He’d sprinted to get here, ending the run with a change of clothes. His sister He Huizhen had joined him, the two of them leaving their meeting with the Rock Knife Gang’s leadership to do so. However, she’d only stayed at the ambush site long enough to arrange for a disguise for her brother. He now wore the clothes typical of the gangsters, and in his hands was one of the gang’s crossbows, the stock etched with a knife and club.
Elsewhere on the rooftop, as well as atop the other buildings nearby, were actual Rock Knives. Like him, they breathed heavily and waited for the signal to act. They’d also all rushed to make this ambush happen, eager to punish the Yus for their raids.
He Wenming was meant to be among them as a liaison between his family and the gang—an act of trust and good faith as it were—with his many experiences in hunting spirit beasts hopefully proving helpful. He wondered if his younger sister also secretly meant for him to die.
The things that He Huizhen had been asking of him were becoming increasingly dangerous of late, including for example this ambush of a well-known retainer for the House of Yu. Some might even call Hong Fei a hero. Not He Wenming, of course. He’d heard about the famed swordman’s failure at Snake River Hills: an entire elite cavalry unit had been wiped out. If not for the valor of General Wang, that battle might’ve been lost.
A man like Hong Fei didn’t deserve to be called a hero. He Huizhen had argued that the House of Yu hiring him was a sign of desperation. And the He family heads had ultimately agreed with her—moving forward with her plan to deepen ties with the Rock Knives. She’d been meeting with the gang’s ultimate authority in Ruby Swift City for some time now.
He Wenming recalled his own recent encounter with the man called Stone Mountain Ox. The gang’s leader had been furious about the Yu’s raids and the deaths that had accompanied them, and just being in the man’s presence had felt like being buried dozens of zhang underground, with no way out.
Meanwhile, He Huizhen had smiled at Stone Mountain Ox as if the gang leader was her dearest friend in the world. Seeing her smile at anything was disturbing.
It’s the etching that worries me, he thought. The clothes, I understand. Witnesses will see me as just another gangster. Older than the others perhaps, but that’s all. Why did Huizhen make sure to give me the crossbow, though? Only someone taking it from my hands will find the etching.
He Huizhen was well-known for her fear of spirit beasts, justifiably so. Even her brother didn’t begrudge her for it, not after she’d witnessed a Qi-Blossoming cloud leopard tear their father and second aunt apart. That fear was the reason she’d become a city official rather than join the family business of hunting for natural treasures. It was also the crux of her argument for why she couldn’t participate directly in the ambush—a reasonable excuse that also just happened to put her brother into danger’s path. He Huizhen would keep watch from a distance, but that would be the closest she’d come to the fighting.
She had grand ambitions, his sister. The success of their family’s ventures in the natural treasure market didn’t suit her tastes. “Too dangerous,” she’d said, “and not worthy of our history.”
He Wenming thought differently, a discordant voice in the discussions within the family. Yet, he’d always been filial and had done as he’d been told by the family’s elders. They were all getting on in years, though, and soon he’d take up the mantle of head of house. Assuming he lived, of course.
From the street, he heard a voice saying something about a bathhouse. Meanwhile, a Rock Knife lifted a hand, a signal to get ready. There was so much anger on all these gangsters’ faces.
He Wenming prepared himself mentally to help these strange allies of his family. In addition to the crossbow, he had a stone knife on his belt—to reinforce his disguise as a gangster—and a saber he’d taken from one of the family’s bodyguards. He didn’t feel right not carrying a proper blade and… Huizhen doesn’t need to know about it, he thought, taking another breath to settle his nerves.
If only there’d been time to arrange a proper ambush. Hopefully these Rock Knives won’t botch things too much in their eagerness for revenge. They surely know it’s the spirit beast that’s the real danger. Hong Fei is only Body Forged—it won’t matter how good he is with a sword if he can’t reach us.
He Wenming urged his qi out from his lower cauldron into the rest of his body, cycling it through the He family’s Iron-Clawed Jungle Dragon art. The spell was meant for fighting spirit beasts while armed with sword or spear, but the effects should help steady his aim too. If only he had the family’s collection of venoms and poisons with him. Unfortunately, those would’ve been rude to bring to a meeting with allies.
