Chương 48: B2 Interlude 1

Outer Disciple Hao Luoyang traced the curves of the pawprint with a finger. Tracking was not his strongest skill. There hadn't been much call for it on the streets of Huangshi. There, tracking meant talking. Loosening tongues and greasing palms until someone finally folded. It was different in the wilds. Less an interminable search for one big break and more of a steady process of acquiring more and more information. Paring away possibilities as evidence mounted. Slowly, he was getting better at it.

Senior Brother Ying was a most able teacher.

"I don't feel any of the yin qi we found on the bodies. The edges are dry, but not dry enough to crumble to dust at a touch." Hao Luoyang summarized.

"The bottom's neither wet, nor dry. A small amount debris at the bottom. Three days?"

"Closer to one or two, I think." Disciple Ying corrected.

"It has been a dry autumn. That makes new tracks look older, and old tracks look newer. Shallower impressions and quicker drying, but less erosion from water."

"I see. You're certain it is a wolf then?" Disciple Ying shook his head. The part of Disciple Hao that had never really left Huangshi listened carefully as his long braid brushed against his robes. It was a strange hairstyle, especially for a man. One that should have made more noise than it did, as the tail of it brushed against the older disciple's robes. Was one of those ornaments woven into his braid a talisman to mute sound? Or perhaps the effect was a property of Disciple Ying's robes, or a technique?

Disciple Hao wasn't planning to steal from the man, but in the city you learned to watch these things. Note whose robes concealed steel in their folds, which street rats were eating good this month.

"I'm certain these are wolf tracks." Disciple Ying said.

"They have the telltale symmetry of canid or feline prints. But they're large, with deep claw prints. No cat of this size would leave those claw marks. Even a tiger rarely leave claw imprints this deep, and it's pads would be twice the size of this one. The print is too large for a fox. It is certainly a wolf, or a very large wild dog."

"Does the difference matter?"

"Not tremendously. Wild dogs fear men less and are usually smarter, wolves are larger and stronger. Both are more likely to be part of a pack than alone."

"I thought you said there was only one spirit beast? Back when we examined the bodies?"

"I said one spirit beast killed those men." Disciple Ying said, frowning.

"The difference is important." His senior waded out into the brush surrounding the trail, stooping to look for further tracks. Disciple Hao sighed. He hated being out here. But this was one of the reasons why he liked Disciple Ying. He understood the world, and the place of men like them in it. A little cultivation was a dangerous thing. At the third and fifth stage of Qi Condensation respectively, the two of them were stronger than any mortal.

And yet, one well placed arrow fired from mortal bow could still put an end to either of them. Their qi would only be sufficient to turn such a strike if they were paying enough attention to flare it at the correct moment. The jaws of any spirit beast, or half a dozen mundane ones, were certainly sufficient to the task. If Disciple Ying urged caution, Hao Luoyang wasn't about to gainsay him. Again, his mind returned to Disciple Wang. They'd had such a good run of it, thick as thieves for their entire initiate year.

And then, two mistakes had ended his friend's career as a cultivator. Disciple Hao hadn't seen the monkey. And Disciple Wang had decided to fight the bear. That was it. That was all it took. Such a stupid way to go. He'd done his best to back up the headstrong idiot, but he hadn't been about to risk his own life for Wang Tao's pride. Why couldn't he have just retreated?

It would have been a close thing, but if he'd given up on the monkey the moment the Sun-Swallowing Bear revealed itself, instead of trying to hold back the bear as the fatty wrangled the monkey, he might have made a clean escape. Heroism like that were for nobles and prodigies. The sort of men who could afford to wash their hands of a mistake with a life-saving treasure and a healing pill. Men like them had to live in the real world. Keep their heads down and measure their risks carefully.

Being a cultivator didn't change that. He and Disciple Ying had both joined the team that put the Sun-Swallowing Bear down, led by Inner Disciple Sun. Ying had only really been in it for the chance to enter the Treasure Pavilion. Certainly, that had been a potent inducement. But Disciple Hao had done it in part for vengeance. A last gift for his crippled friend. It was all he could offer him. The final words they'd shared had not been pleasant.

Hao Luoyang had cut ties as cleanly as he could, soon after that fateful moment. Wang Tao had no place among cultivators anymore. For Disciple Hao to allow him to believe otherwise would not have been a kindness. He'd heard the outlandish rumors that Wang Tao had been taken as a disciple by the crippled Daoist Snowclad Heart. Hao Luoyang honestly wished him well. He hoped that the embattled daoist kept his title and recovered his cultivation, that Wang Tao proved him wrong and healed his arm.

