* Author : Tony Pi
* Narrator : John Chu
* Host : Graeme Dunlop
* Audio Producer : Peter Wood
*
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First published in The Dragon and the Stars, a DAW anthology that appeared in 2010.
Rated PG
The Character of the Hound
by Tony Pi
Unlike the other wheel-ships in the fleet, which had been rigged with trebuchets, this squat vessel held on deck only a windowless cabin with a door slightly ajar. I gathered my courage and entered.
Two men stood in heated argument in the lantern-lit chamber. I recognized the wispy-bearded man in his early fifties as Admiral Zhang, bedecked in his imposing lamellar armor. A veteran of the war against the Jin, Zhang had been given the command of our river fleet by the Spirit General himself.
The other, a balding man in his thirties, bore a deep diagonal scar crossing both lips. His uniform marked him as a Yongdui, a platoon commander.