River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

with them. Every year these were ignored. There was a war being fought: the southern prefectures were expected to deal with local bandits themselves.
    It was all true, Ziji thought: he had no life left at the barracks. Either because he’d be executed, or beaten and jailed by an enraged prefect, or simply because he’d never be promoted now. He’d probably be sent to the war.
    He said that. “I could go fight the Kislik.”
    The other man nodded. “They’ll likely send you there. They need soldiers. You did hear about the disaster?”
    Everyone had heard. It wasn’t a new story. A deep thrust ordered north through the desert, aimed at Erighaya, horses and foot soldiers, far into enemy lands, then halted outside the walled Kislik city because—amazingly—they hadn’t brought siege engines. They’d forgotten them. No one had checked. It was madness, an utterly improbable tale, and it was true.
    What sort of army could do that? Ziji had wondered when the news reached their barracks. Kitai had ruled and subjugated the whole world once. Rulers from all over had sent them gifts, horses, women, slaves.
    Their northwestern army’s supply lines had been severed behind them. Over half their soldiers had died on the retreat from Erighaya. Almost seventy thousand men, Ziji had heard. A terrifying number. They had killed their commanders on the way south, it was reported. Eaten them, some said. Starving men in a desert, far from home.
    And Deputy Prime Minister Kai Zhen, in overall command of that campaign, was receiving birthday gifts from all over Kitai, timed to arrive at court this autumn.
    â€œDon’t go back,” said the young man with the bow. “We can use good men. The emperor needs to be made aware his servants and policies are evil and incompetent.”
    Zhao Ziji looked at him. A life, he thought, could change quickly. It could turn like a water wheel on some isolated hilltop in summer heat.
    â€œThat’s what you are doing?” he said, perhaps too wryly for someone facing an arrow. “Sending memoranda to the emperor?”
    â€œSome go into the woods for money. Food. Some for a life of freedom. Some like to kill. I’m … some of us are also trying to say something, yes. Enough voices, we might be heard.”
    Ziji looked at him.
    â€œWhat is your name?” He wasn’t sure why he asked.
    â€œRen Daiyan,” said the other, promptly. “They call me Little Dai.”
    â€œYou aren’t so little.”
    The other man grinned. “I was young when I started, west of here. And besides, I have a small cock.”
    The others burst into laughter. Ziji blinked. A strange sensation came over him.
    â€œIs that so?” he said.
    â€œOf course not!” one of the outlaws cried. Someone made a loud, crude jest, the kind Ziji knew from soldiers in barracks too long without women.
    Something altered inside him, as if a key had turned in a lock. “I’m Zhao Ziji,” he said. And, for the first time in his life, added, “They call me Ziji Shortcock.”
    â€œTruly? Ho! We were born to be companions then!” cried the man named Ren Daiyan. “
To seek women and wine and live forever!
” Words from a very old song.
    In the laughter that followed, Zhao Ziji stepped into the roadway and became an outlaw.
    He felt, astonishingly, as if he were coming home. He looked at the young man—Ren Daiyan was surely ten years younger than him—and knew, in that same moment, that he would follow this man all his life, until one or the other or both of them died.

CHAPTER IV
    S he has made herself wait before trying again, striving for inner harmony, sitting very still at her writing desk. The first three attempts at the letter have been unsatisfactory. She is aware that tension, fear, the importance of what she is writing are affecting her brush.
    That must not be permitted. She breathes deeply, eyes on a