When the crying of the blades died away, Pung and Hyeonheo left the survivors in A-yeong’s care, took up torches, and went into the passage. Where the dark-red flash had burst, a long gash was cut into the stone, and beneath the rock wall lay a scrap of cloth soaked with black blood and two snapped poison needles. The blood ran on a few paces in the direction Dokgo had fled, then broke off in front of the emergency passage that led out to the valley.
The stone door at the end of the passage had its bar wrenched askew, as though it had been forced shut from outside, and on the slope beyond the door the traces of two men’s passing overlapped in confusion. But once they reached the dry, boulder-strewn ravine, both footprints and bloodstains vanished altogether, and though Pung swept the surroundings again and again with meridian sight, no living energy could be caught.
“Is he dead?”
Hyeonheo examined the bloodied scrap of cloth, then shook his head.
“He took a wound, but I can’t call it mortal. There’s no body, and there are marks where blood was wiped away on purpose to cut the trail — better to reckon he got out alive.”
“And Hyeolhon?”
“That one’s trail breaks off here as well. There’s no telling which way he went.”
Pung looked out over the valley sunk in darkness. If Dokgo was alive, then their storming of the manor, and the rescue of the survivors, would soon be known to whoever stood behind him. There was no way even to confirm whether Hyeolhon had caught up with him, so for now they had to think the worst and move.
Returning to the manor, the two bound the private soldiers and searched the central hall and the cellar. Among a heap of documents half burned and abandoned they found two ledgers recording where the abducted had come from and how many days each had been dosed, and they gathered up as well the wooden tallies stamped with a black wolf and the vials of poison. The names of the buyers were hidden behind ciphers, but the dates on which people had been handed north, and their numbers, remained plain to read.
Only after the rescued had been moved to an empty guesthouse at the mouth of the village could the three of them breathe at last. All night Hyeonheo went back and forth between the rooms and the porch, pressing the pressure points of the poisoned and forcing out, little by little, the poison still left in their bodies, and A-yeong had no rest either, boiling water and changing damp cloths. Inner energy all but spent, Pung sat leaning against the wall and watched for wherever a hand was needed.
The breathing of those who had lain as if dead grew steadily more even as dawn drew near, and though they could not rise at once, having drawn the poison mist into them so long, by Hyeonheo’s word they all seemed to have passed the worst of it. Only on hearing that did Pung feel one of the stones pressing on his chest sink away.
But the relief did not last long. Inside the guesthouse the weeping broke out of those who had found lost family again, and from beyond the yard the wailing of those calling names that would never answer came riding on the night wind. Listening to joy and sorrow tangled into a single sound, one corner of his heart was too heavy to hold nothing but the pride of having saved lives.
Hyeonheo set down the wrist of the last patient and came out to the porch. His face, without a wink of sleep all night, was gaunt, but his eyes had not blurred.
“Dokgo is not the end of it, only one thread. He alone could not seize this many people and plant eyes at every crossroad. There are others outside this manor who have joined hands with the Demonic Cult.”
“Then shouldn’t we tell the Martial Alliance?”
At A-yeong’s question Hyeonheo drew out a worn token and laid it on the porch.
“There may be men of the same pack inside the Alliance. Outside the walled city I’ll call out one old friend, the only one I can trust with my life. Until then the survivors must be hidden in several places, and anyone who is to testify must keep their name and face concealed.”
Pung looked from the even breathing inside the guesthouse to the ledgers brought from the manor.
“And if Dokgo sends word first?”
“Having got out alive, he will surely try to warn those behind him. That is why we move the moment the sun rises. It’s a race to reach the one we trust before he reaches his.”
“Then we’d best hurry.”
“Can you even stand up, to be talking like that?”
Hyeonheo clicked his tongue, looking at Pung’s bloodless face.
Just then a thin moan came from inside the guesthouse, and as A-yeong turned, Pung too tried to rise on reflex — but the empty dantian throbbed and the knees gave way. Had Hyeonheo not caught that arm, he would have pitched straight off the porch.
“Tend to your own body first. The inner energy you drew on last night was far too much for the vessel you have now.”
“But there are people inside…”
“To spend carelessly a life won in order to save others is no chivalry either.”
Pung shut his mouth. A-yeong threw him a worried, sidelong look and went into the guesthouse, and a moment later a voice calling for warm water was followed by the bustle of hurrying feet.
Hyeonheo sat Pung back down on the porch and took a place opposite.
