13'Sao-La
13'Sao-La crabbed out of his bedroll and into a deep darkness colored eerie by the overhanging
fey-banyan. The night's cool pimpled his skin, bare except for a breechclout. He crouched as he
searched for the sounds that had brought him out of a sound sleep, still long seconds before the
attack's reveille.
There, a distant crash, like a tree might sound falling in a forest, though he'd never heard one.
About him, others stirred. Racked like spit-brown larvae in a sand-termite tower, they emerged
without noise or light, ready to fight — if there was somebody to fight.
Another crash, not so distant, but how could a trunk fall in fey-banyan, they're all connected?
Instanter, 13'Sao-La gathered his battle dress, pants, jacket, helmet, and boots. In this boundary
between days, between his last life as spy and saboteur and his next life as a conqueror of the
Voiceless, no rules existed but the mother rules. He tucked the clothes under his pachcab arm.
Number one, "listen and obey" — not apply; no orders came, but another crash did, carrying the
reveal of anomaly, no data, just warning. He stuffed field rations under his arm. Number two,
"rigid earned rewards" — did apply; push on to Ganj Dareh. He hefted his pistol in his free
hand. He elated once more over its heft, its smooth, its power. Number three, "use old rules
where there are no new ones" — which katas applied? Just the ones for attack — in Ganj Dareh.
Number four, "lead rather than follow" — did apply, even if no one followed. Number five, "take
victory any way you can" — always applied, even if he did it alone.
Crash! Regularly five seconds apart, tracing a line that would fall between him and Ganj Dareh.
The still air crept with the smell of sap, pungent, mounting, like the fey-banyan bled around him.
Crash! Kitted complete in mind and body, 13'Sao-La moved out quickly, not worrying about noise.
The Enemy didn't, whoever they were. Some others hurried in the same direction. If they broke the
looming skirmish line before it reached them, nothing lay between them and Ganj Dareh except the
shadowy protection of the fey-banyan.
Crash! 13'Sao-La raced, sound and smell converging with his alert. He pondered the bivouac paths
taken by the others, rejected them, angled from them, though the underbrush slowed him. He ramped
to hurdle it more quickly, more agilely.
Crash! Reveal so vivid it seemed to blaze through the eerie dark of hard shadows hiding among
soft. He and the line of crashes intersected. He ramped his race once more, losing everything
except the gun.
Crash! On his right. He'd lost the race. Listen and obey zhuhndí this time. He dodged into
ambush.
Crash! Something long and hard ripped through the solid cover of leaves overhead. It hit the
ground, then bent, then jogged a few steps to shed speed, then wheeled as it sprayed a sun-orange
light.
Rigid earned rewards. Take any victory you can. 13'Sao-La jabbed his pistol at the armored Enemy,
glimmering in the orangish backwash, and fired. Though new to the weapon, he didn't canny missing
a target so visible and so near, yet his slugs made no effect ... except to earn a lash thrown
right at him, a lash that pretended to be fresh sunlight. It swept the gutters of his mind clean
of thought —
