Hong Fei held his sword at the ready with the intention to withdraw. Instead, his body curled around itself, sinking halfway to the ground before tilting onto its side. He lay unable to move except for the trembling in his limbs as the bones inside shook and the essence ran rampant, scalding his muscles, blood vessels, and organs.

  There wasn’t much room for thought amid the pain, though a part of him found a way to wonder if the beast would eat the soldier first, since the man did have more meat on him. Then the pain truly became too much, and he lost consciousness.

  A ponderous, all-encompassing weight met him upon waking. All was dark and stifling, and for a long span, Hong Fei thought he was buried under his soldier-comrades again. He’d need to once more crawl out from beneath their bloated corpses and drag himself across the desert to… what? Another convalescence wracked by delirium, the shock of learning he’d been assumed dead, and the realization that the chain of command above him had possibly intended him to die?

  The impetus to move dissipated, and Hong Fei let himself lay there, waiting for the darkness to sweep over him fully. Once accepted, the weight was almost comforting. It forced his breathing to be shallow, but otherwise wasn’t terrible.

  Except… his nose itched.

  Hong Fei ignored the feeling. There was nothing he could do about it anyway; his arms were trapped at his sides. One of which, he realized, had fallen asleep while under him.

  Truth be told, his nose itched unbearably, like a rabbit hair brush was tickling it. And if he was listing his complaints, he might as well add that the hilt of his sword jammed his side. Why can’t death be more comfortable? he thought and wriggled his nose, but that only made the tickling worse, as well as bringing to him the smell of wet fur.

  Hold a moment, fur?

  Hong Fei shook off his memories of nearly dying in the war against the Askalous barbarians and recalled his more recent near death to an imperial soldier on Wild Green Island.

  There’d been… he started thinking and stopped when he understood the darkness was breathing—the slow inhalations and exhalations of a beast sleeping.

  Is the damn thing trying to hatch me like an egg?

  Hong Fei turned his topmost hand so that it faced upward. The beast’s guard hairs were stiff and resilient. They protected the softer, warmer fur underneath them. The creature shifted in its sleep, leaning away from his touch as if it was the one being tickled.

  The beast likely weighed hundreds of jin, and Hong Fei expected to be crushed. To his surprise, he wasn’t. The movement had been careful, delicate even.

  A gap opened, and Hong Fei could now feel the air against his face and hear the sound of rain falling. Very little water made its way down to the clearing, though, because of the tree canopy above.

  He carefully moved his sword away from his side, then scratched his nose vigorously. Relief finally found, he took stock of the situation.

  Being eaten would, he thought, be a poor way to die after having survived so much and traveled so far. Perhaps I should try to live, after all.

  Hong Fei grunted as he turned his torso and angled his arm so that he could reach the beast’s belly. He placed his hand there, ready to tickle it in earnest, and froze.

  The belly shook slightly, the motion contained. It seemed to him like laughter held back—an uncle or auntie tittering at the antics of a nephew who thought he was being clever when in actuality he was behaving adorably.

  That was the sense of it. Why so specific? Hong Fei didn’t have the time or space to consider the question. The ferret-badger was clearly awake, and it had turned to watch Hong Fei under it. A churring sound came from its chest; its eyes turned into crescents as it smiled.

  Taking a breath, Hong Fei resumed his preparations for death. Fighting a soldier was one thing, but a spirit beast as healthy as this one? He knew his time had finally come.

  It seems so happy for its second meal of the day, he thought. I suppose I should be happy to be of use.

  He wasn’t, of course. The determination to live hadn’t entirely left Hong Fei, and he began to edge away.

  In response, the beast stood to get clear of his limbs, took a handful of steps, and then sat facing him like a dog waiting for its master.

  Hong Fei tried to think through his confusion and the pins crawling up and down his other arm as feeling returned to it. He wouldn’t be able to stand until the floppiness left, and he could use it to support his weight when rising. One arm alone wasn’t enough these days. He pulled the sword to his lap to wait.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The beast resembled the one portrayed in the small painting in the cultivator’s satchel. Hong Fei had noted the similarity almost immediately, but he hadn’t known what to do with the information. The most plausible explanation was that the beast had been tamed by the dead cultivator, yet the question of its apparent docility remained.

  Hong Fei glanced toward where the dead soldier lay. Not entirely docile, no.

  He turned his attention to his new shoes and wondered if they somehow mislead the beast into mistaking him for its master. Would Hong Fei be forced to live his life never taking them off?

  The thought seemed preposterous, but so was this moment in time.

  His hand, Hong Fei realized, was wet. A thin stream of water had wound its way in from the clearing’s edge and was steadily turning the earth around him to mud.

