For Disclaimer and notes, see First Part

~*Part 2*~

Wufei tried to stare at his companion without seeming to stare at his companion.  The boy had chosen the strangest outfit: a long, all-black tunic, with a high Eastern collar, a white undershirt.  He’d kept the Western leggings—but they were riding leggings he’d taken off one of the dead cavalry and the thick boots he’d taken off a foot soldier.  He’d taken the tunic from the Eastern wizard Wufei had found dead near the edge of the clearing.  Wufei’s memory of the battle was still hazy, but he didn’t recall fighting a magic user, and there had been no signs of any sword wounds on the body, confirming the presumption. Nevertheless, the man had been dead.  Wufei had the sneaking suspicion Duo had killed him.

The boy had surrounded himself with morbid reminders of death and darkness, and his aura seethed, deep purple, writhing and snapping like the beginnings of a dessert storm—the kind that ate men alive.

The other boy couldn’t know that Wufei could see auras, because he was making a very good show of being cheerful.  He was whistling, steps jaunty, clasped hands supporting the back of his head, arms akimbo as he squinted up into the bright blue sky.  He had been talking since they had started on the road, the conversation easy and light and seemingly endless.  Wufei half-listened, trailing a few steps back so he could study Duo without being seen, sending tentative threads of power to tease the edges of the purple storm highlighting the acolyte, to see if he would get any reaction.

“So,” the boy said, breaking his stream of words with a tone that was pointed as he stopped and waited for Wufei to catch up with him, “where are we going?”

Wufei let his vision ease back to normal, still uneasy with what he had seen. “I’m taking you to the nearest town.”

Duo eyed him like he wanted to protest, but seemed to decide against it at the last minute. “Then where are you going?” he persisted.

“To the castle.”

“Castle?  As in, the King’s castle?”

“Is there any other?”

“Sure, all over.  They spring up like weeds in this country.  But the King’s castle…do you just expect to walk in and say ‘hello’?”

“I have personal business.”

“Right,” the boy drawled. “They’ll hang you.  The country has gone crazy.  The King’s Hand have been raiding towns like bandits; we had so many refugees in the church we didn’t know what to do with them.”

Wufei’s sense of justice pricked his conscience insistently despite all efforts to shut it up. “How are they allowed to do that?” he asked angrily.

“Call it ‘offensive defense’ and hang farmers as traitors, sell their children into slavery and the Crown gets the land.”  There was such bitterness in Duo’s voice, Wufei wanted to ask if he were speaking from experience, wanted to ask him where his parents were.  Family was so important…Did the acolyte have someone to mourn too?  Someone to avenge?

“Is that why they burned the church?” he wondered out loud, then flinched when Duo’s mood darkened instantly.

“I don’t know.  But Father Maxwell was no traitor.”

They walked on, the wind cooling and easterly as the sun slowly shifted down.  Fledgling silence was born between them and matured until it grew spines and became acutely uncomfortable.  Whatever shield of pretended happiness Duo had maintained until now was gone, at least for the time being.  Wufei wasn’t sure he liked this awkward honesty more than the false congeniality.  He would’ve liked to see the acolyte smile for real, but that didn’t seem possible.

Hoof beats.

Before he could react, Duo had grabbed him and thrown him into the ditch.  He spun as he hit the mud, slipped, found himself lying on his stomach on an incline next to the black-clad boy and then didn’t dare move as several horses tore past them.  Duo was close enough to the road to see without being seen, and whatever he saw made him sit up—before it was really safe.  Wufei grabbed his ankle and tried to drag him down, but he dug in.  Then the shiver hit the foreigner’s spine and he used Duo’s foot to lever himself up instead.

The last horse was a wild-looking thing, slender enough to be related to deer more than horse, and bound by an iron collar and chain.  All Wufei caught of its slumped rider was a quick shimmer of gold hair and blue tunic, but the touch of magic couldn’t lie.

“Elf,” he identified.  Duo didn’t say anything—just stared at the cloud of dust left in their wake. “And the King’s Han—”

“I know,” Duo cut in firmly.  “I recognized some of them.”

Wufei looked at him, but when nothing else was forthcoming, continued cautiously. “They looked to be in a hurry.  I wonder where they were going.”  He stood and climbed back onto the road. “And with whom.  He felt like a wizard, but he looked young.”

“He looked rich,” Duo said matter-of-factly, picking himself up and brushing grass off his long tunic.  Then he started walking, with the kind of purposeful stride that made Wufei wary.

“Where are you going?”

Duo grinned back at him. “I’m going to find out what’s going on.”

“What?  Are you crazy?”

But Duo kept walking, and Wufei was forced to follow, if only so he could rant within hearing distance. “You don’t even know where they’re going!”

