Hao watched as those holding swords and spears, those who were to defend the weakened and injured, fell to the side. Coward face plastered with self-righteous neutrality. Some with fearful fingers shivering on the weapon handles made for heroic purposes—Can I blame them, the thought came and left Hao. Those who stayed steadfast were stomped. Gray, leathery, clawed feet fell like anvils, slow but heavy. Human ribs like fallen autumn branches and leaves crunched.

  Bao hit the ground. Through the cries of many, Hao could hear Lang’s anguish, a seabird with its wings aflame. Bao’s ragged breath, like wispy willow branches whipping in the wind. In and out, rapid breaths raising her flat chest and pillowed stomach.

  Hao turned his head in three directions, which felt like every corner in the dark cave. Torchlight dancing made it seem like daytime. Small suns, flicking in the void, falling from the hands of humans, trampled by beasts. He called out to Yao, just her name.

  His voice exploded in a boom, it seemed everyone heard it. Ears pricked, eyes glanced, yet no one turned their head, not even the woman herself. Her Shamshir in two hands, its aggressively curved silver edge glowing a vicious dripping red, swinging down at another tortoise, its head extended for a bite of flesh, was split like firewood down its center. Its beak unbroken, refusing to be sliced, stayed in one piece. Her foot pressed on its shell as she leaped over it, her head spinning to find another target, her face cold and calm.

  Hao pulled his head away, looking back towards the injured, a small group guarded by a small group that was fleeing. No more than four of them had Drifting Stream Robes. The people in blue robes, either old or young, none in between, none standing.

  Hao slipped at the sight, his hand catching the ground. Seven Colored Steps burned in his legs. The Spirit-Holding bag felt heavy on his chest like a lead anchor pulling the depth of his being to the ground. He felt slow.

  Lang was above Bao before Hao made it to the beast, the grief-stricken, dimwitted man staring at his wife while the tortoise approached.

  Hao felt a bug bite his neck. It was crawling around him as he got close to the tunnel of the injured. More than one spinning on his collarbone, countless legs as dry as old bones sticking into his flesh. Close… It was his voice in his head, but not his words. He smacked and scratched his neck as he ran. His nails marking him with clean crescent-shaped red marks on dust-covered skin. Wide-eyed, he moved through the space, a dozen people all reacting, looking behind them. All scratching the napes of their necks. Even the tortoise looking at Lang shook its head. The large tortoise behind him purred.

  The feeling faded, Hao looked at his hand to see if there was a dead bug, anything, a splatter of blood, a hair—Nothing to be found. His feet kept moving forward. He was behind the tortoise a few feet from Lang before he knew it.

  Striking out, Hao shot Bao’s solid spike of a sword at the crystalline tail. It chipped the stone tail, but bounced away and skipped along, hitting the solid shell.

  The tortoise knew or felt—or heard. Trying to spin its phallic neck to turn and look back. Black eyes peered at Hao, the boy, a young man. He saw his reflection, and he looked behind himself, not knowing that man. His tied-up gray hair, tattered dark blue robes, and that terrifying expression half-hidden by a cloth. A weapon—Clenched jaw—Tight, thick brows, Dark gray eyes distant in the void like the moons during winter. Blood splattered on him like he bathed in it.

  Where was the heroic figure standing before the sun, his hair flowing gold and black, the world bowing to him in Grandpa He’s painting? Why wasn’t that person there?

  Hao breathed.

  The tail of the Tortoise moved up and started falling back down to crush Hao as it stared at him, a giant black pupil surrounded by a shallow sandy yellow. Lips folded in half a dozen beaks. A gray face incapable of expression.

  Hao pulled his hand back, driving the spike sword into the soft of the tail just at the base of the shell. Standing tall, he placed his shoulder on the bleeding tail before it could catch momentum and swing at him. He let go of the sword, using the joints of the tortoise-tail like a sheath as he grabbed the ass-end of the shell. He imagined he was a boulder crushing him, just another stone in the way. His face burst with red veins flooding his neck and face. Throwing and letting go, taking the spike of a sword in his hand.

  The tortoise teetered and rolled, its spikes holding it on its side.

  “Quick—” Hao wanted to call out, but he didn’t need to say anything.

  Half a dozen people leap forward, ferociousness on their faces. Different weapons in each hand: sword, spear, staff, and a spikeless mace. All of them crashed into the defenseless tortoise. It wept, cried, and cooed. Its beaked mouth opened to make a fluttering nose until they turned wet, blunt weapons hit less vital places, just to hit something. Again and again, mace and staff, the animal was long dead when the belly of the shell cracked, silver tubes spilling from its gut.

