“NO!” Tian heard someone yelling, they sounded familiar but his blood was thundering in his ears and the person who tried to kill Liren was right there, right there, and still holding his filthy bow. The depression had blown away in an instant, first by fear, then fury. He was yelling something too, or just screaming his outrage as he sent his Heavenly Swallows down to exterminate the enemies.
Heretics. Those with different hearts. Liren didn’t even have her spear out. She was moving, blazing fast, a line of fire behind her. She was standing in front of the man with the bow. Why? His darts would have to go around her. Why? She was yelling something.
“Zihao! Come back! Come back!”
Come back? But he wasn’t lost. He knew where he was. He knew what was happening. Liren was in front of the man he needed to kill. She was yelling at him. Grandpa’s hand was on his shoulder.
Liren… probably wasn’t in danger. He couldn’t feel the breath of immortality on any of these people. None of the qi sensation he got from the shamans or the grand shaman, other than the one Liren was still holding by the neck. Even that one was a bare smidge of nothing. He had seen many, many more powerful plants. Rocks too. Even ponds. Old Toad could probably clear out this whole region, if they had any money.
The inane thought jolted him enough to shift his thoughts.
“Sis? What, exactly, happened in the minute I was away?”
“Good. Good you are back. Good you didn’t kill anyone.”
“Let us say ‘not yet,’ not ‘didn’t.’ Why did you stop me killing the thing that tried to kill you?”
“Zihao… he can’t kill me even if I handed him a sword and gave him all day to hack at my neck. Look around you. Really look around you. Listen.”
Screams of animals. Horses whinnying and screaming as they tried to escape their hobbles, some falling over and breaking bones, others bucking and thrashing and throwing their heads around. Sheep and goats bleating and making the most hellish noises as they desperately ran, ran, ran.
The camp was still. Everyone was lying on the ground, hands over their heads, barely daring to breathe. Somewhere, muffled, a baby started to cry.
They weren’t like that a moment ago. He was sure he had seen some of them up. Looking at the distribution, they were gathering around Liren. Why were they now lying down?
“Your qi and your murderous intent. It hammered them.” Liren read his face and explained, her voice soft. “You are in the Heavenly Realm, used to keeping your qi restrained. Even your ordinary intent is more than Earthly Realm juniors can easily bear.”
Tian blinked. Liren was right. He kept his qi restrained around Little Han and walking around the city. Well, except for that one time, but he was making a point then. Now that he thought about it, even that gentle rising of qi was enough to put Han on his knees and his head on the flagstones.
An old memory intruded. Before he found Little Toad, he had sparred a bit with Little Treasure. Level Three of the Earthly Realm, and he couldn’t bear Tian’s Level Eight intent. How much worse, then, for ordinary mortals?
“Alright. So?”
“He can’t kill me, Zihao. It’s an ordinary iron tipped arrow, fired by a mortal bow, without any of the enchantments we have seen shaman using. Even if I let it hit me, it would just bounce off my skin. Or did you think all my body cultivation is for show?”
Tian smiled, fragile and small. “My dao companion has the figure of a Goddess, how would I dare criticise?"
She snorted at that, then met his eyes steadily. “Killing them isn’t self defence, Zihao. It’s just murder. My dao companion is the kindest soul I know. How could I let him become a murderer in my name?”
Tian staggered back, landing on the steppe grass with a thud. Rock thrower. That’s what it was. That’s what it already had been. These were small and weak people, and he was tormenting them to make himself feel better. Just rock throwing. Nausea crept up his throat, choking him. Like he had very nearly done something truly unforgivable. Like there would be no place between heaven and earth for one such as him.
“I think… I think I have a lot to think about.” Tian’s voice came out flat. “We almost never saw Heavenly People around, unless we had business with them. Back in the sect, I mean. There were battles with them around, but they were always high up and far away.”
“Yeah. It’s funny how much more you understand your seniors as you get older.” Tian and Liren were quickly closing in on their twenty-first birthday, but Tian didn’t find her choice of words strange. They were Heavenly Realm cultivators. By the Kingdom’s standards, they were the seniors. They wouldn’t have to even cup their fist when meeting the emperor, let alone bowing. Not that they would ever have a single reason to meet a mortal emperor. What would be the point? What could they even talk about?
Heavenly Realm Cultivators stayed out of sight because mortals and Earthly cultivators didn’t have anything they wanted, and because their presence could be harmful. When they were around, or out in the world, they locked down their qi tightly. He had seen, but not understood. Story of his life, really.
Well. Not really.
Tian shook his head and tried to focus again on why they were here. “That’s the shaman?”
“Yep.”
“Let’s go. Take her with.”
Liren nodded. They summoned their flying swords. Liren tossed the shaman over her shoulder like a towel, and they shifted a short ten miles from the camp. The shaman was keeping silent, though Tian could hear her heart thundering as they flew.
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“I would have thought someone who watched the world through the eyes of an eagle would be more used to flying.” Tian’s voice was mild, his qi restrained. His stomach was churning from what almost happened. How could he have been so stupid? Of course a mortal couldn’t hurt Liren! He knew better than anyone just how strong and tough she was. How could he lose his mind like that? And she was right, it would have been murder. Pointless, senseless slaughter, of the most contemptible kind.
“My hat fell off.” The shaman muttered. “If you aren’t going to kill me, the least you could do is get it back. It’s important.”
“Oh? Why?” Liren asked.
“Because you are the reason it got lost!”
“No, why is it important?” Liren squatted next to the shaman who was still laying on the grass. The shaman’s yellow robes made a pleasant contrast to the green grass, in Tian’s opinion. The shaman looked… ordinary. More tanned than he would have assumed, but then, she probably lived most of her life outdoors.