He eased the pressure on the crossbow’s stock when he heard the wood begin to creak. Treat this like any other hunt, he told himself. Maybe I’ll ask the gangsters for the beast’s pelt afterward. I’ll hang it in my office once I’m the family head so that dear Huizhen is forced to see it every time she reports to me.
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There’ll be ambushers on the rooftops, Hong Fei thought, but they’ll want some of their people in the buildings as well to keep me from ducking under cover.
At the moment, he stood behind the wagon, pretending to examine the axles. The ambush wouldn’t likely trigger until he was more out in the open.
Surreptitiously, he eyed the building with the orange roof tiles. Not only was the color unusual, but also the business itself: It was called the Odds and Ends Marketplace, and the owner had subdivided the first two floors into stalls that merchants could rent out, effectively mimicking the adjacent night market, only smaller and open during the day as well as late into the evening.
That maze of stalls would benefit a man looking to counter-ambush his foes. “What do you think,” he whispered to the badger beside him, “should we do a little shopping?”
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Auntie Ling huffed in agreement. Her nose was already working to sniff out their enemies.
“We’ll dash over yonder, go through the doors, and then break left. After that… well, we’ll see.” Hong Fei adjusted his robes and checked his weapons. “If we can draw them toward our position once we establish ourselves inside, that would be best. If not, we’ll take the fight to our foes.”
The badger crouched. Her muscles tautened in preparation, and a faint hint of qi spilled into the air.
“Be more precise,” he whispered. “Hiding the realm of one’s cultivation leads to the best kind of surprise. I know you can do it.”
Auntie Ling grunted, then the scent of her qi diminished. Someone of a much higher realm would likely still sense it, but not anyone under Essence Body.
“Good, good,” Hong Fei praised. “Now let’s g—”
Before he could finish, the badger charged. She drew nearly a dozen crossbow bolts from the doors and windows of the buildings near the bridge. Half a breath later, figures leapt out from behind cover on the rooftops to fire down on her as well, followed a moment later by a single shaft flying from across the bridge.
Hong Fei counted four bolts landing true, including the one from the marksman stationed at the gorge’s other side. Three shafts sprouted atop Auntie Ling’s back and one lodged just under and back from her left shoulder. If not for the badger’s thick hide and qi-reinforced musculature, she would’ve been lung shot.
As it was, once all the crossbows had fired, she accelerated and blurred the rest of the way to smash through the stalls out front of the Odds and Ends and pounce on the crossbowmen inside.
That Ling! Hong Fei cried out in his mind, yet he didn’t waste the opportunity she’d given him. He dashed after her while the ambushers re-cocked their weapons. Not a single one fired on him, except the marksman across the bridge. They’d moved with incredible swiftness, and he felt the shaft’s passage, the fletching brushing the back of his neck.
Then he was in the building, his eyes adjusting to the light. Auntie Ling had risen up on her hind legs; she crashed down on a woman with a crossbow, and the badger’s qi-infused claws carved through the gangster’s skull, then through her chest.
The badger growled. People screamed. Hong Fei saw that the merchants and customers who’d normally be conducting business had all been corralled against a wall to the right. There were just two other gangsters in view. One was tossing his crossbow aside to draw a stone club from his belt, while his compatriot ran away.
“Get the runner,” Hong Fei called out, then strung together a series of vine-like steps from the Hong’s wood-style arts. The pattern confused the Rock Knife, the angles of approach shifting unpredictably.
The man swung, but in the wrong direction. Hong Fei drove his sword in between the man’s ribs, punching through with pure strength. The tip had been ruined by the warrior-mocking gecko, after all. It wouldn’t do to forget the limitations of one’s armaments.
“Wha—” the dead man began.
Hong Fei kicked him off of the blade, then chased after Auntie Ling. The badger stood over the fallen runner, her nose snuffling at the air. All three of their foes had been Dustborn. They might as well have been made of paper in comparison to cultivators like Hong Fei and Auntie Ling.
The badger took off at a run toward the stairs leading up.
“Careful,” Hong Fei yelled. Hidden under the word was a warning: Enough time had passed for the crossbows on the second floor to be ready.
Halfway up the stairs, Auntie Ling pivoted. She leapt, smashing through the floor instead of using the landing. Wood and debris went flying. Hong Fei heard the twang of crossbows firing. The bolts thunked uselessly against the surrounding stalls.
