Chương 30: Lìchūn: Tempering 9

The second passage narrows almost at once. Liu Yinhua has to turn her shoulders slightly to pass between two stone ribs jutting from the walls, and Xie Lianqiu mutters something behind her about sect architects having no respect for bows. The eight lamps from the first chamber leave their light behind quickly. Within a dozen steps, the passage ahead is dim enough that Liu Yinhua lifts her right hand and draws a thin scatter of golden motes from her fingers.

The light drifts forward in dull pieces, catching on damp stone, old scratch marks, and a low step she would have missed without it. Xie Lianqiu makes a quiet sound behind her.

"Useful." Liu Yinhua glances back despite herself, and that is when the wall comes down between them. It does not fall from the ceiling. There is no grinding stone, no warning crack, no sensible mechanism she can understand. One moment Xie Lianqiu is behind her, pale sleeve and bow angled awkwardly in the narrow passage. The next, the air between them hardens into a pane of dark, rippling qi. Liu Yinhua steps back at once, and the surface shivers where her sleeve nearly touches it.

Xie Lianqiu's face blurs behind it.

"Liu Yinhua?"

"I am here." The wall thickens. The words reach her, muffled now, as if heard through water.

"Can you break it?" Liu Yinhua looks at the qi structure, at the faint formation marks waking along the stone ribs on either side, and at the token warming in her sleeve.

"I doubt it."

"Do not do anything stupid."

"That was going to be my line." Xie Lianqiu says something else, but the wall swallows the sound before it reaches her. Her shape fades behind the dark surface. A heartbeat later, Liu Yinhua is alone in the passage, with the motes of her own failed spark drifting ahead and the quiet stone around her. She waits, but nothing changes. There is no point shouting. Xie Lianqiu cannot hear her, and if something else can, it likely does not need encouragement. Liu Yinhua breathes once, then again, and checks what she has.

She has her bow, and enough arrows for now, and her qi is not entirely gone, and the last of her red stone in her side pack if she needs qi in an emergency. She knows there are better qi restoring options, but all of them are too expensive for her right now. The passage ahead slopes down, and the air grows cooler with each step, the stone changing underfoot from rough-cut slabs to natural rock worn smooth by old water. Thin roots have found their way through cracks overhead. Some hang low enough to brush her hair.

Her motes fade, and she makes another scatter with a small flick of her wrist, keeping the light dull this time. The tunnel opens into a low cavern. It is wider than the passage but not large, with a ceiling so crowded by hanging roots and pale mineral teeth that Liu Yinhua has to duck near the entrance. Shallow water covers parts of the floor, broken by slick stones and raised patches of dark soil. Three stone lanterns stand at the far side, each marked with a formation character.

Beyond them is another passage sealed by a flat slab of stone. Something moves near the water, and Liu Yinhua stills. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. The thing is small, no larger than a cat, with a narrow body, long hind legs, and dull grey fur that blends too well with the stone. Its eyes catch the golden motes and flash green, then another pair of eyes opens behind it. Then another. She slides the bow from her shoulder as slowly as she can.

Xie Lianqiu has made her practise the motion until the string no longer catches her sleeve every time, and for once, Liu Yinhua is grateful enough that she might even say so later. If there is a later. The first creature darts forward. Liu Yinhua looses too quickly. The arrow strikes stone beside it and snaps with a crack that echoes through the cavern. The creature flinches, but two more break from the roots at the sound, skittering low over the wet floor.

Their claws click against stone, sending shivers down her spine. She steps sideways with Dance of Falling Blossoms, qi moving through her left leg in a warm line. The first beast snaps at empty air where her ankle had been. Her foot lands on a slick patch of stone, slides, and the second beast turns toward the movement. Liu Yinhua draws and fires again, and t his arrow hits. The beast gives a sharp, ugly cry and tumbles into the shallow water, thrashing once before going still.

The other two freeze, noses twitching. Liu Yinhua reaches for another arrow, breathing too fast, and the golden motes around her begin to fade. The cavern darkens. One of the beasts lunges. She flicks her right hand without thinking. The spark does not form as a ray. It comes apart in a scatter of dull gold directly between her and the creature. The beast veers toward the light instead of her hand, jaws snapping at the air, and Liu Yinhua shoots it through the side at three paces.

The force of the shot jars her wrist. The beast lands, kicks twice, and stops. Liu Yinhua stares at it for half a breath. The last beast runs. It streaks toward the far side of the cavern, disappearing under a curtain of roots near the sealed passage. Liu Yinhua draws on it, but it is already gone, and her next breath comes hard enough to make her ribs ache. She lowers the bow before her arm can shake the shot useless. The cavern goes quiet again. She waits for more eyes to open.

None do, and only then does she move. She keeps to the raised stones where she can, arrow nocked, eyes flicking between the roots and the lanterns. The dead beasts are unpleasantly real when she passes them. Grey fur, narrow jaws, little black claws. One has a faint mark branded into the skin behind its ear. The three lanterns at the far wall are not like the ones in the first chamber. These are smaller, set on waist-high posts, and each stone cup is filled with a pinch of pale ash.

The characters beneath them are simpler too. She recognises one at once. Light. Draw. The third she does not know until she crouches and rubs dirt from the lower stroke. Strike. Liu Yinhua looks from the lanterns to the sealed passage, and s omething rustles in the roots above. She moves before she sees it properly. A grey body drops from the ceiling, all legs and teeth, and Liu Yinhua throws herself sideways. The beast hits the ground where she had been standing and skids into the nearest lantern.

Ash spills across the stone. Her arrow is useless at this distance. She yanks Wu Cailan's blade from her sleeve, just as the beast lunges again. Liu Yinhua strikes out, more by terror than skill, and the blade catches across its muzzle instead of its throat. It shrieks as she stumbles back, nearly falls over the second lantern, and shoves qi into her right hand. This time, the spark forms, hot enough to sting her fingers. She does not throw it at the beast.

It is too close, moving too quickly, and she has missed easier targets. Instead, she slaps her burning fingers against the arrowhead still held in her bow hand. Heat flashes along the metal as Liu Yinhua draws, aims at the beast's open mouth, and releases. The arrow strikes with a crack of radiance, bright as sunlight. The beast drops, the smelling of burning meat filling the air through the smouldering hole where it's throat is now open to the air. For a moment, Liu Yinhua hears nothing but her own breathing.

Her palm burns, and her dantian dips so sharply that her knees feel weak, and the smell of scorched fur rises into the damp air. Then the three lanterns ignite, o ne after the other, pale gold light rises from the ash cups. The first brightens. The second pulls a thin line of light from the first. The third catches that line and sends it into the sealed stone door. The stone slab at the far side slides open.