Chương 17: Knife & Death, IV

Back to the battlefield, then. Wu Hao was still surprised at how easy it'd been to steal the knife. If he'd known it'd be this easy... He wondered what else he'd missed, all his previous lives. He almost didn't dare imagining. Were there other weapons he could pick up somewhere, information just laying around? Martial arts he could learn? Was there a simple way to just escape, that he just wasn't thinking of? It was possible, but there was no point in trying to think about what he might have missed beforehand.

He'd get to that when he'd get to that. There was no need to look for problems on his own initiative when the ones he already had were massive enough. Moving his arm just so let the knife slide out from his rags. It'd already inflicted several thin scratches on his arm even during the short period that he'd been walking out of Uncle Liu's tent with it, ears alert for any sounds that might tip him off to his theft having been discovered. He could deal with the scratches, though.

What was a scratch when your head had been torn off before? Why worry about minor injuries when Wu Hao was growing increasingly convinced he was simply unable to die? More important was the knife. He inspected it more carefully once he'd left the medicine tent proper and walked into a space between two tents that had been put up, where the odds that someone would see him were far lower. There wasn't much light here, but it'd do.

The knife was a chopping knife, not so different from the ones used by the kitchen groups, but sharper. Stains of something unidentifiable littered the blade's iron blade, which was rectangular and bigger than the relatively thin handle. At the end of the knife's handle was a ring, presumably used to hang the knife from a belt. Wu Hao tried slipping in a finger and found that it didn't fit more than his fingertip. Not the kind of knife that you could twirl around, then. But the knife was sharp, and now it was his.

He spread his qi slowly through the knife and found that, while it didn't give him that same, immediate click that he'd gotten from the Honor Guard's daggers, that click still came eventually. Trying to execute any techniques would be foolish right now, but his gut feeling told him that it'd work. Good enough, then. He would use the tools he had. For now he put the knife to his underarm and strapped it in a little more securely using a strip of cloth that he'd ripped from his clothing.

Then he made his way back to the tent. It was where their group was supposed to meet up after they'd finished any task that would separate them from their little herd. For a moment he thought about maybe slacking off, but then he shook his head. It wouldn't do to raise suspicion and to risk getting caught like that, not when he still carried the knife on him. Just because Uncle Liu hadn't noticed the theft straight away, that didn't mean he couldn't notice the theft sometime soon, after all.

"721," 726 said, the moment he'd returned.

"You've delivered the herb to Uncle?"

"Yes, Brother," Wu Hao said.

"Then we proceed to our next task," 726 responded.

"We go to dig the latrines."

"Understood." Back to the usual, then. Wu Hao suppressed a sigh. And as promised, the rest of the day did pass as usual. In the evening they ate a meagre meal, during the night they slept, and in the pre-dawn morning they were woken to attend Father's speech. No mention was made of the missing knife, so as far as Wu Hao knew the theft hadn't been noticed at all. Whatever the case was, they were guided to Uncle Bai, who sent them out to go capture the same hill as always.

It struck Wu Hao that he could try to find out if maybe it was possible to have Uncle Bai change his mind on which group was sent where, but at the moment it was too late. That'd have to wait until the next time. Although that was a thought he would try to banish. No point in already thinking about the next time - that was too much like giving up before a blow had even been struck, and the thought rankled Wu Hao for reasons he couldn't begin to explain.

But as they walked, they passed by the campsite again that they always had to go through to arrive at their designated staging area. The wagons stood, neatly arranged in a circle around a middle that had been hidden from sight, with big swathes of cloth hiding anything inside the circle. A painted wing stretched across each of the carriages. The symbol of the Peng Clan, though Wu Hao had never seen anyone from their group before.

The men from the Jin Clan were talking, though in a slightly different grouping than the last time he'd seen them. The man in the deep purple robe stood leaning against their tent, arms folded and brows furrowed. His saber was mostly hidden behind his back, though a fancy hilt poked out from behind his shoulder. On the other hand, the man with the fire-red hair and the earrings lay sprawled out halfway on the ground, with his back propped up against a crate that stood near the tent.

On his belly lay his saber, with a curved edge, but he didn't have the easy familiarity with it that the man in purple did. Both had sabers, because it was the Jin Clan and to see them without sabers was like... Like Father giving a deathsworn a hug, something in Wu Hao's mind suggested. Or maybe a pardon. That sounded about impossible enough. Of the final man, Wu Hao saw nothing. If he was there but just inside the tent or if he was on the battlefield, it was impossible to say.

He'd seemed like the leader, last time Wu Hao had been here, but he'd had nothing but the impression of the man's presence to go by. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. Whether or not their leader was there, the men were talking again, and they didn't bother hiding their voices as the deathsworn column marched past.

