"Fools! Return the Codex at once! Bring it forth and we might not slaughter you where you stand!"
The big bald guy laughed as his minions neared the inn.
Although Shan and Wei-Yong tensed for the onslaught, neither drew a sword as their opponents charged. Shan frowned in disappointment as six of the eight approaching thugs veered off and crashed right through the loose bamboo walls to either side of the door. Slats bounced across the floor in a rattling fury as the attackers split up, swords waving, and drove for the other occupants of the inn.
Wei-Yong flipped an arrow out of her quiver and snapped up her bow, releasing the thin shaft without apparent effort or care. A sudden ringing cut through the general cacophony as the warrior's sword sprang from his hand, knocked away by her careless shot. The weapon sparkled as it spun through the air to land point-first in front of the bald man where he stood, glaring at the two women. The suddenly disarmed thug's glare lost a good deal of its fire and he froze for just a second.
Shan's frown turned into a gleeful smile as another swordsman charged her. She leaned back just enough to let his blade cut deep into the doorframe beside her face, and then her expression turned fierce enough to startle the man. He stood frozen, sword embedded in the doorframe, as she whipped her katana up and out in a back-handed cut that opened him up from his waist to his shoulder.
He sputtered and fell backwards as Shan flicked the blood of her weapon and smoothly resheathed it. The sword was back at her hip before he hit the mud in the yard.
She sneered.
Behind her, inside the inn, the swordsmen had met equally stiff resistance. Fa, standing at the top of the stairs, turned her imperious stare on the two charging for Ming-Wa. Inky tendrils of shadow oozed around her as she summouned the dark power that served her will, and the two men froze, their swords banging off the floorboards. Across the firepit, two others had run into the barbarians and the clash of steel told of an issue still in doubt.
Shan heard a familiar growl behind her and casually leaned away from Wei-Yong. The fellow her friend had disarmed turned his amazed stare from Wei-Yong to gape over Shan's shoulder. A split-second of terror and then he disappeared in a flash of grey fur as Mau Li cannoned into him, two hundred pounds of angry wolf digging in and holding on as he flew off the verandah, screaming.
Wei-Yong beamed.
"Good girl."
Fa called from inside.
"What's going on out there?"
Shan yelled back, "Bald guy wants his Codex."
"His what now?"
"Hang on, I'll check."
Shan nodded at the now-fuming bald man. "Hey. What's this Codex? Got any more friends?"
He stamped, throwing up a great splash of mud. Neither of them paid the slightest attention to Mau Li's ongoing mauling of the unfortunate thug off to the side.
"My mistress will tear you apart! She is not one to forgive easily and you will die deaths of agony as she tortures you. Return the Codex, thieves, if you wish to live."
Shan leaned back in through the door. "He won't tell me."
Four unarmed men, all bald, all impressively muscled (though not so much as to outshine their leader), stepped out from behind the big guy. They clenched their fists, then exploded in a sudden rush for the inn door.
Neither Shan nor Wei-Yong had time to react with anything other than pure unconscious reflex. Which in Wei-Yong's case meant she put an arrow in either eye of one of the new fellows, while Shan nearly cut another in half. The two surviving leapt right past the women at the door to land in front of the fire-pit. They both struck poses and opened their mouths to begin long, intimidating shrieks.
Shrieks that were unceremoniously cut off when Lin Lin let go of the banner and landed on their heads. Giggling.
The girl bounced to her feet, lashing out in a blinding kick, and a sudden flurry of fists and knees and shins and foreheads blurred back and forth between her and the two men, who managed to circle around and flank her. Lin Lin's eyes were nearly closed, an ecstatic grin on her face as she deflected one attack after another, weaving and ducking between her opponents.
Nearly everyone watching stood in fascination, watching the contest. Except for Shan, who heaved a sigh of boredom. She noticed that there were two of these guys, and only one Lin Lin, and after a bit of math decided that was one guy too many.
Shan couldn't accelerate too fast, but she had enough steps between where she stood at the door and where the fight was happening in front of the firepit that she could build up considerable momentum. Shan in motion was pretty nearly an irresistable force.
Two steps into her charge, Shan saw Lin Lin send one of her opponents flying into the firepit. She chuckled and poured on the speed, leaning forward and extending her arms.
Both Lin Lin and her remaining opponent noticed the onrush of muscle and armour. And both stepped back to let it by. Shan screeched to a halt on the very lip of the firepit, windmilling her arms like mad as she attempted to avoid a faceplant into hot coals.
Lin Lin grabbed a ridge on the back of her friend's armour and snap-kicked herself into the air, planting her left heel solidly under her opponent's chin. His head snapped back and he dropped to the boards without a sound as Shan stumbled back from the edge.
Wei-Yong leaned against the doorframe, keeping one eye on the now-enraged bald man watching his minions get dispatched with such ease.
Ming-Wa got to her feet and set about tying up the swordsmen Li Fa had immobilized. She looked up as the barbarian woman, her embroidered cloak flying, feathered turban flashing, stormed by to stand next to Wei-Yong at the door.
Haan Shi spat noisily and shook her fist at the bald man.
"Leave us in peace, smelly Tianese trash!"
Wei-Yong nodded in approval.
The bald man looked in danger of exploding from apoplectic rage. His face turned red as he shrieked, "The Jasmine Witch will not be denied! You will return the Codex at once or die!"
"Are you watching the same fight I'm watching?"
Wei-Yong looked on as Haan Shi yanked out her throwing axes and went through the same impressive routine she'd used before, spinning the hafted weapons around in a blur of steel before releasing both.
The axes whirled through the air, deadly and true.
