The Twelve Kingdoms: The Shore in Twilight

post in the Ministry of Heaven and tended to various matters at the Imperial Court. A Registrar was positioned at the gate to make a record of all persons who wished entrance to the palace, confirm their identities, and pass communiques back and forth.
    The Registrar came running up along with the captain of the guard. He took one look at the woman and her mount and shouted in a nervous voice, "Get rid of them!"
    "But they're wounded--!" said the captain, attempting to intercede.
    The Registrar raised his voice and said in his overbearing manner, "A general of the Kingdom of Tai? Does this look like a general? What possible reason would another kingdom's general have for visiting us in the first place?"
    "But--"
    "Quiet!" the Registrar barked.
    Though Toshin and the other soldiers at the Forbidden Gate were members of the Palace Guard, they were "on loan" to the Registrar. Technically speaking, they were attached to the Ministry of Summer, but the chain of command at the gate went through the Registrar.
    "And to make matters worse, they're befouling the Forbidden Gate."
    He turned to the kneeling woman and grimaced. "If you really are the Tai general you say you are," he spat out, "then get yourself a change of clothes. After we've confirmed your bona fides, feel free to present yourself to the provincial government offices following the acknowledged rules of decorum."
    In that moment, the woman's shoulders shuddered. Her head snapped up and upon her face, her ravaged body notwithstanding, Toshin perceived a look of fierce majesty. "I am aware of my impertinence and if I had the time to go through the proper channels I certainly would!"
    She spoke in a manner that suggested she was constraining her true feelings, but the Registrar answered with only a cold, dismissive glance. He again blocked the captain's attempts to intercede and turned his back.
    In that moment the woman reached out and snatched the lance out of Toshin's grasp. No sooner had Toshin raised his voice in a shout but the woman had broken through the phalanx and ran toward the Forbidden Gate.
    The collective breath of surprise taken by the Registrar and Toshin and Gaishi and the other soldiers delayed their actions another second. The soldiers came back to their senses and tore after the woman in a frantic rage. Just before the tips of their lances reached her back, a black wing descended between them. Using the beast's back as cover, the woman bowled through the side gate.
    "Get her!" arose a chorus of voices.
    Toshin surged to the front of the pack, chasing after the beast as it slipped through the side gate. Forefront on his mind was his blunder. Despite holding the sword Gaishi had entrusted to him, he had carelessly let her steal his lance. There would be hell to pay for a screw-up like that.
    His guilty conscience assailed his thoughts. He'd fallen for her ruse like a rube. She'd faked her wounds. Her beast's labored breathing must have been a well-trained act, the business about her being a Tai general a bold-faced lie. He hadn't just fallen for her fabrications. He'd swallowed her shabby, little drama hook, line and sinker. That gave her the opening she needed.
    Her shabby little drama?
    Inside the Forbidden Gate were parade grounds large enough to put a battalion through formation drills. The woman and her beast charged toward the stairs at the back of the plaza. Perhaps catching wind of the uproar, the soldiers and officers on standby spilled from the barracks adjoining the plaza.
    Nothing shabby about it, Toshin thought as he raced after her. He hadn't seen her performance for what it was. The woman and the beast really had looked on the verge of death. Even if the sticky, clotted blood could be attributed to red clay, it sure looked real.
    But that wouldn't account for all her wounds. In particular, the woman's right arm was covered in lacerations that couldn't be easily faked. In fact--
    Toshin fixed his eyes on the woman staggering up the steps. Even now her right arm hung limply at her side. Right before his eyes she fell over. Again, her right arm didn't move. The beast galloped over and tried to help her up. When she grabbed hold of its neck, it was with the same hand holding the lance.
    Toshin instinctively looked for Gaishi's face in the crowd. Gaishi raced in from the rear and greeted Toshin with a nod. "It's okay. Get her. Put her under arrest. Don't kill her."
    "But--" Toshin beseeched Gaishi.
    From the entrance to the plaza came