"A warrior shows no pain on his face, nor does he cry out when he is wounded, for he knows pain well, and greets it with calm serenity, as he would an old friend."
The ancient memory of those words flitted through Tsu Lai’s mind as he screamed through clenched teeth.
It was true, he did know pain very well. All kinds of pain, and in varying degrees. They had been long acquainted. But despite everything, he was still human, at least by his own definition. And for all his efforts, he simply could not greet the bullet lodged in his hip with calm serenity. Nor could he look upon Jean’s twisting, groping tweezers as an old friend.
He had passed out once, but Jean had woken him up, insisting that he remain conscious because of his head wound. And so, deprived of the bliss of sleep, he concentrated on the sound of his own screaming. It distracted him from the pain of his injuries, which in turn distracted him from worse thoughts.
He had failed.
Aterat had given him one task: to kill Shepetheleh’s anchor. And he had failed. He had come all this way. But when he’d entered the room, Hespah was already gone. He had searched only a few of the other rooms, and then the pretty blond man had found him. Most likely he was the guardian of one of Shepetheleh’s retainers, but Tsu Lai didn’t know him.
The first bullet had grazed his ear, the second had just barely missed, the third had found his left shoulder. In return, Tsu Lai had sliced open the man’s right arm and part of his chest, disabling his dominant hand and forcing him to drop his gun. Then in one quick movement, he had closed the remaining distance between them to shove his blade through the man’s abdomen. The pretty man had collapsed, and Tsu Lai had turned to continue his search for Hespah.
But he had apparently underestimated his opponent. Even as he lay bleeding on the floor, the blond man had somehow managed to grasp his weapon in his shaky left hand and squeeze off two more shots before losing consciousness. The first had missed by a wide margin, but the second had landed in his hip.
Tsu Lai stopped his screaming for a moment, struggling to catch his breath as Jean held up the offending bullet in his bloody tweezers. "Got it," he announced, dropping it onto a napkin and setting down the tweezers.
The last wound had hobbled him, and that was when Tsu Lai had known for certain that his mission was a failure. He was wounded and bleeding, and considerably slowed by that fact. Any further fighting was too great a risk. All he could do was escape with his own life.
"A warrior does not fear death. He happily sacrifices himself to protect those he serves."
Those words no longer applied to him. That particular part of his warrior’s creed had long since been replaced by a very different rule.
"Never allow yourself to die."
Hespah had said that to him, so long ago that he almost wondered how it was that he remembered it so clearly. He had been young and naive then, holding a baby girl who made him feel things that he’d never have believed possible. Back then he had soaked up every word of advice that Hespah and Shepetheleh had offered him, so desperate not to be overwhelmed by this incredible new world that he had just entered. "You must stay alive at any cost," she had told him, "Even if you have to choose between saving her life and saving your own, you must always save yourself."
That had seemed a strange way to serve someone, putting one’s own life before theirs. It had been Shepetheleh who had explained it to him. "Her life is bonded to yours," he had said. "You are the anchor that keeps her safely tethered to this world. If she dies, she will simply be reborn, and you will find her and serve her in her next life as you do in this one. But if you die, she can never return, and the fate she would suffer is worse than anything you can imagine."
That had been countless lifetimes ago, long before this endless fighting had begun. It was depressing to think of those early times, when today he had attempted to destroy them both. It was not my choice, he wanted to tell them. But he knew that was only half true. He knew very well that even if Aterat had given him the option to refuse, he would still have done the same. It was what she wanted.
Tsu Lai hissed loudly as Jean poured antiseptic over the burning hole in his flesh and dabbed away the excess blood with a wad of gauze.
"Try to breathe normally," Jean insisted for the third time. "I can’t allow you to faint again."
He nodded, which set everything spinning again, making him nauseous. But he regained control of himself once more and began concentrating on his breathing.
In his retreat, he had been limping heavily from the bullet in his hip. That, combined with the light-headedness from his significant blood-loss, had caused him to lose his footing in the stairwell. He had tumbled down an entire flight of stairs and had hit his head twice in the fall. By the time he had reached the ground floor, his body was so badly beaten that it was a miracle he had not been apprehended by the handful of security officers that had scrambled after him on his way out.
Luckily, Tsu Lai had thought to prepare for such an exit. Jean had been waiting for him in the back of the car, just in case. Now, if only there were a way to prepare himself before speaking with Aterat about all of this.
He had failed, and she would not be pleased.
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