In the morning, Mosshill Rise, the Daoist Square was already full. People carrying spears, swords, and bundles of dry food scurried back and forth. With travel robes hanging off them, horses stamped about, steaming in the mountain air.
Wu Ming adjusted his pack, grumbling for the fifth time. "Senior Brother, this thing weighs more than my whole cultivation put together! Why do I need six spare robes? One could do me fine, and a blanket just as well!"
Lin Xuan calmly checked the strap on his spear. "Because you'll rip through five of them."
Wu Ming groaned. "You wound me!"
Lin Xuan entered the square, and all the eyes followed him. Whispers swept through like the wind of early winter.
"Look – it's him, the debating master who is better than all his disciples."
"Do his stratagems work as well in a place like the Gorge?"
"He won't make it. Meng Zhao's hounds go forth with him."
Lin Xuan paid no attention. His gaze roved the square, taking in who kept company together, who whispered soft on the side, who had knives that could be disappeared away easily.
The grizzled training instructor unrolled the mission scroll. His scar pulled as he barked the names:
Lin Xuan
Wu Ming
Qiu Ran
Zhao Kun
Three other Outer Sect disciples associated with Meng Zhao's clique.
There was a stir of surprise. To all, the trap was now obvious.
Wu Ming muttered, "I am being thrown into a snake pit. As for me? I am the squirrel they'll eat first!"
Lin Xuan gave his shoulder a steady grip. "Squirrels are great diggers. Stick close."
Wu Ming stared, then smiled weakly. "Sure thing, Senior Brother. I'll become the world's fastest dirt gorger."
Under banners of cloud and pine, they left the Sect, descending the winding stone path. Mountains jutted up like razor-tipped teeth all around them, rivers shimmered far below.
At first, the group traveled in silence, only the patter of boots on stone disturbed the stillness. Then the poison began. Zhao Kun laughed and moved close to Lin Xuan. "Good Lord, Lin Xuan, be careful not to collapse. We wouldn't want the several-hundred-year-old cripple of the sect to hold us up."
Wu Ming bristled, "Take care what you say. Otherwise, you sack of stinking buns–"
Lin Xuan's voice was still. "Save your strength, Zhao Kun. You'll need it later." The words were ordinary enough, but below this flow of words, the steely undertone repressed the laughs that had been echoing in their throats.
The second day, a sharper, closer landscape cut into their path. Cliffs reached high overhead, passes narrowing till they were but knife-edges. The serrated ravines cried like distant animals under the wind. Here they camped, huddling around their fires.
Wu Ming peered into a pot of stew, "Senior Brother, it smells like boiled hide! I wonder if that meat was already half spirit beast before we cooked it."
Lin Xuan tasted. "Edible."
Wu Ming clutched his chest, "Edible! Cooking up my poor tongue."
Even the cronies of Zhao Kun chuckled, though their eyes flicked now and then toward Lin Xuan as if to reconcile his easy presence with the whispers around him.
On the third day, the cliffs parted, ushering them into the outer regions of Broken Fang Gorge. Dark pines slumped over their rocks, broken and ragged; elongating shadows folded into the heavy, strong scent on the air. Then Qiu Ran held his tongue out in mocking.
"We go in pairs. Easier to cover ground like that. Lin Xuan, head due north–with me."
This was not even a suggestion.
Wu Ming had gone red. "But this isn't fair–"
Lin Xuan's still hand held him back. "Stay with the others. Watch and learn."
Wu Ming bit his lip and obeyed.
Qiu Ran smiled again, hand resting lightly on his sword. "Fair enough. Let's see how your evil little tricks hold up once the crowd's not looking."
There, as they entered the gorge, the wind shifted - carrying the distant cry of something not quite human, not quite beast. Shadows twisted their way between pines.
Lin Xuan's hand brushed the shaft of his spear, and his calm gaze swept the jagged path ahead.
'It starts now. Beasts in front, snakes behind. A taste greater than any sweetmeats.'
The gorge yawned before them, dark and waiting.