The Wandering God

38 Snow On Top Of Frost 1/3

雪上加霜
Xuě shàng jiā shuāng
Snow and then frost.
One disaster after another.

*~*~*~*~*~*

When the morning came, its grey light leaking around edges of rocks into the cave, Sanli was weak and feverish, but alive.

I rose from the leafy bed where I had spent the night beside the prince, both his jacket and my cloak pulled over us.

I looked down at his face. His eyelashes fluttered faintly in his sleep, long against his cheeks. His face was flushed, and streaked with the gritty trails of tears.

I recalled the agony in Sanli's voice last night, as he related to me his past. My heart clenched.

This is it, I thought. This is what he hides with his mask.

I had wanted to know, the night I had first seen Sanli in Nan'ye, what secret he hid. And now I knew. His pain, his anger, his own self hate, tucked away behind an ever-charming smile.

I had thought that I would be content just to find out the prince's secret. And once I had it, I would leave.

I cannot do that now. Even if I had not promised the little prince that I would not leave him, I knew I still would not be able to.

I put a hand to the prince's cheek, thumb stroking along the lines washed by tears. Then I felt the mirroring lines on my own face.

Dropping my hand I stood, moved the stones from the cave mouth, and went to the river to wash.

The icy water woke me, and gave me clarity I had not felt since our strange survival in the cave had begun. Despite Sanli's poor health and the loss of Little Light, we had actually fared much better in this situation then we might have. The assassin had not returned to finish the task, and we had encountered no troubles from wild animals or other threats.

But every time I left to find food or gather herbs or firewood, and the prince was alone in the cave, he was at risk.

I needed to find Kageyama and Zakhar. I could not protect Sanli on my own.

I thought of his tearful face the night before. "Please, please don't leave me. Please."

I stood to make my way back to the cave.

Outside dawn had not yet come. Or it had, but the clouds above were so thick that nothing but a weak light crept down onto the rocky landscape of the riverside.

It did not matter though. It had snowed in the night, and everything was illuminated, highlighted in white. I could see the contours of the land, the dips in the stones, almost as clearly as if it were day.

It was thanks to the snow that I quickly saw what was hunkered outside the cave.

Too big to be a bear, or any other animal from this region. It's size brought to mind the great grey trunked beasts of the south, that Zhuque and his army rode into battle.

But the shape was all wrong to be any animal I had ever seen before. Mismatched arms and appendages crooked from the thing's back. A mutated abomination of a thousand creatures forced into one.

The eh'lang.

The thing's main legs were folded under it like a crouching cat. It's head, disgustingly like a human's, yet with the jaw distorted into a gaping mouth, was angled toward the cave. It extended one, too-long arm into the cave mouth, through the hole in the stones I had left open.

The little prince.

I did not pause to think.

"GRRAGGGHHHH!" I screamed, a strange amalgamation of sounds. I took the nearest rock at my feet and hurled it at the beast.