47. Gains and Losses

Yanli scrabbled across the gravel edging the pond as arrows flew overhead, taking down one Wen after another.

She looked up through the dim light provided by the torches that the Wen had set in the ground, and saw several figures high up on ledges around the cave’s ceiling. She did not need to see them clearly to know that A’Cheng and Ying’er were up there, and a few others, possibly A’Yao who had become a very good archer over the years. A few Wen got up on their swords to try a direct attack but were immediately picked off. It was clearly a harassing-fire tactic, designed to whittle down the enemy while keeping the sword fighters in reserve, a type of warfare Nie Mingjue would be very familiar with and a technique that she and the boys had discussed in their studies.

Trying to survive in the middle of it was very different from reading about it.

“Who is it? Who is there? Kill them!” Wen Chao shrieked. An arrow whizzed by him, but was deflected by Wen Zhuliu’s sword. Several more Wen soldiers fell as arrows cut them down, while others gathered around Wen Chao, slicing through every arrow that came their way.

“Fight!” Wen Chao yelled.

“With what?” Jiang Fengmian yelled back. “You took our weapons!” He looked around. “Jiang! Retreat!” He spun around and dashed back toward the long tunnel to where they had entered, most of the Jiang on his heels.

But not all.

“Young Mistress Jiang! Stay with us!” Jiang Wu shouted as he and Jiang Yimin sprinted towards her, picking up Wen swords as they ran. They managed to get in front of her just as she stumbled to her feet.

“I’ll kill you all! Get her! Bring her with us!” Wen Chao screeched, hobbling back toward the tunnel with an arrow sticking out of his leg.

Jiang Wu and Jiang Yiman put themselves between her and the remaining Wen, attacking anyone who tried to grab her, but were pressed backwards by the sheer numbers against them until her back was against the cave wall and their backs up against her. They could not retreat any further and she thought that both of the Jiang disciples were only moments from being cut down. Arrows kept flying, but fewer than earlier, and Yanli realized they were probably starting to run low.

“Nie to me!” Nie Mingjue shouted, jumping down from a ledge with Baxia swinging, landing in the breach between the Wen who were trying to follow orders and the Wen who had decided to make a run for the exit. Several Nie joined him from their own hiding places, sabers singing through the air as they cut through Wen.

“Wen Zhuliu! Fight me like a man!” Nie Mingjue yelled, enraged. Other Wen backed away from him, but Wen Zhuliu nodded calmly and walked over with his sword. Their weapons met with a resounding clang that echoed throughout the chamber.

She tapped Jiang Wu’s shoulder. “Go help them! I’m safe!” She pointed along the wall toward the back, where she hoped to hide behind a boulder or something. Jiang Wu frowned in worry, but nodded and grabbed Jiang Yimin. They ran out into the fight with their pilfered swords and a Jiang battle cry.

It was a total melee around her, with Wen and Nie and about five remaining Jiang fighting without quarter. Off to one side, the familiar and almost comforting snap and sizzle of Zidian sparked in the gloom, sending Wen soldiers flying through the air with a practiced crack.

The screams of injured and dying men filled the air. Yanli lost track of what was going on as she kept creeping along the wall toward safety, and that was her mistake. She gasped as Wen Zhuliu wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her in, her back to his chest, his other arm holding out his sword.

Nie Mingjue, who was halfway across the cave in pursuit, looked even more furious. “Coward! Put her down and fight me!”

“Shut up, you ignorant swine!” Wen Chao shouted at him, hobbling over to Wen Zhuliu, clutching the leg with the arrow still in it. “Put down your weapons or he will melt her golden core!”

Everyone froze where they were. She scanned the crowd and saw both Ying’er and A’Cheng at the back, holding the low-level spiritual sabers that the Nie had let them borrow for the trip. They looked enraged, but had the good sense not to move toward her. She could not bear it if either of them lost their golden cores for her sake…for any reason at all, really.

Wen Zhuliu shuffled backwards as Wen Chao slowly made his way to the tunnel entrance. Yanli was under no illusions of what would happen to her. Even if they kept her alive all the way out of the cave, her life was forfeit. She took a few deep breaths and made herself tremble like she was terrified, which was not hard to do since she was genuinely terrified. Wen Zhuliu had his palm resting over her belly, the threat clear.

Right as they got to the entrance to the tunnel, she screamed, which threw Wen Zhuliu off enough for her to jam her elbows into his torso and fling herself out of his grasp. She fell to the ground and starting crawling away like a panicked crab, but stopped when a pair of feet landed softly next to her. She looked up to see A’Yao standing over her with a saber in his hand, his expression fierce and vicious in a way she had never seen before.

Wen Zhuliu stepped forward without pause, sending his sword down to meet A’Yao’s much less powerful weapon with a strike that nearly brought him to his knees. He tried to fend off Wen Zhuliu, but he was outmatched and out classed, his sword being swatted like it was no more than an annoying fly. Behind them, the few Wen soldiers who were left held off the Nie and the Wei.

