blew out the flame.

He stood in the dark,

hesitated before saying,

“It’s not your fault. You had to fight.”

He sat down cross-legged in his spot

by the king’s bed, listening to the

small sounds of wakefulness.

After a while, when the king still

fidgeted, Khyert sang, too softly

for those outside to hear.

Eventually, the king slept.

MOON SWAN

Beyond the army encampment,

a tented market of wine sellers,

fortune tellers, a hundred harlots

hawking a hundred pleasures.

Among them, Moon Swan:

artist, musician, courtesan,

a woman long past her youth,

but at the height of her fame.

She whose fountained gardens

were tended by a dozen servants

left her walled estate

to follow the army.

She whose mastery of the zither

was unmatched in all Meqing

sang comic ballads to men afraid

they’d never make it home.

She who’d sold her time to kings

offered it now to boys

who’d never been to war before,

who brought nothing but their need.

Her need as great as theirs.

Only in wartime, only beneath

the grunts of the soldiers

did she hear his voice again.

And at night’s end, he’d bow

to her across the tent,

her son, her soldier boy,

dawn shining through his shoulders.

THIRTY-EIGHTH WAR BETWEEN INNIS AND MEQING
SECOND BATTLE

Before:

The captain’s quiet praise

for carrying Diarmid to safety.

Undeserved praise.

Brennan had failed the captain,

had thrown wildly the whole battle,

not aiming,

though he’d been slinging

since he was five,

could take down a rabbit

at three hundred yards.

Battle:

Brennan useless as last time.

Each time he chose a target—

saw their face, their eyes—

bile rose in his gorge.

So he slung wild.

Horses charged toward them.

Men broke, ran past Brennan,

who waited for the captain

to order the retreat—

saw him: askew on the dirt,

arrow through his neck.

A stone fitted to Brennan’s sling,

hurled at an oncoming horse

before he thought.

He aimed for the horses

until he was out of stones,

turned and ran.

Dusk:

Went back with Finn and a shovel.

Found the captain’s body,

blood-sodden, eyes staring upward.

Brennan pulled the captain’s eyes shut,

but they wouldn’t stay closed.

Took turns digging with Finn.

Neither of them about

to let the captain

be buried in a heap

with the other dead.

LEONG

Battle:

Leong, who served double duty

as both king’s guard and surgeon,

rode into battle at King Xau’s left,

the boy he’d been guarding

for the past eight months

and had grown to like.

A fact Leong set aside.

Fought.

Targeted those with the range

to reach the king: archers, slingers—

drew, aimed, released;

drew, aimed, released.

Permitted himself neither triumph nor remorse.

Downed perhaps twenty men.

After:

Leong joined the surgeons

in their tents.

Applied scalpel, saw, forceps

to soldiers skewered by spears,

pierced by arrows,

hacked by sword and axe.

Permitted himself neither triumph nor anguish.

Dispassionate. Skilled.

Hours into it, he saw King Xau—

a momentary lapse of Leong’s control