Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 200: Wuyi Slept

The battle with demons continued for a while. Over the years, Wuyi had learned many arts of battling; even Old Man Xilai had taught him some great arts. But here in a real battle, he was hardly able to use any. The biggest limiter for him was Qi. Most of his energy was used by statues. He rarely had any left for using skills.

Here in real battle, his subordinates actually turned out to be his biggest strength. The value of subordinates had risen in his eyes.

Yun Ming, beside him, was attacking the demon. He executed a two-handed blade attack, breaking the demon's sword arm with his spear. The demon stumbled back, and Yun Ming thrust his spear haft between its legs.

As it stumbled, Wuyi seized the moment, stepping forward and delivering an overhand cut from the guard of the long tail. The sword flashed up, powered by his back, arms, and shoulders as he leveled the blow from right to left.

His blow went under its weapon. Beheaded it.

Beside him, Yun Ming stepped forward again and rammed the spear's spike into the supine demon so that it screamed.

There was a sound very like applause. Wuyi wondered who was watching.

They were most of the way up the ridge, under the main gate. And still bathed in the silver-white light of the chamber, the Qi was actually from the statue of light, but to enhance the Qi, he had taken the help of the statue of harmony and the chamber. Because of this light Qi the terror released by demons was having little effect on his subordinates. But maintaining it was costing him energy.

He was breathing hard. His mask was like a trap over his face, constricting him.

The demons came on again. There were swamp creatures trying to get around them on the left and right, and his archers were shooting with methodical regularity, but he couldn't stop to think about that. They were on him.

The demon in front of him swung its axe two-handed, and he cut at its hands – its blow turned to a defense, and its left claw shot out and slammed into his shoulder, and he stumbled back. The attack was fierce.

Yun Ming threw three fast jabs with his spear point, reversed his spear to bat his opponent's axe out of the way, and planted his spike in the demon – it screamed and fell back, taking the haft with it, planted in its breastbone. Yun Ming struggled too long to keep it.

Wuyi's adversary swung on Yun Ming from the side, catching him in the side of the head, and Yun Ming fell.

Wuyi was reaching his limit. His shoulder was injured. His mask was cracked a bit, and his face was injured. Yun Ming was somewhere half a pace behind him. He didn't dare try to retreat, and for some reason, his people seemed to think he wanted this to be a single combat against his adversary ahead.

His Qi was running out.

The effort of holding his sword above his head while maintaining the light Qi he had summoned would eventually be too much. When that happened, he would have no other choice than to use his final card, the summon statue of shadow. Wuyi suddenly realized that for an amazing, mysterious young master, he was lacking in trump cards.

When the situation got this hairy, he had no trump cards except his two summons. That old master Xilai's AOE attacks were working better than his decision to come down himself, but if he had not come down here today, Baijian would most probably have lost his life and many of his other warriors. This had to be done.

The demon was faster and stronger than he was. He tried attacking, thrusting, and using most of his tricks, but they all required some advantage – reach, perhaps – that he just didn't have. The demon stood there, holding two axes above its head.

Then, as suddenly as its attack had come, its eyes slipped past him, and with a shrug, it was gone. The air popped as it displaced itself. He was damned if he was going to fall over. He stood there, looking at an empty road down the hill and the fires of hell raging in the Lower Town.

He turned around, and Jia had Yun Ming under the armpits and was dragging him up the path. Qinujian stood just behind him, with his bow at full draw. Very slowly, the archer let the tension out of the limbs, and the great bow returned to shape. He dropped the arrow back into the quiver.

"Sorry, Young Master," he said. "You weren't going to win that one."

Wuyi laughed. He smiled and then laughed as he moved through the gate and slammed it shut, and Jia lowered the great iron portcullis.

He slapped Qinujian weakly on the back. "Nor was I," he said.

Then Jia had his mask off his face, and he was sucking in great gouts of fresh, cool air. A dozen men were pulling at his Qi armor. He saw the Pavilion Mistress and saw Xilai, who grinned at him.

"Young Master Black! Young Master Black! Young Master Black! Young Master Black!" some men were chanting.

He drank it all in for a moment, and then, as his armor came off, he got to his feet. The men helping him remove armor grinned and backed away, but their grins faltered when they saw blood running down his side. He had taken some damage through the Qi armor.

He nodded, waved, and moved on. He wanted some rest and time to think through the things he had been through.

He walked past the garden and noticed Liwei. She was waiting for him under the peach tree as if she knew he would pass through the area. She bit her lip.

"I won't talk," he said. "I—"

She pushed him down on the bench with a strong arm and bent over – he wondered if he was going to get a kiss for the heroic battle he fought. But his hope was cheated. He felt her breath, hot, moist, fraught with healing Qi, on his face and felt his wound heal.

She raised her hands like a beauty invoking the deity and he saw the healing all around her, the well below the tree, the tendrils that connected her to her sisters in the pavilion and to the Pavilion Mistress.

She reached a hand under his robe, and her touch was cold as ice. Her hand passed over his chest, and his back arched in agony as she touched the edge of his wound – one he hadn't felt.

"Silly," she said. He felt the power go out of her, into his shoulder. For a moment, briefer than a single heartbeat, the pain was infinite.

He lay back.

She leaned over him, her hair covering his face. Her lips brushed his. "Men will die if I stay with you," she said.

And she was gone.

He returned to his accommodation and went into a deep sleep.

✶ ✶ ✶

Jia's report of the battle

Last night, the raider group went down and relieved the warriors of the Lower Town. The Young Master led the group in person. All the warriors were rescued, but some brave warriors and archers were killed and wounded, and the Lower Town, in the end, was lost. The enemy has limitless creatures.

✶ ✶ ✶

In the first light the next morning, three Flying Serpent-like demons emerged from the rising sun, carrying rocks the size of a man's head in their claws. They came in high and dived almost straight down on the ballista of the fort. The watch was just changing, and the soldiers and warriors were completely unready.

The ongoing watch was already tired, the offgoing watch was exhausted, and no one reacted in time.

Before Xianyu Ma could even rotate the ballista, the first monster's claws opened, and its rock fell – struck the stump of the tower a few paces from the ballista, and bounced away with a crack like lightning to fall harmlessly to the hillside below.

The second Flying Serpent dropped lower, wings folded against its back, but it opened its wings too early, bobbed, and its rock went sailing away to kill one of the hundreds of sheep still penned on the ridge.

The third Flying Serpent was the oldest and the canniest. It swooped off the target Xianyu Ma had intended and laid its rock almost gently on the ballista, smashing it and throwing Xianyu Ma off the tower.

The archer shrieked and grabbed at the roof of the healing hall as he fell. The Flying Serpents swept away.

An hour later, the Flying Serpents were back. This time, all three imitated the eldest, coming lower along the ridge and rising on the last thermal before the walls of the fortress to unleash their missiles at point-blank range.

This time, they were met by a hail of darts, bolts, and arrows, loosed from every corner of the courtyard, the towers, and even the healing hall balcony. All three were hit and flew away, angry and unsuccessful. Their stones knocked a hole near Wuyi's accommodation, killed two healing attendants in the healing hall, and crushed a warhorse and an attendant in the stable.

Wuyi slept through it.