Chapter 2

Yerin’s unwelcome guest shifted around her waist, where she'd wrapped it as a belt and tied it into a great ribbon of a knot. Just as her master had shown her. The Remnant hissed, flickering with blood madra until its sullen red glow threatened to give her away.

It was responding to her anger, which had burned out of her control. She went into most fights cold—battle required focus, as her master had hammered into her, and she rarely had a problem with that. But these sniveling rats had attacked Lindon while he was advancing, showing that they had less honor than a crazed Remnant. Advancing to Copper, no less, which was something like attacking a sleeping baby. If she hadn't deflected that spike of Forged madra in time, she'd be alone now.

She’d walked her Path alone before. She’d shaken with fever in a cave, too weak to boil roots for soup. She’d slept in a dusty mausoleum for three days as a Remnant crouched outside, knowing that no one would save her. She’d marched through the ashes of a place that had once been her home, heading nowhere.

Her master always talked about solitude as though it was some great treasure, some tool that aided in focus and training. That was a pile of rot. He was the strongest sacred artist she’d ever met, but some things he just didn’t understand.

She reached into a pocket of her robe, resting fingers on a disk of heavy gold. They wore badges in Sacred Valley, and her master had commissioned it for her in line with local customs, but she had no reason to wear it out here. No reason to keep it, either, except that her master had left it for her.

Yerin wasn't overly attached to Wei Shi Lindon; she'd only known him for a few days, and part of her still expected him to be playing some sort of twisty trick on her. She'd spent no small amount of time wondering if she should kill him and remove the danger.

But having Lindon around gave her someone to talk to, someone to help her with her bandages, someone to help keep the bloody memories and the acid-edged grief at bay. Plus, he kept a bunch of convenient odds and ends in that pack of his. And he was under her protection—like a helpless baby squirrel she’d adopted in the woods.

These cowards, whoever they were, had tried to leave her alone again. Unforgivable.

She knelt at the foot of a tree, watching Lindon stumble around next to the fire. She’d deflected the first attack aimed at him, but their ambushers hadn’t tried a second. That meant they were creeping around, looking for a better angle. For an edge.

She didn't know how many of them there were—more than one, she was certain, or they wouldn't have attacked at all—but they would be trying to wrap her up in a circle.

So one of them would be walking around the wall-sized boulders that functioned as a windbreak for Yerin's camp. She gave them a slow count of a hundred, giving them plenty of time to move. The whole time, she kept her breath measured and her madra in a ready grip; if they launched another attack at Lindon, she'd deflect it with sword resonance. But no attack came.

At the count of ninety-nine, she felt something in her spirit: a brief whisper of corrosive, oily presence right where she'd expected it. Behind the largest boulder.

Madra flooded her legs as she kicked off, reaching the boulder in a blink. Her master's sword, a straight-edged plane of Forged white madra, hummed eagerly in her grip. Her guest hissed and twisted around her waist, sensing blood.

The woman behind the boulder looked even worse than Yerin had after weeks in the wilderness. She was only a few hungry days away from being a skeleton, her dark hair muddy and matted. A leather necklace of teeth hung down over dirty hide clothes that looked a size too big for her, like she'd dressed herself by robbing corpses. Her eyes widened as she saw Yerin, and she brought a shortbow up and pulled the string.

As the woman’s arm straightened, she revealed a monster of green light clinging to her arm—some cross between a snake and a centipede, a tiny Remnant parasite sunk into the woman’s limb. A Goldsign. So she was Lowgold, just like Yerin. No more easy battles, now that she’d left Sacred Valley behind.

A Forged green arrow materialized on the string even as the woman pulled it back, but the battle was over as soon as Yerin had drawn her sword.

Sword aura gathered around basically anything with an edge, so in her spiritual sight, Yerin’s blade shone with a silver halo. She cycled madra according to the Flowing Sword technique, Enforcing the weapon like it was part of her own body.

A low hum, so deep that it was felt rather than heard, passed through the metal. Vital aura responded to the resonance, clustering around the weapon, so the silver glow grew brighter and brighter.

