Full-Blood Half-Breed (2 page)

Fox the Runt held his breath as he hurried across the grounds. The old chamber pot he carried was full, and he did not want to inhale the nauseating stink of human waste. His face, usually the color of sour milk, turned a startling shade of blue, and he quickly but carefully kicked open the door to the privy shed and emptied the contents of Sensei Quicksteel’s chamber pot down the chute within. Then, just as swiftly, he backed out, kicked the door shut, and dropped the empty chamber pot to the ground, carefully avoiding spatter.

Moving away a safe distance, he leaned against the willowy bough of one of the blooming sakura trees and filled his aching lungs with much-needed air. The elegant trees—rare on this side of the world—had been imported all the way from the Higashi Shima across the sea. They blossomed with pink-tinted white flowers for only one week of the year, during autumn. And under Grandmother Moon’s faint blue light, the entire garden seemed alive with muted, violet-tinged fireworks. Once he had gained his second wind, he went to fetch the chamber pot.

Of all the chamber pots of all the monks, Sensei Quicksteel’s was the worst. Whatever the sensei put into his mouth, be it sweet, sour, or savory, came out the other end as a reeking brew so rank it didn’t even qualify as shit.

And Fox the Runt knew shit.

Santuario del Guerrero was his adopted home. Fox the Runt had been born in a small village in the Nordländer where his family owned a little farm. He had cleaned up dog shit, horse shit, goat shit, and chicken shit, and none of it was as offensive as
the noxious gut-sludge Sensei Quicksteel left in his chamber pot every morning. It was like the monk took some perverse pleasure in leaving buckets of unholy foulness for him to handle. He fetched water from the well and used an old rag to scrub the pot, muttering angry curses as he ruminated on scripture. The Seisakushan holy book, the
Nyusu
, taught, “The exterior shell reflects inner existence.” Given Sensei Quicksteel’s inner existence, specifically his bowels, his outer shell should have been a true and utter horror.

Fox the Runt was no philosopher, and if he had been, he would have surely found something more worthy than shit to contemplate, but when one began and ended every day cleaning chamber pots, it was next to impossible not to muse on their contents. He was the temple’s
Niñero de Zurullo
. He was the Turd Nanny.

And that was the mongrel’s fault.

The loathsome task of cleaning the chamber pots usually went to a freshman disciple, but Fox the Runt was seventeen years old and an Ashi-Kobushi Adept, soon to be raised to full bushi status. His stint as Turd Nanny had begun about a year before, as a punishment, an unjust punishment. He had been accused of treachery during a
kumite
match with the mongrel, but while his actions that day might have been less than honorable, they certainly had not qualified as treachery.

The treachery had been committed by the mongrel.

For seven months before facing the mongrel, Fox the Runt had gone undefeated in the kumite ring, defeating all the disciples, all visiting bushi, and even the monks at temple, more than a few of whom were veteran Black Spears. He and the mongrel had fought twice before that fateful day, but those matches had ended in a draw. The day of the treachery, Fox the Runt had been determined to prove himself superior to the mongrel, and for nearly ten minutes they had danced around the ring trading vicious kicks and punches, neither gaining advantage. It looked like their match would once again end in a stalemate. But then, when they were both tired, sore, and soaked with sweat, the mongrel had blasted a devastating combination of punches into his face, breaking his nose. Those disciples and monks watching the kumite had thought the attack an act of superior skill.

But the mongrel had cheated.

Fox the Runt was a Nord, and the Nords were a people who embraced Schöpfer and Her martial gift of Eisenfaust, but he had adopted Ashi-Kobushi, “the dance of fist and foot,” and was obsessive in his study of Seisakusha’s martial gift. He had mastered
the fighting forms in less than three years, faster than any disciple on record. He knew every punch, kick, throw, and grapple that was part of the Shimabito fighting system. Whatever style the mongrel had used, it was nothing familiar to Fox the Runt. The mongrel had humiliated him, knocked him on his
arsch
, where he sat stunned with blood shooting from his nose. The monks and other disciples had been completely gulled. The blind fools had cheered the half-breed’s victory, oblivious to his tricks and cheating.

