Listening Snow

I

“Take it off.”

And just like that darkness vanished leaving behind a sharp blast of torturous light that he flinched from. Adaptation swiftly began to take place and his focus, hazy and foggy at first, rested upon a figure seated on a chair before a low table before him.

The sound of his breathing sawing in and out of his lungs filled his own ears; the roar of his thundering heartbeat nearly deafened him. His first impulse was to run. Problem was he just couldn’t . Not just that there were far too many men around but he was bound hands and feet as well.

He watched two man pour himself tea and drink it up as if he had all the time in the world. Well, newsflash he didn’t!

He, Yang Cheng, had no such luxury. “Who are you?”

The man simply poured himself and her cup and drank it all.

Cheng almost groaned out loud.

If only he didn’t have to meet with some well-paying men with the information he had concealed deep within his clothes. Informs he had been on his way to deliver when he had been –

He cast the man a sharp glance and tried to rise from his kneeling position, as well as wriggle his arms, or arm, out of his captor’s grip.

A fine grip they had.

His shoulders were on fire.

“I’ll give you one chance to redeem yourself, Yang Cheng,” the man said as from the folds of his clothes, at the exact spot he had earlier concealed the item he had wanted to sell, he produced the rolled document he now recognized with a thick swallow and placed it on the table between them. Yet closer to him and didn’t even bother to even glance his way before continuing with his tea.

Cheng simply turned his gave away.

Yea paused midway to his mouth, the man slanted a sidelong glance at him and placed his still filled cup back on the table. Then wiggled his fingers to the side.

The sound of struggle, shuffling of feet and muffled sounds filled the air and a distressed feminine voice called out his name.

“Yang Cheng!”

The voice brought him to a pause and instantly he turned his head to his distressed pregnant mistress.

One quick sweet of the gaze over her and he took in her state of disarray and observed that beneath it all, she and the baby remained unscathed.

Hão, he mused, they may be fools to touch him but they had enough go out left in them not to harm both mother and child. So with that thought, Cheng turned away from her and ignored her loud, frantic distress.

The man smiled and emptied the contents of his cup into his mouth with one swallow.

Another sound of struggle, shuffling of feet and muffled sound filled the air; and this time the woman was tossed at his knees. The chaos brought Cheng’s glance there. A loud gasp left his throat and he cast the man a fierce look, which he conveniently didn’t see, then back at his mother sprawled so manhandled and stoic before him. “Mother. Mother.”

“You are not to tell them anything, Yang Cheng,” his mother averred, even as she and Ali Ming were dragged into two large metal contraptions. “Not a word. No matter the cost.”

Cheng glanced frantically about him and again attempted to rise and free himself, And was beating up insert. Blood oozing from the side of his temple in a single thick red line, he turned to demand who was watching him and demanded to know what he was about.

The man simply turned away from him and nodded toward the direction of the metal contraption, and two cages were brought forth. Each cage was strapped strategically to each contraction and screeching sounds rose in fury from whatever was housed in them.

As Yang Cheng watched, Huge rats known in the farthest north for their carnivorous habits wriggled and struggled to reach the faces press hard against the metal. Li Ming screamed and try to wriggle herself free to know her veil. His mother remained silent all the while trying to take backward steps also to no avail.

Yang Cheng’s frantic gaze flew to his captor only to be nailed by the man’s piercing dark gaze, and a slight c**k of a dark brow.

A pier ing screech brought Yang Cheng’s attention to the cages and he observed that the rats had drawn first blood and their frenzy further aroused.

“Fire rats,” a voice rose from his roaring senses. “Habitants of Niwong valley in the north.”

Yang Cheng turned to meet his captor’s stormy gaze.

“Blood – the smell, taste, sight of it – drives them to a bloodthirsty frenzy,” he continued, holding Yang Cheng’s gaze pointedly. “They almost never loose their quarry.”

