Chương 3

Lodin's backfist caught Wen Heung across the cheek before the swordsman could raise his guard. Knuckle met bone, and Wen's head snapped to the side and his feet left the cobblestones. The swordsman spun away, arms flung wide, and blood sprayed from his lips in a red arc that caught the sunlight. His dao slipped from his fingers and clattered against the stones. Lodin was already past him. His right fist sank deep into Oren's midsection, a hook that folded the hatchet man in half.

Air rushed from Oren's lungs in a wet gasp. The hatchet man doubled over and stumbled backward, both hands pressed to his stomach, hatchets loose in his fingers. Neither man saw the punch that struck him. Nor did they see where he'd gone. The first two knuckles of Lodin's left hand ached in a pleasant way, the dull warmth of a clean connection. Good shots, both of them. The kind that ended fights when thrown at full power. He rolled his shoulders and let the men recover. Wen spun to a stop ten feet away.

His hand found his dao where it had fallen, and he snatched it up. Oren backpedaled in the opposite direction, one arm wrapped around his midsection. Both men looked around frantically for Lodin, their heads swiveling, eyes wild. The market stretched around them, stalls abandoned, cobblestones bare. Somewhere a loose canopy flapped in the harbor breeze. Lodin stood on their far side, twenty feet away. A smirk played across his face. He watched them find him.

They had faced him with weapons raised, both of them together, and he had crossed the distance, struck them both, and repositioned before either could react. The fear had begun to creep into their eyes. They charged together. Wen came from the left, dao raised high in a two-handed grip. Oren came from the right, hatchets swept back for a cross-body slash. They closed like the jaws of a trap. Lodin did not move his feet.

As the dao swept down at his skull, he leaned left and the blade passed his ear, close enough to stir his hair. The hatchets carved toward his ribs. He leaned right and the steel cut air. Wen thrust at his throat and Lodin tucked his chin, let the point of the blade barely scrape his collarbone. Oren chopped at his shoulder, and he dipped beneath it and the edge passed over his head. His boots stayed planted on the cobblestones.

They swung and thrust and slashed, but his upper body flowed around their attacks like water around stones. Sweat beaded on Wen's forehead. Oren's breath came in ragged gasps. Lodin kept his attention on them, and kept his speed down to something they could barely follow. A hatchet came down at his face and Lodin raised his forearm to block the blade. Steel rang against flesh. The hatchet stopped dead, as if it had struck an iron bar instead of meat. The sound of it was wrong, too dull, too hard.

Wen's dao came from the side with a horizontal slash at chest height. Lodin turned and caught it on his other forearm. The blade stopped against his skin as if it had struck stone. He felt the impact shudder through his bones, felt the edge press against flesh that would not yield. The faintest line of white marked his forearm where the blade had pressed, a crease that faded even as he watched. Both men froze. Oren's face slackened.

The hatchet had struck true, edge-on, full force behind the blow, and Lodin's forearm had stopped it cold. There was no blood, nor was there anything that could be called a wound. Wen stepped back. His eyes swept from Lodin's unmarked arms to his face, and his mouth fell open. Wen's face had gone pale beneath the bruises. His voice cracked when he spoke.

"You are hiding your cultivation! You have to be!" Lodin smiled at them. Wen roared and charged. Whatever fear had crept into his face, pride burned it away. He raised his dao in a two-handed grip and brought it down at Lodin's skull with all the force he could muster. Lodin stepped forward and punched the blade. His fist met the steel at the midpoint, knuckles against the flat, and the dao shattered.

There was a blast of released qi from the weapon as fragments of soulsteel spun through the air in a spray of silvery shards. Wen stumbled past him, hands still wrapped around a broken hilt, fingers numb from the impact. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Oren came from behind. His left hatchet swept at Lodin's neck in a horizontal arc. Lodin caught it. His fingers closed around the blade, around the edge that should have cut to bone, and he squeezed.

The metal crumpled in his grip. The blade folded in on itself, edges pressed flat, metal that screamed as it compressed. He opened his hand and let the ruin fall. Oren's other hatchet came up in an uppercut, his last weapon, driven with desperate strength at Lodin's chin. Lodin struck the blade with the edge of his hand. His knife-hand met the steel where the head joined the haft, and the weapon broke. The hatchet head snapped clean off and tumbled across the cobblestones. Both men stood before him, disarmed.

Lodin settled back into his stance. Oren grunted, threw a straight punch at Lodin's face, backed by the force of his shoulder and hip. Lodin blocked it with his forearm. The impact was nothing. He answered with two left hooks that landed in the space of a single breath. The first sank into Oren's liver. Oren's eyes bulged. His knees buckled. The color drained from his face. The second crashed against his ribs. Bone cracked beneath the hook. Oren's mouth opened but no sound came out and he dropped to one knee.

