The fleeing mortals made it four days before the heretics caught up. They had a lot to organize, it seemed. Tian didn’t understand the logistics of slave running, and didn’t care to learn. What he did know was that there were a dozen of them, men and women, spreading in a rough circle around the camp. The former slaves had poor night vision, and they had little fuel for fires. They cooked over burning dried horse dung. Not a very hot flame, but it had the advantage of being readily available. Tian could relate. Nights were hours of terror, as they peered into the darkness under the net of stars. Praying that the hook moon would give enough light that they could catch a glimpse of their former captors, that it would reflect on a bit of metal, something, anything, that would give them time to run.
Tian understood the feeling perfectly. So did the heretics. That’s why they moved silently, their greys and browns fading into the night. Their short, loose trousers and robes softening the lines of their body so they seemed to blend with the shadows. They were cautious, pausing to listen, to peer into those same shadows that hid them. Looking up and around, putting their nose to the earth and sniffing, always sensitive to the least breath of foreign qi. Sensitive for anything that even hinted at an immortal about. An orthodox ambush would be bad. A heretic one would be no better.
They didn’t dawdle or hesitate, though. They must have been pretty confident that whoever rescued the slaves wasn't there any longer. Why would a heavenly person hang about? There was simply no profit in it for them.
Tian and Liren stood on their swords, a couple of hundred feet up. There was a curious looking incense burner on the end of Tian’s sword, releasing a thin grey smoke with no odor. Something they picked up from the Mantis heretic. It had taken them a depressingly long time to figure out what it did. The heretics crept to within a quarter mile of the camp. The two Heavenly cultivators shared a look. No more coming. All the hidden players had been found.
Liren raised her hand and silently called a javelin into it. It wasn’t a very good one, like all the weapons looted from Lian’s warehouse, but it was available, and that made it the best javelin. Tian called out his Imperial Heavenly Swallows, a mix of refined monstrous caterpillar hairs he had forged within his acupoints, blood refined slivers of horn, and tens of blood refined acupuncture needles. Really, there was no charm quite like “available.”
No need for any talk. Liren silently pointed out a heretic to Tian, then started throwing. Tian sent the swallows down in a silent dive as well. The more he used the darts, the truer their name became. They moved like a flock, diving and twisting, the seeming chaos concealing a deeper order. Tian had always liked watching birds. Spending more time studying swallows wouldn’t be any hardship. The needles ripped through heads and spines, not giving the heretics any time to react. Some heretics were pierced dozens of times, just to kill off the horrors they carried inside of them.
Liren’s attacks were brutally direct. The javalens flew, pierced, and obliterated whatever they hit. Tian could tell she was already experimenting. Tian’s attack was driven entirely by qi. Hers was forcibly thrown down, the javelins made even more rigid and piercing by her qi. A tiny strand of qi guided the javelins to their target. Not that they needed it. Liren had very good aim, and none of the targets had a chance to react.
It wasn’t a battle. It could barely be described as an execution. “Culling” was the word that came to mind. Destroying the rabid animals before they could bite healthy people.
The two drifted out of the sky, landing softly on the grass next to the heretic Liren had picked out. She was lying on the ground, gasping. She stank, urine and absolute terror.
“What did you do?” Liren asked.
“Remote acupuncture. I regret that my aim was less than precise. Though the needles I put through her spine slid between exactly the right vertebrae, so there is that little bit of success. She is in distress, but not in pain. She can’t feel much of anything below her chin. Without medical intervention, her breathing will become increasingly labored, and she will smother to death.”
They weren’t bothering to use mental transmissions.
“Why are you keeping me alive?” The woman’s voice came out in little gasps. Hard to tell what she would normally sound like.
“Because you don’t reek of gu or demons, so I don’t begrudge you a brief extension on your life.” Liren squatted next to her. The heretic wore rough clothes, but not ragged. Tian could see where they had been hemmed and neatly patched. Her weapon was a bent knife, looking more agricultural than military, and the curse qi was palpable just standing near it.
“Sorcerer?” Tian asked.
“I’ve been called that. And worse.”
“Alright. What’s your name?”
The sorceress blinked. “What?”
“Your name. What is it?”
“Foggy Night Witch.”
As dao titles went, it was one. Tian closed his eyes briefly, sighed, then opened them again. “Alright. Here is what you need to know. I have questions. You, I hope, have at least some answers. You don’t have to answer me. I’m not going to torture you, mentally torment you, or any of that. Not even with the illusion of hope. You aren’t surviving past the end of this conversation, no matter how it goes. The longer the conversation lasts, the longer I keep you alive. I won’t lie to you, and you don’t lie to me. If you do, my Dao companion will know, and then both this conversation and your life will quickly come to an end.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The sorceress made a breathy noise that might have been a laugh. “One of the best offers I ever got. What do you want to know?”
“Did you get a tip, or were you sent here?”
“Sort of both. A certain slave trader told Crippleback the rumor, clearly hinting that there was a lot of money and treasure there for the taking, and we might even get to keep some of it if we delivered it to him quick enough.”
“Which slave trader?”
