Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 174: Saving Guan

The demonic behemoth gathered itself up and leaped – awesome in its might – scattered the archers, and killed two caravan warriors. Its massive front feet pounded their bodies into fleshy mush in the spring mud. And still, it raised its head. Red Daoist came for it, but it ignored the Red Daoist and looked at Wuyi standing near a tree and it turned at bay. Its great eyes met Wuyi"s.

It prepared to charge at Wuyi.

"Why me?" Wuyi said.

It raised its head and bellowed, and the woods shook. One of Baijian"s subordinates—Jinghao—landed a hard blow with a spear and was swiped by the whole force of its mighty head in reply, crushing his armor and breaking all his ribs. He fell without a sound. Xueqin Yang, one day out of the infirmary, struck it with a spear too, and danced aside as its splintered, burning tusk sought his life.

He tripped and fell over a rotten stump, which saved his life as its tusks and fangs passed over his head.

Red Daoist moved across the stream, his halberd flashing above the swollen water, charging his prey. The behemoth turned to finish Xueqin Yang, caught sight of Red Daoist"s rush, and hesitated a fraction of a heartbeat.

Baijian watched his Young Master"s protector rush the monster and laughed. "I love him," he shouted, and leaped after.

The monster lurched forward, stumbled, and Red Daoist thrust, catching it in the mouth, cutting up so that ivory sprayed. The splintered tusk caught the back of his armor, bounced off him. The behemoth pushed hard, tried to slam him into the stream. He pushed back, his red body glowing as if on fire.

From afar, Wuyi felt sympathy for the behemoth as the beast was being slashed and cooked by Red Daoist"s fiery Qi at the same time. Red Daoist reversed the halberd and used its sharp end to thrust down into its eye as the creature fell.

Baijian slammed his fist into the thing before it was done moving. "I name you – meat!" he shouted.

All warriors around laughed. Some of the Qi warriors were even applauding, and the caravan warriors began to realize they might live. They began to cheer.

A last arrow flew into the corpse.

There was nervous laughter and then the cheers swelled.

"Young Master! Young Master! Young Master!"

The caravan warriors were a bit confused as to why this red warrior was not cheered but the young master behind him.

Wuyi enjoyed it for three heavy breaths. Three deep, lung-filling breaths to enjoy being alive, being victorious. Then—

"We"re not out of this yet," Wuyi snapped.

At the sound of his voice, the Qi warrior who"d led the defense of the crossing, who was fighting for the caravan against demonics before Wuyi"s group arrived, got up from where he"d knelt to pray—or fallen in exhaustion.

The Warrior looked at Wuyi and Wuyi looked at the warrior; they looked at each other for a moment too long, the way only mortal foes and lovers look at each other.

And then Wuyi turned away. "Get the horses. Get everyone mounted. Get as many of these wagons as we can save. Move, move, move. Baijian, collect wagons.

Who"s in charge here? You?" He gestured at one of the men of the convoy.

He turned to Yun Ming, who had arrived mysteriously near him. "Find out who"s in charge of the convoy, get a head count. The Warrior in front of you—"

"I know who he is," Yun Ming said.

"He looks wounded," Wuyi replied.

The warrior they were talking about rose and hobbled forward. His right leg was shiny and slick with blood.

"You. Bastard!" he said and cocked back his sword to swing at Wuyi. He collapsed just as Yun Ming took his sword.

Baijian laughed. "Someone who knows you?" he said, chortled, and got to work. "All right, you lot! Archers on me! Listen up!"

But Wuyi stood by the unconscious warrior"s body. For reasons none of them knew, except perhaps Yun Ming, it was a deeply satisfying moment. A great victory. And a little personal revenge.

Rescuing Yuanjing Guan. Wuyi did not know his name, but he knew for certain this warrior was another young master from Yuanjing.

Killing a behemoth. This one, in death, didn"t look any smaller than the flying serpents. It was still huge.

Wuyi shook his head and smiled.

Baijian met his eye.

"Sometimes, this is the best life I could ever have imagined," Wuyi said.

"That's why we love you," Baijian said.

✶ ✶ ✶

Luding sat cross-legged beneath the tree that bore his name and watched the world.

He couldn"t pretend that he liked what he saw.

He had suffered a crushing defeat the day before – the little army that the Lotus Pavilion had hired, led by the dark sun that could extinguish itself – had combined with the last convoy coming upriver to crush his best mobile force.

Even now, he couldn"t reach any of his chieftains among the Duskreavers and Samplings that were coming back across the river. But the losses had been staggering.

And he could feel the waves of sheer power that still rolled across the sea of trees from the fight. Someone almost as great as him had loosed powers that were better left unloosed. That power sang through the Wild like a clarion call. And Luding knew the taste of that power.

That red Qi warrior was demonic, and he was powerful, almost able to fight Luding. How did that young leader make the Red Warrior serve him? This red warrior and the dark sun young leader were both big problems for him.

His master had come to him yesterday and told him to capture the dark Sun alive; he also wanted Luding to keep quiet about the Dark Sun and not to tell anyone. Luding could feel the greed of his master. His master had a big appetite; he wanted to swallow the dark sun. Maybe Luding could swallow this dark sun and gain powers like his master.

But the Dark Sun wasn"t the only problem. Someone had killed three of the Kwimok, which men called earthly demons, the great cave giants armored in stone from the high mountains. He had only bound a dozen to serve him, and now three were slain.

And perhaps the worst blow of all was the Nomad's defection. Their chiefs had deserted him and gone east to fight their own battle. Had they been present with his force, none of this would ever have happened.

Luding wheeled his starlings and doves in the sky, looked down from their eyes, and knew that he had been misled by the powers in the old fortress. The assault of the birds of prey had pushed his little helpers away. And he had been blind for one scant hour.

But in his hand was a precious jewel. His friend had, at last, sent him word. Detailed word.

Despite the defeat, he now had the true measure of his enemy, and his enemy was not as strong as Luding had feared. He didn"t like the taste of their power, but he didn"t need to fear their Qi warrior subordinates. They were too few.

Luding had not risen to power by ignoring the causes of defeat. He didn"t accept false pride. He acknowledged that he had been fooled and beaten and immediately altered his plans.

First, the Nomads, they were badly hurt and their leaders looked fools after defeat. This was the time to force them back to their allegiance to him. He needed them, and their ruthless human cleverness – so very different, and so much more cunning than the Duskreavers and Swamplings.

He needed to consult with his allies among the Yingmo demons, and he needed to convince them, with a show of force, that he was still the master of these woods. Lest they slip away too.

He savored the irony. He was attacking the fort, and yet they threatened to defect. He sighed, because all these petty interplays of emotion and interest resembled the very politics that had driven him away from other righteous faction when he was a righteous man. The Demonic Wild had been his escape and now proved the same.

It was foolish that he needed a victory to convince the unwilling when he could take the lives of most of his allies merely by reaching into the essence of their life Qi and pulling—

He remembered one of his students admonishing him that you could not convince men by killing them, and he smiled at the memory. The boy had been both right and wrong. Luding had never been very interested in convincing anyone. But reminiscence would solve nothing.

He withdrew his attention from the doves, and the lynx, and the fox; the hares were all dead, taken by hounds, and he moved his thinly distributed consciousness back to the body he had made for it. A dozen Duskreavers stood guard over him, and he acknowledged them. "Summon my chieftains," he said in the harsh croak he now had as a voice, and they flinched and obeyed.

The Leaders came, each with his own tail of followers, because that was the way of the Demonic Wild.