Duo had already crossed the road, hopped down into the opposite ditch and was now squelching cheerfully through the mud.  Wufei opted for walking parallel with him on the path where it was higher and dryer.

“Funny thing, that,” Duo said blithely. “I think I do.”

“Well,” Wufei sputtered. “Even if you do, they’re on horses.  You’ll never catch up.”

And that was when they came to a stone tube sticking out of the incline and emptying a trickle of water into the ditch.  It was large enough for a short man to stand in comfortably.

“What is that?”

“When the elves ruled this land,” Duo said quietly, peering into the darkness, “they built a whole network of stone sewers.  This will take us directly to the town.  The King’s Hand will have to skirt the forest.  We might not get there ahead of them, but we won’t be far behind.” Purple eyes twinkled briefly under a fringe of caramel-colored bangs. “Coming?” Then the acolyte was gone, without waiting for a reply.

Wufei had nothing left to deter him but a deep gut sense of impending doom, and something that intangible wasn’t enough to justify what might be construed as a cowardly action, so he jumped into the ditch, splattering his soft yellow pants with muck, and followed Duo into darkness.

“This is disgusting.”

“You already said that.”

“It remains true.”

“You really are a snob, you know that?”

Wufei couldn’t think of any response that had not been invented by a petulant child, so he held a dignified silence…and a sleeve firmly against his nose.

“What is that smell?”

“The waste of about six hundred people all living together—a town.”

“For all this, it’s surely a city.”

“No no, cities smell much worse.”

Wufei couldn’t imagine that, but didn’t argue the point.  Talking required larger breaths than he was willing to take.

“This is definitely a town,” Duo concluded. “Which means we’re almost there.”

They had been sloughing through muck for the past hour, and been walking hunched in pitch-dark sewers for the better part of three.  Wufei used the sporadic clumps of phosphorescent mold and superior sight to check from time to time that they weren’t going to walk into a cesspool and spent the rest of the time hanging on to Duo’s braid and trusting blindly.  He didn’t know how Duo was navigating. He didn’t know Duo very well and trust did not come easily in the best of circumstances, and switching between normal sight and heightened sight gave him a headache.  He was concentrating so hard on controlling his temper that he didn’t register Duo’s casual warning: “Duck!” And walked right into a hard something that made his ears ring.

“We’re here.”

“I noticed,” Wufei growled, holding his head and waiting for his vision to clear.  When it did, he saw everything with the gray cast of moonlight coming in faintly from above.  He walked forward to join Duo and stepped into a crossroads where four tunnels originated and the space opened upward, roofed by a large grate.  Wufei had hit his head on the last rung of a ladder that went straight up to the opening.  Duo had already ascended halfway and was making “get up here” motions.  Wufei eyed the rusty, moldy bars uncertainly, but under Duo’s expectant look, set his jaw and started climbing.  By the time he came even with Duo’s feet, the boy was working at the crusty padlock on the chain that held the grate shut and cursing steadily under his breath.

“Problem?” Wufei asked, trying to peer around him.

“Nothing a good fire spell wouldn’t cure,” Duo muttered around various lock picking instruments in his mouth. “Or acid.  Do you happen to have any..?” He trailed off as Wufei climbed up behind him, carefully picking his handholds and ending up with one foot between Duo’s, one dangling in space, one hand on the same rung as Duo’s, the other reaching up to grab a fistful of chain.

“Don’t look,” Wufei advised, and turned away from the flash of light.  Pain clawed up his arm like a mad fire beast and burst out of his palm.  It was always a risk to cast spells in a human body.  When he looked back, the chain was swinging free in two parts, the ends smoking.

“Wow,” Duo said with open admiration.  Wufei shrugged, embarrassed, and shook out the handful of ash, suddenly aware of how close they were.  Duo’s hair smelled like pine.

Hastily, he shoved the heavy grate out of the way and climbed into cooler air.

“What do you know,” Duo said, following.  “You do have your uses.”

Wufei indignantly wondered when that had been in question, but before he could ask, he was interrupted by the sound of marching feet.

“City watch,” Duo hissed, grabbing Wufei and pulling him into a shadowy alley just as six watchers rounded the corner;  the lampboy trailed behind them.  Wufei and Duo faded as far back as the heaps of garbage would allow as the light swung by, but the watch was on a routine perimeter sweep and didn’t notice two odd shapes crouching in the alley.

“…so then I says to her, ‘Woman, a chicken’s got the same job and she does it ten times as good as you.’”

They all laughed.  Duo peeled himself away from the wall and nudged Wufei in the ribs. “Breathe.”

Wufei took a deep breath, surprised to find his lungs ached, and eased forward to get a look at their retreating backs.  That was how he saw the lampboy trip over the open grate, the lamp go flying down into the sewers and the watchers turn and become professional in an instant.

