World Kingdom Warrior (3 Kingdoms - Book 0.5) Read online

Book Description

  World Kingdom Warrior

  3 Kingdoms – Book 0.5

  Yi is a retired warrior of the World Kingdom who has lost everything he loves—his home, his wife, and his daughter.

  Tulip is an abused child of a prostitute with a special ability—a secret that will put her life at risk if the wrong person learns of it.

  As war and political intrigue threaten their home, fate brings Yi and Tulip together.

  This novella is an excerpt from first novel in the series. Enjoy this introduction to the Asian-inspired fantasy world of 3 Kingdoms!

  3 Kingdoms - Book 0.5

  World Kingdom Warrior

  By Camille Picott

  www.camillepicott.com

  Published by Pixiu Press

  Healdsburg, CA 95448

  Copyright 2013 Camille Picott

  Cover by Joey Manfre

  www.joeyink.com

  Copyedit by H. Danielle Crabtree

  www.hedanicreations.net

  CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  About the Author

  Other Books by Camille

  Chapter One

  i

  Cloud Shaman

  Yi resisted the urge to whistle as he rode. Just because he was less than an hour’s ride from home did not give him an excuse to be a fool. Whistling could attract the attention of a menghai, the spiky bovine-like creatures that stalked this area of the mountains.

  Sweet little Jian would be terrified if her papa arrived home covered in quills and bleeding from a tumble with a menghai. Sei, on the other hand, would be overjoyed to have the quills for her embroidery work, even if she did have to pull them from her husband’s backside. Of course, she would not be pleased if the beast managed to kill him. Damnable menghai could be harder to kill than cloud shamans. The last time he’d come up against a menghai—

  Beneath him, Fire Foot hissed and shied sideways.

  Yi snapped out of his reverie and drew his sword, scanning the evergreen forest on either side of the road.

  “What is it?” he asked his kylin, pressing one hand to the beast’s scaled flank.

  Fire Foot snorted and hissed again, his forked tongue flicking out to taste the air. His ears pricked forward beneath a bushy red-and-gold mane. He flared his nostrils, pausing to paw at the ground with a cloven hoof.

  The kylin carried him forward another hundred yards before Yi caught the faint scent of smoke. The forest was tall and thick on this section of the road. He had little visibility beyond the trees on either side and the ribbon of blue sky overhead. He urged Fire Foot toward a rise up ahead. From there, he would be able to see more of the land.

  The kylin broke into a canter, red-and-gold scales rippling beneath the afternoon sun. As they crested the rise, a thick column of smoke became visible in the northwest—from a small village comprised of tidy pine cottages.

  It was Fen-li. His village. And it was burning.

  Smoke obscured most of the houses and shops from sight, but great gouts of orange flame licked at the clear sky.

  How could there be a fire? The earth was still wet from the spring snowmelt. Even when the elders did burn fields, they never burned this early in the season.

  “Sei,” he whispered. “Jian.” He drove his boot heels into Fire Foot.

  The kylin shrieked and bolted forward, galloping down the road and toward the village. Yi wrapped a free hand in the mane and leaned low over his neck.

  A shadow flickered above them. It blotted out the light for a fraction of a second. Had he not spent fifteen years of his life as a soldier, he likely wouldn’t have noticed it. But in that split second, he knew exactly how the fire had started. More specifically, he knew who had started it: cloud shamans.

  They can’t be this far east. They can’t be.

  But they were.

  Was this a supply raid, or had they discovered the location of the House of Liquid Steel? Very few knew the secret location of the house, but the emperor’s inner circle was fraught with malice and duplicity these days.

  Looking up, he saw a lone cloud shaman bank sharply on his cloud. Dressed in a sleeveless leather vest and the tight-fitting leather pants of the Sky Kingdom, the man rode the cloud with his knees slightly bent. As he spun it around to charge at Yi, there were several heartbeats when his body was parallel with the ground.

  Yi jammed his sword into its sheath and pulled out his bow. He snatched an arrow with black fletching from his quiver. It was tipped with a liquid steel arrowhead, the only metal in the Three Kingdoms that could obliterate a shaman’s cloud. The cold metal gleamed with a blue-gray hue.

