The Dragon's Roar Pavilion backed onto a small lane between two wards. Snow drifted down with no moon behind it, and the street lay dark, not a lamp lit.
Xu Buling vaulted the ward wall and dropped down onto the street. One glance up the lane showed him the flash of blades and the blur of men at their work.
A figure in black robes and a bamboo hat, a dark blue longsword in hand, was tangled in a running fight with six Wolf Guards of the Son of Heaven's Camp. Walls and rooftops gave way here and there, and the crash sent the residents shrieking into the night.
Old Xiao, propped on his cane, made a few leaps along the ward wall and came down square in front of Xu Buling, his brows knotted tight:
"This one's martial arts are high. That sword style looks like the Tang family's sword, but it has the form without the intent—learned on the sly, I'd say. Most likely a jianghu man come to settle a score."
Xu Buling nodded slightly. An assassin loose in the capital did not much surprise him.
Ten years ago the late emperor had died of illness, and the imperial prince Song Ji had inherited the throne.
Great Yue had risen by force of arms, and two hundred years had bred countless jianghu clans and sects; even the imperial capital, Chang'an, was packed thick with martial halls. Incense lineage and sworn grudges, debts of gratitude and blood, had knitted every faction into one great net—a net no less powerful than the old gentry houses that had once ruled the court from behind the throne.
With so many trained in arms, men willing to stake everything were bound to appear; burning, killing, plunder, and lawlessness at swordpoint piled up without end. Remote prefectures and counties had even become private holdings of certain clans and sects, run like states within the state.
The first thing Song Ji did on taking the throne was to purge the jianghu. He forced the great jianghu houses to answer to the Investigation Bureau, each sending out its masters to sweep away those who would not bend, and it was written down in the histories as the Iron Eagle Deer Hunt.
The Iron Eagle Deer Hunt started from good intentions, plainly: lift up the great clan houses with their proper systems, put down the petty jianghu powers that each served its own master, and steer martial men toward ends that served the court—roughly, "learn letters and arms, and repay them to the emperor's house."
But the court had badly misjudged how the jianghu would answer.
The great difference between a martial man and a scholar is that a martial man has "a blade in the heart."
A common man's rage spills blood five paces at most—but when the court bore down on them, those who pushed back were many.
And every faction, great or small, carried centuries of tangled debts and grudges behind it. When the obedient houses rode out against the jianghu powers, some found their hand would not rise against an old tie, and others used the warrant to settle private scores.
In one short year it had spilled past anyone's ability to contain, and there were even signs of open rebellion.
What came down when the Son of Heaven's wrath was roused needed no guessing.
The seven princes soon received imperial decrees; more than eight hundred thousand troops swept across Great Yue, and the martial world's backbone was all but broken.
The Princess Consort of Su was born to the Lu clan of the Eastern Sea, which a thousand years ago had come from the same root as the Lu clan of Jinling—one branch of letters, one of arms, both ancient great houses of the Central Plains dynasties.
The Eastern Sea Lu broke with the court at the time, judging its measures too harsh, and disobeyed the summons—which brought the Xiliang iron cavalry down to encircle them.
After one great battle, the Lu clan head of that day was dead. The Princess Consort of Su pined away and died, and Prince Su has never taken another wife—all of it comes back to this.
If even a vassal king of another surname, holding twelve prefectures, was dragged down this far, one can imagine how savage the jianghu was then.
Ten years on, the avengers coming to the capital never thinned; nearly every year a hundred or more died in silence under Wolf Guard blades.
Xu Buling studied her a while, unable to place which school the black-robed woman belonged to—only that her skill was out of the common run. He asked quietly:
"Is Zhang Xiang dead?"
Old Xiao shook his head. "Zhang Xiang runs the Investigation Bureau. He doesn't die that easily. She tried to kill him just now and he felt her coming—she took a palm strike. I doubt she'll get away."
