Chapter 5- The Noble Vanguard

Tian’s hand flew out, three invisible darts twisting through the air. The yin dart hadn’t taken too long to cultivate, and it made controlling the formation easy. Two yang darts pierced through the brush-wielder’s eyes and buried into his brain. The yin dart pinned his throat shut. Just in case.

Hong was taking a life with every step, her spear lashing out, ignoring or crushing defenses and finding a head or heart with every blow. No fierce war cry, no offer of surrender. The penalty for banditry was death. So was the penalty for heresy. This was plainly both.

Tian whipped the rope dart around, the heavy dart shattering skulls, the barbed rope sawing apart flesh with every backwards pull.

“Leave one alive. Find whoever looks like a strategist, and leave him alive!” Tian yelled. There had to be someone here who was the brains. He hoped it wasn’t the one who had been waving the brush around.

One person managed to block a single blow from Liren, barely forcing the spearhead to one side with his saber, losing a big piece of flesh in the process. She kept charging in, slamming a kick into the bandit’s hip. Tian could hear his bones shattering through the screams. Two quick strikes with the shaft of her spear and his arms were ruined. Then she was on to the next bandit.

It took all of two minutes to clear the main hall. Tian rushed out and checked the barracks. Women with iron collars on their necks and few clothes on their bodies were on a single long chain bolted to the wall. The remnants of a cook fire burned in a hearth. They looked a bit better than the kids in the hall, but not much better. Tian ripped the chain off the wall.

“I will free you properly in a little while. The bandits are dead. Don’t run around. Don’t hurt yourselves. Eat if you can. Drink if you can.”

He rushed out again, back into the main hall. The paper had caught fire. Hong was standing well back, her spear low and ready. She hadn’t set the fire. Dark red tinged with black, slowly rolling up the rough paper. The squiggling lines thrashed around, like they were trying to get away. No use. The fire ate the whole of it.

Tian squatted by the surviving bandit. “Look at me.” The man thrashed, paying Tian no mind. Tian slapped him and grabbed his hair, forcing his head around. “Look at me! Do you recognize my uniform? Ancient Crane Monastery. You are dead, and you know what we do to heretics that we take alive. But I will let you die quickly if you tell me everything that went on here. Start with your name. Who are you?”

“You don’t care. You don’t care who I am!”

“Answer me, or I will kill you in front of the women and then ask them. And I won’t let you die fast.” Hong’s voice was so cold it burned.

“Gou, Great Chief of the Yellow Banner Brotherhood. That’s who I am. That’s who I am!” He had a big jaw, Tian noticed, with a little dimple in the middle. Wide shoulders, scarred and calloused hands. He looked the part of a bandit chief.

“What kind of heretical thing were you doing here?”

“Heresy? What heresy?” The bandit spasmed. His breathing was coming harder. Tian noticed his legs weren’t moving. He grabbed a piece of the man’s thigh and twisted hard. No reaction. They didn’t have long to interrogate him.

“You know what heresy!” Tian hissed.

“It’s only heresy if the rebellion fails. If it succeeds, we are the noble vanguard!” The bandit’s eyes turned bright, opening wide, a rictus grin pulling the corners of his mouth up towards his ears. “Not bandits, loyal supporters, who were there during the true Emperor’s exile. That’s who we are! YOU are the heretics!”

Tian and Hong shared a look. “Insanity.” Hong’s voice shivered, the rage shaking the air.

“Beats starving to death while the magistrate gets fat. And not a single person ever mourned a merchant. I hear they never miss a meal up on the Mountain. Sounds nice. I wouldn’t know what that’s like.” The bandit’s burning eyes and lip splitting smile never wavered. “Oh. Oh what good brothers! You shouldn’t have waited for me, I’d have caught up in no time.” The bandit spasmed a final time, and the light left his eyes. Tian checked the pulse, glanced over at Hong and shook his head.

“You want the kids in the cage or the women penned up in the barracks?” Tian asked.

“Poor choice of words.”

“Yeah.” Tian rubbed the back of his neck. “Take care of the women, they probably won’t talk to me. I’ll get the kids out, find out how long they were here. I might be able to help them forget, if it hasn’t been too long.”

Hong nodded and started to turn towards the hole where the door had been. Then turned sharply back and looked more closely at the cage where children had been burned alive.

“Look. Look!” She hissed and pointed below the cage. There was a wide, flat plate made of fired earth set into the ground, an inch tall lip running around the edge. There was a short barrel near the dish. Tian gave it a sniff, and nearly fell over from the stench. Sharp, bitter smells, and something rotting.

“Ink. They were using the ash and mixing it with whatever was in the barrel and making ink to write on that big paper!” Her fury shook the air. Tian could feel the fire qi roaring around her, yang blazing, hating the corruption and the darkness.

Tonight would be a bad night for both of them, but especially for her. Tian would have to ease her through the collapse. Yang burned so fiercely, but not for long. When it was extinguished, yin filled the void, all out of balance.

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“We will find out what was happening here. Tend to the women, Sister. I will do what I can for the children.”

It wasn’t much. They had been taken. They were shoved into the cage. They weren’t given food or water. No point, as the bandits explained. Then they were made to watch. They didn’t understand what was being said. Something about greeting the true emperor and condemning the false one. They wanted to go home. They were scared. Many were simply catatonic.

Tian did his best to estimate their weights and then combined two powders from his stores of medicine. Used properly, compounded carefully and fed to a cultivator, they would ease anxiety enough to allow a good night’s sleep. For mortals, they confused the memory and made people pass out. Even a small amount could potentially be permanently damaging.

He was careful. He made sure there were no mistakes. They would experience enough horrors when they returned to the ruins of their home.

Tian buried his face in his hands. The women had been here for too long. His medicine couldn’t help them forget. How were they even going to get all these people back to safety? Take one of the boats from the dock and forcibly clear a way through the marsh?

“They have been here for months, some of them.” Hong had come back without him noticing. “One of them is from the same village as the kids. Apparently,” her face twisted “There was some debate about whether she was too old for the sacrifice. They decided they could always sacrifice her later if necessary.”