Behind Oren, Wen scrambled for an angle. The swordsman vaulted over his fallen comrade, hand flattened into a blade shape and thrust at Lodin's throat. A sword hand, basic, reliable, deadly when executed well. Lodin struck the arm that threw it. The wet crack of snapped bone echoed across the empty market and Wen's forearm bent at an angle that arms did not naturally bend. The swordsman screamed. His momentum carried him forward, off balance, his guard gone.

The back of Lodin's right fist caught Wen on the left side of his jaw. More bone cracked. Wen's scream cut short. He staggered back, one step, two steps, arms limp, jaw askew, and somehow stayed on his feet. His eyes had gone glassy but his legs held him up. Both men faced him now. Oren had risen to his feet, one hand pressed to his broken ribs, each heavy breath whistling through his missing teeth. Wen swayed but held his ground, his broken arm limp at his side. Neither man made to flee or beg.

They stood their ground on broken bodies and waited for what came next. Lodin looked at them and saw what the Divine Gale Sect had made. They had grit, and fair technique. Too bad they were the type to terrorize a potter in the market. Certainly what he'd just witnessed was one abuse among many, committed on a near daily basis.

"You two have some toughness," Lodin said.

"I'd compliment it, if you weren't bullies." Oren's face twisted.

"You picked a fight with us!" The potter's terrified face hung in his memory. And the merchant Chen, who had flinched at the sight of any cultivator. The crowd that had scattered like prey animals at the first sign of violence. These two had never connected the dots. Perhaps they never would. They came at him together, one last time. Wen threw a crescent kick, the edge of his foot sheathed in razor wind. The air qi screamed as the kick cut through the space.

Oren lunged beside him, tiger claws wreathed in lightning, blue-white arcs that snapped and sparked between his fingers. Lodin watched them come and noted their desperation, their last reserves of qi burning bright. The lightning reached for him and the wind screamed toward him. Then he was gone. Their attacks struck empty space. Lightning met wind. The air cracked and sparked and howled. A burst of light flashed across the cobblestones. Lodin stood behind them. Wen started to spin around.

Some instinct had told him where Lodin was. His broken arm hung limp but his good hand came up and his legs began to turn. The punch landed before he could complete the turn. Lodin's fist sank into Wen's stomach. A straight right hand, thrown from the hip, driven by the rotation of his entire body. His knuckles made impact against the swordsman's spine. Wen Heung flew backward, arms limp, head lolled. He struck Oren in the chest and the hatchet man left the ground too.

They streaked through the air together, a knot of tangled limbs and bloody faces, and struck the city wall with a crack that shook the stones. Dust rained from the mortar. A spiderweb of fractures spread across the stone behind Oren Shen's back. Wen slumped to the cobblestones. Only the whites of his eyes showed. His chest rose and fell in a shallow rhythm, but he gave no other sign of consciousness. Oren landed beside him. The hatchet man groaned. His hands pressed against the ground.

His arms shook as he tried to rise, made it to one knee. Lodin walked toward them. His footsteps echoed across the empty market. Stalls stood abandoned, their wares left behind. The cobblestones were littered with debris: shattered weapons, broken pottery, scattered spices from an overturned cart. The smell of ozone hung in the air. He stopped in front of Oren. The hatchet man looked up at him. His jaw hung crooked, broken in at least two places.

One eye had swelled shut, and the other fixed on Lodin with something that might have been hatred, or fear, or simply the dull acceptance of a man who knew he was beaten.

"Gimme your money," Lodin said to Oren Shen, then nodded at the supine form of Wen Heung.

"His too. I'm gonna give it to all the merchants whose stalls we wrecked." Oren's eyes bulged from the fresh insult, but he did as instructed. He detached Heung's coinpurse from his sash, and then his own, and tossed them at Lodin's feet. Lodin took in the look of burning resentment in Oren Shen's bloodshot eyes. He thought if he fed Oren a strong enough recovery pill right now, he'd be back on his feet and at him in a heartbeat.

"I don't get it," Lodin said.

"Why would a couple of guys like you be bullying merchants at the marketplace?" Oren stared at him, confusion plain in his expression.

"They're mortals," he said.

"We're cultivators."

"That's it?"

"That's how it works. The strong take from the weak." Oren spat blood onto the cobblestones.

"You just did the same thing to us."

"I picked a fight with two armed cultivators, whereas you two were bullying a potter." Lodin shook his head, reached into his storage ring and produced a roll of parchment. He unrolled it, held it up to the light, and scanned the contents. The document began with the heading: Mom's List.

"Divine Gale Sect…" he read aloud.

"Hmm…" His finger stopped.

"Ah. Here it is." He looked down at Oren.

"You go back to your sect," he said, then he looked down at the list and selected a name, "And tell… Somchai Lek, that he's an honorless dog, his mother is a cheap whore but I had a nice time anyway, and that I'll be waiting for him at the public arena in Saltside." Oren stared at him. His one good eye blinked incredulously. Lodin rolled the parchment, tucked it back into his ring, and turned away toward Chen's stall. He'd left his cone of toba beans on the counter there.

It would be a shame to let them go to waste.