Commission: Tales of Sun and Steel 7

“The reports from the eighth patrol, Senior Sister!”

Gu Yanmei accepted the hide scroll case with a faint smile. Which she maintained despite the subtle… she did not wish to call it a squirm, but it was what it was, of the younger woman when their fingers brushed. She couldn’t truly fault the inner disciples' discipline as the reaction was only barely noticeable, even to her eyes.

Inner Disciple Song Chunhua was an unassuming woman with dark hair bound up in two tight buns and a spread of freckles speckles across her nose and cheeks. She was not someone Gu Yanmei had judged so fanciful when she had selected her as an aide. Honestly. The people of the Emerald Seas had some strange notions which she still did not quite understand. Even with certain recent revelations, a marriage with the Song simply was not something she could pursue. Nor had the woman actually made any suit.

She supposed it was a harmless quirk though. Much less troublesome than some of the noblemen who looked at her with such eyes.

“And your estimation of morale around the way tower?” She asked, showing no sign that she had noticed anything.

Her office sat enclosed at the top of the tower erected here. Devised by the Sect’s craftsmen and funded by the Duchess, they rose into the air, squat and blocky, reinforced and rooted in the power of earth and mountain stone. Aligned with the geomantic energies of the wall, and synched to the lines of power beneath the Argent vents, the formations empowering the plated glass windows of the office she occupied allowed her to see far indeed at a mere glance through them in any direction.

It did, however, blind her to the operations in the tower and its basecamp.

“The new soldiers on rotation are taking well to the climate, Senior Sister. Though many are still dispirited by what was seen in the southern sky yesterday. Their nerves are on edge, and they dream of fire,” her aide said, bowing her head, the swooping sleeves of her silver gown almost brushing the floor.

Gu Yanmei pursed her lips. That too she could see, Chunhua was unsettled as well. This problem at least, she could solve. “There has been a missive from the Sect, yesterday's events have been reported on, and they are nothing to fear.”

“Oh? The flames did belong to the General then?” Inner Disciple Song asked, lifting her head.

Gu Yanmei, glanced toward the eastern window, saw kilometers of rough scrub and snowy valleys rush by in her vision, rapidly panning over the mountainsides for any sign of unexpected human movement. She didn’t let the examination stop her words.

“They were. A traitor of the Meng Clan sought to destroy the diplomatic summit and indicue division among the clans. They were destroyed, and the damage contained, with the foreign delegate's aide.”

It sounded bizarre to her, though she had read the scroll herself, stamped with the Sect Heads personal seal.

“The summit has been a complete success, and relations established with the people of the ‘White Sky’ and their vassalized nomad clans. We will be informed with updated protocols for any meeting with any messenger or representative of theirs.”

Song stared at her blankly for a full three seconds, unblinking, the largest break she had seen in the woman’s composure thus far. “...The Duchess is wise.”

“So she is,” Gu Yanmei agreed. “You may speak your mind Junior Sister. I too am perplexed.”

“It seems too fanciful, but I suppose if the discoveries in the histories were not… exaggerated, it is possible.”

“I can only trust the scholars in this,” Gu Yanmei replied. And her sister's strange friend who she did not feel the type to manufacture historical claims whole cloth.

“It is not less unbelievable than a Meng openly moving to betray her Grace,” Song Chunhua muttered. 

She peered at her subordinates' slightly hunched posture and pinched brow. Oh. The Song family were a viscount in the west of the province, weren’t they? “While the report was not detailed, it did emphasize that the Meng clan as a whole is loyal, and the Duchess was aided in eliminating the rogues by her loyal subjects. The matter is resolved.”

“I see, I am glad, Senior Sister. My apologies, that I was so undisciplined as to seem in need of reassurance,” Her junior sister bowed lower still.

“There is no shame for being concerned over your home,” Gu Yanmei replied. “Now…”

She caught motion, as her eyes wandered over the southern pane. She narrowed her eyes at the distortion in the clouds, her vision rushing across the boreal landscape. Wings stirred the clouds, the shadow of wings fell over the stony ground. The faintest blip of human qi revealed under the guise of the natural clouds.

“Sister Song. Contact in the south. Eight and four fifths of a kilometer south and off the road to the west. Likely spies or scouting rather than raiders.”

Her aide straightened up immediately, the smile forming on her lips vanishing. Any hint of unprofessional emotion gone in an instant. “Understood. Rally the third outrider group and deploy?”

“Yes. Send Disciple’s Heng and Zhu along in supporting roles.”

“Yes, Senior Sister. Shall I raise the general alert level?”

Gu Yanmei considered watching the shadow disappear from physical sight, leaving only the qi she had sensed.. “To the second stage only.”

They had to ration the stones fueling the defensive formations, and this could not be any real host, by her estimation. “Go, Disciple Song. Return for further orders once the outriders are deployed.”

She bowed once more and swept out, leaving Gu Yanmei to track the motion she saw through the far seeing window.

She rose from behind her desk, her blade appearing in her hand in a flickering flash of sunlight, the dazzling gleam of the bared steel bright in the dim interior of the office., reflecting off the metallic circle of formation arrays set in the rear of the office. Stepping past the outer ring of etched characters, they shimmered with rose gold light, and Gu Yanmei felt the tug of the tower formations drawing upon her qi.

The red silk of her gown billowed up as the energy rose, flaring out as she allowed her qi to flow, the light shining from the floor expanding until the whole of the circle was lit. Her feet left the floor, and she drifted upward toward the final pane of glass, the one set into the tower ceiling.

These structures were not merely for farsight, but were also amplifiers, tied into the formations set upon the central Argent Peak. Devised by Elder Jiao, to draw on Sect Head Yuan’s Way, even as he rested and meditated from the rigors of the first campaign.

Whatever strangeness was happening. Friendly words shared with foreign barbarians, traitors in the court, her duty to the Sect remained the same. There would be no more raids into the foothills, to the little towns of villages where mortals lived their lives and low cultivators worked. In the end, it was the same duty as the Lords of the Gu, against the Ashen wastes.

Her flames flared bright as the rose through the opening pane, surrounded by the formation lights, her vision tied into the tower farseeing still. And there she waited, flame licking over the metal of her blade.

Let the intruders be flushed out. If they proved too much for her juniors. They would face the purification of gold instead.