"Fine shot!"
Li Xuanxuan stood upon the vast corpse of that brown-furred boar demon, eyeing the bowl-sized wound with admiration, while beside him Li Xuanfeng lowered his long bow and boasted with a grin:
"How about that? My arrows are no common stock."
"Good, good."
Li Xuanxuan nodded, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth:
"Only a shame about this fine hide."
Li Xuanfeng was struck dumb and gave an awkward laugh. He had just opened his mouth to speak when a clan soldier came barreling over, only to be barred by the armored guards a few steps in. His armor was spattered with blood head to foot, and he dropped straight to his knees, wailing:
"Young Patriarch! The Mountain Yue have taken Lijing Town and killed their way up Lijing Mountain!"
Li Xuanfeng shook his head in disbelief, seized the soldier up one-handed, and thundered:
"Do you have any idea what you're saying?!"
"Feng'er!"
Li Xuanxuan too was drenched in cold sweat, his hands and feet trembling with dread. He hurriedly rescued the man from his brother's grip and, heedless of the blood that covered him, helped him up and asked again and again:
"How could the Mountain Yue be in Lijing Town?! What of the clan soldiers the Patriarch took with him? And what of Lichuan Gap?!"
The soldier knew the urgency of the hour:
"The Patriarch and that thousand clan soldiers have vanished without a trace! We went to Lichuan Gap to beg aid, but took a volley of arrows — Lichuan Gap is in Mountain Yue hands as well!"
Li Xuanxuan felt every hair of his body stand on end, gave a slow step backward, countless dreadful scenes flooding his mind's eye. His blade slid slowly back into its sheath, and he fell silent.
"Scout Lijing Town and Lichuan Gap again."
Li Xuanxuan spat out a single sentence, then said in a heavy voice:
"Send someone to the reedbeds to find our second uncle."
"No need."
Li Tongya descended from the sky to Li Xuanxuan's side and spoke with a solemn face:
"I have already been to Lichuan Gap. Three thousand troops are camped there, with one Qi Refining cultivator on guard. As for Lijing Town, there are more than three thousand Mountain Yue, and at least three at Qi Refining."
Li Tongya had been gathering the river clear qi along the bank, working his way at last to the shore opposite Lichuan Gap. There he saw the village bristling with torches and many figures moving in the shadows, doubt creeping into his heart. Drawing near through the air, he saw shaven-headed, tattooed Mountain Yue on all sides, and his heart gave a jolt.
No sooner had he neared than a Qi Refining Mountain Yue rose into the air and drove a mass of thick black mist at him.
Li Tongya fought with him a time or two. The Dark Water Sword Scripture, backed by his river true essence, beat back the rough-and-ready Qi Refining Mountain Yue time and again, yet Li Tongya, fearing reinforcements, drew off angrily rather than press the fight.
"The Patriarch..."
Li Xuanxuan started to ask, but Li Tongya furrowed his brow and shook his head:
"I was turned back as soon as I reached Lichuan Gap. I saw no war-host on the riverbank, but neither any trace of battle. Xiangping must have withdrawn in good time, or struck off in some other direction."
Only then did Li Xuanxuan let out a long breath, and the taut look on Li Xuanfeng's face beside him eased as well. Li Tongya slapped a hand on his embroidered pouch, and a jade seal came out into his palm — the Qingchi Sect's token of governance, on which a few small characters had surfaced:
"Bear and forbear, for now."
Li Tongya put the seal away with a grim face. Earlier he had sent word through that very seal to beg for aid; for half an hour nothing stirred, and at last only these four characters had come back.
"The Qingchi Sect is beyond relying on now. We can only see which way Ganixo moves..."
---
Li Xuanling and Li Jingtian had rested only a while when the gate was shattered open and a dozen or more Mountain Yue filed in, one seeming to be a petty chieftain striding in holding a blade. He set eyes on Li Jingtian and his gaze brightened, laughing:
"A fine little fish-maid, she is."
