eight soldiers dressed from head to toe in bronze armour. Shoya had already been in a bad state to begin with, but now his left shoulder was bleeding and he looked minutes away from collapsing altogether.

Yuehwa had spent the entire journey here thinking about what vicious swear words she wanted to throw at Shoya when she saw him, but her first instinct when she saw a bronze soldier swinging his spear towards the White Scorpion was to send her silks flying from out of her sleeves, knocking the spear from the soldier's hand.

"What are you doing here?" Shoya yelled when he registered her arrival. "Get out!"

"Is that how you thank the person who just saved your life?" Yuehwa stared at him incredulously. "Ingrate."

Sensing that there were now two intruders, the eight soldiers divided themselves into two groups of four, all of them focused on their mission of protecting the sanctity of this place. The loud clang of their metal boots against the ground as they marched created an intimidating racket that resonated across the walls of the cavern.

"Who are these—" Yuehwa started, but as the soldiers slowly approached, she realised that she needed to reframe her question. "What are these things?"

They were soldiers dressed in bronze armour, except there didn't seem to be anyone inside the armour. Looking through the slits of their helmets, Yuehwa saw no eyes peering out from within. Instead, there was only darkness. In her travels, she had seen such dark magic only once before, a mere remnant left behind in a long abandoned settlement, but it was enough to teach her that it was not to be trifled with.

"The kingdom of Dahai's bronze guardsmen," Shoya replied, backing away slowly from his attackers. "They are controlled by the talismans found within their armour, placed there by the king's shamans. The Dahai royal family uses these guardsmen to protect their most coveted treasures. Yuehwa, just leave now! This has nothing to do with you, I can handle this by myself."

"Do you take me for a coward?" Yuehwa shouted back. "I'm not leaving here without you."

Shoya didn't have time to argue with her any further, because the guardsmen had launched an attack on him from all four directions, leaving him with barely enough time to react.

It had been a long time since Yuehwa experienced a battle this intense.

In her travels and the occasional assassination job, the worst that she had ever come across was having to fend off over thirty highly skilled guards single-handedly. That was after having snuffed out the life of a wealthy merchant who owned a literal gold mountain. It had been a tough battle, but still her opponents had been human beings made of flesh and blood.

This—this was something entirely different.

The only time she had seen one of these things before was through a demonstration by one of her acquaintances, someone who happened to be well-versed in the dark arts. He told her that the only way to stop one of these was by getting rid of the talisman that controlled it, yet this was often no easy feat.