“What—?” Duo started as Wufei pushed him back, but was cut off by a harsh “Fan out!”

Wufei scrambled, kicking a broken pot in his haste.  It made a muffled thump as it hit a piled of rotting lettuce, but the garbage it had been holding up hit the ground and spilled into the street with a dramatic clatter.

“Fuck!”

Duo grabbed Wufei’s collar as he stared, horrified, at the mess, turned him around and shoved him against the wall.  The foreigner boy barely managed to get his hands up in time to stop his nose from squishing into the stone.

“Climb.”

“What?” Wufei gasped.

“Climb!” Duo snapped, nimble fingers settling into irregularities in between the stone blocks.  When he’d been a child, he’d done a lot of running.  Visions of horrible maybes had driven him away from the church’s sanctuary, getting him into all kinds of unlikely trouble with bandits and gypsies before he’d learned it was easier to go up.  He’d never feared falling, when his fingers could find small cracks and make them handholds, when his feet could balance on branches as thin as his arm without wavering, and up where the sky met the curve of the world, visions never bothered him.  When he swung a leg onto the roof, it occurred to him that not everyone might have his ease with heights.

Below, Wufei hadn’t even started climbing.  He’d drawn his sword and faced off with the two watchers that blocked the alley.  Duo knew that if the foreigner so much as scratched one, they’d hang him for sure.  Rumors of war were making people very wary of outsiders.  But there was no way to help without giving himself away—

As he swung his other leg up, his foot hit something that gave way with a scrape of stone.  Shingles.  About two years ago, a fire had decimated the town.  Since then there had been an ordinate that all houses be made of stone, right down to slate shingles.  Loose slate shingles.  Duo kicked two free, watched them fly off the roof and arc into the emptiness between houses.  Then he turned and ran.  He was on the next house before they even hit.

He prayed they hadn’t hit the foreigner.  He prayed the foreigner knew the value of running and living to fight another day.  He prayed Chang Wufei could look after himself.

Bright One protect, he pleaded, and I’ll find him later.  Using windowsills and laundry line, he climbed back down to the street a few blocks away.  But right now… He knew how to get to the marketplace even in the dark. It was deserted but for a small regiment of uniformed guard gathered around a ring of stacked stones the height of a tall man on a horse.  They were arguing with a short, white-haired man in a florid outfit. I have some business to finish.

The gatekeeper was having a bad night.  These days, anything involving the King’s Hand was bound to be trouble, and this lot—dusty and exhausted from the road, tempers high and patience low—looked to be more trouble than usual.

“Look,” he said to the captain, as reasonably as he could, “I can’t send you through tonight.  I’ve already used up my limit for today.  These need to recharge.”  He patted the ancient white stones affectionately.  The glyphs carved into their surfaces shimmered in response.

“How soon?” the captain demanded.

“First light tomorrow.  That’s the earliest I can promise.  Do you have fare?”

The captain scowled. “This is official King’s business.”

The gatekeeper wasn’t impressed.  “So I’ll be compensated?”

“File a petition,” the captain growled with the strained finality of one who’d run out of answers, and moved off hastily, the others filing in behind him as he made a quick break.

“I’m glad,” one of the shadowed figures muttered as it passed. “I wanna avoid that mystic shit for as long as possible.  Fucking elven magic.  Gives me the willies.”

“Useless idiots,” the gatekeeper snapped as loudly as he dared, and regretted it instantly when one of them stopped.  It was the shortest one who hadn’t said a word all night.

“What is your name?” the Hand asked, voice oddly flat, neither threatening nor encouraging.

“Why do you want to know?”  He turned and saw the soldier out of shadow for the first time. “Sir.”

He looked nothing more than a boy, but his uniform was trimmed in hunter green and over his heart, instead of a spread hand, was embroidered a swooping hawk.  Most Trackers were known to wear eye patches over the left eye, but this one had chosen an odd hairstyle that swept forward to cover half his face.  The gatekeeper swallowed, pinned by the weight of a gaze that was rumored able to crush minds.

“If you give me your name, I’ll make sure you’re paid.”

The gatekeeper felt sweat break out on his upper lip as he forced himself to maintain eye contact with that deadly green gaze and remain casual. “Oh, it’s no problem.  Happy to do it for my country and all that.” He couldn’t help the nervous laugh that slipped out.  The Tracker tipped his head and upped the casual look to a steady regard.  The gatekeeper felt the desire to fall to his knees and confess every sin, but managed to hold on to his dignity until the Tracker blinked—their version of a shrug—and walked away.

Collapsing against the nearest house with a total disregard for what the dirt was doing to his colorful tunic, he tried to convince his heart to resume beating.

“Pssst!  Howard!”