And he caught them. Both.
Wei-Yong's eyes widened. She turned back just in time to see both axes hurtle back and plunge themselves into Haan Shi's torso. Knocked backwards by the impact, Haan Shi crashed to the floor and sat staring at the weapons embedded in her front. She gave a quiet groan and collapsed.
Two arrows flew from a single string before Wei-Yong had even consciously acknowledged the event. She seemed to turn to the bald man just as he weaved aside from the shafts.
"Mau Li! Take him down!"
The wolf looked up from the corpse she was still tearing at, followed Wei-Yong's gaze and hurled herself at the man standing there.
And crumpled up with a yelp as his fist connected with her skull.
Ming-Wa heard her friend's cry of anger, and looked up in time to see Shan and Lin Lin fly out the door as Wei-Yong unloaded a stream of arrows, her hands blurring between the quiver and the bowstring.
They had done this a million times before. Shan felt Wei-Yong's arrows buzzing past her head, and brandished her sword, yelling as she charged straight at her opponent. As she neared him, she felt a sudden press against her back, and grinned as Lin Lin leapt onto her shoulder and then tumbled up and over the startled bald man. She plowed into him swordfirst, and lost herself in the ever-thrilling dance of combat, peripherally aware of her friend on the other side, Wei-Yong's shots somehow finding clear space and nicking his arms and face, Lin Lin's shouts and giggles as she kicked and punched and spun like a crazed toy.
Shan wasn't precise like Wei-Yong and she wasn't fancy like Lin Lin. Her sword moved in simple, predictable arcs. Arcs cut with such power that her opponent was forced to retreat, stumbling back from blows so strong the sound of the blade cutting through the air was as loud as Lin Lin's yells. As he back-pedalled, he kept running afoul of Lin Lin, who nearly tripped him flat several times.
He broke free of them both and staggered back a few steps, real fear in his eyes.
"My mistress will boil you alive! You have incurred her wrath and you will pay!"
Wei-Yong lowered her bow, exasperated.
"Would you stop it? You're embarrassing yourself."
They all took a step back as he brandished what looked like a small black bead.
"You have not seen the last of me!"
He threw the bead to the ground and vanished as shadowy darkness coiled up from all around.
"Hey, we're not done with you!"
Inside, Ming-Wa and Fa tended Haan Shi, staunching her wounds while her cohorts looked on anxiously. They looked up as the other three came in, Shan carrying a still-dazed Mau Li. Wei-Yong glared at Fa and Ming-Wa.
"Do we know anything about this Codex? The Jasmine Witch? Who were those clowns?"
Ming-Wa nodded.
"The Jasmine Witch is a sorceress, an enemy of the Goddess. She's supposed to live around Pangdong but nobody's reported a reliable sighting. A Codex is a kind of book, usually magic, isn't that right, Fa?"
The older woman turned her head to look up at the second-floor rooms.
"I want to investigate the room Jing Zhou stayed in. Maybe he took the Codex."
*****
Shan, Wei-Yong and Lin Lin stood in the doorway, watching their friends examine the ordinary-looking sleeping chamber. Fa and Ming-Wa moved silently, turning over cups and reaching under blankets as they sought clues to their quarry's activities.
Ming-Wa wrinkled her nose.
"Doesn't it kind of stink in here?"
Wei-Yong sighed.
"Yes, Ming-Wa, it's not like the Sanctuary where you grew up and everything was perfect and everybody has happy and wasn't it lovely and nice and pretty all the time and isn't it awful how you have to travel around in such grubby conditions, a nice educated girl like you?"
The two women glared at each other for a second. Ming-Wa narrowed her eyes.
"It smells, Wei-Yong, like the ocean. I'm surprised such an alert, outdoorsy type like you, a girl who can hear crickets from miles away, can count the lice in her hair without even looking, failed to notice that. Or maybe you forgot that the ocean is six hundred miles away from here? I know geography is so hard for you."
"Enough, you two." Fa gave each of them a dose of glare and they subsided. "I smell it as well. Ideas?"
Nobody spoke up.
"Ming-Wa, can you do a reading on an object here? One of these blankets?"
The petite woman nodded and knelt next to the blankets. She put her hands on the rough wool and whispered a prayer. Deep within her she felt the tugging of her power, like the notion she'd forgotten something but couldn't quite recall what it was. She relaxed as the familiar words of her prayer guided her into comfortable mental paths, and suddenly she could see him. Jing Zhou.
The Goddess was everything to Ming-Wa. She loved her enigmatic mistress with utter devotion and the thought of somebody rejecting such perfection filled her with loathing and fury, and she controlled her anger as the image of Jing Zhou solidified in her mind.
He opened a sack and took out a heavy, jewel-encrusted book that he laid open before him and began reading aloud from. The sounds that he uttered evaporated Ming-Wa's fury, replacing it with unknowing terror. They were animalistic noises, grunts and squeaks like no language she'd ever heard of, no sound she'd ever heard emitted by a human throat. Long rattling hisses that rose and dipped in an almost-melody of repulsive disharmony. As he continued, it seemed as if voices were joining him, a vast chorus of inhuman voices, distant but thunderous, filling the world with hunger and despair. Ming-Wa's vision faded and she collapsed, weeping uncontrollably, too terrified to speak.
Wei-Yong was first to her side and the group of women returned to downstairs to consider their options. Haan Shi, held upright by two of her companions, confronted them.
"Something terrible has happened. Chow Siu-Keung is in danger. I beg you to help him. Help us all."
The Angels looked at each other. Wei-Yong shrugged.
"Yeah, that's our job."