But it did not strike him as likely. Disciple Hao exhaled, and set the thoughts aside. He needed to stay sharp. The week had been dull, but the wilds were never truly safe, not even for a cultivator. If Disciple Ying was worried, he should be too. What was he missing?

"I'm sorry, I don't see what you're getting at." Disciple Hao admitted.

"Could you enlighten me, senior?"

"I don't like how few tracks we're finding. Wolves are pack hunters. Even ones who have reached the status of spirit beast are rarely solitary. But we've only seen three sets of wolf tracks, separated by days. Everything points to a lone spiritual canine with a taste for human flesh, one with a yin cultivation base. I felt more dark than cold, so it is most likely a Shadestalker, but it could also be a Frostwolf or a Black Dog."

"Isn't that ideal for us? A single animal would need to be near the peak of qi condensation to pose a serious threat to the two of us. A pack seems far worse. Five or six mortal wolves might drag us down, if they closed to melee range before you began picking them off. I think I could take two or three on my own, but not more than that." Disciple Ying nodded.

"It is. I don't really have an analogy for living on the streets, but surely you've been burned before by trusting what looks like good fortune on the surface? The wolf being alone is ideal for us. But we don't know why it lacks a pack."

"Ah. It's like seeing a well dressed young master stumbling out of a tavern alone. Either he's got some cultivation already, or his guards are good enough you can't see them at all." Disciple Ying laughed.

"Silent Heavens I hope not. What would the equivalent of that be for us? A Foundation Establishment spirit beast? Some demon's pet? I was more concerned that it might be rabid, or infected with a plague that killed off the rest of it's pack. An ailment it managed to endure by virtue of superior cultivation. Something bizarre and uncommon that might let it strike back at us from beyond the grave." Disciple Hao shuddered. He could have thought for an hour, and never would have landed on that.

In the city, it was usually pretty obvious when someone was that ill. You didn't mug a man coughing up blood, if he had money, he'd have probably already spent it on medicine. The authorities tended to act quickly and decisively whenever such sicknesses appeared anyway, so seeing someone that sick in the street was a rare occurrence. He'd definitely let Disciple Ying handle the body.

"Do we move on?" He asked.

"Look for further sign?"

"No, this seems as good a spot as any. It is definitely passing through with some regularity."

"Finally! We're ambushing it, then?"

"Yes. Any spirit beast is most dangerous in two places. On the hunt, and in their lair. If I'm able to mark it, that advantage will be neutralized. We can harry it at our leisure, slowly bleed it out. If it is young, and it probably is to hunt men so boldly, it won't know to expect cultivator reprisal. We need to make the most of that first strike, before it becomes aware that it too is hunted."

"Good. We can't get back to civilization soon enough." They'd been out here almost a week already. The mortal villagers had been accommodating enough, properly deferential to the cultivators dispatched to save them. But there was a good reason nobody more senior had taken this assignment. Rooting around in the woods for lowly spirit beasts was a thankless task. Rough sleeping, cold food, thin qi. Disciple Ying frowned again.

"An impatient hunter finds himself prey to hunger. And not always his own." Disciple Hao inclined his head, accepting the correction.

"We're still setting the ambush here, right?"

"Yes. But attitude matters. And there's no sense getting too excited about the prospect of a warm meal and a bath. We might be waiting for close to a day. I'll take a place in that tree there. You should set a rope so that you have the option of retreating up into the limbs with it me if the beast proves more dangerous than expected. Wolves are nowhere near as gifted of climbers as bears, and a little cultivation won't be enough to change that.

Hang it somewhere off the path though, where it won't have a chance to see it before I strike."

"Yes, senior."

"It's coming." Disciple Ying's voice was calm. It almost sounded bored. But it was the first time he'd spoken in hours. His hand rose, signaling the direction the beast was approaching from. Ice flooded Disciple Hao's veins. The exhaustion that had been steadily building in his limbs vanished in an instant. He hefted his rope dart, unspooling an extra arm length of coil for the added range. He longed to cycle his qi, but he didn't have a stealth technique like Disciple Ying.

The only way he had to conceal his presence was to refrain from using his qi at all. He shifted, trying to find an angle that would let him spy the spirit beast through the bush that provided him cover. A twig cracked beneath his foot, and he winced, then froze. He had to trust in Disciple Ying. The plan flashed through his mind. Disciple Ying would strike first. The moment it turned toward him, Disciple Hao would charge it from its flank. Draw enough of its attention for the archer to put it down.