His heart let him know it was still there by leaping into his throat.  He whirled. “Duo!  What are you doing here this time of night?  I haven’t seen you for days.  And what is this?” He took the boy’s hand and pulled him into the light to get a better look at him. “Are you wearing Necromancer robes?” He’d never seen the young acolyte in anything but white linen.  It was odd to see him in black velvet and soldier’s boots.  It was even stranger to see his eyes lit with a hard spark, more menacing than his usual mischievous twinkle.  Some gut reaction of dread hit Howard with a sickly feeling. “Are you alright?”

“No time,” Duo said firmly, fading back into shadows, his new outfit blending perfectly. “Those soldiers, did they bring someone?  An elf?”

“Yeah…” Howard was still trying to grasp this change, but Duo’s urgency drove his worry into the background.

“Do you know where they’re keeping him?”

“In the jail.  Behind iron bars.”

Duo flinched and Howard felt marginally better.  Whatever had happened hadn't hardened the acolyte completely.  “Are you going to rescue him?  He’s in a bad way.”

“That’s the plan.  Wanna help?”

Howard grinned.  Before he’d settled in the town he’d been a renegade wizard, the leading authority on elven magic, before Janice had caught his eye and he’d stopped wandering to become the gatekeeper and innmaster of this town.  But his wife and daughter had died in the fire, and he’d been growing increasingly restless since then.

“The King’s Hand are staying in my inn.  I’m sure I can arrange some sort of distraction.”

“Thanks How—”

“Under one condition.”

“Which is?”

“When you get the chance, you tell me what the hell is going on.”

The boy hesitated for only a moment. “Deal.”

They shook on it.

“Now get going,” Howard shooed. “I have mayhem to plan.”

Sergeant Vincent Mog had been cursed with mediocre parents.  The problem thereby being that they had the imagination to want a more elegant lifestyle for their only son, but not the intelligence to provide it.  So, they did well meaning but ultimately pointless things like give him a snobbish name and enroll him in the army because it was the romantically noble occupation.  They hoped he would rescue some fair maiden somewhere who came with a hefty dowry, and eventually settle down.

Vincent accepted it all with a fair amount of philosophy.  It was easy when he stood seven foot, two inches, weighed easily six hundred pounds and could crack a person’s skull in one punch.  Truthfully, he probably wouldn’t have known what to do with a distressed maiden if he found one.  Well, he would probably have known enough to relieve her of her, ahem, dowry, but he wouldn't have been interested in anything further.  Most people called him Crusher.  Everyone else called him “sir.”

Crusher didn’t mind the army, either.  He liked killing things and was good at it.  He probably would’ve been a captain by now, if only he could keep from assaulting the other ranking officers.  But grunt work suited him just as well.  Officers tended to do more thinking and less actual fighting, which would’ve been boring, and a bored Crusher was a dangerous Crusher.

Sometime after dinner, when the King’s Hand had gone in search of the gatekeeper and the other grunts had settled around the fire to listen to a wandering bard tell stories, Crusher had grown bored.  So he’d picked up his considerable bulk and gone in search of a plaything.

He’d been wandering around for over an hour with no success.  He’d kicked the few beggars and occasional dog he’d run across, but that had been a while ago and not all that much fun.  He was about to turn back when a slender shadow darted out of an alley.  Crusher was fast when he wanted to be, and moved to intercept.  The small creature crashed into him and froze.  Long lashes lifted until wide purple eyes stared up at him beneath a fringe of brown bangs with a growing look of fear.  That was nice.  Fear made things more interesting.

“Well, ain’t you pretty,” Crusher said, because it was true, and seized one slender arm as the person tried to jump away, squeezing harder than he needed to.  The child jerked against his hold once, then stilled like a horse on a tether.  He still wasn’t sure whether it was a boy or a girl.

“Let me go,” it growled, braver than body language warranted.

A boy, Crusher thought even as he laid the back of his hand across a pale cheek, and not dressed like the usual ragamuffin but all in black—a tunic that belted at the waste flapped around his calves and shimmered like descending night.  A high foreign-style collar circled his neck like a slave’s band, except for the white square break in the middle of his throat, centered under his pixie chin.  It symbolized the strength of the human soul and its ability to conquer and rule darkness.

“Necromancy’s been outlawed,” Crusher grated, watching the bruise darken skin that was near-white in the moonlight.  The boy still wouldn’t look at him, presenting a delicate profile and a defiant silence.  Crusher raised his hand again.

“I’m not a necromancer!” the boy spat out, recoiling against his grip.  Crusher let him go a bit, then pulled him back.