“What you did inside that poison mist was no small thing. Yet if Hyeolhon had not shown you the way, your strength alone could not have saved them all. And the other way round — without your eyes and your yang energy, those people would never have come out alive, however well he explained the method.”
Pung thought of the man who had vanished carrying that dark-red blade. Hyeolhon had put him to the test and had even bared killing intent at Hyeonheo, yet the moment the poison jar shattered he had shown them how to keep people alive. After that he had gone off alone into the darkness after Dokgo, and all that remained were the blade marks and a scrap of bloodied cloth.
“Why do you think he went after Dokgo?”
“There’ll be something between those two that we don’t know.”
“Could he have been acting on the Demonic Cult’s orders?”
“Had that been so, there’d have been no need to teach us how to burn the poison away.”
Hyeonheo, who had cast a glance toward the guesthouse, added quietly,
“But a kindness received is no reason to lay down your guard. That man will cut us down if he must. I say only this: that he holds a blade of the Demonic Cult does not prove his will belongs wholly to the Demonic Cult.”
Pung nodded. An Elder of an orthodox sect had sold human beings off as raw material, and a blade of the Demonic Cult had shown the way to save them. In the tales heard in childhood the righteous and the demonic were divided as cleanly as white stones from black, but the martial world before his eyes was not so simple. Which side a person had taken might be further from the truth than what that person chose when the moment stood before them.
Hyeonheo asked,
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
Pung did not hide it.
“I was afraid those people would die, and afraid that some mistake of mine would get A-yeong or you hurt, sir. And now I’m afraid because I don’t know how great the men behind Dokgo are.”
“Then you may go back to the mountain.”
Pung looked at Hyeonheo. There was no probing in that face, no reproach; if he truly said he would go back, the old man seemed ready to let him.
He tried to picture going back to the house on the mountaintop and living by digging herbs — walking familiar forest paths in the morning, sitting before the brazier when the sun went down. With the wind and the birdsong for company, there would be no smell of blood, no moaning inside a poison mist.
Just then a child’s cough came from inside the guesthouse. The breath that not long ago had been thin enough to gutter out now carried a fair measure of strength.
Pung looked down at the gold and silver rings on his fingers. Last night, facing the poison mist, a fierce power had filled that hand and the silver ring had trembled as if groping far off to the north, but neither ring gave any reason why. Where the power came from, and what it wanted of him, were still unknown.
One thing alone was clear. To hold a power that could save lives, and to see, and still turn away — from that moment on there could be no pleading ignorance. Whatever road the rings led Pung down, in the end where that power was spent had to be decided by himself.
“I’ll go to the Martial Alliance.”
At Pung’s answer Hyeonheo narrowed his eyes.
“Before Dokgo. I’ll meet the one you say can be trusted, sir. And I want to see what stands behind all this.”
“It will not be an easy road.”
“From the day I came down the mountain I never said I’d walk only easy roads.”
A faint crease formed at the corner of Hyeonheo’s mouth, but neither praise nor dissuasion followed. He pressed Pung’s shoulder once, and that touch felt like a word of warning not to take the weight of the choice lightly.
A little later the guesthouse door opened and A-yeong came out leading a small child by the hand. The child staggered, hardly able to walk properly, but on catching sight of an old woman standing at one side of the yard, let go of that hand and tried to run.
“Granny…”
A cracked voice leaked out.
It was the very old woman who had wandered the streets with her missing grandchild’s shoes clutched to her breast. She stood frozen as though she could not believe it, and when the child fell after two or three steps she swallowed a scream and came running. The two of them sank down onto the bare earth and held each other fast.
“You’re alive. Oh, my own baby’s alive…”
The child could not make a sound, and wrapped thin arms around the old woman’s neck. She stroked that back over and over, yet would not loosen her hold, as if afraid the child might slip from her hands. A-yeong turned away and wiped at the corners of their eyes. Pung watched too, saying nothing.
If it was a matter of paying the debt of last night’s desperate fight, that one embrace was payment enough. But there were still those who had not come back, and the men who had dragged them away would be somewhere in the north, preparing the next night.
When day broke, Hyeonheo settled with the villagers on places to hide the survivors, and A-yeong put together the list and the medicines to be taken to the physician. Pung too, soothing a dantian still empty, made ready to set out.
Someone they could trust had to be reached before Dokgo reached anyone, and Pung looked up at a northern sky that gave no answer.
Inside the Martial Alliance there might already be a man waiting for Dokgo’s message.
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