But Fox the Runt, driven by the righteous demands of justice, had answered the treachery immediately. He had ignored his hurts, leapt to his feet, and flown at the mongrel, hitting him with three solid crab-claw strikes to the shoulder and kidneys before being pulled away. The monks had seen nothing of the cheating, and instead of penalizing the mongrel for desecrating Seisakusha’s holy martial gift, they had reprimanded Fox the Runt for attacking when the mongrel’s back was turned. He had tried to explain that his motivations and methods were just. He had acted in the name of punishment, not competition or vengeance. Punishment did not require a face-to-face confrontation or fair combat. When a murderer is sentenced to death, he is not allowed to defend against the executioner. But the monks would not hear it. They had not seen the cheating. No one had, and few would have recognized it for what it was anyway. So they had directed their fury at him. Dai Sensei Stonehead had almost expelled him from temple, castigating him for a “profound display of dishonor.”

Only Sensei Quicksteel’s intervention had saved him from expulsion, and only under the condition that he serve a full year as Niñero de Zurullo.

The mongrel had received no punishment whatsoever.

The injustice was still as bitter as poison even after all these months, a hot toxicant burning in his gut, staining his cheeks with smatterings of scarlet. He dropped to his knees, clasped his hands before him, and prayed. “Please, dear Seisakusha, give me the chance to avenge myself on that stinking mongrel half-breed. Grant me justice, please, Goddess, I beg you. Let it be so.”

His supplication complete, he carefully picked up the chamber pot and hurried back to the temple, an elegant tower of stacked tiers and multiple eaves in the pagoda style of the Higashi Shima. At least his time as Niñero de Zurullo would soon be over, and when the repugnant job passed to someone else, he would never again greet the Grandfather’s golden rays with pots full of someone else’s excrement.

But today, he still had seven more pots to tend before he could take breakfast.
He returned Sensei Quicksteel’s chamber pot to its place outside the monk’s door and was halfway down the long hall leading to Dai Sensei Stonehead’s apartments when he heard someone training in one of the communion rooms. No doubt one of the disciples was preparing to compete in the Torneo games. Fox the Runt smiled. Let the poor fool, whoever it was, practice all he or she wanted; they would never take this year’s Black Spear, not with him competing. He was the best.

He almost turned away, almost ignored the sounds of fists and feet slamming into the wooden training dummy. He still had to fetch the dai sensei’s chamber pot, after all. But whoever practiced in that room was good. Very good. He had never heard the gears and limbs of a Blessed Hands Idol spin so fast. This was an invaluable opportunity for Fox the Runt to size up his competition. He would be a fool not to take advantage. As quiet as a temple mouse, he eased the door of the communion room open, just enough to see who practiced so diligently.

He grinned.

The stinking mongrel half-breed desecrated the Blessed Hands Idol—and the entire temple—with an obscene, bastardized martial system. The same one he had used to cheat Fox the Runt in kumite. The goddess had answered Fox the Runt’s prayers at last. In near silence, he bolted for Sensei Quicksteel’s room. The sensei had not believed his accusations against the mongrel before, but if he could get Sensei Quicksteel to the communion room in time, the monk with the rancid bowels would have no choice but to expel Paladin Del Darkdragón.

Thank you, Goddess
, Fox the Runt prayed as he rapped on the monk’s door.
All praise to Seisakusha
.

Sweat flew from Paladin’s long, wiry limbs, splattering the walls of the communion room as he hammered blow after blow into the Blessed Hands Idol. Though he was in the goddess Seisakusha’s temple, he didn’t confine himself to the circular, slashing crab-claw strikes of Her martial gift, Ashi-Kobushi, but also employed the martial techniques used to praise Seisakusha’s divine brothers and sisters, Creador, Schöpfer, and Muumba. He pummeled the training dummy’s face with the potent, stabbing jabs of Creador’s Combatedanza; he bashed its skull with his favorite of Schöpfer’s Eisenfaust head-smashes; and stomped its ribs with the acrobatic power kicks of Muumba’s Ngoma ya Kifo.