“Thievery’s even more outlawed,” he reasoned, and leaned down to put his lips right next to the boy’s ear. “Do you know what the punishment for thievery is?”  He fingered his knife.  It never occurred to him that someone who’d managed to steal a necromancer’s robes might be much more dangerous than the dark sorcerer he’d taken them from.  The fingers that closed on his wrist felt like cold teeth, and a deep sound that wasn’t human at all, and sounded more like the growling of those great snow cats he’d never seen but heard could take a man’s face off with one swipe of a paw, rumbled out of the boy. 

Crusher reacted like a soldier.  He dropped the arm and grabbed his knife.

The boy pulled back.  He was quick, which was to be expected, but he attacked instead of retreating, which was unexpected.  At least it looked as if he’d attack, for he came straight forward, but then he swerved and ducked at the last minute, under Crusher’s slashing arm.  So, not so surprising.  Now the rabbit will run—

But even as he thought it, the boy’s kick landed, good soldier boot hitting the back of his leg right above his knee and pain radiating, loosening the joint.  Impossibly, he was falling.

You trained for this, when you were a soldier.  Legs gave out on you all the time on a battlefield.  Suddenly, it didn’t matter to him that this was just a child, and he was just looking for a bit of sport.  His knee hit and he spun on the hard cobblestones and his knife thrust for the boy who just stood there, so stupid—

The boy deflected the strike with a mere touch of fingertips and Crusher’s arm flew wide, limp, weak as if the muscle had been stripped from the bone.  A numbness spread unerringly for his heart, freezing his throat on the way so he could do nothing but gape in mute horror as the child stepped in, purple eyes glowing.

“If it is death you want, I can give it to you.”

The black fire that licked up the boy’s form and haloed his head blotted out the stars.

“Sergeant, what is this?”

A woman’s voice, like a beam of sunlight, burning and fiery.  Crusher knew he’d never been so happy to hear Tracker Catherine before.  At the interruption, the boy seemed to sag slightly, blinking like one coming up out of deep water.

“Tracker—” Crusher broke off, for once thinking before he spoke.  What could he say?  He wasn’t sure what had happened himself.  He got to his feet.  He could feel the tips of his fingers tingling but still couldn’t move his arm. “Boy’s a sorcerer,” he muttered, hoping that wasn't as ridiculous as it sounded.

One slender eyebrow went up. “Is he?”

“Aye!  I’m telling the truth!  Bewitched my arm, he did.”  He looked her in the visible eye as he said it, so she’d know he wasn’t lying.  He tried to move the mentioned limb, and only managed a twitch.  Her flat, pupiless gaze shifted to the boy, who met her regard with a look of angry desperation, but it was the look of a willful child, and nothing worse.

Duo wrapped his arms around himself and pressed, trying to push the darkness back with physical force.  He felt sick and was shaking so hard he could barely stand.  He could hear it: their breathing, their heartbeats, the flow of blood in their veins.  It roared in his ears, fed the…thing that crawled through his soul, restless and raging.  He met the burning blue eye and was relieved when the searing pressure drove the creature back down.  He knew he should say something in his defense—sorcerers had their tongues cut out and were usually drowned—but most of his brain was tied up in not thinking about how easy it would be to reach out, gather the wisps of her soul around his fingers like floating spider webs and draw in her power…

The girl grabbed his chin and focused his attention.  He expected her to ask questions, but instead she just looked, and he could feel skin and bone parting for her like subjects before a king.  It was said Trackers could read the soul.  It didn’t seem to matter that this one was smaller than he was and as young.  Her uncovered eye looked through his and saw past his masks to the emptiness he felt behind them.

If you know this darkness inside of me, Tracker, explain it.  I don’t know what it is and I think it’s killing me.

But if she saw anything out of the ordinary, she didn’t say it.  After a few minutes, she blinked and turned away.  Bending, she picked up the knife from where Duo had knocked it and tossed it to the sergeant.  He caught it awkwardly in his left hand.

“Take him to the jail.  There’ll be someone shortly who can judge whether or not he has any true magic.”

“Tracker, can’t you—”

“No.”

And that was that.  The sergeant apparently didn’t appreciate giving way to two children in one night.  Roughly, he jammed the knife back in its sheath, and grabbed Duo by the back of the neck, hauling him down the street.  This time, Duo was in control, and suppressed the black urgings that rose in him like bile.

What are you? he asked the glimmer of sentience.  What do you want with me?

YOU SUMMONED ME.

It didn’t make sense, and Duo had no time to puzzle it out, because they’d reached the jail.  The sergeant gave his orders to the Hand who stood watch outside as Duo dragged his feet to avoid the pools of light cast by the torches on either side of the door, and kept his head down, hoping no one would recognize him.

The sergeant hauled him up the steps, past the town guards playing cards and grumbling about the King’s upstart elite at a table in the hallway and tossed him in the nearest unoccupied cell, which was actually rather near.  It seemed the jail had been cleared of most of its usual inhabitants for its more auspicious guest.  Duo wondered nervously what the King’s Hand had done with all of them.

