Xau didn’t look like much,

wounded, worn out, scrawny,

yet Donal the one who’d knelt to the demon,

Xau the one who’d defied it.

Xau didn’t look like much,

but the set of his face uncompromising

as he held Donal’s gaze.

Donal the one who looked away,

who dipped his head, defeated.

Xau a stubborn prick.

He’d make a good ally,

if he didn’t get himself killed.

DAYBREAK

Northeast by east

along the curve of the world

sailed the demon’s ship

back to his fortress.

Behind the ship,

dawn spread over

the burnt towns—

Angshan, Jozhou, Aldford,

Lare, Harmouth, Polton—

the third dawn

since the demon’s death.

Northeast by east

sailed the demon’s crew,

bringing the king

who slew the demon,

the king who saved them

from the demon’s spell,

King Xau, who stared down

at the heaving ocean

into which he heaved,

miserably, his breakfast.

Swiftly they closed on

the demon’s fortress,

day already bright

on its battlements.

Within, the demon’s servants

—unbound, undone by his undoing—

lay, parched, on the stones,

the men, women, children

who had knelt to the demon

as he burnt their towns

(Polton, Harmouth, Lare,

Aldford, Jozhou, Angshan).

To save them, the sailors

brought the king,

the king who would

call them home.

NUMBERS

Later, a historian, striving for the appearance of candor, said he couldn’t determine precisely how many people the demon burnt in their towns, but that, by using the most meticulous methods, he estimated between 16,020 and 16,150 perished thus.

Seeking the authority of precision, the historian next stated that 18,272 men, 16,164 women, and 4,769 children followed the demon to his island fortress and there served him in dubious ways.

When the demon died,

fewer than two thousand

of his servants remained alive

within his fortress.

He had not hoarded his human treasure,

but spent it, singly or by the dozen,

setting servants aflame

in the dining hall.

Fewer than two thousand left

when King Xau came,

yet still the number

seemed overwhelming—

people lay collapsed in chambers,

passages, stairwells;

inert, parched, many injured,

all dying of thirst.

The same historian, a soured and stunted specimen, dismissed King Xau’s part in a peevish paragraph. He said that doubtless the king visited the fortress, but that the king himself saved no one, merely ordered his soldiers to wake the dazed sufferers.

The king’s guards tried

to rouse the survivors;

the sailors who had brought

the king to the island tried:

they could not rouse

one man, woman, child.

Instead they wet the sufferers’ lips

(most swallowed, some did not),

and took them to the king—

who did not look kingly

(a fact the historian would have reported

gleefully had he guessed it).

Xau slouched, slovenly, sweat-soaked

over body after body;

his hands on chest, face, neck;

speaking, whispering, croaking.

Five died before the king

had time to help them.

Thirteen more (injured, weak)

woke, but died within days.

A few of the survivors

achieved distinction:

the glassblower from Angshan

rose to the head of his guild;