The blade of Yerin’s master passed through bow and woman both, its madra infinitely sharp and cold, like a blade chipped from a glacier. The dirty woman's jaw dropped to her chest as she saw her bow break, and she had a second to look up like a startled rabbit. Then she recognized the pool of blood seeping from her stomach, and one hand reached up in disbelief.

Yerin snatched the green arrow from the air as it fell from the broken bow, jamming it into the woman's arm as she ran past. She’d bet her soul against a rat’s tail that the woman used venomous madra. Those Paths always had ways to resist their own poison, but added to the blood loss and stomach wound...she'd die, but not so soon that Yerin had to deal with her Remnant.

She released the Flowing Sword technique, and the silver glow of the sword aura dimmed.

While the woman shrieked like a dying horse, Yerin passed like a flitting shadow from boulder to trees. The scream should beat her allies out of the bush, maybe make them stutter for a second—

Another fur-wrapped shadow unfolded from the underbrush, driving an awl straight at Yerin's chest. Before her eyes caught up, her spirit had already flared a warning, and she took the impact on the flat of her sword.

An awl was nothing better than a heavy nail set into a grip. It was meant to be driven with the full force of an Enforcement specialist to pierce armor—and, she’d suspect, to pump her full of poison.

Yerin was a skilled Enforcer, but this man had all the leverage and a better position. He'd struck a solid blow while she was running, turning momentum against her. It was a good hit.

But she had the better weapon.

Her white blade took the impact without a scratch, but the force pushed her back like the kick of an ox. She cycled her madra to her limbs, twisting in midair and landing on her feet.

For the first time, she got a clear look at her enemy. He’d done his best impression of a ragged bear, with his oily hair and beard, his hooded fur coat, and the musky stench that she smelled from ten feet away. Not a master of stealth, this one.

He held the awl in one hand, and in the other carried an axe that seemed to be half steel and half Forged madra. Its edge gleamed with a venomous green, just like the other woman's arrow, and veins of the same green penetrated the weapon's metal like a tree's roots through soil. He, too, had the same Goldsign: the centipede-snake creature bound to him, like a tiny green Remnant attached to his arm.

She gripped her sword in both hands and locked eyes with him, while he grimaced at her with black-and-yellow teeth.

She was wounded, blood trickling around her eyes and her body burning from a dozen reopened cuts. Bad as her wounds looked, her spirit was in even worse shape—every minute scrapping with this bear meant another day before she was back to peak form.

Quick fight’s a good fight.

When the dying woman's scream tore the air again, Yerin swept her weapon down in an arc. She channeled madra into the Rippling Sword technique, and sword-madra blasted forward in a crescent, like a ripple of razor-thin glass.

It sliced branches off a tree, but the bandit ducked easily to the side, dodging the Striker move. He hurled his hatchet, approaching from behind with the awl. If she struck the hatchet down, she'd be exposed to his follow-up attack. He was trying to keep her on the back foot, where he'd keep her until he'd stabbed or poisoned her to death.

Which was all bright and shiny, as plans went, but she had skills beyond her advancement level. The Sword Sage wasn’t known for coddling his disciple.

She slapped the hatchet back toward him, just as he'd expected. His eyes gleamed like a tiger spotting a fat pig as he brought the awl forward.

With a mental effort she'd trained every day for years, she extended her attention to the sword aura that clung to her sword. It sheathed her blade in infinite layers, dense and powerful around her master’s weapon, and she struck it with her spirit like a gong.

This was the Ruler technique that had given her Path a name: the Endless Sword.

In her spiritual sight, the aura around her sword burst out in a silver storm. Everything sharp enough to cut within a dozen paces echoed the move, ringing and exploding in razor-sharp sword aura. The flying hatchet burst into dozens of unseen blades, smashing splinters of bark away from a nearby tree and cutting deep into the bandit's skin.