The sergeant slammed him against a solid stone wall and locked the manacles around his wrists while he was stunned.  They were meant for larger prisoners, but Duo flexed his hands and made them seem tighter.  One last departing kick knocked the air from his lungs, and as he struggled to breathe, the sergeant walked out of the cell and slammed the door behind him.  Duo listened to his fading footsteps until he couldn’t hear anything but the sound of his own breath.  Then he worked his hands out of the loose shackles, pulled lockpicks out of his hair and set to work.  A little under a half an hour later, he was out of the cell and prowling the shadows of the torch-lit jail.

“If I were an elven prince,” he murmured to himself, “where would I be held captive..?”

Howard said iron bars.

Most of the cells were stone with thick wooden doors.  The barred cells were closer to the front of the jail, large holding pens for debtors and other mild offenders who probably weren’t going to stay longer than a few nights.  He searched the ones farthest away from the table of guards near the entrance, then finally crept up to the one nearest them and peered through the bars around the corner, keeping as much wall as he could between him and the guards.

For a moment, he thought it was another dead end, and then something in the corner, something he’d mistaken for a lump of burlap sacks, stirred, pale gold hair shifting into the torchlight.  Duo was caught up in luminous eyes, pupils so dilated as to swallow all the color, making them like pools of night sky.  The elf saw him, and the wide eyes got larger; his mouth opened, but only a faint, scratchy noise emerged.  Duo made hasty shushing motions.  The elf blinked, pale lashes emphasizing the dark, exhausted smudges under his eyes.

Stay, Duo motioned.  I’ll be right back.

He eased back behind the wall and bit his lip.  This wasn’t going to be easy.  There was no way to break the elf out of the cell without alerting the guards.  Unless he had an order from the mayor and maybe one of the guards’ uniforms…he was a little small, but obtaining one wouldn’t be too difficult.  Just had to knock out some unwitting guard, maybe one of the ones on patrol—

“Hey.”

A sharp point pricked his side.

Shit.

“What the fuck are you doing out here?”

He’s going to kick.  Roll with it…Now!

Unfortunately, there was nowhere to go but forward, and that took him out into a hallway filled with guards who were all immediately alert, hands on swords.  He took one look and knew he couldn’t win.  Regret sitting in his stomach like a rock, he turned and darted out the door—

Bounced off a thick, solid body and staggered back into the room, nearly losing his balance.

“I thought you might be some trouble,” the sergeant sneered, following him. 

Someone seized his hair from behind, sank their fingers into the base of his braid and yanked back hard.  He would have over balanced if there hadn’t been a solid body smelling of leather and sweat to catch him.  He felt hot, sour breath against his cheek.  His hand went back to clutch uselessly at the thick, solid wrist of the hand that held him, trying to ease the grip before he started losing chunks of hair.  Something dark and restless stirred inside him, but he beat it down ruthlessly.

Then the sergeant crowded into his space, and bent so they were eye-to-eye, laying a cold dagger against Duo’s throat like an edged caress, and something in the boy, something that had been pinned beneath a hard, heavy body with groping hands and cruel eyes not a day ago, began to panic.

“If we cut your fingers off, you won’t be able to escape then.”

Duo looked him in the eye.  Then kicked him in the nuts.

While the sergeant sagged, he used the solid arm holding him in place as leverage to balance as he hopped into an arcing kick that cracked his foot across the sergeant’s face.  Unfortunately, that’s when the guard holding him came alive, and flung him like so much flour in a sack, across the room.  He caught his forehead on the edge of the table, bounced off and hit the ground hard.  Through the ringing and the haze, and the painful blurry thoughts, he heard only one thing clearly.

“Kill him.”

Someone grabbed his hair again and yanked him into a vaguely kneeling position, arcing him backward, exposing his throat.

Why is it always the hair? he mourned incoherently as silver flashed in his vision and dived for the kill.  He struggled futilely.

“Stop!”

The silver stopped.  He stopped.  Everything stopped, as if the room had just gasped collectively and was holding its breath.  Duo was impressed.   He was sure that if he’d been more lucid, he would have gasped, too.  The voice had sounded like a thunderclap, the judgment of an angry god, and, even stranger—it sounded familiar.

“Let him go,” the voice continued at a more normal volume, though it was no less threatening. “By order of the King.”

The grip on his hair eased and Duo sagged.  He knew he should get up, but thought was slow and painful, and getting his body to obey seemed to take much more effort than usual.  Someone’s hand was under his elbow anyway, helping him to his feet, tucking him back behind a body as small and slender as his, clad in something much too colorful to be soldier drudgery, the fiery streak patterned on the soft blue silk unwound from the left hip and resolved into a dragon over the right shoulder.  Duo took a step forward to take stock of the situation, or maybe to lean against the solid support, and nearly impaled an eye on the tight, sharp little black ponytail.