  The cloud shaman raised his hands, honey-jade bracelets winking pale yellow beneath the sun. Honey-jade rings adorned his fingers. The stone jewelry glowed, the honeycomb interior charged with lightning harvested in the Sky Kingdom.

  Fire Foot screamed at the sight of the bracelets and rings, his mane fluffing with anticipation. The kylin craved lightning the way Jian craved sweets. Even from this distance, the beast smelled it. He reared and pranced, straining in its direction.

  In that instant, the cloud shaman hesitated. If he fired at Yi, he risked hitting Fire Foot instead—and a lightning-charged kylin was dangerous, even more dangerous than Yi. A kylin in a lightning frenzy was deadly.

  That hesitation was all Yi needed. In one smooth motion, he drew and fired. The first arrow barely left his bow before he fired a second one. Both shot forward in whistling arcs.

  In his youth, he’d been the best archer in Emperor Chen’s army. Even in retirement, his shots flew true. There was the solid thunk of one arrow hitting flesh, and the telltale hiss as the other pierced the cloud and turned it to insubstantial mist.

  The shaman cried out. As he plummeted earthward, he raised one bracelet and fired. Yi was blinded as lightning blazed forth from the honey-jade, flashing straight for him.

  He threw himself against Fire Foot’s neck for protection. The kylin reared and hissed with excitement, his body guided by instinct. Yi felt Fire Foot take the strike square in the chest. It reverberated through his body like a gong, sending out shockwaves that made the beast quiver.

  Lightning crackled across his scales, and he shrilled in ecstasy. The blast quickly disappeared, absorbed by his body. He glowed red-gold. His eyes emitted a white-hot light, and even his dark gold antlers glowed.

  “Home,” Yi said. “Run, Fire Foot.”

  The kylin took several dancing steps sideways, his neck arched in the direction of the fallen shaman.

  “No,” he said, digging in his boot heels.

  Fire Foot hissed, glowing eyes glaring at him. It was only at times like this, when he was charged with lightning, that he was difficult to control. Near frenzy, the muscles along his neck tensed as he once again arched it in the direction of the shaman—in the direction of the lightning-infused honey-jade.

  “Home!” This time Yi gave him a rough kick in the ribs.

  Fire Foot reared up, illuminated hooves scraping at empty air. Then he plunged to the earth and streaked down the road, a glowing red-gold beast that moved at three times the speed of a galloping horse. His stride ate up the distance, carrying them homeward.

  Yi never once looked over his shoulder for the cloud shaman. If the man survived his fall, he’d be in no shape to come after them. Besides, no cloud could fly as fast as a lightning-charged kylin could run.

  I’m coming, Sei, he thought. I’m coming.

  ii

  Fire

  At an easy walk, Fire Foot could hav
e reached the village in an hour. A regular gallop would have taken him half an hour. With a lightning charge, he reached the outskirts of Fen-li in less than ten minutes.

  Rushing waves of heat gusted over the hard-packed dirt of the village. Smoke was everywhere, roiling through the air like a mass of angry spirits. Nearly all the buildings burned, including the community hall and the worship house.

  Where there were cloud shamans, there was always fire.

  Even though he’d officially retired from the military four years ago, Yi had never lost the habits acquired during his fifteen years in the field. He grabbed the kerchief he wore around his neck and pulled it up over his nose. The raw burning left his throat.

  From his belt hung a pair of glass-and-leather goggles, a gift from the emperor many years ago. He slipped them on. His eyes stopped stinging and his vision cleared. He nocked an arrow and scanned the chaos around him. Dead bodies—mostly men, but some women and children—were everywhere.

  The cloud shaman attack was centered on the village proper. Those villagers yet living formed a bucket brigade to the nearest well. Even small children, tear-streaked and confused, joined the effort. They concentrated on the community barn. The shamans had strategically set several fires around its base.

