The dark-crimson hem that swept past the end of the northern alley dissolved into the darkness in the blink of an eye, and Pung started reflexively after it, then halted. Only last night he had nearly chased a suspicious figure alone, and he had just promised Hyeonheo and A-yeong that he would never repeat the same mistake.
“That’s him. The Demonic Cult man we saw at the tavern yesterday.”
At Pung’s lowered voice Hyeonheo studied the end of the alley, while A-yeong, one hand resting on a sword hilt, swept over the rooftops behind them and the shuttered windows.
“And the silver ring?”
“It isn’t reacting to him, but to the northern foot of the mountain. The same direction, but farther.”
Hyeonheo thought for a moment, then quickly divided the roles.
“Danpung, follow the ring’s direction and that man’s meridians together. A-yeong, watch the rear; I will suppress the presence of all three of us. If you sense anything amiss, say so at once, but do not run ahead alone.”
The three of them followed the dark-crimson hem at a measured distance. Nohachon by night was as still as a place wholly unlike its daytime self, and in the alleys where every door was barred, only the smell of dry earth and rotting herbs drifted.
The young man neither trod the rooftops nor vaulted the walls, choosing only the shadows, and still the distance would not close. Pung poured more strength into his meridian sight so as not to lose the trailing edge of that dark-crimson demonic energy, but groping after the grain of the energy the silver ring conveyed as well, sweat soon beaded on his forehead.
When they reached the mouth of the village, Hyeonheo raised a fist.
From the mountain path ahead came the sound of cartwheels crushing wet earth, and when Pung, crouched low beneath the shade of a tree, focused his meridian sight, several strands of flow rose out of the darkness. On the cart lay seven energies stacked one over another, thinned as though their owners had fainted, and around them stood four men wrapped in a blackish-yellow miasma.
A freight cart heaped high with straw matting turned onto the mountain path. When the wind lifted one corner of the matting and a human hand slid limply into view, the man walking behind glanced about and shoved the hand roughly back in.
Pung’s grip tightened and he wanted to burst out at once, but Hyeonheo pressed lightly on his shoulder.
“They are alive.”
Hyeonheo’s voice-transmission rang inside his ear.
“If we step out now, we lose whoever stands behind this. The poison does not seem the kind to cut a life short at once, so let us first learn where they are being taken.”
Pung bit his lip and nodded, and the energies on the cart, thin as they were, were not so precarious as to snap soon. In the darkness ahead, the man in the dark-crimson robe had also slowed, watching the cart, though whether he meant to meet the abductors or was shadowing them could not be told.
When the cart entered a bend in the mountain path, A-yeong pointed behind them, and two presences were closing fast from the direction of the village. One moved along the rooftops, the other skimmed the forest’s edge, and the movements looked like watchers the cart’s escort had left behind.
Hyeonheo gestured to Pung that the two of them would hold the rear, and that he was not to lose the cart.
“Confirm only the manor’s location and its entrances, then wait for the signal. If you are discovered, do not fight, come back.”
Taking everything on alone and dividing the roles were not the same thing, and Pung carved the words into his chest as he kept low and followed the cart.
At some point the dark-crimson energy on the far side of the mountain path vanished from sight, and it had not moved away so much as stilled its rough demonic energy in a single instant. Recalling Hyeonheo’s teaching not to lean too heavily on meridian sight, Pung watched the wheel ruts and the sway of the branches as well.
Before long a high wall showed itself between the folds of the mountain, and it was surely the northern manor he had heard about that afternoon. To the eye it looked like a large herb merchant’s warehouse joined to living quarters, but atop the walls and beneath the eaves, armed men lay hidden thick.
The rear gate opened and the cart rolled in. The gatekeeper lifted the matting and counted the bodies, and the man who had driven the cart drew a small wooden tally from his waist.
“Seven. Two are herb gatherers from Nohachon, and the rest we picked from the southern hamlets.”
“Did the poison take properly?”
“They won’t move a finger until noon tomorrow.”
The gatekeeper examined the wooden tally carved with a black wolf emblem, then jerked his chin toward the inner manor.
“Move them to the cellar. The Elder said not to leave a mark on them.”
Pung pressed into the darkness at the foot of the wall and traced the cart’s course. Past the rear gate the cart rounded the inner house and went down the stone steps behind it, and three warriors stood guard at the cellar entrance. How many other prisoners were inside the manor he could not know, but he could at least confirm where the seven just dragged in had gone.
Just then the silver ring trembled more distinctly.