“I’m not a sorcerer, magicking things out of thin air! Those feathers are hard to come by, and a good hat takes quite a bit of wool. The dye is very expensive. It’s made especially for rituals. These things are obvious.”
Maybe it was the word ‘shaman’ throwing him off. It was a name that seemed to say “lives in a hut all the time,” but that was nonsense once he thought about it. She would obviously have to ride with everyone else.
“Mmm. Well, I don’t mind taking a look if you live through this conversation.” Liren shrugged.
“Why wouldn’t I live? Do you kill people for looking at you?”
“Not usually,” Tian squatted next to Liren. “But I’m open minded. Willing to try new things. I’d suggest you take the same attitude. For example, today you had the novel experience of inviting two heavenly cultivators directly into your camp, when you could have just talked to me through your bird. Which I did say would be more comfortable for everyone.”
“You came uninvited! Don’t try to twist things on me, sorcerer!”
Tian sighed. “Yes, that is true. Let’s start over. My name is Tian, what is yours?”
“You named yourself Heaven?!”
“No, I was named Tian. What is your name?”
“Who the hell-”
“Miss, I’m going to get above average cranky if you keep answering my questions with questions.”
She glowered at him. Which he supposed was fair. The did just kidnap her and her bird.
“My name is Tian. What is your name?”
The glowering continued.
Tian sat down and started setting out his teaware. He waved Liren over, and she sat across from him. Tian fixed her a cup and they enjoyed a decent little red tea. It had a lovely honey flavor to it, and if it was a bit one-note, at least it was a nice note. The shaman lay on the ground, not moving. The sun shifted across the sky. Liren and Tian sat at the little table, enjoying their tea and a few snacks.
The expressions crossing the Shaman’s face were quite interesting when she realized that no one was holding her down, she wasn’t tied up, and there really wasn’t anything stopping her from getting up. There hadn’t been for more than an hour. She slowly got to her feet, knees and elbows bent and eyes fixed on the two cultivators. Her hand slowly drifted towards the knife on her waist.
Tian offered the tea pot to Liren, who shrugged and nodded. Tian poured her another cup. The joy of good tea was that you could get many steeps out of it. This one was about done, but that was alright. It was about experiencing the whole range of flavors the tea could offer, not enjoying only a singular peak.
“What will you do with-” She said a name that Tian didn’t catch. He was fairly sure she was referring to the eagle.
“My name is Tian, what is yours?”
The glowering intensified. Her mouth twitched to the side and the name “Narantuyaa” escaped.
“Hello, Narantuyaa.” Tian didn’t mind that it was plainly an assumed name. The important thing is that they were talking. “Have you heard about any suddenly famous people in the Boruski tribe? Any foreign names appearing, or someone who is suddenly much stronger than they used to be?”
“You mean other than Clan Head Wuusan? I’d say unifying ten clans is suddenly becoming powerful.”
“How did the annexation of the Chimmurgh Clan go? Last I heard, they were going to play it off as amicable.” Tian could remember the conversation he overheard, barely. It was in that terrible restaurant they visited the first day they had returned to Burning Flag City.
“Clan Head Hokaldi was received with great honors, raised to a high noble rank, and the two clans became one. Peacefully.” She didn’t sound like she believed it either.
“Straight into the Council of Elders with a big jug of wine and all the roasted lamb he could eat, well away from the noise of the warriors and the common clanfolk, eh?”
“Probably. What are you going to do with-” She said the name again, and once again, it evaded Tian’s ears. He frowned a little. It really was slipping past him, the name sounding a bit garbled.
“I think whatever spirit you have bound is interfering with me hearing the name of your… familiar? Summons? Pet?”
“She is not a pet.” He could see her hands tightening.
Tian nodded apologetically. “What should I think of her as, then?”
“An eagle of the Endless Blue Sky.”
“Hah. Fair enough.” Tian untied the bird and stood her upright. He gave her head a gentle stroke and woke her up. “I fostered a crane myself. She would be more than just mad to be called a pet. Here. Return to your comrade.” Tian gently shooed the bird over.
Narantuyaa looked momentarily stunned, but her eyes narrowed once again. She lifted the eagle up onto her arm, then tossed it gently skyward. The eagle took off in a flap of enormous wings, clawing through the air until it was high enough to soar.
“That never stops being magical.” Tian murmured. “Even though I can fly on a sword now, it never loses its wonder.”
“It is holy, if a sorcerer’s mind can comprehend such a thing.”
“I think I can. At least, I can understand why you call it that. We aren’t hunting your people, Narantuyaa. We will probably kill a few of your grand shamans, but truthfully, we aren’t here for them. Do you know the sort of people I mean when I say ‘heretics?’” Tian carefully cleaned out the pot, stowing the tea leaves in his ring. He wasn’t sure what would happen if he dumped them on the steppes, and wasn’t very interested in finding out.
“You think…”
“Mmm.” Tian refilled the kettle. He glanced over at Liren, who wiggled her hand. Tian held up a jar with an acceptable green tea, and she nodded. He added the leaves to the pot, adjusted the temperature of the water, and made sure the final product didn’t come out bitter. Green tea had a way of going bitter if you oversteeped it.
“Not even going to offer me a cup?” Narantuyaa grumbled.
“Would you drink it if I did offer it?” Tian asked.
“No.”
“For the best. It would kill you.” Tian sipped his drink and sighed contentedly. “I make a decent pot of Caravan Tea, but I expect you have your own particular way you enjoy drinking it.”
That got him a double take, then a snort. “You want heretics, don’t come bothering my little tribe. We have enough troubles. Go find the slave forts. Try Fort Askarmand. It’s near your Burning Flag City, a week west on horse, next to the Yness river. There are sure to be some Grand Shamans there too, though it sounds like that won’t be any problem for you at all.”