Each of his attacks triggered one of the dummy’s eight rotating limbs into action, simulating a counterattack. Because of its unique mechanics, the harder and faster it was attacked, the harder and faster the Blessed Hands Idol struck back. It was an ingenious tool for developing strength, speed, and reactions to counterattacks.

Paladin deflected the Blessed Hands Idol’s swinging counters with a combination of Ashi-Kobushi hand parries and the forearm blocks of Eisenfaust, spinning the dummy’s arms into faster strikes, requiring even quicker responses, which spurred the Blessed Hands Idol into faster attacks still. Strikes and counterstrikes flew back and forth until they blurred into a frenzied clash of swinging, jabbing limbs. The small room thrummed with the steady pounding of flesh against wood, a dull staccato building to a single, unbroken percussive. Though the Blessed Hands Idol’s limbs seemed to fly too fast for any mortal eye to follow, not one of its attacks broke through Paladin’s defenses. He had achieved the state of physical and spiritual transcendence
called
Kondo Wazimu—
the Battle Frenzy—by the Kusini Watu people, a perfectly balanced melding of instinct, training, and cognition.

Every particle of his being—mind, heart, body, and soul—was perfectly committed to his battle with the Blessed Hands Idol. So committed, in fact, he disregarded the flicker of candle flames as the door to the small room opened, admitting a breezy change in the room’s pressure. But Sensei Quicksteel’s angry shout would not be ignored.

“In the name of the goddess! What are you doing, Disciple Del Darkdragón?”

Paladin whipped around to face Sensei Quicksteel, a monk for whom he held the greatest respect, and Zwergfuchs Von Hammerhead—Fox the Runt to his peers—a boy for whom he held the least. Gears clicked and whirred behind him, but before he could react, the spinning arms of the idol smashed into his shoulder, kidneys, and the back of his head, knocking him to the floor.

Fox the Runt howled with laughter.

Paladin shook off the hurts and climbed to his feet, dipping his head to Sensei Quicksteel. The sensei’s normally kind smile and patient manner were twisted and ugly. His tilted burnt-brown eyes were wide with shock and anger. His straight pepper-and-salt hair hung below his ears, uncombed. Paladin had never before seen the monk with even a single hair out of place. The Seisakushans believed that the exterior shell reflected inner existence. Sensei Quicksteel had always been devout in his adherence to this philosophy.

Paladin could form no words.

“Do you see now, Sensei Quicksteel?” Fox the Runt said. His wide sneer made him look more canine than ever. “He profanes the goddess in Her own House with the same treacherous forms he used to defeat me in kumite!”

“Be silent, Disciple Von Hammerhead,” the monk said. “You, Disciple Del Darkdragón, have indeed desecrated the house of Seisakusha and—perverted Her sacred gift, Ashi-Kobushi.”

The monk paused, skewering Paladin with tight-faced scrutiny. After a moment, his features softened. “If I did not know the goodness in your heart, I would banish you from the temple and forbid you ever to enter these sacred grounds again. But your mother was among the finest disciples ever to study here, and I would not like to see you bring shame and heartbreak upon her. Further, I would not waste such talent as yours. You—”

“Sensei!” Fox the Runt yelled. “Surely there can be no—”

Sensei Quicksteel leveled a scalding glare at the Runt. “Be silent.”

Fox the Runt backed away, patting the air with his hands. He resumed his smug sneering when he thought he was out of Sensei Quicksteel’s striking range.

“I will give you but one chance, Disciple Del Darkdragón,” Sensei Quicksteel said. “Renounce the lesser fighting forms, and pledge your devotion to Seisakusha; do these things and you will be allowed to stay. You will be punished, and severely, but your studies will go uninterrupted.”

Paladin could say nothing. The sensei leaned closer, the jade medallion he wore beneath his tunic slipping free and dangling, hypnotically, before Paladin’s eyes. It was Seisakusha’s water symbol, the Nureta Sakuru, a circle cut in half by a vertical line. Paladin stared at it as the sensei whispered at him. “You are the most gifted pupil I have ever instructed. With training, you could become a master bushi or a Black Spear, greater even than your father. But to reach such heights, you must continue your studies and atone for your blasphemy.”