Wufei.

Wufei holding what appeared to be a very official-looking document bearing the King’s seal.

“The King wants to see some…street rat?” one of the guards questioned, breaking the reverent silence.  They might not have been able to read what the scroll said, but the city watch could smell a scam from thirty paces.

“He is not a street rat,” Wufei said imperiously.  If Duo hadn’t been close enough to feel the tension humming through the foreigner’s body, he might have believed that Wufei was as cool and collected as he sounded. “He is a—an ambassador.  To the elves.”

Duo straightened and tried to look important as all eyes shifted to him.

“He ain’t got the ears for it,” a soldier observed.

“Of course not,” Duo scoffed, brain fully engaged again. “You don’t have to be an elf to be and ambassador to elves.”  Then he waited tensely, to see if they fell for it.

The sergeant, spokesman of the group, strode forward, scowling, and didn’t stop until his toes almost touched Wufei’s.  The black-haired boy didn’t retreat at all, although he did lean back slightly.  Duo thought this was rather brave, especially since the sergeant’s feet were huge and armored in thick boots, while Wufei wore only slim slipper-things—elegant, but not much in the way of protection.  They faced off for a moment, then the sergeant snatched the document out of Wufei’s hands and studied it with an intensity that might have burned a hole through less resilient paper.

Finally, he growled. “What does the King want with the…ambassador?”

“I have been ordered to escort he and the elf to the castle.  Immediately.”

“That’s what we’re doing already,” the sergeant protested suspiciously.

Duo nearly bit through his tongue in an effort to keep his face impassive through a sudden shock of nerves.  He glanced at Wufei and realized that the sudden hole in the plan had been noted, but that there was nothing to cover the slip. A sudden wicked glee filled his mind, and he was grabbing Wufei’s sword before he realized it.

“In that case…” he said, pulled the sword from its sheath and lunged at the sergeant.  Wufei made a strangled sound somewhere between surprise and dismay, snatched the document out of the startled soldier’s grip with one hand, caught Duo’s braid with the other, and beat a few hasty steps of retreat as the guards pulled their weapons.

Why is it always the hair?

As if reading his thoughts, Wufei dropped his braid, then made a sweeping gesture with his freed hand, and the guards found themselves lunging into a wall of fire.

“Whoa!” Duo flinched back, though something darker inspired a sharp bark fierce, breathless laughter.

“Time to go,” Wufei announced as the flames flared to the roof and the rafters immediately caught on fire.

“Yeah,” Duo agreed, turning toward the cell with lockpicks already in hand.  He half-noticed the black-haired boy taking the sword back, and shielding him as best he could as the jail began to fall apart around them.  Then the door was open and he stepped forward to meet the pale, slender figure who was standing unsteadily to greet him.

“My name is Quatre Winner.  My father will be very grateful to you for rescuing me.”

Duo grabbed his elbow as the elf started to tip backward. “Yeah, well, don’t praise us just yet.”

“We need a way out!” Wufei shouted and jumped back into the cell to avoid a falling beam.

“Smart thinking, genius,” Duo sniped. “Any ideas?”

He saw Wufei turn to glare at him, and then found himself staring at the very blond back of the elf’s head as Quatre stepped between them.  The elf stood nearly nose-to-nose with Wufei and stared as if he were the answer to every question in the universe.

“Yes, I thought so,” the blond creature murmured to no one in particular. “I can work with this.”  He seized Wufei’s hand.

Duo heard Wufei gasp, felt the air go dead cold and saw the world twist around them.   Then they were standing on dark cobblestones under the moonlight, and the roar of flames was like the murmur of campfire, distant orange licking at the dark sky.  They had landed just inside the town gates, in the shadow of a bakery shop.  Duo reached out to catch the elf as he sagged backward, but there was no one to catch Wufei who dropped to his knees, head hanging, panting.

“I’m sorry,” Quatre murmured.

“What did you do?” Duo demanded, then, to Wufei, “Are you alright?”

“I—think so.”  He stood, shaky but determined, holding his arm carefully as if it were broken and eyeing the elf.

“What was that all about?” Duo asked.

“I’ll explain later.”

Quatre stirred. “We have to get out of here.  Now.  They’re coming,” he struggled out of Duo’s arms. “They’re coming.  They’ll kill us.  Evil feeds them.”

“Hey, stop,” the acolyte said firmly, gripping one thin shoulder. “We’re working on it.  We’re not too keen on staying around here, either.”  He looked at Wufei.

“There’s no other way out of the city but through the gate?”

“The sewers.  But the nearest entrance is two blocks from here.”