More screams followed, and by the time Hong Fei reached the second floor, there were three more gangsters on the ground. One of them even smelled of essence. Not that it’d done the man any good; his leg had been torn from his body. The Rock Knife was attempting to pull himself away to safety when Hong Fei came up from behind to stab him in the back with a knife.
The adjacent stall sold wooden statues of the goddess Sanzu. Hong Fei checked the rest of his surroundings and saw that this floor dealt mostly in household goods. Many of those stalls had been left in disarray when the merchants and their customers had been driven downstairs.
A second stairway led up, but that one was reserved for the building’s owners. It was their residence on the third floor. The door to it appeared closed.
Auntie Ling approached and looked a question at him. Hong Fei shook his head to let her know they’d wait a short while. He listened intently but didn’t hear anyone approaching from the first floor. There were only the mutters and cries of the people who’d been rounded up earlier.
He also pulled the bolts from Auntie Ling’s hide. She didn’t even grunt as he did it.
She really is tough, just as the Uncommon Badger card describes. Hong Fei put the bolts in his spatial ring, then continued thinking, The Rock Knives outside are likely wondering at what had happened in here. They’re not—
Hong Fei paused to consider the statues of Sanzu. He knelt to go through the dead man’s pouch, then pulled out a handful of bronze coins, which he proceeded to drop in front of the largest of the statues. Killing inside a temple was widely known to earn the killer the worst kind of luck. The stall wasn’t a temple, but one never knew from which directions the gods might be watching. And besides, there was no reason for Hong Fei to be impolite.
Now then, they’re not going to come for me, not for a while yet. Instead they’ll move to surround the building and cover all of the exits.
Hong Fei went to the windows overlooking the street to carefully peek outside. There were crossbowmen on the rooftops opposite, as well as shadowy movements within the buildings themselves. He strode back to where the dead men lay, and—feeling pleased—he found a crossbow that hadn’t been smashed during Auntie Ling’s assault. There were also nearly two dozen bolts between the three ambushers, which he collected.
About to head back to the windows, Hong Fei caught himself. He went to the stairway leading to the first floor and called to the huddling bystanders: “Don’t approach the doors or windows. The Rock Knives are going to shoot anyone who looks like they’re fleeing.”
The voices downstairs quieted. A few feet shuffled, but it seemed that they’d heed his warning. Hong Fei nodded to himself, then found a stall that sold shoes. He picked out a pair that fit. There was no comparison to the artifacts left behind by Andrew, but they would do.
Hong Fei left behind another handful of coins at the stall and headed to the windows in earnest. Keeping well away from the opening, he knelt while inside the shadows to get a good angle on a gangster on the roof opposite. That one had a larger crossbow than the others.
Hong Fei stilled his breathing to take aim. His lungs ached—they were still damaged—but he’d passed the point where he’d easily fall into a coughing jag. He loosed his bolt to strike the man in the thigh. The gangster stumbled and fell from his position. The dūtóu heard a thud, but didn’t bother with checking to see if the fall had killed his target or not. He’d stepped back instead to re-cock the crossbow and reposition.
A handful of bolts struck the spot where he’d been. They didn’t expect me to shoot at them and were slow to respond. Now they know their people inside this building are dead.
The gangsters across the way were retreating. Hong Fei shot one in the back; the woman tripped, then slid down the sloped roof. She grabbed onto an eave but her strength waned and she fell.
More bolts fired back at him, but Hong Fei had already withdrawn. He observed the angle at which the incoming fire had come. It seemed that the Rock Knives on the other rooftops across the street had joined the game as well.
“Get ready,” Hong Fei whispered, trusting Auntie Ling to hear the words.
The badger had been roaming between the stalls, and she grunted back at him.
Both man and badger glanced upward when they heard the patter of running footsteps above them. Auntie Ling rushed toward the stairway to the third floor, Hong Fei close on her heels. The crossbow he’d taken was ready to shoot once more.
As a reminder, will become available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited on Monday, February 23. And there'll be a paperback version, as well. :)
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Auntie Ling, Uncommon Badger, 3 | 3
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General Wang, Hong Fei served under him in the war against the Askalous barbarians
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He Huizhen, deputy clerk at the Department of Crime and Punishment