Xu Buling nodded. He needed to get into the Records Vault to dig out information, and the Records Vault was where Zhang Xiang himself sat watch. He was weighing whether this assassin might be put to use when a shout came from down the street:
"Out of the way, quick!"
"Look out, my lord Heir!"
Xu Buling blinked, lifted his eyes, and saw the black-robed assassin charging straight at him, sword in hand.
Old Xiao narrowed his eyes and clicked his tongue:
"This girl's got no eye at all. She's taken my lord Heir for Lord Soft Persimmon..."
Saying so, Old Xiao made to step forward, but Xu Buling raised a hand to hold him back, then arranged his face into a mask of pure terror:
"Protect your lord!"
The cold wind howled.
Longsword in hand, the black-robed assassin was giving ground step by step under the crossfire of hook-sickle spears and goose-quill sabers. Her attempt had failed and Zhang Xiang's palm had landed on her back; her thin lips had gone a bruised, dark blue, and her steps were growing unsteady.
More Wolf Guards were closing in every moment, and if she dragged it out any longer it would become a certain death. A hard resolve came into the assassin's eyes, and she was about to risk it all and cut her way back to the Dragon's Roar Pavilion—when at the foot of the wall outside the pavilion she caught sight of a devastatingly handsome young lord in a fox-fur coat, and an old family servant, the two of them huddled together watching the show.
She had seen this noble young lord once before, at the Sun family's shop—his complexion was poor and he was poisoned, and it had left an impression. She had just heard from passersby that he was a prince's son, a man of lofty standing.
At any other time she would not have spared a look for these princes' brats who didn't know the height of heaven, but here she was in a dead end, with a hostage that size set out before her—what choice did she have left?
Without a flicker of hesitation, the black-robed assassin stamped her embroidered shoe against the street hard enough to nearly shatter the bluestone paving, launched herself up through wind and snow, and in the blink of an eye covered more than ten zhang to land before the handsome young lord.
"Protect your lord!"
The young lord's eyes were full of terror; he bolted, not caring where he ran.
The aged retainer went white with shock, dropped his cane, and ran for it, paying his master at his side not the slightest attention.
The assassin seized the split second, caught the young lord by the shoulder and hauled him into her arms, laid her longsword across his neck, and turned to face the Wolf Guards chasing after.
"Stop!"
The Wolf Guard centurion nearly lost his soul. He hastily called off the men still charging in. They knew Xu Buling's martial skill was passable, but with the Dragon-Locking Cup in his body he could not be a match for this assassin. If Prince Su's heir died on an assassin's blade, then from Commander Zhang Xiang down to the last Wolf Guard standing there, all of them would likely be buried alongside the little prince.
The centurion could do nothing but halt with his saber three zhang off and call out sharply:
"Insolent wretch! Release my lord Heir!"
The black-robed assassin was a little shorter than Xu Buling; one hand gripped his shoulder, the other held the sword at his neck, and holding the pose was a little awkward. Her breath rose and fell unevenly as she swept her eyes across the closing Wolf Guards:
"All of you, get out of my way."
Her voice carried a light, hollow ring; the sound alone was enough to tell you how cold and aloof she was.
Her breath washed across his ear, bearing a faint, hidden scent of orchid.
Xu Buling's face was tense. He raised both hands to signal the Wolf Guards not to do anything rash:
"Everyone back off, don't do anything stupid..."
"Don't talk!"
The assassin said it coldly, hooked an arm around Xu Buling's waist, forced her way up onto the ward wall, and raced off out of Daye Ward:
"If anyone follows me, I kill him right now!"
The Wolf Guards went white in the face, wanting to chase and not daring to, frozen where they stood with no idea what to do.
With the assassin holding Prince Su's heir, how would they dare chase her in the open? Push her to a desperate fight to the death, and every Wolf Guard there would die. For now they could only grit their teeth and run to seal the roads, to keep the villain from slipping out of Chang'an...