If it was a Shadestalker, it would be able to go immaterial to escape harm. But only for moments at a time. He didn't need to kill it. Didn't even need to hit it. That was his senior's job. All he had to do was get its attention, and to keep his weapon between him and the wolf. Incorporeality meant nothing if he was ready to strike at all times. The wait was agony. He could hear something in the distance. The crinkling of autumn leaves underfoot. Low, quiet, breaths.

His mouth was so dry his tongue felt like it was made of paper. He swallowed, and then tensed. The gulp was so loud he felt sure it should have given the game away. What if it wasn't a Shadestalker? He'd need to dodge hard and fast if it was a more powerful Frostwolf. He didn't even know what a Black Dog could do, other than that they were an omen of terrible misfortune. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The footsteps stopped.

For a moment, he felt the urge to break cover. Rush out, weapon held high. It was the same mad urge that came from standing on the edge of a tall building, seeing the cobblestones of the street three stories down. Then the air screamed as one of Disciple Ying's Black Arrows sliced through it. The unmistakable whine of a kicked dog quickly followed. For a long second, Hao Luoyang froze. Then he felt qi, cold and savage, and he leapt forth.

His own qi surged in answer, a song of silver and steel every bit a match for the Shadestalker Wolf's own power. Third stage of qi condensation. Is this what they'd been so afraid of? The wolf was massive. Bigger than any dog he'd ever seen, its head reached fully halfway up a grown man's chest. Its yellowed teeth, almost the same pale, waxy, hue as its eyes, looked like they could take one of his hands in a single bite.

The wolf's fur shimmered and blurred with every labored breath it took, as it longed to disperse into the dim light. Hao Luoyang smiled. It had no chance against the two of them. The spirit beast whined pitifully as it rapidly turned to face him. Disciple Ying's first arrow was barely visible, buried halfway to the fletching in the animal's shoulder. It charged at him, a blur of black on black. A living shadow in the dying light.

Hao Luoyang's rope dart spun, the razor sharp length of steel a blur in his practiced hands. A rope dart wasn't a sword or spear, it could be sharpened to a degree impractical for a weapon one expected to parry with. A single kiss from it would bite deep into the wolf's body. He kept it spinning, holding it close to his body. The wolf leapt, and he stepped to the side, the blade of his dart positioned to bite deep into the wolf's skull. The wolf flinched first.

Qi dense enough to be visible surged from it, like smoke across water. Its form vanished mid-leap, leaving nothing to be seen except cold yellow eyes amidst a cloud of dark qi. A cold wind ripped at his robes as the incorporeal wolf surged past him. The power sank into his bones, draining away his strength. Disciple Hao pressed back with his own qi, throwing back the wolf's influence. They circled, man and beast.

He refused to commit to a wide swing or throw of the dart, and it refused to return to flesh within range of his weapon. Again, and again, it charged, and Disciple Hao struck at only smoke and shadow. Every pass, the cold intensified. Disciple Hao's fingers felt stiff, he was already uncertain if he could do any of his fancier tricks with the dart. But his heart was calm. The wolf was already dead, it just didn't know it yet. After its fourth charge, the smoke flickered. The wolf gulped down a deep breath.

Cold fingers twitched, but Disciple Hao held his blow. The second Black Arrow took it in the flank. The wolf staggered. Blood dripped from its fur, almost invisible against its ebon hair. Every pained motion was tearing the hole the first broadhead had opened ever wider. It stared at Disciple Hao with hate-filled eyes, then turned and fled. He let it, keeping his dart spinning until the wolf had put a dozens of chi worth of distance between them. Disciple Ying leapt from the tree.

Disciple Hao fell into step beside him, coiling his dart back around his forearm as they ran after the injured wolf.

"It was exactly as you said." Disciple Hao gasped out, still throwing off the chill of the wolf's qi. Despite his exhaustion, he couldn't help but smile.

"But it seems not every strange occurrence is to our misfortune."

"The hunt isn't over until we're behind the sect's gates." Disciple Ying's words were stern, but he too was smiling.

"Leave the ropes. Cycle as you jog. We finish it before full dark sets in."

"I don't like the look of this place." It was Disciple Hao who gave voice to what they were both no doubt thinking. Disciple Ying grunted in answer. Hao Luoyang had no doubt his senior agreed, but there was a difference between being properly cautious, and abandoning a mission the moment you encountered an ominous looking place. And yet, Hao Luoyang did not want to step foot in that desolate little hamlet. The abandoned settlement was tiny.

There were four true dwellings set around a courtyard, nestled into the clearing in the dense woods. Two outbuildings flanked them, one was what even a city boy like Disciple Hao could recognize as a raised granary, the other some sort of small shed. All of them were in grievous disrepair, clearly abandoned for years. The shutterless windows opened into darkness, oddly reminiscent of gouged out eyes. A single door held fast to its hinges, whining pathetically with every gust of wind.