All three stilled at the sound of at least a dozen feet marching double-time.

“We don’t have time,” the foreigner said unnecessarily.

Quatre seized Duo’s arm, startling whatever reply into silence.  His eyes were wild and dark in the pale face. “I can’t go back.  I won’t go back.  I won’t let them take me.”

“Okay, look,” Duo said as gently as he could, trying to pry the elf’s fingers away before they cut off his circulation, “if you panic, it won’t help.”

“Good advice,” agreed a voice from the darkness.

Duo turned and grinned, one hand on Wufei’s, staying the sword that was already halfway out of its sheath. “Of course you’d think that.  It’s yours.”

Howard seemed to materialize pieces at a time.  First, the wild swoops of white hair and the gleaming teeth of his wide smile.  Next, the florid tunic and bright breaches, and then the rest of him, ending with a steady, bony hand, trailing a handful of reins.  The gatekeeper stepped into the light leading three horses.

“Where did those come from?” Wufei asked suspiciously.

“Best not to ask that, son.”

“Thank you so much,” Quatre said, stepping forward, face gentling into a sincere smile for the first time.  Howard smiled back.

“No need.  I’m happy to do anything to screw those assholes over.”

Duo wasn’t sure if Howard was talking about the King’s Hand or the world in general, but decided not to argue particulars and crowded the elf forward. “Thanks Howard.  Get on the horse, Q.”

The gatekeeper held the horses steady while the elf and the acolyte mounted, then turned to assist Wufei and stopped, seeing the boy was about as far away from the animals as he could be without standing in the street.

“Wufei?” Duo questioned from atop a roan gelding.

“I hate horses.”

Duo might have laughed, except he saw that Wufei was completely serious, and wasn’t budging from his spot, despite the approach of what sounded like a regiment of armed guards.

“This is a hell of a time to tell me this, Wu.”

“Come on, son, this isn’t the time for faint heart.”

Wufei glared at them stubbornly for a moment, but when neither showed signs of compassion, he clenched his jaw and edged toward the pinto.  As soon as he was close enough, the mare immediately stretched her neck out and snapped at him.  With an angry yelp, the foreigner jumped back.  Duo sighed, took quick assessment, and came to a snap decision.  As Wufei flinched in his direction, he reached down, caught the other boy’s arm and pulled him into the saddle behind him, Wufei scrabbling and cursing the entire way.  His roan balked a bit, but he soothed it gently and it relaxed.  And Wufei settled too, after a few apologies, arms wrapped securely around Duo’s waist.

“Okay, that’s done.  Come on, Howard, let’s go.”

“Hm.  Not this time.”

“What?  But…what will you do?”

“If they catch you and we’re not here, they’ll take their frustration out on you,” Wufei pointed out.

“You must come with us,” Quatre implored.

“Don’t worry about me, boys.  I’ve survived a bit longer than you.  I think I’ve got the hang of it by now.”

“What about the extra horse?”

“Keep it as a spare.  The gelding’s likely to tire out quicker with the two of you riding.  Now, your time for whining’s up.  Hurry.  Get.”

Howard was right.  As they paced their horses out into the street, about twelve Hands, marching in formation with spear points gleaming, rounded the corner.

“You!” the one in the lead shouted when he saw them. “Stop!”

“Yeah, right,” Duo muttered, standing up in the saddle.  “Open the gates!” he shouted to the dark towers.

“Who asks it?” the post guard demanded leaning out to squint a bit at them, though he couldn’t have seen much in the pre-dawn gloom.

“Quatre Raberba Winner!” the elf shouted before Duo could think of anything. “Heir to the throne of the elven nation!”

The regiment wasn’t charging them, and when Duo glanced over his shoulder, he realized why.  Their archers were stringing their bows.

“I won’t do anything for a fucking elf,” the post guard was saying. “You can wipe my ass, you pointy-eared freak!”

“Wufei,” he said urgently.

“Get down,” the foreigner ordered, just as grim. 

“Ready!” the sergeant roared.

Quatre nudged his horse away and Duo flattened himself onto his gelding’s neck.

“Aim!”

Wufei used Duo’s shoulder to steady himself as he straightened in the saddle, left hand tracing a graceful curve toward his back, fingertips burning trails in the air like an after-image of a sunstreak.

“FIRE!”

Wufei’s hand shot out, palm forward, and the fireball singed the ends off Duo’s hair and blasted the gate into a hunk of twisted metal and ash that landed somewhere in the surrounding fields.  His roan danced wildly, rearing and whinnying and consequently missing most of the arrows.

Duo caught Wufei as he started to fall, settled him, and kicked the horse forward with a whoop of laughter.  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Quatre following, and grinned, turning his mount’s nose into the sunrise.  Together, they tore out of the town and into the lightening day.

On to Part 3

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