Unintended Cultivator

Misty Peak had given him an annoyed look when Sen put his foot down. She’d been trying to convince him to just take her along when he returned to Fu Ruolan. He had, for his part, reiterated the point that the reception would not be good and that he wasn’t going to be responsible for her pointless death. When the group had finally reached the town where Falling Leaf occasionally went to buy things, Sen had called a halt.

“This is as far as you two go,” Sen told the foxes.

Laughing River, who seemed to have an inkling of just who it was that Sen was learning from, seemed perfectly happy to keep his distance. The old fox had not deigned to share that bit of information with his granddaughter. Sen had wondered why initially, only to later realize that the elder fox was just amusing himself. That it came at Sen’s expense was probably just a bit of payback. Sen was holding the spatial treasure hostage until Laughing River taught Falling Leaf what he could about transformation. Misty Peak opened her mouth to say something, but Sen just shook his head.

“You knew this was going to happen right from the start,” he said. “No complaining.”

The fox woman briefly tried to glare him to death before letting out a little huff of air. “Fine.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s the inn,” said Sen, pointing at a building. “Try not to start a riot.”

Sen looked over at Glimmer of Night and jerked his head toward the road. Sen had worried that the villagers and townspeople along the way might attack Glimmer of Night, but it hadn’t been a problem so far. People mostly just kept their distance and town guards acted extra nervous. As long as the spider didn’t do anything too threatening, though, everyone seemed to content to just leave him be. The spider gave the foxes a sort of half-wave and joined Sen. Once they passed through the town's gates, Sen picked up the pace a lot. He’d been holding back a lot on the trip this far. Neither Li Yi Nuo nor Misty Peak could really keep up with him. The spider didn’t seem to have that problem. Sen didn’t know if it was some kind of movement skill or if Glimmer of Night was just that fast, but they started covering ground at a truly tremendous pace. As the miles disappeared behind them, an uneasy feeling started to grow in Sen’s heart. He found his gaze drifting to some place farther north than he’d initially planned to go. Sen tried to think of what could be that direction that he would care about. There’s nothing out there but Mt. Solace, and I certainly don’t want to go back there, thought Sen.

However, the feeling grew the farther they went until it burned inside him. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear that someone was trying to summon him like some kind of a spirit. Of course, that was absurd. Nobody had anything of his to try to do something like that. Sen lurched to a stop as it occurred to him that someone did have something of his, or rather something that he had given to her. That little girl from the village, he realized. The necklace. He hadn’t just given that to her. He had made that for her. It wasn’t much, but he would have left a minor imprint of his own qi on it. Sen wouldn’t have thought that trace could let her forge any kind of connection between them. If the girl was frightened enough, though, if she was desperate enough, that might be sufficient. Sen felt the spider looking at him.

“Just how fast are you?” asked Sen.

“I need to go check on something,” said Sen, “and possibly murder some people. This isn’t your problem, but you’ll have to keep up if you mean to come along. I get the feeling that this is urgent.”

“Oh,” said Glimmer of Night, suddenly sounding interested. “I can keep up.”

“Good.”

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Sen activated his qinggong technique and disappeared in a blur of motion, followed almost immediately by a similar dark blur. The countryside flashed by as Sen and Glimmer of Night flew down the road, veering around people and carts that looked all but motionless to their eyes. Sen didn’t bother with niceties like gates. He simply bounded over town walls and used roofs as springboards before shooting away on the far side. Nor did he stop for inconveniences like nighttime or weather. The handful of fatally stupid spirit beasts that got in their way died swift and ignominious deaths. A trip that should have taken as much as another eight or ten days was made in one day. It still wasn’t fast enough.

Sen stood in what was left of the village, his fists clenched and trembling with fury. He wasn’t sure exactly what had happened beyond that the place had been attacked by someone or something. Most of the building had burned down and there were bodies everywhere. Again, he couldn’t be sure exactly what had happened because most of the bodies were burned beyond recognition. As near as he could tell, no one had been spared. There were heartrendingly small bodies that were far too small to be anything but children. I’m too late, thought Sen as his fury grew so vast and intense that it threatened to rip his chest apart. He knew he couldn’t be everywhere or help everyone. It seemed particularly cruel of fate to alert him of this danger only so he could fail to arrive in time. He couldn’t even be sure that the little girl was among the dead. A spike of icy terror lanced through him and brought him up short. He examined that feeling. He was no stranger to fear, his own fear in particular, and that fear hadn’t been his.

He whipped around to stare to the west as though he could see what he wanted to see through sheer force of will. He was surprised to see Glimmer of Night walking toward him from that direction. The spider gave him that same calm, unreadable expression he always did. Then, the spider turned and pointed to the west.

“They went that direction,” said the spider. “I thought you might want to know.”

“I did want to know. Thank you,” said Sen before adding another thought. “You don’t have to come along for this. I’ll make a galehouse nearby for you to stay in.”

“Why wouldn’t I come?” asked the spider.

“Because I mean to kill some people. I don’t expect you to bloody your hands in my fights.”

The spider shrugged. “Blood doesn’t bother me.”

Sen wasn’t quite sure what to make of that comment, and he didn’t have the time or mental energy to unpack it right then. What he did know was that there was a frightened little girl out there who had probably just been orphaned. Sen knew exactly how alone that made someone feel. He knew the fear of having no one to defend you from the many ills the world had to offer. In her time of need, it seemed she had not implored the heavens or the gods to help her. She had called out to him. While he might not be a god, whoever took her was going to have a damned hard time telling the difference. If the spider was willing to help him get that little girl back safely, it was enough.

“My gratitude,” said Sen.

Between the trail and the connection Sen could feel, it didn’t take them long to find what they were looking for. The pair looked down on the scene from high up in a tall tree, wrapped in shadows that Sen had conjured to obscure them. Sen couldn’t tell if they were bandits or something else, not that he particularly cared about the people he saw. It looked like half of them were drunk from the way they stumbled around. A handful were doing useful things like forging or cleaning up, but they were the exception. In the end, they were just dead people who hadn’t figured it out yet as far as Sen was concerned. They had set up what they probably imagined was a well-fortified position far enough out into the wilds that most people couldn’t or wouldn’t follow them to it.

For Sen, who had walked far deeper into the wilds than this, and the spider, who had lived in a monumentally more dangerous place, getting to the encampment had been little more than a nice summer stroll. There were bamboo cages set up near the center of the makeshift village. Sen could see the little girl and a few others huddled in those cages. Some of the bandits, or whatever they were, would go over and taunt the people in the cages or throw things at them. It might have been trash, but it could have been worse things.

“Protect the people in those cages,” said Sen. “Do you need a weapon?”

Glimmer of Night shook his head. “I don’t know how to use them. It would just get in the way.”

“Remind me later to fix that,” said Sen.

“I will. What will you do?” asked Glimmer of Night.

Sen’s hand closed so hard around the tree limb he was holding that he almost severed it from the trunk. He’d known what he was going to do from the second he saw the burned-out husk that used to be a village. It had never really been a question.

“Pass judgment.”

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