(failing),

forcing his breathing to steady

though with each step

he grew more uneasy,

afraid he’d crash into stone

or slip on ice.

“Turn.”

Tsung’s voice level.

Xau stretched his arm out

as he turned:

his fingertips brushed stone.

An effort to steady

his breathing again,

but Xau would rather hit a wall

than slow down.

One thing to be afraid,

another to show it.

Eight times round the courtyard,

Tsung’s voice catching him twice more

when Xau would otherwise

have run into stone.

“Now stretch.”

Tsung’s voice easy.

Xau stretched,

moving from one stance to another,

trying not to shiver,

the sky perhaps a lesser darkness

than the courtyard round him,

but his guards, his own body

still lost to him

in the moonless, cloudy, freezing dark,

one week past winter solstice.

The flagstones cold, hard

beneath his cold bare feet,

the air moving chill about him,

the faint sound of another man’s breath,

of what might have been footfalls—

Xau abruptly certain

that his guards had moved closer,

that they were almost touching him—

Eight men armed with sword, bow,

dagger, knife, staff, ji:

deadly, trained—

Each of them capable

of killing Xau barehanded,

with ease—

A fraction of a fraction of a breath

while Xau considered that,

and, having done so,

relaxed for the first time

since he stepped into the courtyard.

His guards deadly,

but their loyalty

as sure as the flagstones

beneath him.

So that Xau neither screamed

nor struggled

when someone seized him

and hoisted him high in the air,

holding him up there

while Tsung lit a lantern.

Xau, blinking back brightness,

saw that it was Li lifting him,

Xau’s newest guard,

one month in his service,

a man who fought as if weapons

were an extension of his body,

as if he were dancing.

Li set him down gently.

“A good beginning.”

Tsung bowed to Xau.

“What did you learn?”

“Trust. Why Li and not you at the end?”

Xau had to press his teeth together

to stop them chattering.

“Li has better night vision.

I might have hurt you

if you had struggled.”

Xau bowed then to each of his guards in turn,

feeling a little foolish

and very cold

in his pajamas.

Li took off his jacket

and handed it to Xau

as if it were a simple matter,

as if Li had forgotten

that Xau was the king

or had set that fact aside,

as if Li cared only

that Xau was cold.

A year since Xau came to the throne

and very little since then simple.

He nodded his thanks to Li

as he went indoors

with his guards.

DRAGONSLAYER

It’s true enough,

I killed a dragon—

an old dragon with a maimed wing, mind you,

crippled by some foreign prince.

The dragon came down the mountainside

after it was injured,

right into our village.

I remember women screaming. And men.

The smell of roast meat.

Then the dragon came up to my smithy

and fired the roof,