  He counted five shamans altogether. Three hovered above the barn roof, each on his own cloud. Two other clouds floated near a hole that had been blasted in the roof. The owners of those clouds were inside the hole, only their heads visible. They tossed bags of rice from the barn’s loft to their waiting comrades. The sacks were distributed evenly among the clouds.

  The fires they’d ignited protected them from the villagers. None of the shamans had noticed Yi. Smoke boiled around Fire Foot, but even the smoke could not conceal his glowing scales. Likely they did not expect to encounter a soldier and kylin in the middle of nowhere.

  There was no sign of Sei and Jian. Yi squelched his desire to race past the village and straight to his estate—and the liquid steel vault—outside of town. There were shamans in Fen-li. He could not abandon the villagers. He could not risk having the shamans follow him back to the house.

  Yi took aim with his bow, training the liquid steel arrowhead on the nearest cloud. Despite the rage and fear bubbling in the recesses of his mind, a familiar calm possessed him.

  Hunting shamans is what he did.

  He fired. The first arrow had scarcely left his bow before he fired another, then another and another and another. In the span of a breath, five arrows flew through the gritty smoke. They sliced through the clouds, obliterating them. Shamans tumbled to the rooftop, one yelling as he slid over the edge.

  Yi drew his sword and urged Fire Foot into a charge straight at the burning barn. The kylin leaped, soaring at the plummeting shaman.

  Yi rose up in the stirrups and shoved the blade upward—hard. He impaled the falling shaman in the gut, barely noticing the hot blood that ran down his arms and soaked his tunic.

  Fire Foot, seasoned from years of battle, was undisturbed by the collision. He cleared the three-story building and landed on the roof, hooves barely making a sound on the wooden boards. Yi dumped the dead shaman onto the rooftop without a second glance.

  The smoke was thick, the air hot against his skin. He ignored all physical sensation, his attention on the shamans.

  Through his goggles, he saw them. Pillaged rice sacks lay everywhere, most of them split open and bleeding white grain across the rooftop.

  The four remaining shamans were on the roof now. They formed a line in front of him, honey-jade bracelets raised. Faint light emanated from the jewelry. Fire Foot’s nostrils flared as he scented the lightning inside. Yi grinned behind his bandana. Let them try to strike him. Let them try.

  He yelled a wordless challenge, standing in his stirrups and lifting his sword. Fire Foot charged.

  The shamans fired at the roof beneath them. It was a good move. If Fire Foot hadn’t been charged with lightning, the shamans may have succeeded in sending them crashing down into the burning barn.

  But Fire Foot was fast. His body blurred as he moved. Yi felt the frenzy rise within the beast and made no move to quell it. Wood exploded behind them, splinters and bits of timber bouncing harmlessly off Yi’s back. Fire Foot stampeded straight toward the shamans.

  Yi swept his sword in an arc, beheading two of them. Fire Foot crushed the third shaman, plunging his hooves into the man and going for his bracelet. Yi dropped to the ground and buried his sword in the fourth shaman.

  He aimed carefully, sliding his sword into the man’s lower abdomen to avoid the lungs and heart. He needed him alive long enough to answer questions. The emperor would want to know of this attack.

  “Did you come through the Monkey Province or Ram Province?” Yi asked. The shamans could not have traveled through either province without being detected, and there was no other route to Fen-li—which meant someone had turned a blind eye to their passage. Who? And why?

  “Answer me!” Yi put one booted foot on the man’s shoulder and pushed him off the end of his blade.

  The shaman moaned. Yi’s stomach clenched. The voice was too light and melodic to belong to a man.

  Even after fighting shamans for fifteen years, he never got used to killing the women. He would never understand why the Sky Emperor sent women into battle, or why he made them crop their hair short and wear men’s clothing.

  “Why here?” Yi loomed over her. “Why a supply raid here, of all places?”

  “A . . . supply . . . raid?” the woman rasped, an amused smile briefly shattering the pain that lined her features. “Check your precious . . . vault.”

  Despite the growing heat, her words made gooseflesh rise along his arms. He seized her by the leather collar of her shirt.