  The beast, also observing the water, scooted back, so that its seat would remain dry. It was many times larger than the caged ferret-badgers he’d seen at the port in Blue Lotus City, with a wider face and stockier body too, as if the ferret part of its lineage had been bred out of it. Only the coloring was similar to the animals he’d seen—a coat of light and dark grays, and white vertical stripes across its face.

  Hong Fei levered to standing, and the badger watched him. He walked a short distance away, gulping as he went, and once he was on dry ground, he slipped out of the shoes and took a few steps more.

  The badger didn’t bother looking at or sniffing at the shoes. It simply watched Hong Fei, curious about his actions. He moved as if to walk out of the clearing entirely, and only then did it stand and follow, leaving the shoes behind.

  A worry wormed through Hong Fei’s thoughts—he was apparently safe for now, but what would the badger do later? And what about when it encountered other people? Would it kill them as wantonly as it had the imperial soldier?

  Hong Fei took off the belt and satchel. They were the only other items he’d looted from the dead cultivator’s body, and he placed them on the ground, stepping back firmly afterward toward the clearing’s edge.

  The badger glanced briefly at the items on the ground, and then followed Hong Fei still. His heart sank.

  I can learn to enjoy living in the forest, he thought. And train the beast to stay in the trees while I go into villages to trade for tools, cloth, salt…

  Perversely, his mind inventoried the goods he’d need to survive, all the while knowing his purse contained only a lonely bronze coin. He’d heard pigs could be trained to search for natural treasures and considered adding that to the list of impossibilities being assembled in his mind.

  Hong Fei stood beside one of the tall trees’ trunks and turned to look out onto the rain falling from a sky gone gray and forlorn. Mud covered the hillside, making it dangerous for travel, especially for anyone unsure of their footing.

  The badger came up to stand beside Hong Fei. His exposed back hadn’t caused it to attack him. He might, he thought, be able to trust it to let him sleep—a real sleep and not the unconsciousness that had claimed him earlier.

  Hong Fei’s exhaustion ran deep into his bones. He cupped his hands to collect a mouthful of rainwater and drank it. Twice more, he gulped the cool water down. Holding his arms out was becoming a strain, though, so he went to rest his hands on his hips and found a satchel there, tied to him by a belt circling his waist.

  For the second time that afternoon, Hong Fei froze. While his body was broken, his mind remained intact, and he knew he’d left the satchel on the ground behind him. Five zhang was surely not a great distance, but it might as well be the length of the empire for an inanimate object to cross it.

  A magical artifact then. He glanced toward the beast sitting next to him. It was so close; the worry in Hong Fei’s belly tightened. “Can you understand me?” he asked.

  The badger nodded, and Hong Fei’s relief was so great, he leaned against the tree to keep from falling. Carefully, he removed the painting from the satchel and showed it to the beast. “And this is you?”

  The badger nodded once again, then it nudged the satchel and Hong Fei as if to say “this belongs to you now.”

  This needs some thought, but first… Hong Fei walked to where he’d left the cultivator’s shoes. One shouldn’t have to face the world’s mysteries while barefoot in the mud. He sat with a squelch and slipped them onto his feet. They were just as comfortable as before, if muddier. When it came time to stand, however, the badger came to give his seat a lift with its snout, helping him up.

  The strangeness of the circumstances left Hong Fei uncertain for how to account for them in his plans. Start simple, he reminded himself. Take the first step in the direction you wish to go. The second will reveal itself as you travel.

  Hong Fei walked toward the dead soldier and took the money pouch from his belt. Inside were a handful of bronze coins and a single section of silver the length of a fingernail. The man also possessed a good knife, as well as a jade hairpin styled in the shape of a tiger.

  The looting finished, he decided it was time to go. Soldiers won’t bother looking for an ascender gone missing, but he may have made a pact with some of the others.

  It was essentially what the sects promised but in a less formal way—the many support the few in their ascent toward the dao in exchange for benefits and for help in their own climb later.

  For Hong Fei, it was his family who’d supported him until he’d reached the mid-Qi Gathering realm. And he’d been considering a return to the ancestral house to make the push toward Qi Blossoming, but that had been before his body and his cultivation were ruined.

  The lucky few were accepted into sects. Ascenders still died there, but the resources were much more plentiful. The competition, too, from the stories he’d heard.

  Hong Fei considered the headless body. The soldier had had at least one ally in his squad—the coin tosser—and that man was likely deeply worried about his investment going missing, but he’d have to wait until the squad’s task was finished. A missing ascender was something people understood; they made allowances. A regular soldier shirking his duties? That was a flogging offense.

  Time to leave, Hong Fei thought and walked out from under the clearing’s canopy. The rain fell on him like the heaven’s weeping. He used his scabbard as a cane, but even so, nearly slipped on the muddy hillside.

  The badger ran forward so that Hong Fei could put a steadying hand on its shoulder.

  becoming a patron. The folks over there are up to Chapter 14. ??