He stumbled and faltered, his awl dipping off-course, and she gathered sword-madra into the Goldsign that dangled over her own shoulder. The metallic sword carried her madra like a riverbank carried water, swift and smooth. It should pass through the bandit's chest and out again like the sharpest spear.

But her spirit cried a warning, and she aborted her attack to roll off to one side, whipping her blade in another Rippling Sword technique.

The wave cut a gouge into the nearest boulder, missing the new enemy, who had popped out of nowhere.

This man was smaller and thinner, a starving rat rather than a scavenging bear. He gripped a wooden spear in both hands, the spearhead a serpent's fang stained with what she could only assume was venom. The man had his own serpent on his arm, and the miniature Remnant snarled at her, revealing a pair of fangs in its mouth. Another Lowgold from the same Path.

Looked like somebody had sent half a sect out here to ruin her day.

She breathed deeply, cycling to hold back her anger, but that was trying to leash a dragon with a bowstring. This vermin had even less honor than she'd thought; they had the numbers and the power, and they still looked to murder a couple of sacred artists more than ten years their junior. In an ambush.

Her surroundings sharpened as she focused her anger and her spirit to a fine point. This fight was about to get bloody and rotten, and she knew it—she may have been the strongest being in Sacred Valley by a long margin, but in the real world, Lowgold practitioners like her were more common than flies on a dead dog. Skill only counted for so much against numbers.

She might even die here, in the woods on the back-end of nowhere, and her guest squirmed at the thought. If she did die, it would make sure that she took her enemies with her.

She didn’t even waste a thought on getting help from Lindon. Putting him in a fight against these men would be pushing a spotted fawn to a couple of wolves.

Only a blink after he’d shown his face, the spearman lunged at her. She ran for the bear; he was still off-guard and under-armed, and letting two men catch her in a pincer attack was just begging to die.

The man dropped to avoid her stab, though her sword still bit the meat of his shoulder. But it wasn’t free—his huge boot caught her on the outside of her leg.

She was using a basic Enforcement technique to strengthen her whole body with madra, but he hit hard enough to shake it. Pain flared in her thigh, and she stumbled off-balance.

If she hit the ground, she would die.

With that panicked thought, she triggered the aura in her sword. It exploded, detonating inside the man's shoulder, sending a spray of shredded meat into the air. He didn't even scream, collapsing on his back and writhing. His mouth flapped open and closed, as though all his air had leaked out through the hole in his shoulder.

Yerin caught herself before she joined him on the ground, but her leg moaned in red-hot pain...and her other wounds joined her in a chorus, dazing her for a critical second. She looked up to see the rat-like spearman coming at her just as blood dripped down into her eye, stinging and making her close it.

One-eyed, one-legged, all but crippled…and alone. Her rage blazed hotter, until she released a shout and staggered forward. A sacred artist lived and died on her feet.

For the first time, one of her opponents got to use a real technique.

The rat-like man grimaced and forced his spear forward. The strike was joined by half a dozen green reflections appearing out of nowhere. It was like he was striking with seven spears at once, and though six of them were made out of madra, she suspected any of them would kill her.

She filled her sword with madra, praying to the heavens that she could break all of her opponent's weapons in one hit. If she did, she lived. If she missed, she died.

Fitting that a sword artist's life would balance on a razor's edge.

Then her spirit flared in warning, and her eyes widened when she realized what it was telling her.

The fawn had thrown itself to the wolves.

***

With his pack on his back, Lindon lay belly-down on the Thousand-Mile Cloud. It sputtered and drifted, dragging him over the terrain on the pitiful trickle of madra he could muster. His Copper spirit had a noticeably greater effect, as he could move faster and farther than ever before, but he was exhausted after advancing.

He’d spent most of his madra in the last minute, drifting around the camp and planting six purple flags. He clutched the last one in his hand, urging the cloud toward Yerin and her opponent.

The screams of the dying woman still hung in the air, but Yerin and the filthy rodent with the spear were not distracted. As Lindon fed another drop of madra into the cloud and lunged toward them, they struck: the spear flashed forward, six acid-green mirror images blinking into existence around it, even as Yerin swept her white blade across.

