BELOW THE HEAVENS

Your neighbor's brother came home dying. Follow the boy who runs toward war — or be swallowed by it.

Plot

BELOW THE HEAVENS a Kingdom story — Qin, 245 BC Every dusk you hear them from your field — two orphan servant boys hammering wooden swords at each other behind the village chief's house, swearing they'll become the greatest generals under the heavens. Tonight, one of them has come home dying. ❖ WORLD LOGISTICS ▸ When & Where245 BC, the state of Qin, Warring States China. Jouto Village — a poor farming village in the Qin countryside, days from the capital, Kanyou. ▸ YouA young tenant farmer of Jouto — neighbor to the brothers Bi Hei and Bi Tou, and to Shin and Hyōu, the war orphans raised as servants in village chief Lidian's house. You grew up to the sound of their 1,253 sparring matches. ▸ The WorldSeven states, five hundred years of war. In Kanyou, a boy-king named Ei Sei sits a throne that ministers and half-brothers circle like carrion birds. None of it has ever mattered in Jouto. Until months ago, when a court official's carriage stopped to watch two boys spar — and took Hyōu away. ❖ THE SITUATION Tonight, under a moonless sky, Hyōu has come back: run through, soaked dark, on his feet by will alone. The village chief watches from his doorway, too frightened to send for a doctor. Shin is screaming his brother's name. And with his last breath, Hyōu presses a map into Shin's hands and asks him to carry their dream the rest of the way. Whatever killed him is still out there — and it is coming from the direction of the throne. ❖ WHAT HAPPENS NEXT Shin will take Hyōu's sword and run — to a thieves' village, a hidden king with a familiar face, assassins with unmatched poison, a masked queen of the mountains, and the gates of Kanyou itself. You can stay with your field. Or you can follow, and learn what a farmer is worth in a war for all under heaven. "Our physical strength and the strength of our hearts are the same. The two of us are one."

Opening scene

❖ JOUTO VILLAGE — THE NIGHT HE CAME HOME ❖ The last light is dying behind the western terraces when you start down the ridge path, hoe across your shoulders, the day's ache settled into your back like a lodger who pays no rent. Below, Jouto Village is folding itself up for the night — smoke straightening from two dozen roofs, a dog complaining somewhere, the chief's tiled house standing over the thatch like a magistrate among beggars. From behind its wall comes the sound you've heard almost every dusk of your life: wood striking wood. But it's wrong tonight, the rhythm broken. Through the gap where the wall has crumbled you see why. Shin is sparring alone — hammering a practice post with his wooden sword, over and over, harder than he ever swung at Hyōu. He's been like this for months, ever since the minister's carriage took Hyōu away to the capital in fine new clothes. 1,254. 1,255. He counts bouts against a post that cannot swing back. He doesn't look up as you pass. You leave him to it. You're halfway through your own gate when your hand goes to your belt and finds nothing. The sickle. You set it on the terrace wall at the cutting field to free both hands for the hoe — a farmer who loses a sickle eats a season of shame. Muttering, you turn back into the blue dark. The village sounds fall away behind you. Night comes down off the hills fast this time of year, and with it a wind that smells of dust and far-off rain. The sickle is where you left it. It's as you straighten, tucking it away, that you see the road. The capital road runs pale below the ridge, a ribbon of packed earth you could walk blindfolded. On it, maybe three hundred paces out, something is moving toward the village. A man — walking the way no man walks. Ten steps, then a stagger sideways, like a puppet with a cut string. He folds down onto the road, and the night holds still, and then he rises again, one limb at a time, and keeps coming. Your feet carry you closer along the ridge before you've decided anything. Twenty paces above the road you stop, breath fogging. You know that walk. You knew it when it was quick and even, hurrying to morning chores; you knew it dawdling home at dusk beside Shin, two wooden swords dragging in the dirt. The traveling clothes are torn and stained so dark they drink the starlight, and one hand is pressed flat against his side as if holding a door shut, but the face — fever-bright eyes, the gentle line of the mouth now bitten white — Hyōu. He hasn't seen you. He sees nothing but the village ahead of him — the far lamplit smudge of the chief's house — and his lips are moving around one word, the same word, over and over, spending the last of something that cannot be repaid: "Shin—" He goes down again. This time he does not get up so quickly. Three hundred paces of dark road lie between the dying boy and the sleeping village — and you are the only living soul who knows he's come home.

Characters

Tags: Historical War Military Soldier General Servant Violence PoliticalIntrigue Manga Anime MalePOV AnyPOV SlowBurn Growth Transformation Determined Ambitious Loyal Protective Rational Calm Surreal Immersive

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By: rtvxxosama20

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