67-Foreshock 4

Ling Qi’s eyes snapped upward, a familiar feeling of pure expression grabbing her attention. Rain began to pour, and deep within the darkening clouds, thunder rumbled, indistinguishable from the beat of drums. Above, the cloud-wracked sky tore open, unleashing a torrential downpour.

None of that noise succeeded in muffling her mournful and lethal melody. However, the song that echoed down from those clouds was not drowned out as well, and it clashed with hers. Deep, guttural, and strangely resonant, the foreign words wove a song of storms and violence, determination, and retribution. Against the pouring rain, the ragged leading edge of her mist flowed and deformed as if it had met a mountainside, and Ling Qi felt her qi straining against the will that suffused the rain.

Through the storm, she spied her last opponent. Tall even for a barbarian and with a thick cloak of black and grey fur around his arms and shoulders, the tribesman’s mask was more ornate than the others, and his helm carried a plume of crimson horsehair. He rode a powerful stallion whose black hooves sparked electricity as they struck the air. In his hands was a two-stringed instrument, a primitive erhu. Even as she took it in, he drew the bow across the string, a sharp note ringing out in time with his voice, and lightning flashed. The men fleeing her mist let out a ragged cheer, raising their voices to join his refrain.

This man… Was he a shaman? It did not seem quite right, but this was probably the overall commander of this band of raiders.

She felt Hanyi shift on her back, no words needing to be spoken as her spirit shifted from the enticing melody of the lonely maiden to the cold aria, layering the effects with Ling Qi’s own. Their voices echoed from the depths of winter until the very air itself around her stilled, made lethargic by the cold. The high, cold song of the frozen vale met a song of stolid, unbreakable mountains stretching up into the infinite sky.

There are only endings here. Flee. Flee and live. Winter is here. The warmth of the hearth is not for you.

Unbroken, we ride. Spawn of dragons so filled with pride, you will see that you still bleed. Your peace is a lie and your safety a ruse.

Brigands out in the cold, so far and alone. Ragged breaths and frozen lungs await, a death so lonely and far from home.

Let winter rage and rage, we together and you alone. Ten strike as thunder, and one hundred the storm.

There were no words – she could not speak the tribesman’s tongue and the noise of battle would have drowned them out regardless – but music was speech without speech, without the impurity of words. His song was foreign to her, but some understanding was inevitable, and she was certain that it was the same for him.

Ling Qi dove into the teeth of his rain, downpour and fog mingling and clashing chaotically as their techniques struggled against one another. The twang of so many bowstrings rung in her ears like the thunder above, arrowheads charged with heavenly lightning fell like raindrops.

As lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, she bore down on one of the two raid leaders, and in the space between raindrops, she vanished from sight and memory alike, a forgotten phantom. She had not yet fully mastered the Ephemeral Night’s Memory art, but its technique was enough for this.

The unfortunate third realm war leader she had chosen could not so much as raise his arm in defense before she played the Hoarfrost Refrain, her voice joined with the young spirit on her back. She felt the man’s flesh blacken and freeze, and his mount screamed in pain as veins froze and ruptured. Yet her attack did not go without reply.

The twang of strings was overlaid with a deepthroated song, and Ling Qi found herself buffeted by a tempest, tossed like a leaf on the wind despite her efforts. Emerald light encased Hanyi and Ling Qi both, keeping them from the worst of harm, but they were disoriented by the storm. Men drew back bows and for the first time, the galloping horses of the main force slowed, and the twang of bowstrings echoed with the furious cries of their steeds. Ling Qi did not react in time as half a score of arrows shrouded in shrieking wind and crackling lightning struck as one.

She felt cutting wind slice across her cheek and a bone arrow slice through her gown, cutting through flesh and rebounding off the bone of her ribs, and she threw up a hand, a bolt of lightning striking her palm as she desperately threw her qi into a veil of rippling green that shimmered across her and Hanyi both. The combined force of the tribesmen’s techniques flung her back a hundred meters and more through the pouring rain as they regrouped. She glared up through the storm at the musician, feeling his strength flowing through the rain, resonating from each voice raised to join his chant.