What the ring pointed to was not the cellar but the great pavilion at the manor’s center, and when the golden ring, too, tugged heavily at the forefinger of his left hand, Pung held his breath. The two rings, pulsing to different beats, seemed to be dragging his fingers toward the pavilion.
The dark-crimson energy that had disappeared surfaced again before the pavilion. The warriors at the rear gate did not raise their weapons at the sight of the young man, but one of them studied his blood-soaked right sleeve closely. Between the man and the manor’s warriors there was none of the looseness one expects among allies.
Pung judged it was time to withdraw, but the signal to pull back had not yet come. When the man stepped inside the pavilion the trembling of the rings turned rough, and from the western slope beyond the wall the windows could be seen head-on. Hidden among the pine branches, Pung gathered his inner energy into his ears.
“…before it opens… the rings first…”
Right after the low words came, sheared by the wind, a table went over and a lamp died. The dark-crimson energy surged, the guards rushed toward the pavilion, and the western corridor stood empty for a moment.
The instant Pung made to turn, a cold saber tip touched the nape of his neck, and the young man, somehow already out, stood directly behind him.
“Cross the wall now and the people in the cellar die first.”
When Pung turned his head, blood was running beneath the man’s torn bandage, and the wound seemed to have opened further inside the pavilion.
“There are seven in the cellar. When are they being moved?”
“Before noon tomorrow. After that you won’t find them here.”
“Where are they being sent?”
Without answering, the man flicked a pebble away with his toe. When the stone struck the brush on the far side the guards ran toward the noise, and only one warrior who had come out of the pavilion kept looking this way with suspicion. The man seized Pung by the collar and shoved him into the shadow of a boulder, and it looked as though he had caught an intruder, but the blade he held upright screened Pung from the guard’s line of sight.
“Why are you hiding me?”
“I have to learn whether the things on your hand protect their owner, or drag their owner about killing people.”
“And what will you do once you know?”
“If it isn’t confirmed, the cellar and your companions are handed over all at once.”
To whom, he did not say, and as footsteps drew nearer the man brought his saber down on the ledge of the boulder, and stone dust leapt up with a roar.
“He went west.”
At his cold command the warriors scattered toward the collapsed slope. One of them, though, looked back and forth between the bloodied sleeve and the empty shadow of the boulder before leaving, and it was plain that the man had accepted the risk of exposure in order to spirit Pung away.
From below the forest an owl’s cry sounded twice, short, and it was Hyeonheo’s signal to withdraw.
Pung wanted to press him further, but he could not put the seven in the cellar at risk, and as he slipped out through the gap the man had opened on the other side, a manor warrior’s voice flew after him.
“Where did that blood come from?”
In place of an answer a short whistle of split air rang out, as though someone’s sword had met a saber, but Pung did not turn back. What he had to do now was get out safely with what he had learned.
When he met Hyeonheo and A-yeong below the forest, the dark-crimson energy had already crossed the manor’s far wall and was receding fast.
“What happened?”
“That man found me, but he turned the guards the other way. He says they will move the people in the cellar before noon tomorrow. He said something that sounded as if he means to come to the inn to examine my rings.”
Hyeonheo’s expression hardened.
“It may be that he is using the rings as bait to call you out.”
“Even so, the people at the inn are in danger. We have to go first and get them clear.”
Hyeonheo gave a short nod.
“I will cut off the pursuit and follow. A-yeong, take the western shortcut and wake the people. Danpung, go ahead, but put escape before confrontation.”
Pung tore down the mountain path, and A-yeong’s presence branched away west along the route, while Hyeonheo fell behind, holding off the pursuers at the rear. The young man’s lightness skill was far faster, and the dark-crimson energy had already reached the edge of the village.
Pung vaulted the inn’s wall, and found no moment in which to get everyone clear.
In the middle of the yard stood the young man. What he faced was the closed door of the room Hyeonheo had been using, and dark-crimson demonic energy was running along his blade toward the paper screen. Beneath the eaves, two guests A-yeong had woken were fleeing out the back gate.
“Stop!”
When Pung planted himself in front of the door, the man’s gaze swept over the two rings in turn.
“There is no time.”
“Whatever game this is, I will not let you raise a blade at people.”
The saber split the air. Its point seemed to aim at Pung and the paper screen behind him at once, but in the instant Pung turned the blade aside with both hands, the man’s wrist twisted a fraction. The dark-crimson saber energy lashed the empty end of the eaves instead of the door.
