The Simurg

Yinyue's outstretched fingers brushed the air, but Halun's sleeve slipped past them. Her hand grasped the cold, empty space as she watched in helpless horror of him tumbling down. Before his body hit the ground, a shadow flashed past.

Someone gripped her waist and lifted her. She couldn't see if Halun hit the ground.

The momentary weightlessness stunned her. Everything happened too fast. Her eyes caught the shiny glint of metal shooting past where she stood earlier. That was an arrow aimed at her!

Her men, stunned by the sudden events, reacted. "PROTECT MASTER!"

"It's me," 01's familiar voice whispered into her ear while she snapped out of her initial shock from his warm breath. Both their feet landed on the snowy ground with a soft thud.

Yinyue pushed him away before he released his hold. She hated close contact. Her head turned towards where Halun was. She heaved a sigh of relief when she spotted the unconscious Halun in the arms of a tall masked man.

The relief didn't last long. She noticed other masked men, also dressed in black, walking from behind the bare, gnarly trees. Were they another batch of assassins?

She took a step forward, but 01's lifted arm blocked her way.

The tall masked man laid Halun against the tree trunk and glanced her way. She noticed a distinctive mark of a crutch cross glyph tattooed on the foreheads of the masked men, except for one who saved Halun.

"Simurg," 01 said.

She blinked. The Simurg, the Xirong Empire's underworld syndicate arm, had no business here. This area of the Black Mountains was far from the Xirong Empire's border.

At best, a week's ride by horse from their known nearest border.

Worse, she didn't hear them coming.

"What the hell are they doing here?" She asked, then looked at 01. "Wait, aren't you supposed to head back with the other group to the Yandi?"

He seldom disobeyed her orders.

01 pulled out a slip of torn cloth from his sleeve pocket and shoved it into her hand. He continued to watch the Simurg like a hawk watching its prey before it swooped.

"From one of your lookouts," he replied.

Yinyue read the message. 01 must have received it along the way from one of the Qisha syndicate's businesses stationed in the valley of the Black Mountains. They acted as sentinel lookouts for suspicious activities or movements.

The message referred to a group of the Simurg wandering further from the Xirong borders. Was this the group?

"Who's that guy you were trying to catch earlier?" 01 asked, furrowing his eyebrows at the animated conversation taking place between the masked men.

"A Taotang Prince who is half Xirong," she replied, turning her head to the burnt building with charred bodies scattered around. "A fire in the building cooked his assassins."

"You set the fire?" 01 asked.

"The Taotang prince did," replied Yinyue.

She halted. "Don't tell me that the Simurg are gonna kill him—"

Damn, she shouldn't have saved Halun earlier if he was going to die now. What a waste of time, she cussed.

01 shook his head. "No. If they wanted to kill him, they would've slit his throat by now."

A man with decorative side silver beaded plaits on his waist-long hair from the Simurg group took a step forward, the snow crunching under his thick leather boots.

His men only combed back and tied their hair into a simple ponytail. A silver half mask shaped like a wolf's snout covered the lower half of his face. He was as tall as 01, with no tattoo on his forehead.

Even the black clothes he wore differed from the rest. She could see the weaved glyph pattern on his silk clothing. His companions, with the tattoos on their forehead, wore plain black hemp.

He must be the leader of the Simurg group.

01 took a deep breath and exhaled before muttering, "that's not our biggest problem."

"What's the biggest problem?" She asked.

"Him." 01 gestured to the leader. "Two of us are no match for him alone."

The group leader sized 01 and Yinyue up with his eyes. She couldn't guess his intent from his lack of expression, but she noticed his eyes were like 01's — both of a different colour.

He spoke the same tongue twisting language she heard when she laid dying in her first life. The tone sounded so much like 01, even though the mask muffled his voice.

01 answered in the same language and then turned to her, "they think we poisoned him."

Yinyue was almost sure that the group leader said far more than the one liner 01 gave her.

"Why are they so protective of him?" She asked.

01 shrugged. "A connection with the Simurg? How would I know?"

"And when did you learn the Xirong language?"

"I can speak it. Slave traders kidnapped me when I was six and sold me to Dayan," 01 replied with a tinge of annoyance in his tone. "You know that there's a Xirong slave population in Dayan, right?"

Yinyue bit her lips. His words were a warning not to tread further into the topic. Yet the first life memories of him trying to save her increased her curiosity about him.

Her priority was to deal with the Simurg now. Not the curiosity. That can wait.

Yinyue never had close contact with the Simurg until today.

If the Simurg behaved anything like the Xirong army, a bloody showdown awaited her. With her recent injuries, she wasn't in fit fighting form.

She needed to retreat with her men.

Be optimistic, she told herself. The Simurg could accept a reasonable explanation. After all, Halun isn't a Xirong prince.

"Tell them we have a live assassin in our hands. They are free to interrogate the captured fellow. But if Halun doesn't get treated soon, he'll die. Poison entered his bloodstream from his wounds," she said.

A frowning 01 tilted his head and squinted at the figure of a slumped Halun held up by two of the men on the Simurg side and said, "he looks dead."

"He'll be very dead soon," said Yinyue.

She could see the rise and fall of his chest. Halun was still breathing, but barely. His life withered away by the minute.

Once Halun reached the gasping stage, even the gods can't save him.

Yinyue threw a quick glance at the Simurg group leader, who raised his eyebrow at her.

"You," she addressed the group leader with her chin up. "If he doesn't see a physician soon, he'll be dead."

She thought of drawing a line across her neck to emphasise Halun's dire situation clear. That action was easy to misunderstand as a kill threat. She discarded the idea.

The leader looked at her for a while, as though trying to comprehend what she said. He looked at Halun and returned his gaze to her.

Before she could ask 01 to translate, the Simurg group leader asked, "Did you poison him?"

He could speak the prestige language of the Central Plains even though his accent was off like 01's. She looked at 01 and then him — both of them could be mistaken as twins with those eyes.

She shook her head. "People were out to kill him. We only came to help."

The Simurg leader smirked as though he didn't believe her at all. He turned back to his men, speaking in the strange Xirong language. Laughter rippled through his men, making her wary.

The frigid wind heightened her senses to the dangerous aura radiating from the Simurg leader. Breath poured out of her nose like steam while she gauged her chances. He had a relaxed posture as though nothing could threaten his life.

Her body prepared for a fight while her mind kept busy cussing Halun for being a jinx. Yinyue didn't like fighting for no gain or benefit. Spilling blood over nothing reeked of pure stupidity.

"You," he said and then halted to think of the right words, "know how to treat?"

Why did he even ask if he didn't believe? She convinced herself to talk her way out of the situation.

Yinyue shook her head. "Not me, but we know where to treat."

01 pulled her aside and whispered, "Just be careful. He's crazy."

"What did they say?" She asked.

01 ignored her. He turned to 02 standing behind and said, "First sign of trouble - we'll take her and run to safety."

02 nodded while Yinyue looked at both of them in disbelief.

"Do you know him?" She asked 01.

"We ran into each other three times in the Black Mountains whenever you met with the border princes. He speaks normally, acts normally and then suddenly attacks. Three times the same behaviour," 01 replied, with his hand twitched near to the hilt of his sword.

Finally, a straight answer pulled out of 01, but 01's hostility made her suspect there was more than what she'd seen or heard. She noticed 01's trembling hands clenched into fists - he wanted to kill the Simurg leader. But why?