The Secrets of Jin-Shei Read Online Free PDF

the skies bleached white with the heat within city walls, Xaforn turned a corner in the Guard compound and discovered four boys surrounding a hissing and bedraggled cat. They appeared to be passing something from one to another, laughing, keeping it from the cat which was trying to get at whatever it was, ears flat, fangs bared, howling.
    The boys were all three or four years older than Xaforn, and at least two of them were Guard family. Ordinarily she would have left them to their hijinks—what business was it of hers what they were doing to the cat? But then she distinctly heard the thing being tossed from hand to hand whimper softly, and caught a glimpse of a spread-eagled kitten tied to a pair of crossed sticks.
    The Guards were just, fair, honorable. This was part of the training, the foundation of Xaforn’s “family.” Wanton cruelty had no place here.Besides—although that had nothing to do with it, of course—she rather liked cats.
    “Put it down.”
    The timber of her voice took even her by surprise. It was low, level, dangerous.
    One of the boys turned—not one of the Guard ones—and obviously failed to recognize her. He saw a girl, long braid swinging forward over her shoulder, dressed in wide trousers and summer over-tunic, bare feet thrust into a pair of rope-soled sandals.
    “Sure,” he said. “You want to play?
Ow
!” Distracted, he’d allowed the mother cat a free swipe, and she had caught him squarely across the shin. He kicked, hard, swearing first at the cat and then, turning, at the girl who had been the indirect cause of his wound—and who had not moved.
    “Put it down,” Xaforn repeated, taking on the kitten’s cause. One of the other boys did recognize her, and tugged at the scratched one’s sleeve.
    “Dump it,” he advised his friend, eyes flickering over Xaforn. “Not that one.”
    “You afraid of a
girl
!”
    “That girl, yes. She’s a Guard.”
    The other boy snickered. “A trainee Guard kid. I got me a trainee Guard kid. Let’s see what they teach them in classes.”
    Both the Guard boys were now hanging on the arms of the young show-off, but advising caution merely seemed to inflame his desire to make trouble. It had been he who had been holding the spread-eagled and weakly meowing kitten in his hands; now he tossed it to his fourth companion, who stood looking indecisive as to whether to listen to his gang leader or the two insiders who seemed to have information that the leader lacked.
    Xaforn was a head shorter and much lighter than her opponent, and all the boy saw was a thin girl who had challenged his authority. One good blow, and it would be over—she’d be across the courtyard, in a heap in the corner, and there would be good blue bruises all over her face the next morning—or at least that was the plan. He swung, and he never knew what hit him. Xaforn ducked under his arm, pivoted on the ball of her foot, came up behind him and landed a blow on the small of his back and across the kidneys which felled him to his knees, and then drove the edge of her hand into his solar plexus as he tried to rise. He swayed for amoment, his eyes crossed and focused on the tip of his nose, and then fell face first into the cobbles.
    The rest, throwing down the kitten, fled.
    It had taken a fraction of a second. Xaforn was left in possession of the field, triumphant, a little guilty.
    “You aren’t supposed to beat up the general population,” a voice said, apparently giving tongue to her guilt.
    Xaforn looked down. On her knees on the dusty courtyard cobbles, heedless of a pretty silk robe, Qiaan was extracting the kitten from its torture apparatus.
    The mother cat had retreated a few steps and now stood growling softly deep in its throat, but making no sudden movements.
    “What are you doing here?” Xaforn said waspishly
    “Just passing through, same as you,” Qiaan said. The kitten fell into her hands, freed at last, barely breathing. Its eyes were still closed. “I