Eirien offered a bloody smile. "No, he's not."
It left them at an impasse. The Bandri were still too hurt by the loss of Beng Shai and generations of war to believe Chenzhou, and Chenzhou was even more panicked thinking about the safety of Eirian and Mingzhe now that they were actually present.
"Do you honestly think Song and Snow are going to give you whatever they promised?" Chenzhou tried a different tactic. "That they'll just leave you to live your lives? They've claimed this land just as long as we have."
The woman with Beng Shai's blood shook her head. "We are not so foolish."
"Then why are they the better option over us?" Chenzhou pleaded.
She and Kai Low shared an awkward, uncomfortable, and Chenzhou realized the answer with sudden, vibrant clarity.
Specifically, that they didn't have one.
The tribes had sided with Song and Snow simply because they'd offered first. They probably used the same pitch Chenzhou would have if he'd thought of the whole thing first. The tribes didn't care about that anyway, just about what they thought would get them one over on at least one side.
But it left Chenzhou doubly stuck, because now he couldn't say anything they hadn't already heard.
Eirian shifted next to him, gaze moving from the armed group facing them to the horizon, her hand flexing around Ardain's hilt.
It amazed Chenzhou how in tune she was with the blade. He couldn't hear Huaban the way she talked about hearing Ardain. He wasn't sure if it was just the differences in the blades or Chenzhou himself. His lack of magic or belief. He wasn't sure how well he could handle hearing it either. Blooding Blades were just as well known for inspiring skill as they were for inspiring madness.
"Neither of you is trustworthy." Kai Low spat out.
"Neither are you." Chenzhou spat back. "None of us has been trustworthy before now, because we've been enemies. But it doesn't have to stay that way. Beng Shai was trying to change that. I want to do the same. Can you imagine a world where we didn't have to fight? Where there wouldn't be smoke on the wind and blood on the wheat every season?"
The crowd shifted.
"Let us prove we're trustworthy," Chenzhou asked. "Let me bury my sword with Beng Shai and-"
Eirian's hand clamped down on his arm, hard. "There is something wrong with the light on the horizon."
Chenzhou gaped, taken aback. There's a spark of anger that she's bringing it up now, but it's immediately smothered by the fact that Eirian didn't do anything without a reason. He glances at the horizon, the light a sliver stronger than before and warm now, golden and orange. "It is slow today. Perhaps that is for the best." He glanced back at the confused tribesmen. "The world is softer when the light is weaker."
Kai Low's eyes are narrowed, moving back and forth between the two of them, in the direction of the horizon.
"No," Eirian's voice was low, urgent. "There's something wrong with the horizon."
And then she's running, away from Chenzhou, around Mingzhe, past the equally confused soldiers waiting in a tense formation.
Chenzhou followed, because he always will at this point, and so does Mingzhe, and to his surprise, Kai Low and a good portion of the tribal crowd.
Eirian's face went pale, chalky, as she looked over the sea of wheat to the light slowly creeping up.
Chenzhou and Mingzhe looked at the horizon, brows furrowed in confusion, because they couldn't see what Eirian was seeing.
She stumbled forward a few more steps, face shifting to horror as the wind picked up even more.
And with it came the smell of smoke.
Chenzhou glanced back at the camp, and he wasn't the only one.
"Is that from the camp?" One of the closer soldiers sounded confused.
"Wrong direction." Mingzhe corrected, and he sounded terrified.
Even the tribesmen went from confused to afraid.
"It's a wildfire." Eirian breathed, eyes locked on the horizon.
Kai Low scoffed. "That's impossible. A fire that large…" he trailed off, eyes getting wider as his face got paler and the smell of smoke got stronger.
"Why the fuck would they do that?" Panic set in, and Chenzhou couldn't quite keep it out of his voice as the horses and other animals started to shift nervously, sensing the danger at a much higher level than the humans.
The light on the horizon spread for hundreds of miles in both directions. The three kingdoms of Song and Snow that bordered the borderlands would all have to be involved. It wouldn't have taken much, a few sparks, and the dry prairie lands, at the tail end of the hottest part of summer, would go up with ease.
And they would burn until it reached the White City on the opposite side of the world, turning everything between to ash.
Song and Snow would be able to roll in and take everything they wanted.
"They're fools," Eirian snarled. No one knew fire better than her. "The fire might not come back on them if they prepared, but the smoke cloud from a fire that size, if it burns even half the prairie, will kill everything on the Rock." Even the tribesmen turn to her. "It'll block out the sun and make the air poisonous."
The panic increases, spreads. The soldiers have to fight to keep their well-trained mounts in place. A few of the tribe break and run, too scared to realize they'll never get far enough, but it spurs Eirian, Chenzhou, and Mingzhe to action.
"How long?" Chenzhou asks, expecting days.
"Hours," Eirian says.
~ tbc