The impact was no lie. Pung’s joints went numb under the force that drove up his arms and deep into his shoulders, and a beat late the bursting wind rattled the windows savagely. The man’s energy split countless ways at the blade’s tip and gathered back into one, a flow like the breath-circulation of an orthodox sect meshed with a coarse demonic art inside a single body.
As the man drew the saber back, Pung dropped low and bored inside. Instead of striking the chest, he pressed the meridian below the wounded elbow and bent the arc, but the saber’s hilt grazed his shoulder and left a heavy ache. The dark-crimson saber energy split an empty water barrel in the yard and buried itself in the ground.
“At the manor you let me go, and here you swing a blade. Just who is it you are deceiving?”
Even at Pung’s question the man kept his mouth shut and pulled the saber up.
With the third attack, as Pung read the killing intent gathered on the saber, an enormous force welled into his fingertips, riding up the forefinger of his left hand and pulling his arm stiff. Before that force could thin again, the silver ring dragged him northward from the finger of his other hand. With both currents surging in at once, his breathing came apart.
If he loosed it as it was, he might well fell the man before him. But beyond the yard were the innkeeper and guests who had not yet gotten out, and in the corridor at the back A-yeong was still leading people to safety.
Pung shifted half a step, covered the door with his back, and split the risen force between both arms and the ground beneath his feet, letting it drain away.
Thud!
The earthen ground caved in. The insides of his arms hurt as though tearing, and the blade tip he could not stop scored his cheek shallowly, but the dark-crimson saber energy went wide of the paper screen and lodged in the corner of the eaves.
“Why hold down power you could use?”
“I did not hold it down.”
Pung pushed the blade away with numbed arms and looked straight into the man’s eyes.
“I decided where to use it.”
Breaking the instant of silence, the door of the next room opened.
“Danpung!”
A-yeong burst out onto the wooden floor with an outer robe not even properly closed, a sword in hand, breath still ragged from sending people out. When the man’s gaze shifted to A-yeong, Pung at once stepped forward and screened the way.
The raised saber did not turn toward A-yeong. Rather, its point wavered a moment as though checking the presences beyond the yard, and across the man’s hardened face passed a wariness of those who had followed from the manor.
Just then Hyeonheo came in over the opposite wall, dress not the least disordered, though black blood stained the end of one sleeve. Hyeonheo took in Pung’s torn sleeve and the cut on his cheek, then fixed a gaze on the man.
“That will be far enough.”
As Hyeonheo set foot in the yard the air sank heavily, and to Pung’s eyes the inner energy that usually lay still as calm water rose up like a vast mountain range. Though it did not lash outward at all, the dark-crimson demonic energy stirring the yard was pushed back, and even the wind chime at the eaves lost its voice.
The man looked at Hyeonheo without lowering his saber. Only five paces lay between them, yet neither moved first, and the sand of the yard trembled finely where the two energies met.
Hyeonheo’s eyes narrowed.
“You carry demonic energy, and yet the grain by which you link your power belongs to an orthodox sect. On whose order have you come?”
The man did not answer. He looked in turn at Pung’s two hands, the sunken earth, and the saber marks left where no one stood, and then, when an urgent whistle came twice from a distant alley, he turned his eyes north.
“The rings do not run ahead of your choices, then.”
“You came all the way to the inn to confirm that?”
“To reduce the number who die tonight.”
“Then do not hand over the seven in the cellar.”
The man’s lips pressed shut, and after looking at Hyeonheo, A-yeong, and Pung in turn, he stepped back.
“Before noon.”
Leaving only those words, he turned, and the dark-crimson hem cut through the moonlight. The figure that cleared the wall raced off in the direction opposite the presences that seemed to have come from the manor, and a moment later vanished into the night fog.
Pung did not give chase. There was much he wanted to ask, but people he had to protect remained at the inn, and seven steeped in poison were shut in the cellar of the northern manor. He could not push those two behind his curiosity.
As the tension loosened, the arms that had taken the saber began to shake and hot blood ran from his cheek, and Pung first looked up at the eaves. Every saber mark that had seemed aimed at the paper screen slanted outward, away from where people were, and the last one had curved toward the corner of the rafter even before he had fully blocked it.
At the manor the man had risked discovery to turn the alarm aside, and at the inn he had cut no one, and still he could not be trusted. The prisoners in the cellar were no safer for it, and the time left until noon was not long.
Pung looked once at the northern ridgeline, then turned to Hyeonheo.
“Sir, the cart that went in through the rear gate rounded the inner house and went down the stone steps behind it. There were three warriors at the cellar entrance, and seven people were taken.”
Join the discussion