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.

The rock missed. But it served a purpose. It got the eh'lang's attention. The long neck swung toward me. Black eyes regarded me in the terrifying face.

There was a moment's pause... and then it came for me.

I turned and started pulling myself over stones, up river. My boots slipped and skidded across slick rocks, and I felt pains in my shins and ankles as my legs got scraped when I lost my footing.

Behind me, I could hear the sound of the creature also laboring over the rocks, of stones slamming together. The breath of the creature came in great whooshes, like the heaving of bellows. Then the screech, an anguished howl of a hundred mutilated animals and men, broke from its body, vibrating through the air around me.

I clambered over the rocks faster.

The eh'lang had been a good hundred lengths from me, when I had thrown the stone. But judging by the growing sounds of it's pursuit, it was gaining distance.

When Zakhar had carried me on his shoulders across the destroyed village that night we had held the advantage: on flat ground, two swift legs were superior to the monster's many.

But here, on the broken, rocky ground of the riverside, having a hundred arms and legs to pull you over stones was an advantage.

If I don't do something it is going to catch me.

I had become familiar with this part of the riverside, having hiked it several times already. I tried to think of an escape, an advantage, anything to help me get away from the creature and then back to the cave.

I almost fell into one such advantage.

I had come to where the river bent, the rapids swinging up to the cliff face. Here I had to nimbly hop from stone to stone to get across. Choosing a route took strategy, as some rocks were too low in the river and slippery wet, or others too far from the next stone in the crossing and forced you to go back and seek out another path.

Luckily, I had already perfected my route.

I leapt to the first rock, and not a moment too soon. The creature staggered to a shuddering halt behind me, and I heard the legs whoosh through the air as it reached toward me.

But I leapt to the next stone, and the next, already out of reach.

The beast screamed in frustration, it's voice echoing like a dying singer off the cliffs around us. The roar of the water beneath my feet rose to meet it, adding its crescendo to my pounding blood.

I reached the other side and turned back. The monster sat and watched me, black eyes evil, jaws clicking angrily.

I had escaped, but I felt fear. If it turned around and went back to the cave there was nothing I could do.

"Come, you great, stupid creature! You are so ugly your looks alone could kill," I spit.

Not my finest of insults, but in such a situation it sufficed.

I took a fist sized rock from my feet and hurled it at the animal to emphasize my barb. The rock connected, hitting the creature's skull just above one eyebrows.

The monster's head jerked as the rock hit it, but otherwise there was no response. As the rock fell away into the river below, a drop of black blood ran down the hideous face like a strange tear.

Eyes still on me, the monster started toward me across the rocks.

"That's it, you ugly son of a demon whore. Come on, come on—"

The eh'lang picked the wrong route, a route where the stones were too steep and slick. Just as I had hoped, the creature slipped. It's hands, feet, hooves, claws, flailed widely, trying to find purchase, scrabbling at the rock beneath them. But, for all its appendages, it could not find enough purchase to keep its huge, uneven bulk from tipping sideways and falling into the river.

Now the water that had almost drowned me two days ago became my ally. It carried the monster in its current, smashing it against the rocks with satisfying thuds.

I smiled as the eh'lang's terrible screech was carried downstream.

I leapt back across the rocks, almost slipping at one point, my relief at what I had just escaped making me dizzy. I struggled back the way I had come. The snow had been cleared away in a long dragging streak edged with the imprints of hands and animal paws, covering my own previous trail through the snow.

In my mind I frantically turned over what I should do. The eh'lang was gone for the moment, but now it knew where we were it would return. I had to move Sanli from the cave. But where? And how? I could carry him on my back, but not far. And there was no way I could scale the cliff the way I had been doing with him on my back.

One of my ankles gave a painful ache. I must have turned it in my rush to escape. I ignored it and hurried on, scrabbling over the rocks as fast I could. I had to get Sanli away before the monster returned.

I saw the cave entrance ahead, a small black crescent in the pale cliff. I started to run, limping-

WHAM.

Something strong and thin, a branch, a spear, connected with my side and threw me off my feet and against the cliff.