Ling Qi felt the state of the battle overall as well as she could. Far in the distance, she spotted her counterpart bounding through the trees, slumped on the back of a bounding stag. Blood soaked through his pants on one leg, and he clutched his bow tightly in burnt fingers. There were two second realms chasing him and a third realm lagging behind, but even they were half-heartedly doing so.

In the village, she spotted the soldiers fighting. No longer disorganized and desperate, small squads were arranged along the walls and the tunnel mouths, batting away harassing arrows while their own archers returned fire at circling gliders. Shen Hu stood near the center of the conflict, his qi spreading in ripples through the earth and fields and up through soldiers’ feet to stiffen their resolve and endurance. Sharpened shards of rock crystal fired into the sky in endless volleys, preventing the gliders from approaching the village proper, and the few fires that had started within the walls were already being quelled.

The village was safe, but all around, farms burned, unhindered by the rain, and crops withered. The first realms she had scattered were wreaking havoc across the abandoned fields, and the torrential downpour flooded out neatly laid ditches and dikes.

So fragile, the rain seemed to whisper, full of self satisfaction. Ling Qi scowled up at the musician, recognizing the taunt for what it was. The tenor of his song was changing. Gliders spiralled upward on thermals of wind rising from the fires and scattered into the clouds. The raiders were retreating, or so it seemed. It looked like she had succeeded, so why did she feel so frustrated?

Looking north, there was not yet any sign of reinforcements. Unless things were far more dire than they seemed, the Sect should be mobilizing, but they were on their own for a while yet. She glared at the retreating rainstorm, discontent welling in her heart at the inconclusive outcome of the clash. The taunt hung on the wind, stinging her pride. She knew what she wanted to do, but Commander Guan Zhi’s words of warning stayed her pursuit. She turned her eyes away and began to soar in a curving line out and away from the village.

“Eh, Big Sis, where are you going?” Hanyi asked, still clinging tightly to her back. The young spirit was unharmed, Ling Qi’s defensive techniques enough to keep her safe from any collateral.

“They’re retreating. That’s good enough for now,” Ling Qi replied. The wound in her side throbbed, but the blood was already clotting, blood dissipating into black mist. “Talk later, Hanyi.” The words came out more clipped than she had intended.

Hanyi let out an indignant huff, but for once, she didn’t talk back as she dissolved back into Ling Qi’s dantian.

<You’re doing the right thing,> Sixiang whispered in her thoughts.

Ling Qi wasn’t so sure, but she appreciated Sixiang’s vote of confidence. Her eyes fell on her target, the other scout officer. The landscape blurred beneath her as she flew toward his position, and the last of his pursuers peeled off, wheeling away to follow their fellows in retreat.

It took her a second to recall his name, but they had spoken briefly on the way here. “Wei Ping!” she called, and her voice carried through the mist, echoing on the wind and through the lingering melody of her song. As her mist engulfed him, she wove her qi so that it did not hinder his sight, and the young man’s eyes lit up as he saw her outstretched hand.

She swooped low, and he reached up, clasping her forearm as the stag he was riding dissolved mid leap, its qi streaming back into his dantian. “My thanks, Lady Ling!” he called, hanging tightly to her arm as she began to make the turn back toward the village.

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“Officer is more appropriate right now,” Ling Qi said dryly. Although her eyes remained on the village, shimmering silver orbs in her robe watched the retreating shadow of the barbarian storm.

“Perhaps,” he grumbled. It was almost comical, seeing him dangling from her arm like a leaf fluttering in the high wind. “I hope you will accept the sentiment regardless. Without your intervention, I do not think my path would have opened. I owe you a debt.”

“It is nothing,” Ling Qi dismissed, burned and ruined farms flashed by beneath them. Ahead, the walls of the village seemed terribly small. “I was only performing my duty.”

“All the same, my words remain,” he said stubbornly. She glanced down, studying him. Wei Ping was an average sort, handsome as most cultivators of the third realm were, but little about him stood out to her. Still, she had just been forcibly reminded that even first realms could be relevant on the field of battle. It seemed foolish to dismiss his gratitude.

“I will accept them then.” She had an odd sense of deja vu, as if she had engaged in a similar exchange before, but she shook it off. It was difficult to think about politics, surrounded by devastation.