“Da'Ge!” Ying’er shouted just as Yanli saw the Core Melting Hand connect with A’Yao’s solar plexus. He screamed an unearthly shriek, louder than any man dying, the sound echoing through the cave. Yanli jumped up, using her body as a blunt force weapon against Wen Zhuliu to get him to release A’Yao, clawing at his arm.

A’Yao fell down, his eyes wide, still screaming as he clutched his belly, and Yanli fell on top of him just as one of the Wen soldiers shouted, which pulled Wen Zhuliu up short.

“It’s the beast! It’s awake!”

She looked up and saw that the boulder in the pond had moved, was currently moving, and had sprouted a massive head filled with teeth at the end of an unnaturally long neck. Yanli, who grew up on the river, knew her turtles and tortoises—this was neither.

The Xuanwu of Slaughter opened its mouth wide and let out an earthshaking roar. The stink from its breath filled the cave and chaos erupted as everyone scrambled for cover. She looked over and saw the back of Wen Zhuliu, who had hefted Wen Chao over his shoulder and sprinted down the tunnel back toward the entrance. Intellectually, she knew he was making the correct strategic choice, but she couldn’t stop herself from hissing the word “coward!”

A groan from A’Yao drew her attention back to him. The monster was splashing around behind them, so she grabbed A’Yao under his arms and dragged him to a very low overhang, tucking them both underneath it. She thought the Xuanwu’s head was just big enough it could not reach them easily, but on the other hand they were stuck there until the beast was killed.

She pulled A’Yao into her arms. He was whimpering and curled up like a bug, his whole body shaking with tremors. She hugged him as tightly as she could, watching the pond where Nie Mingjue was attacking the Xuanwu. He jumped around with superhuman speed, trying to find a weak spot as it thrashed its head back and forth. Several Nie dashed in and slashed at its neck in a bid to decapitate it, but it was moving too fast. The rest of his team were hacking at its legs and shell, trying to distract the monster.

Well. Most of the rest of his team.

“STOP STOP STOP! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? STOP!!!!” Ying’er was screaming at the top of his lungs. Yanli honestly could not tell if he was yelling at Nie Mingjue or at the Xuanwu of Slaughter. A’Cheng didn’t care and was hauling Ying’er away from the attack, arms wrapped around his waist.

The Xuanwu knocked two Nie down and swung its head toward them, its beady eyes zeroing in on Ying’er.

Nie Mingjue grabbed the moment of distraction to land on its head and shove Baxia through its skull like driving a piling into sand, using so much qi that it turned the blade red as it sunk down.

Once, when Yanli was a girl, she had been at the gate of Lotus Pier when a crate of fireworks blew up deep in the heart of Lotus Cove. Despite being some distance from the explosion, she still remembered how it had reverberated through her body, making her bones shake, and the way air itself seemed to act like water—first being blown away by the force of it and then rushing back in to fill the void. The sound was louder than any thunder she had ever heard, and it took her the rest of the afternoon to fully regain her hearing. Several people closer to the explosion never got their hearing back.

The resentful energy bloomed out of the Xuanwu and hit them all in the same way, even if the beast didn’t actually blow up. It stood frozen in place as the massive wave of resentful energy flooded the cave and Yanli’s bones and her ears and her skull then, in the next moment, collapsed back into the beast. Yanli’s ears popped.

Ying’er screamed in pain and stumbled toward the pond, but A’Cheng clung to him, dragging him down to the ground.

Nie Mingjue was still holding on to Baxia’s hilt when the monster stumbled backwards and then…disappeared.

Or, no, it did not disappear. Its shell was there, but its head had completely retracted into its body, taking Baxia and Nie Mingjue with it. The body plopped down into the water until only the slight curve of its back was exposed.

Everyone stopped where they were, waiting for something to happen, but aside from the water splashing up against the edges of the cave, there was no movement.

Ying’er shoved A’Cheng away and stumbled into the water, reaching out, chanting “no no no no” over and over. But it was his normal voice, not the echo of the Burial Mounds, and he seemed unsteady on his feet.

One of the Nie flew over on his saber and then jumped off to land on the Xuanwu’s shell. He stood there, listening, then swung his saber and brought it down in an arc of massive power. His weapon clanged and bounced off so hard he fumbled it. Then he jumped free as the shell quietly, slowly lifted back up.

By unspoken agreement, no one moved. It was obvious there was nothing they could do until the beast died, and why it wasn’t dead yet was a mystery.

Yanli saw its snout tentatively peek out, sniffing the air. Its blood-red eyes appeared out of the gloom, and then, inch by inch, the rest of its head lifted up and out, stretching out its weirdly long neck.

Baxia was still buried in its skull up to the hilt, but it was glowing, shiny and bright like it had been gilded with gold. Crouched over it was Nie Mingjue, although he was not holding on to his saber anymore. He slowly stood up, looking around in dazed amazement, until he was standing strong on top of the Xuanwu’s head, straddling the place where Baxia was impaled. The Xuanwu blinked and stood there placidly, almost like it was waiting for something.

Nie Mingjue took a deep breath and looked at his right hand as if seeing it for the first time, eyes wide and filled with wonder.

There, held tight in his grasp, was a massive black saber that glistened wetly, resentful energy rising up from its surface like oily smoke.