Not a branch, or a spear. An arm.

I choked, the air knocked from my lungs by both the blow and my impact with the cliff. I felt warm blood slide down my face as I sat up.

The creature had escaped the current and been waiting for me, crouching in the shadow of other similarly sized boulders, its many legs and arms drawn in to give it the appearance of a rock in the snow.

I did not realize they were so clever. I should have noticed it. What a fool I—

I did not have time to chide myself any longer. The monster had unfolded its legs and, thinking me incapacitated, was starting to shift itself over the rocks toward the cave.

Shit, Sanli.

"Oi, fuckface!" I yelled.

Suddenly, I was transported back, to that night months and months ago, when the saw pig had chased us in the clearing.

Haha, that is much bigger than a saw pig, I thought.

And, like the impulsive idiot I am, I took a running jump and leapt onto it's back.

The creature immediately began to thrash. A hundred different appendages swung through the air around me. One caught the side of my head, causing tears to sting my eyes and my vision to circle.

I lay down on the beast's back, reaching down to draw Zakhar's knife from my boot and then conceal it in my sleeve.

A hand, a human hand, rare among the many animal paws and hooves, grabbed my cloak and dragged me off the creatures back. The three joints of the too long arm unfolded and deposited me right before the monstrous head.

SREAAAYYAAWWTHCH

-the monster screamed, into my face. Its breath stank of sickening meat and moldering dark places.

I was trapped, the web of the monster's too many arms arching around me like the nest of a huge spider. I wondered if it would kill me before it devoured me, or it would suck my body dry like a spider did their prey.

A thought caught me. Why call them wolves? Surely they resemble spiders far more?

Then the eh'lang dove it's too-wide jaw toward me...

...and I reached out and thrust Zakhar's knife into its eye.

I had learned, on the beach that day with Guang Han, it is not always best to evade your enemy. Sometimes it is better to be caught. To let your enemy think you beaten, so he draws you within his defenses. Close enough for you to strike a fatal blow.

Of course, there was always the risk that while so close you may suffer a fatal blow as well.

As the eh'lang thrashed wildly, knife still in it's eye, I crawled on my elbows away as quickly as I could toward the cave. But I was not quick enough.

I felt the sharp pain of teeth sinking into my calf.

I turned to see the monster's jaw wrapped around my lower right leg. "Get— off!" I kicked at the creature.

My boot connected with the handle of the knife, driving it deeper into the eye socket. Black blood oozed from the wound.

The monster let go of my leg. Gasping, I pulled my body across the stony riverside toward the cave.

I need to get to the cave. I can seal it up, move Sanli to the back of it. The entrance is too small for it to get inside. If I can just get to the cave, I can protect him.

Stones bit into my front and my elbows as I pulled myself toward the cave, dragging my injured leg.

Behind me, the knife, rather than killing the beast as it should have, seemed to have only momentarily slowed it. With another anguished howl, and the clack of its talons on the rocks, it came after me.

I am too slow—

I turned back to see the monster rear over me, jaws gaping. A hundred paws, claws, hooves, prepared to stamp me from existence.

A black crow fell from the cliff onto the monster's back.

I blinked. I must have miseen. Crows were not that big.

There was a metallic hiss and then a swish. I blinked again. The crow was still there, on the monster's back. Now it was leaping to the ground, flicking black blood from its blade.

Wait, it wasn't a crow. It was Kageyama, calmly sheathing his sword.

The monster's head, for Kageyama had just cut its head off, fell to the ground beside me with a meaty crunch.

The body started to follow. I crawled backwards to avoid it.

Kageyama hurried towards me, worry on his face.

"Where is Sanli?" he asked.

I gestured toward the cave. Kageyama left me and ran toward it.

"Not to worry, I am fine," I said to the air.

I felt the pain in my leg fading as my consciousness dimmed.

"I'm fine," I said to no one, falling back on the cold stones and snow. To the body of the dead monster seeping black blood beside me. "No need to worry. I'm fine."

*~*~*~*~*~*