  “What did you say?”

  Blood ran from her stomach and dribbled from her mouth. “You’re too . . . late.” Her eyes rolled back in her head. She died, her body still dangling from his grasp.

  Too late. Yi’s mental wall shattered. Panic and fear poured in. Too late.

  “Sei.” He dropped the body, turning toward Fire Foot. “Jian.”

  The kylin was in full frenzy. He glowed twice as bright, which meant he’d already devoured at least one honey-jade bracelet and the lightning within. The kylin clamped his jaw around the wrist of another dead shaman. The bracelet cracked beneath the pressure of his teeth. He yanked it free and swallowed it in one gulp. The glow emanating from his body intensified, so bright Yi had to squint. Fire Foot looked up at him and belched.

  He barely registered the kylin’s contentment or the rising fire around them. All he saw was his beautiful wife and sweet daughter, alone and unprotected in the house.

  “Home!” he cried, vaulting into the saddle.

  Maybe it was the urgency in his voice. Maybe Fire Foot had gorged himself past the point of frenzy. For whatever reason, the kylin didn’t fight him.

  He galloped to the edge of the roof and jumped. He sailed through smoke and over flame. He sailed right over the village bucket brigade. As soon as his hooves touched the earth, he shot out of the village and up the small road toward home.

  Men, women, and children cheered and called blessings after them. Yi heard their gratitude and thought of Sei as he had last seen her, waving at him from the porch with one hand as she balanced Jian on her hip with the other. She’d been wearing a blue dress with a matching blue ribbon in her braided hair. The morning light had been in her dark eyes, and he’d been certain he’d never seen anything so beautiful in all his life.

  Fear riding on his shoulders like a great demon, he gripped Fire Foot’s mane and leaned over his neck. The kylin ran, his hooves barely touching the ground as he raced for the House of Liquid Steel.

  iii

  Ashes

  Half a mile out of Fen-li, they rounded a bend that opened onto his estate. A gust of smoke hit them. The Royal Foot fields growing around the mansion had been burned; the plants th
at yielded the rarest and most expensive tea in the Three Kingdoms were reduced to ash.

  Yi vaulted off Fire Foot and raced toward the mansion granted to him by Emperor Chen. His manservant lay slaughtered on the steps leading up to the front door. Sei’s maid lay in several pieces on the floor of the entryway.

  “Sei! Jian!” He crashed through the house, much of which was charred and burned. Small fires still smoldered. Part of the second story had collapsed into the first.

  “Sei!” he screamed.

  He found her in the kitchen with her throat slit. Her eyes stared at the ceiling without seeing. Blood pooled around her head and stained the front of her dress.

  Yi collapsed to his knees beside her and vomited. He trembled on all fours, stomach heaving. Long moments passed before he found the courage to raise his head.

  Wiping his mouth, he touched his wife’s hand. He squeezed her cold fingers and forced himself to look at her.

  She wore his favorite yellow dress with red flowers embroidered along the hem. Even soaked with drying blood, he could see the way the rich color complimented her creamy skin. She’d worn the dress in anticipation of his return.

  He pulled her slack form into his arms, burying his nose in her bloody hair. There was a loud metallic thunk as he moved her. His liquid steel cuff slid off her wrist and rolled in a circle on the floor.

  He’d given that cuff to Sei with a vow to retire from the military and marry her. He’d kept both promises. She always wore it around her wrist as a token of her husband’s love. Had she felt it grow warm when the cloud shamans neared? Had she had any time to prepare?

  He picked it up and slid it onto his left arm. The skin above his bicep was still smooth from the fifteen years he’d worn it as a soldier. Its familiar weight made him shiver.

  The left pocket of Sei’s skirt bulged. He reached inside and pulled out a slender book, nearly crusted shut with dried blood. The cover was golden leather, painted with a single bright-red tulip. It was hard to tell where the tulip ended and where the blood began. Inside, Sei’s poetry marched in neat lines down the page. Most of her words were obscured by the blood.

  Yi clutched the book in his hands, head bowed. The single tulip stared back at him.