The two started at once. In her heart Li Jingtian wondered how Ganixo could have found this place, and found it stranger still that he had sent only common men; the thing felt not right. Li Xuanling clenched his fist and reasoned:
"To knock these fellows down would be no great toil, but I fear drawing in the Mountain Yue from the streets. If I lure in one of their cultivators, we'll never get away again."
The Mountain Yue chieftain swept them up and down with his gaze, waved a hand, and called out loud:
"Take them!"
At once two men came up with ropes to bind Li Xuanling and company. Li Xuanling looked up at Li Jingtian and saw her shake her head slightly, so he let himself be bound and led off.
Li Xuanling twisted a little and felt the ropes loose and slack, as if one good tug would tear them apart. These men plainly had not guarded against a boy of ten, never dreaming that Li Xuanling was already at the second layer of Embryonic Breathing.
The two followed out of the yard, and there they saw swaths of children and youths being herded like cattle and sheep toward the mountain woods, while above their heads a man trod the empty air, his body patterned with tattoos and his head a mass of long braids.
"Qi Refining..."
Li Xuanling forced the two words out through his teeth and walked on with Li Jingtian, both led slowly into the woods. He made as if to stumble, staggered, and toppled to the ground, splashing his head and face with mud.
"These past years I've spent much time at the foot of the mountain, and everyone knows my face. Some fool is bound to cry out my name if he sees me — I must keep disguising myself."
He bent his head, made himself look as unremarkable as he could by wiping his collar against his clothes, and watched the back of Li Jingtian ahead with a quiet, relieved sigh, thinking:
"Good thing my elder sister hasn't come down the mountain these years and keeps to her chambers; otherwise, with a striking air like hers, it would never have been kept secret."
Before them lay the Big Fish Brook; cross it, and they would be in Mountain Yue territory. Not yet resigned, Li Xuanling quietly took out the magic mirror, then let his hand fall with a wry smile.
Three Qi Refining cultivators trod the sky over the whole column, and Mountain Yue soldiers pressed them before and behind, the guard kept tight. Yet the spiritual awareness of a Qi Refining cultivator had its limits, and they flew high and could not make out Li Xuanling below. The two had no choice but to press grimly on. They walked a full day and a night, until at last a crude stockade came into view.
Inside the stockade one could already see a good many living souls, irons clamped on their feet, dragging cogs and grain stores with labored steps — the whole but loosely guarded, to all first glance.
"For a common man it would be hard to escape this stockade. But for a cultivator it's another matter. When night runs deep, I'll kick off the chains, take my elder sister, and slip away."
Li Xuanling felt his heart loosen at once. Then he saw a crowd gathered up ahead, everyone being bound with irons in turn and made to kneel while a few Mountain Yue shamans painted the horizontal marks of a slave on their necks.
Men were already coming forward to untie the ropes, leading the girls and young women off to one side. Li Jingtian was pulled from the crowd, and a clamor of wonder broke out among both Mountain Yue and slaves alike.
"This... whose daughter is she? Fine to look on, truly."
"A pretty little fish-maid."
Li Jingtian smeared the mud onto her face in secret, but her pert nose and the smooth line of her profile could not be hidden by anything. The grey-black eyes inherited from Li Xiangping, so different from the Mountain Yue, were clear and strangely moving.
Li Xuanling had no time to think it over before he was dragged into the stockade. The Mountain Yue clamped a wooden yoke about him. Not skilled in smelting, they spent their little copper and iron on forging blades; naturally they had no iron fetters, and used solid timber for their yokes instead.
Letting the Mountain Yue shaman paint the horizontal marks on his neck, Li Xuanling quietly watched Li Jingtian's doings out of the corner of his eye. He saw the long-braided Mountain Yue, who had hung high in the sky, descend slowly and come to a stand before the crowd to scrutinize her.