Lindon tumbled off the cloud, resisting the urge to squeeze his eyes shut and desperately hoping that the impact from their attacks wouldn’t kill him where he lay.

As a deadly cold sensation of pure terror passed over the back of his neck, he jammed the formation banner into the soil along with the last of his madra.

The White Fox boundary was kept in place by seven short banners woven from purple cloth and stitched with white script. When arranged in a circle and activated, the formation summoned aura of light and dreams in the immediate area, creating a cloud of illusions.

This was the first time he’d seen the boundary as a Copper, and it was much more impressive. With half an effort, he saw glowing aura roll in like a sunlit cloud, half-formed images shifting and twisting in its depths.

He’d placed the last banner between Yerin and her enemy, with the circle on the spearman’s side. The rat-like man should be trapped at the edge of the boundary.

Lindon rolled into his back, propping himself up against his pack so he could see if his gamble had worked.

The spearman staggered back a step, his six madra-spears shattered by Yerin, his reptilian eyes flickering around. Lindon let out a relieved breath, and only then realized that he was panting—which would throw off his cycling until he restored his breathing rhythm—and covered in a light sheen of sweat. Sliding within a hair’s breadth of death was more exhausting than hiking up a mountain.

Lindon turned to Yerin just in time to see her foot rushing at his face. It was gentle, as kicks went; instead of impacting with enough force to shatter his skull, her foot caught him on the side of the head and hooked him, scooping him to the side and sending him tumbling away from the Thousand-Mile Cloud.

He rolled over every root and stone on the way, sending extra spikes of pain through him, and landed with his pack digging into his spine. He stared up into scraggly leaves blowing in the wind, and it took him a long moment of disorientation to restore his breath and keep his madra cycling.

When he looked back at Yerin, she’d sent a scythe of sword-madra slicing out at waist height. The filthy man ducked so low it looked as though his bones had melted, ducking the attack, and his eyes gleamed as he swept his spear in a half-circle at the ground.

Spears of Forged green madra stabbed out wildly. One of them caught the White Fox banner, shredding the cloth. Another stabbed at Yerin, forcing her to one side, and the rat-like man coiled as though preparing to unleash his entire body’s strength behind his spear.

A sick sensation hung heavy in Lindon’s gut. He’d expected the boundary to do something, if only to slow the man down. It had been the lowest-risk move he had with a chance of working, but the most advanced sacred artist he’d ever trapped in the boundary had been an Iron. A Gold, even a “Lowgold” that Yerin mentioned, was obviously a different beast entirely. He’d tried to catch a wolf in a rabbit-snare.

Lindon ran his mind down the contents of his pack like he was running fingers along a bookshelf, trying to find the key to his situation. Yerin was wounded and visibly struggling; he needed to help somehow. His halfsilver dagger might be even more effective on a Gold than on a lesser practitioner, but he’d have to get close enough to use it. He had the feeling that the man’s spear would end him before he got within ten yards. Maybe he could throw his parasite ring at the man, hoping that the halfsilver content of that device would throw the man off, but at that point he might as well be throwing rocks. Could the Thousand-Mile Cloud do anything?

As he was thinking, Yerin leaped on her one good leg. Despite her injuries and the blood dribbling past her eye, the move still looked graceful. The man brought his snake-fang spearhead up to point at Yerin, but she had already slashed out with another Striker technique.

Bright green madra gathered around his weapon, giving Lindon’s Copper senses the impression of an infected wound. If Yerin was hit by one of those techniques, they wouldn’t have the medicine to save her.

But he’d underestimated the Sword Sage’s disciple.

Before the spearman had gathered his technique, Yerin lashed out in a wave of razor-sharp energy. It blasted down from her blade, crashing through the green power and into the ground…which was when the silver sword-arm on her back struck, sending a second identical attack into the man’s skull. It sliced without resistance from his head down to his feet.

He crumpled into two halves. Lindon jerked his eyes away from the gory sight, turning to Yerin.

