Nothing Xau could do.

Stationed along the way,

his other seven guards

and twenty of his cavalrymen

(horseless, standing guard).

Another town burnt—

How many heeded the warnings and left?

How many stayed and burned?

Up and down the hill;

Tsung, captain of his guards,

watched from the summit,

gave Xau and Li water

each time they crested the hill.

Demon signs left on stonework.

Demon fire sighted from afar,

indigo flame leaping like lightning.

People gathered on the hillside,

wide hats shading their heads,

casting circles like demon signs

onto the short grass.

They bowed as Xau passed,

a swaying wave of men and women.

Men and women who looked to him

to save them,

who trusted him,

who thought him more than he was.

An hour and a half in,

sweaty, sweltering, smelly,

his arm chafed raw by the shield straps,

his calves protesting each stride,

Tsung said to him, “Stop if you wish.”

Xau shook his head,

ran on, Li at his side,

past the growing crowd.

Would have run until he fell

if it would help,

but he couldn’t fight demons,

couldn’t even find the demons,

couldn’t find anyone who had seen a demon

and survived.

Men and women stretched in continuous lines

either side of the goat track,

bowing as he passed,

their shadows slowly lengthening.

The demons woken out of story,

out of nightmare.

A hundred dark legends, but no mention

of how to defeat demons,

of what Xau could do.

Or try to do.

Up and down the hill,

Li at his side, sweating,

but Li’s gait, Li’s breath as easy

as when they began.

(Xau gasping.)

Another town burnt.

Xau’s soldiers, Xau’s people, Donal’s people

all looking to Xau

as if he were King Nariz himself

come with a hundred dragons to save them—

A dragon—

Maybe.

He glanced at Li,

saw Li’s steady gaze on him.

“Better?” asked Li,

the first word he had said all that afternoon.

“Maybe,” said Xau.

Li touched him lightly on the shoulder

as they reached the top of the hill,

as Xau stopped, bowed to Tsung.

Stretched. Drank. Considered.

DRAGON

Unarmed and unarmored, alone,

he walked up the mountain

as he had six years ago.

Then as now, it snowed.

Then as now, she landed beside him,

snow steaming from her wings.

“I gave you a kingdom,”

she said, her breath ash.

“What more do you want?”

“A way to save that kingdom.”

He knelt to her, his knees in the snow,

snow creeping into the tops of his boots.

“The demons have returned—”

“Not demons. Demon, singular.

One demon, many servants.

And he did not return;

he was born a man, a man like you:

eating and pissing and farting.

Now he does none of those things.”

Still kneeling, he stared into

the inscrutable gold of her eyes.

“Will you help us defeat him?”

She flamed. Heat stung his face.

“I came. I am speaking to you.

What do you think I am doing?