Tall grasses pressed up against the edge of the buildings, slowly reclaiming the space man had cut clear. Only the courtyard, with its buried stones, was spared nature's incursion. An irrigation bucket sat on a bench by one building, looking as if it could have been left there just yesterday, even though it'd been unattended long enough the cord that would have held its bamboo spout upright had long since rotted away.

It took Disciple Hao a moment of staring, before he could put to words what made his hairs stand on end.

"It's darker in there." He murmured quietly to his partner.

"There are fewer trees close to the village. But the light is somehow dimmer."

"You're right." Disciple Ying agreed.

"But we're hunting a Shadestalker Wolf. It can consume and manipulate light. Perhaps the darkness is a product of it lairing there? Or the darkness is what created it in the first place? Their lifecycle remains shrouded in mystery."

"It looks like a ghost's domain." They were both thinking it. Disciple Hao felt no shame in giving voice to the thought. His spiritual sense wasn't strong enough to declare something like that authoritatively,"We are cultivators. If not us, who should brave such a place?"

"We get in, take it down, get out. Take care not to touch anything we don't need to. If there is a ghost here, it cannot be too aggressive if it tolerates sharing its resting place with a spirit beast."

"Will that be enough?"

"I'm a hunter, not an exorcist. But it will have to be. It's four days back to the sect. If we call a more senior disciple, and it turns out to be nothing, we'll lose a full week and all the pay from taking down the wolf. If we can even find one willing to risk wasting his time. I appreciate your cautious nature Junior Hao, but we can't just see wind and flee." Disciple Hao winced. He hated it, but his senior was right.

"Besides, there might be opportunity here. If we found true evidence of a ghost, that would be worth as much payment as the mission. It's probably just some empty buildings, but if it isn't we can turn tail and flee at the first sign of danger and still earn spirit stones."

"Fine. Your words are irrefutable, senior."

"I wish they weren't. I can feel the wolf in the largest building, the one at the far end of the courtyard. We could try to flush it out, but if it's resting, we've a chance to take it by surprise yet again."

"The usual strategy?" Disciple Hao asked.

"Yes."

"Understood." The two of them fell silent, slipping into the formation they'd used to take down half a dozen spirit beasts already. Normally, when a melee adept hunted with an archer, he would take the lead. But Disciple Ying was substantially stronger than him, and had a few tricks of his own. They'd found more success letting him draw the prey into a heedless charge, then having him fall upon it from the side with his dart.

They crept round the hamlet, the dry grass rasping as it parted under Disciple Hao's slippers. Disciple Ying mimed shooting an arrow, then pointed. Disciple Hao saw the spot. High on a hill behind the central house, with a clear line of sight into several windows and the open door. He nodded, and picked a spot lower down, half-concealed by a large briar. Disciple Ying glided over the uneven ground like a ghost, without a single noise. Disciple Hao needed to figure out how he did that.

He just hadn't quite mustered up the courage to ask yet. It was a terribly intimate imposition, to ask a fellow cultivator about details of their techniques. Disciple Ying planted three arrows in the ground for easy access, then restrung his bow in one smooth motion. He nocked an arrow, and nodded. Disciple Hao nodded back, swallowed down his fear, and threw a rock. The impact was deafening in the stillness. A great crack of stone on stone, then two quiet clattering thuds as the stone bounced across the dry earth.

The sounds almost seemed to echo, as words did in the Fathomless Well, even though there was no stone ceiling above them. For a moment, nothing happened. The injured wolf was not so foolish as to growl. But this time, Disciple Hao did have a good view of the proceedings. Peaking out from behind his tree, he watched as the door slowly creaked open. He shivered. It was eerie, like a ghost was exiting the house.

He knew the wolf had to be hidden right behind the door, just out of sight, but he couldn't shake the feeling that they were being hunted. His knuckles whitened around the handle of his dart. He held it close, inverted, like a dagger. The door jerked another inch wider. They had every advantage. Any moment now the wolf would poke its head out fully. A Black Arrow ripped through the air, trailing shadowy qi in its wake.

The decrepit wooden door rocked back, then fell free from its rusted hinges with a violent screech. But before the door could fall to the ground, it flew outward, dragged by an unseen force. It fell to the ground in the same moment that a shadowy mass of qi surged up the hill toward them. For a moment, Disciple Hao's mind screamed 'Ghost!', before his reason reasserted itself. The door must have been pinned to the wolf by the shot. The arrow probably turned incorporeal with its body.