“Goldtruth. Fort Askarmand is on his usual route, and everyone knows he’s backed by Lord Deadheart, so in a way, this is a job that comes from the Fortress Master.”
Tian shook his head. “I guess the old bastard wanted to test us. I guarantee he uses hostages or threatens to kill babies or something the next time we run into him.”
“Definately.” Liren and the Foggy Night Witch chorused.
“Haah. Why are the… here.” Tian pulled out a needle. The witch’s breathing got a little less labored, for the moment. “Why are the tribes moving? It’s not just one man who suddenly became ‘beloved by the spirits.’ A heretic, or heretics, are the origin of this. Who, and how?”
“Can’t it be both? I thought the orthodox were all about balance, and two things being true at the same time.” There was that little breathy noise, a giggle, maybe? “Wuusan became beloved by the spirits, yes. The Wolf and the Horse, more the wolf, of course, but with those two settling their blessings on him, many, many others followed. And he became beloved by the spirits because he made a deal.”
“Ah. A chance to change his fate.”
“I don’t know the details, but it was literally that. Something that severed his original fate, and gave him a new one. A life of roaming, conquest, and glory. Looting, raping, fathering endless children on his wives and concubines and slaves. Receiving the adulation of the warriors, the admiration of the spirits, and the blessings of heaven and earth. Those who submit lose everything except their lives, but in return, they can serve him. And once you do, you receive a piece of his fortune. The tribes that submitted no longer exist. The people who made up those tribes? Doing very well. Very well indeed. Most of them.”
“Who? How?”
“You think a little devil like me knows what those great ones get up to? I’m just trying to live well, not even dreaming of becoming a being on your level. You know why I’m out here? Because it’s my life if I don’t, but also because I am making a doll out of hair from nine hundred and ninety nine different women, and four hundred and forty four dead men’s toenails. When it is complete, I will perform a working upon it that will have it suffer any curses laid on me, as well as deceiving any divination spells cast on me. I could pick up a lot of materials on this job. Does hunting for toenails sound like something someone with kingdom toppling ambition does?”
Her voice was getting more labored. Tian pulled out a few more needles, and gently fed a little qi into her body. Just a little.
“No, not kingdom toppling ambition. You really have no idea who’s behind this?”
“I don’t know for sure, but it’s someone contesting for Black Iron Gorge. One of those great ones. Eight countries border the Redstone Wastes. Broadsky Kingdom is one of the weaker ones. Not a surprise that one of those old monsters would borrow a knife to slit its throat. Word is, some of those homeless birds are helping them.”
“Pardon? People from the Ancient Crane Monastery?” Tian asked.
“Why not? Why not? Control each step of the slave trade, and you have a grip on three powers. Ah, it’s hard to live, hard to live.”
“You made it harder for many others.”
“I did, yes, as they did to me. I am the witch who walks the hills with her lantern on foggy nights, leading men to their deaths, or children into my cauldron or whatever the story is now. Because that is someone with power. Someone who couldn’t keep on being hurt by everyone. And when I needed help, when I was screaming, and begging, and crying, and had just given up and lay there for the hundredth time, where were they? Them? Those people you are worried about. Where were they? Did they help me? Extend a hand? A kind word? Even a single look of sympathy?”
Tian slowly closed his eyes. “No, they didn’t. They looked away, thinking it was a pity, but glad it wasn’t them. They invented reasons why it was alright that it was happening to you. Reasons you deserved it.”
“Yes, yes, exactly. My mother slapped me and called me a whore. She called me a whore. My own mother wouldn’t comfort me. So either I’m evil, or the whole world is, and I say it’s the world. I’m not that special. It’s the world. The gods exist, and we exist for their amusement. There is no justice in this life, nor will there be any in the next. The heavens are mad, the earth convulses, humans teach the demons how to sin and the devils how to suffer. So I embraced the night. Found comfort in the fog. I found power. I did what it took to get it, and I’m not sorry. I’m not sorry about the people I killed. Not sorry about what I stole. Not sorry about a damn thing.”
“And when you saw people hurt the way you were hurt?”
The Foggy Night Witch was struggling to breathe now, gasping after every word. “They deserved it. Better them than me. Right? Ha. Ha. Ha. You hypocrite. White robe. Will you mourn for me?”
Tian shook his head. “No. But I will remember you.” Tian tapped the witch’s forehead, a sharp pulse of qi destroying her brain and sending her off to King Yan for judgement.
Tian looked over at Liren. She looked pale in the moonlight. “She never lied. Every word was true. Might not be correct, but she didn’t lie.”
Tian nodded. “I thought so.”
Liren closed her eyes. “What a shame.”
The wind blew cold across the short grass and swaying myrtle. Insects rustled and chirped and somewhere in the distance a fox was making impossible noises. Long, long ago, Brother Wong said that not a single doctor in the hospital could extend their compassion to a heretic, and that fact alone was enough to make them all bad daoists. And… even with everything she said, even with the way she faced death without complaint, even knowing how she had suffered, he still felt no pity or compassion for her.
He really was a bad daoist. He was just better than the heretics, and apparently, a whole lot of orthodox cultivators too. He looked up at the fishhook moon, finding little comfort there. “Yeah. Shame.”