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The location where he was set to meet the trackers was a small trailhead leading into the foothills of the southern Taihua range. The gentle slope of grassy green knolls was punctured by rows of red-stone crags jutting upward, uniformly following the same angle and grain. The rocks were as tall and numerous as the trees in a forest.
Jianzhu saw a lone figure in the middle of the stones waving them over and frowned. The message that had brought him here in such a hurry had explained, with overflowing apologies, that the shirshu had followed the scent trail to these mountains. Right before they’d lost control of the animal. It had escaped and run up the peaks in pursuit of its prey. For all he knew, it might have eaten the Avatar.
The handlers must have drawn lots to see which one would face his wrath in person while the rest looked for the shirshu. He spurred his hound toward the unlucky representative. The man’s waving was stiff and forced, like the motion of a waterwheel.
“You can stop,” Jianzhu called out. “I see you—”
A whistle and then a thump. The lone tracker keeled over, two arrows in his back.
Jianzhu cursed and leaped off his mount, more arrows crossing the air above his saddle. He tented slabs of earth around him and hunkered down in his cover, listening to the thunks of projectiles landing around him.
I am getting much too old for this. He never would have fallen for such an obvious trap in his younger days.
There was a pause in the firing. He chambered his fists and punched outward. The slabs that had protected him now splintered and flew outward in all directions like shrapnel from a bombard. He heard screams from the rocks above.
Taking in his surroundings as quickly as possible, he saw a few archers who’d fallen from their perches lying at the base of the crags. But, better safe than sorry. He lowered his stance, shook his waist, and whirled his arms. From base to top, every stone he could see violently sprouted thin spikes the size of jians, like they’d instantly transformed into the same species of Si Wong cactus.
He heard more screams from the archers who remained hidden in their cover behind the rocks. That should have been it for elevated opponents. Fighters who fancied themselves professionals, but weren’t, often made the mistake of taking the high ground without planning a way out.
His eel hound had run off. But two of them were still nearby, tethered by their reins to a heavy weight. The corpse of one of the guardsmen, studded with arrows. The reins had snagged on his wrist.
Good job, whatever your name was, Jianzhu thought.
The other guardsman was busy wiping the blood off his dao with a hank of grass. Three attackers lay at his feet. They’d charged him with melee weapons, and bizarre ones at that. Jianzhu thought he spotted an abacus made of iron on the ground.
He was still impressed. “What do they call you, son?”
The guardsman snapped to attention and stared above Jianzhu’s head with youthful, bright eyes. He had the strong brow of Eastern Peninsula ancestry. “Saiful, sir.”
It was likely Saiful didn’t understand how close of a call this was. Talent would only let you survive so many encounters. After that, the odds tended to catch up with a vengeance. “Excellent work, Saiful. There’s always opportunity for a quick blade on my staff. I’ll remember this.”
The young guardsman kept his thrill contained as best he could. “Thank you, sir.”
Jianzhu nudged a body onto its back. The dead man was clothed in the standard attire of a bandit, in the sense that he wore whatever peasant clothing he’d taken with him from his last legitimate occupation. This one had the trousers of a sailor or a sailmaker, mended repeatedly with fine sewing skill.
But there was an odd detail on his shirt. He’d stuck a flower in his lapel. It was too ruined to see what kind.
Jianzhu checked another body. It had no decoration on its person, but he backtracked along the path the man had charged and found what he was looking for on the ground. A dried moon peach blossom.
A badge, Jianzhu thought with some vehemence.
He straightened up and looked around. The mountains loomed nearby. They were said to be uninhabited. Practically impassable. Yet these men weren’t clothed for an expedition.
With a sudden burst of energy he slammed his palm against the ground. Tremors rang through the earth, spreading wide like ripples in a pond.
“Sir, are you . . . searching for something underground?” Saiful asked.
“Maybe,” Jianzhu said, his attention skimming over the grass. “Though what I’m doing right now is preserving their footprints.”
He continued along the trail left by Saiful’s opponents, watching the indentations they made with their heels and toes in the dirt, examining where they left mud on grass. A long time ago, he’d tracked criminals down in such a way, by listening to the earth and reading its marks.
The prints, in reverse, led to a clearing with a conspicuous gray rock the size of a chair. Jianzhu waved it away with a brush of his hand. Underneath was a wooden trap door.
“A hidden passage?” Saiful asked.
Jianzhu nodded grimly. “Hidden passage. Through the mountains.”
“Sir . . . is this town supposed to be here?” Saiful said.