Yang Cheng swallowed as clammy sweat filmed his temple and ran down the sides of his face. Just as the screeching sounds of the rats kept rising and gnawing at his insides as they did the faces of the women in his lives. Li Ming’s screams parried with the rat’s frantic screeches. He turned back to the man and demanded. “Who are you?”

“Wrong question.”

Li Ming’a screams became louder.

The fire rats screeched madly.

Mother gasped.

Their faces ruined.

Yang Cheng panicked. No one seemed to mind that the fire rats were fast running their claws, now blood stained, all over the faces of the women. He just couldn’t stand the torture. He looked at the man and met a piercing set of dark eyes.

He knew then that this was no man to be prancing about with.

Which begged the countless – asked-yet-unanswered question: who is he?

His throat worked.

The man filled his cup, eyed him and drank.

Yang Cheng’a lips moved before any sound could match its movements. He glanced quickly up as his mother’s scream merged with Li Ming’s.

Mother never screamed.

Wide eyed, he met a pair of dark unfathomable dark gaze over an upturned cup and trembled. “A man passed me a missive in the marketplace a sennight ago.”

“You tell them nothing, Yang Cheng! You tell them nothing!” his mother shouted in between screams.

Very patiently, he poured yet another cup, then made a steeple with his fingers, elbows on the tabletop and waited.

“He just wanted to know where the –“

“Yang Cheng!” Madame Yang called out in a sharp rebuke.

“You’ll let them go, right?” Yang Cheng tried at bargaining. He was a picture of desperation and torn in between loyalty and balking under pressure and unearthing his darkest secrets before an absolute stranger keen on his a*******n and destruction. His and that of his family’s.

He needed something as well, right?

The man just c****d a brow.

“Young master Yang!,” Li Ming called out amidst screeches and scratches. “I can’t take this much longer.”

“There’s a woman,” Yang Cheng started a dub licked his lips nervously. “She’s to infiltrate the manor of the Prince of Qin as a maid.”

Cup midair, gaze fixed on contents, the man drawled a single question. “Oh?”

Desperate to please his captor even to the heightening displeasure and disdain of his mother, “Yes, yes,” he panted and rambled on. “Prince of Qin is a threat to many in and out of court. His Sterling reputation is to be besmirched.”

Still staring into his cup, he drawled again. “Oh?” When Yang Cheng acquiesced, he dropped the cup slowly to the table and looked at him. “How so?”

“Yang Cheng! I forbid you!” Madame Yang screamed and screamed again when the rat’s claw missed her eye by half an inch.

“The dragon seal.”

“Foolish! Disgraceful brat!” Madame Yang spat.

“Take Madame Yang away for selling information to the enemy,” the man drawled.

Three men clad in black clothes bowed with folded arms and sheathed sword and went about the business of releasing Madame and caging the rat. As she was dragged away, she ranted in a very loud voice. Her face bloodied. “Who are you?”

Once her ranting had began to and then died down, he gently lifted his still filled cup. “Continue.”

Yang Cheng fumed. “You said you’ll release them.”

“Did I?” He emptied his cup and placed it on the table. “This woman,” he began. “describe her and tell me her name.” When Chen remained staunchly silent, “Li Ming is with child. Your child,” he said and pointed with a finger whilst the rest held the cup. “I give you my word to ensure your child lives. Far away.” That brought Chen’s gaze towards the contraption still under siege by the rat, and waited.

“I don’t know her. I was told she was very startling to the eye,” Cheng said head bowed. “That’s all I heard about her identity.”

The man abandoned the cup and picked the roll of paper from the table and began to walk away. “Release him.”

Yang Cheng’s violent plea and disagreement rang behind him. To no avail. He glanced frantically about at his guards. “They’ll kill me!”

Thrown out of an unmarked carriage in an open space on an empty street, Yang Cheng picked himself cautiously and stumbled his way – homewards. He pushed open the double doors serving as the entrance to his manor and fell on his face. A small metal arrow sticking out from his back.