"Asai first saw the Red Bird the night the soldiers burnt his village. Fleeing in terror through rain and flames and killing, his parents dead in the mud behind him, the boy heard his name called above the screams of the dying. Called from on high."
Saved from the destruction of his village by a mysterious, flame-red bird, Asai is led to the Temple of the Hidden Light where he is instructed in the Way of the Warrior. But Asai's mentor, the Warrior of the Red Bird, cannot teach him everything he needs to know. The teacher himself does not know of the Hidden Light which Asai must find in order to save his people.
The Red Bird is a mythic tale wrapped in an intimate coming-of-age story and--like the wolf not-quite-disguisded in sheep's clothing--the promise of a powerful bite is ever present throughout.
The story begins with the young Asai in great peril, death and destruction all around him. As Asai grows in strength and in wisdom, the story grows with him, as Douglas Smith weaves an intriguing tapestry of the mythos of the Red Bird, sprinkled throughout with rich images which stayed with me long after I had finished reading.
I found the story's pacing luxurious, but never slow. Fast-paced sword fights mingled with more meditative scenes as Asai encountered puzzles and pleasures and other interests away from the sword, but it is in the more leisurely scenes that The Red Bird truly shines. Asai's mythic role as Warrior is always with him, the Warrior's fate dogging him as tightly as a shadow, such that the moments which promise him the greatest happiness are also those which hold the greatest tension.
Though the mythic structure of the story foreshadows Asai's fate from the start, I found the ending of The Red Bird compelling and both intellectually and emotionally satisfying. Douglas Smith delivers on his promise and then some in this short story with epic scope.