"Who're they?" the man in purple said. His voice was loud and he was tall enough that he'd probably stand out anywhere, but in the camp where everyone they passed was clearly a servant of some kind he stood out especially.

"Who?" came a lazy drawl in return.

"I know you can see 'em with your eyes closed," the man in purple said, tone exasperated. The red-haired man shrugged.

"Don't know," he said.

"They're no threat, anyway." The man in purple barked a laugh.

"Fair enough."

"Besides, they're deathsworn," the man in red pointed out. His eyes were still closed, though.

"Can't you tell, old Zunxin?"

"Huh," Zunxin grunted.

"People still do that?"

"Seems like it. They're a little young to have been around the last time that was popular."

"Suppose so," Zunxin said, rubbing his chin. With that, the man in red seemed to lose whatever interest in the deathsworn that they'd had. His head, which had raised only minimally from where it'd been laying on his arms, fell down again. The rest of the deathsworn ignored them, but Wu Hao's attention was drawn to them nonetheless. All the other martial artists in the camp ignored them entirely or just watched them pass in silence, while these two men were the only ones that had even tried to interact.

He wasn't stupid enough to confuse that with them having any positive feelings towards them, but still, it was something, and he was curious... Before he could really think about it more, Wu Hao found his feet carrying him towards the Jin clan tents, breaking away from the rest of the deathsworn. He felt their gazes start burning into his back but ignored them. Theirs weren't the only ones.

As he came closer, the man in purple - Zunxin, apparently - shifted his hand slightly closer to his weapon and the man in red sat up slightly, though he didn't bother to grab his weapon. His eyes opened slightly.

"I have a question," he said.

"Only one?" the man in red asked.

"Lucky you. Most of us have more than a few." Zunxin snickered at that, but Wu Hao let it go.

"What's Samadhi Fire?" he asked instead.

"Odd question," the man in red mused out loud.

"Sounds Buddhist, I suppose. Doesn't it? I know a thing or two about fire, but that's not a fire I've heard about before." The noise of cloth shifting against cloth as Zunxin slightly deeper against the tent.

"Send him on his way," Zunxin suggested.

"We're busy."

"No you're not," Wu Hao said. Zunxin scowled.

"We're busy waiting, kid." Wu Hao ignored him and instead focused on the man in red. He looked a little contemplative.

"Tell me," he demanded.

"You know more, don't you?"

"No," the man in red said simply.

"I think you'd best walk away, kid." Wu Hao didn't scowl, but he did marshal a little qi and touch the knife within his sleeve.

"Stop that," the man in red said lightly, and then he released the hold on his own qi just a little. Compared to Wu Hao's shallow pool, the qi he was feeling now felt so much deeper and wider that it was hard to even articulate. It was a feeling that wasn't dissimilar to that which he'd felt from Father. The presence of the man in red felt like solid steel, a drawn sword held directly against the skin, oiled and cleaned and so sharp that it could cut through anything in its path.

But there was more to it, too - something that felt like a stain but moreso, burned into the metal itself. Rust. He stumbled back, hand falling away from his knife as it nearly vibrated in his grasp, and the first step back he took pulled him out of the grey haze of qi that'd begun shimmering around him. Wu Hao stood there, panting for a moment, still feeling the effects of that intense heat. If he'd stayed any longer, it felt like he might have cut himself.

"Better," the man in red said, and reined his qi back in.

"Now run, little deathsworn. Run back home or your mission, hmm?" The man in red had to be at least a first-grade martial artist, Wu Hao decided. He didn't know where the boundary sat exactly, but he knew that much. Zunxin snickered, all the more when Wu Hao walked back to the group. They'd stopped while he'd gone to talk to the men, not out of politeness but out of simple bafflement at what he thought he was doing. No one touched him or hauled him back, though. Instead, they just stared at him, silently judging.

Something in their stares ordered him to explain himself, but he kept his mouth shut instead. When he'd rejoined the group, 748 cleared his throat. Apparently he'd appointed himself their leader again.

"Let's go," he commanded, and so they did. Wu Hao's group reformed around 726, as it usually did, and when Wu Hao fell in he was set upon by 726, whose blank look conveyed something of a cold fury.

"What was that about?" 726 hissed.

"Is it not good to understand Father's enemies?" Wu Hao asked.

"Who understands them better than Father?" 726 countered.

"When we get back, this will be reported." Something about that last sentence in particular struck Wu Hao as oddly funny, and he had to fight not to raise an eyebrow.

"If," he told 726.

"If we get back. Not when."

"We will," 726 said.

"Father has ordered victory, and that's what we'll give him."

"As Father commands," Wu Hao said, and for once he felt an odd kinship with 729. He could see why the other boy indulged in sarcasm.