He leapt out from cover with a shout, positioning himself between the Shadestalker and Disciple Ying. The wolf's yellow eyes stared hatefully at him, before turning to flee again. A single weightless bound carried it back to the abandoned homestead. The shadow dipped, as if making ready to leap again, and then shuddered. The shroud of shadowy qi flickered, then collapsed inward, drawn back into the wolf's body. The monster collapsed to the ground. Dead, or dying.

Disciple Ying's next shot took it through the throat. A moment later, the third arrow followed. His senior wasn't taking chances, though neither was he wasting qi on imbuing the last two shots with his signature technique. In unspoken agreement, they waited until the wolf was still before they slowly approached.

"Good work." Disciple Ying said.

"You did well."

"I did nothing." Disciple Hao protested.

"You killed it on your own, all I did was keep you company."

"You showed good sense, and followed my instructions. That's worth more than all the martial skill in the world out here. Your job was to intercept and harry it if it charged me. You did that. It's not worth an even share, but you more than earned your third of the reward."

"The sect's reward is not half as valuable as your teachings, Disciple Ying. What little I know of survival in the wilds is all thanks to you."

"Please. Call me Senior Brother Shun." Disciple Hao smiled, and clasped his hands together as he bowed. His senior caught his wrists before they'd even reached the height of his face.

"There's no need for that, Disciple Hao." Ying Shun admonished gently.

"Please. You must call me Junior Brother Luoyang."

"Of course! But enough courtesies! Come, let me show you how to dress a kill. Or, strip it, rather. The journey home is too long to be worth taking the meat, not without a storage treasure. I'm of no mind to wait days for the smokehouse in that village to process the kill. We'll take just enough for two meals each and leave the rest for the scavengers. But the teeth, hide, and core. Those will fetch us a good price. Perhaps I'll take the teeth and core, and you can have the hide."

"I would be honored, Senior Brother Shun. But, you're sure it is not diseased?" Ying Shun laughed, and shrugged.

"It did not look it to me, but there's only one way to find out." They laughed and joked together, as they made quick work of the corpse. Disciple Ying showed him how to pry teeth free with a sharp blow to the root and a quick twist. He peeled the hide free with a few dozen practiced cuts, then took some choice cuts from the haunch as Disciple Hao harvested the teeth.

When they were finished, he explained roughly where the core should be in a Shadestalker Wolf, then laughed as Disciple Hao stained his sleeves crimson rooting around for a core the size of a pebble in the wolf's back. By the time they had finished, the dark of night had fully fallen. But the abandoned homes felt far less oppressive once the spirit beast had been slain. The hunt was over, they had nothing to stay alert for except the normal dangers of the wilds.

"We should go on more hunts together, Senior Brother Shun."

"I would like that, Junior Brother Haoyang. But-""It's not over until we're back behind the gates of the sect. I know."

"Hah! It's less annoying than I would have expected, having someone parrot my words back to me. A welcome change from my fellows always urging boldness in the face of my caution."

"Let's get moving, I can't wait to taste the soup you'll make with that meat."

"My culinary skills are nothing special, Junior Brother. Perhaps you should cook."

"Certainly! But I'm sure anything you made would be delicious. After a week of living on millet cakes, how could it not be?" Side by side, they walked down the stone path that they'd followed to reach the abandoned homesteads. They walked, and laughed, and... walked? Disciple Hao frowned.

"Was the path really this long on our way in? It seems a lot of road to lay for two or three families."

"Perhaps we entered it a way off from the main road? We met it from a game trail. Perhaps it extended further than we expected?" Disciple Ying's words were confident, but he was frowning too now. They kept walking, eyes peeled for the break in the trees they'd entered from.

"I see a clearing." Disciple Ying said.

"There's something there." Disciple Hao said, squinting to make out shapes in the darkness.

"Another abandoned homestead?" They fell silent, as they kept walking. Disciple Hao's mouth dried, and his throat tightened. No, not when they were so close. By unspoken agreement, they sped up, rushing to get a better look. Hoping against hope that they were missing a detail, that there was something they were not seeing. Wracking their minds, remembering every twist and turn of the path, hoping they had somehow got turned around. They stopped, just at the edge of the property line.

Where the courtyard wall would have ended, if it'd ever been finished. Disciple Ying strung his bow, for the third time that day. There was no doubt, now. They could see the body. Again, it was Disciple Hao who gave voice to what they both were thinking.

"That's the same village. Same wolf. There were no turns to make, and the path didn't bend enough to loop back on itself." Disciple Ying set an arrow to the string.

"Trust nothing you see or hear. Do not stray an arm's breadth from my side. We're not the hunters anymore."