Thunder crashed.
Chenzhou put his hands up in a feeble attempt to calm the anger he faced.
"How dare you show your face, monster!" A young woman screamed at him.
Chenzhou flinched; it was easier to call himself a monster than to hear it from someone else.
Hubris.
Or was it delusion?
Beng Shai's death had turned him into a philosopher, apparently.
The golden-haired man raised his sword, only feet from Chenzhou's throat, but before he could speak, thunder exploded and an arrow landed only inches from his foot.
Chenzhou recognized the red fletching of the Crimson Army's arrows, and as the thunder grew louder, he realized it wasn't thunder at all.
It was the pounding of a hundred thousand hooves crossing the prairie at high speed.
Eirian and Mingzhe were coming. The thought was reassuring, but also dangerous. The tribe would have no choice but to take the arrival of the Crimson Army as a threat.
"He's not really the Lord of the Stone Flower." Someone else hissed. "Kai Low is wrong."
The golden-eyed man rolled his eyes, which meant he was Kai Low. A woman with Beng Shai's face and eyes stepped forward. "Kai Low is not wrong. I saw him at Traveller's Hill." She turned to Chenzhou, her own sword drawn. "There's no reason for you to be here, Lord Ye, not unless you've come for your death."
"I did not come to die." Not that Eirian and Mingzhe were likely to believe him either. Chenzhou would probably spend the rest of his life trying to convince them he wasn't on some kind of suicide mission. "I came to pay my respects to Beng Shai's life. Song and Snow has pitted us against one another." Maybe if he said it enough times, it would finally get through. "We know you are working with them. That they're supplying you with funds and weapons. That they had the southern tribes bring in more slaves to fight."
The woman and Kai Low shared an uneasy look.
"We know they've been advising you on how to fight us, but we don't want to keep fighting. It's gone on long enough, too many have died."
"You say that now," the woman's voice was laced with bitterness.
"We didn't burn your camps," Chenzhou reiterated. "We wanted peace with Beng Shai, with the tribes."
The thunder moved closer, close enough to make out the sounds of the hooves.
Kai Low raised an eyebrow as alarm spread through the camp. "You're army is here."
Chenzhou sighed. This was his make-or-break moment. "Because I left alone to come to ask for peace."
Kai Low and the woman, and at least a few others beyond him, looked gratifyingly shocked.
But someone in the crowd screamed, "The demon!" as Fleet Goddess skidded to a stop next to Chenzhou, sending up a cloud of dust that made them both sneeze.
Eirian, flushed, disheveled, beautiful, her eyes bright with anger. "I'm the demon?"
Most of the crowd took a few steps back.
"Eirian is not a demon," Chenzhou snapped, insulted that they'd insult her that way. "She has magic, which she's only ever used to protect." He didn't know if that was strictly true, but he could say it for her time at the Camelia at least. "I know you do not have a long history of magic in your society, but we do in ours."
Eirian dismounted, coming to stand next to Chenzhou, and he could feel her magic vibrating off of her. He was surprised it wasn't visible as flames at this point, but maybe that was Eirian's way of giving him a chance.
The rest of the Crimson Army was approaching, but at Eirian's signal, he heard them slow. A single rider came forward, and Chenzhou didn't have to look back to know it was Mingzhe. A man whose reputation amongst the tribes was probably as strong as Eirian's, but had been around much longer.
"I came to bury the war with Beng Shai," Chenzhou took a breath, "And my sword."
Surprise rippled through everyone present.
Swords were practically holy to warriors; even though the tribes made them out of scraps, they carried those scraps until they fell apart. In Sorrow, swords were passed down in families until they did the same. Huaban had been his father's first, though it hadn't become a blooding blade until Chenzhou. It was meant to be the sword he carried until the day he died, to be handed to his own child on his deathbed. Though that was looking like it would be Bredan, so the boy would have had his choice of Chenzhou's Huaban and Eirian's Ardain.
It was more fitting that he would get Ardain. He was a Soliel by birth after all.
And Huaban would be more accepting of her fate than Ardain would. It was unlikely she would sing her song from the grave and drive anyone who came too close mad.
Kai Low's expression twisted in suspicion and doubt. "You're lying."
"I'm not," Chenzhou argued, tired again. He drew Huaban and held her up. "We want peace. I don't know another way to convince you how much. You are not the only ones who lose loved ones when we fight. Who have to tell children their parents are never coming home."
Kai Low faltered, but the woman next to him just sighed. "You're words are pretty, Lord Ye, but empty."
Eirian bristled. "He came here alone to show his honesty."
"Which makes him stupid, not honest." Kai Low snapped. "And he's certainly not alone now."
~ tbc