She didn’t land so much as slam into the ground, crashing into a bush. He hurried over, heart tight with concern, slipping his pack over one arm. They were out of bandages, but he could cut his spare clothes into strips. That was assuming she only had surface wounds. If she’d broken a bone, he’d have to fashion a splint, and he had only a vague idea how to do that. And if she’d taken the man’s toxic madra or an internal injury, there was nothing he could do. They’d have to risk the journey back to Sacred Valley for medical care, which would only be slightly safer than letting her die on the forest floor.

The thoughts flitted through his mind as he ran toward Yerin, fishing in his pack for a bundle of white outer robes and his halfsilver dagger. He’d found them both by the time he fell to his knees next to her, setting his tools aside to touch her with ginger hands.

Her back rose and fell, so at least she lived, but her white sword was an inch away from her outstretched hand. He couldn’t help noticing how frost had already begun to gather on the nearby dried leaves, which steadily crumbled to frozen pieces. He was already a few feet away from the weapon, but he edged slightly backwards anyway.

Her skin was clammy but her pulse steady, and he could hear her breath gaining the familiar rhythm of a cycling technique. She stirred, trying to sit up, and he grabbed her shoulder to either help her or keep her from moving too much. He wasn’t sure which.

“Where’s the worst of it?” he asked, having decided that was the most pertinent question. If he could bandage the most severe injury, he could at least slow the rate at which she bled to death.

She grabbed him by the neck in a grip like a scorpion’s claw, bringing her face close to his. Blood had matted her left eye closed, and the other was wavering and unfocused, but he stopped himself from jerking back in instinctive fear.

“Remnants,” she grunted out, her other hand groping blindly in the dirt for the hilt of her sword. “Run.”

The dying bandit woman’s scream finally died out, leaving the clearing quiet for half a breath. Then a shrill screech cut through the silence like a snake’s hiss and a teakettle’s whistle at once. An acid green shape rose in the corner of his vision, from the center of the rat-like bandit’s torn flesh.

Lindon didn’t have a clear look at the Remnant, but he got the impression of a twisting serpentine body with insectoid claws running along the side, like a green Forged hybrid of an adder and a centipede. But he didn’t waste time staring at it; he wrapped his spare robe around his hand in a few quick motions, grabbing the hilt of Yerin’s sword with his newly gloved hand. He felt the cold even through three layers of cloth, but he slid it into the sheath at her side before the ice bit too sharply.

That accomplished, he shoved the robe and the halfsilver dagger back into his pack, slipping one arm under Yerin’s shoulder. She hissed in through gritted teeth as he lifted her, and under other circumstances he would have worried about making her internal injuries worse.

As he staggered over to the Thousand-Mile Cloud, Yerin’s weight highlighting the exhaustion of advancing to Copper, he heard another of those sharp whistles rising up to the sky. A second Remnant was rising.

He glanced behind him to the first, which was even more horrible to look at than he’d imagined. Like all Remnants, it looked as though it had been painted onto the world in lines of color, though this one had a luminous yellow-green that no paint could imitate. Its head gave the impression of a snake, its body serpentine and propelled along the ground by rows of segmented insect legs. Worse, on the end of its pointed tail was a stinger.

It moved in a hideous slithering crawl in their general direction, but fortunately for them, Remnants were often disoriented as they were born. He’d seen some Remnants stand still after they were born, others drift aimlessly away into the distance, and still others go completely berserk. This one was so disoriented it looked drunk, weaving awkwardly around the dirt and leaves.

But it was still heading unmistakably toward them.

Lindon reached the rust-colored cloud in a few more steps, but each one felt as though he were walking beneath a headsman’s blade. Both his cores were dim and guttering like candle-flames, but he squeezed the last bit of madra out of one as he collapsed onto the cloud, pack on his back and Yerin in his arms. They lurched down the hill, deeper into the black forest.

Yerin’s breath was hot on his collar, her eyes closed and her voice shaky. “Things as…they are…I’d contend…we shouldn’t stay here.”

Through the trees, two bright green shapes scuttled after them.