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  Hao watched, walking backwards. It was hard to tell which of the animals were beasts. The one with weapons beating a corpse, or the tortoise purring out its leaking final breath. Cheers and shouts drowned the bubbling sound from its small, beaked mouth.

  Hao glared as those who attacked fell back, standing behind the injured and weakened people, as if they were rag dolls themselves. He had to shake his head to pull his eyes away, his vision felt foggy. Dark thoughts made his eyes heavy.

  The ragged breath of Bao made it easy to turn his head. Seeing Lang, the man he had traveled with for days in this vile maze of stone chambers, was more frozen than his wife. An emptiness on his face.

  Hao crouched down on the opposite side of Bao. He started untying her robe, waist belt removed and placed upon Lang’s outstretched yet limp arm. Doing whatever he could to get bits and pieces of good news, he placed his fingers on her wrist, pretended he knew what he was doing, and nodded his head to Lang. Hao had no idea, but she was still breathing, which counted for something.

  Lang shifted his eyes, seeing the nod. Then his feet moved, his knee resting more firmly on the ground. He reached out, helping Hao open up Bao’s robe.

  They only had to remove the outer layer. Her robe was shoved on her in a rush by Lang, and underneath that outer layer, a pillow of cloth. Tents, clothing, old blankets, and bandages sat on her abdomen. The top layers of that scrap were torn, but it was not a cut they were worried about.

  Together, the two of them peeled back the layers of clothing, finger a light trickle of blood from her old wound. No yellow, no infection. They kept her well cleaned for that reason.

  “This is not bad…” Hao sighed, “A—The strike shifted a few of the stitches, she will bleed for a while, but—but it’s fine. Let’s ask them for bandages.”

  Hao stood, staring down at Lang, the man was frozen, still unable to move. “I said she is fine… Now move.” He walked around to the man’s side, dragging both of them to the side of the cave.

  Lang started nodding his head, pushing himself to his feet, a prideful look trying to work onto his lost face. His bottom lip shivered as he tried to cup his hands to Hao. “I owe Junior Brother…” I murmured, a weak sound from a deep voice. A whiskered face gathering ten lines of age a day in desperation and uncertainty since Bao was first struck.

  Hao turned away, there was nothing more for it. His vision was swimming. Turning his head, he pulled back his neck, in front of him staring him in the eye, not much shorter than him, stood Yao, her thick eyebrows pulled to the bridge of her nose. She seemed to sniff the air before letting out a long sigh, taking another step closer to Hao.

  “Little brother,” simple words seemed like a threat.

  Hao gathered the situation as she took another breath, looking over her shoulders. At her left shoulder, out to the far edge of the cave, the smaller beasts were gone. Nothing more than twitching or still bodies pinned down by their own shells. Over her right shoulder, the large tortoise, the beast of three shades of gray, a shell like cast iron, was whipping around its tipless tail. Legs and head tucked into its shell.

  Yao reached up, her hand still holding her sword, as she pulled the cloth covering Hao’s face up above his mouth. “Little Brother, you look exhausted, here…”

  Her hand, holding the curved sword, fell to her side. At the same time, her other hand launched forward, shoving a handful of crushed pangolin stomach in his mouth.

  Hao reacted fast, ignoring the numb feeling and the iron-rich, acidic taste in his mouth. His hand shot over to her sword arm, if he could restrain that hand…

  The steel touched his neck. Her wrist twisted the curve, serving an extra purpose, bending back to hold his neck hostage.

  She put on that triumphant smirk that made Hao’s blood boil, “Eat? You promised to remember?” She leaned close, whispering in his ear, “Or should I pull off that mask and pour water on your head? I wonder how Meng Hongyu will react to that hair of yours…”

  Meng Hongyu… “Is that his name?” Hao asked, getting a tilted head look from Yao.

  Hao knew she was scheming something, but it didn’t matter either way—there was something wrong with the pangolin-like beast’s stomach, clearly. But it hadn’t managed to slow him down yet. It wouldn’t this time either. The amount she gave him was less than the amount he ate the first time around.

  Yao took another long breath from her nose while her mouth was still at his ear. She waited until he swallowed, then pulled back her head with sudden haste. “How about a drink to wash down my cooking? A little sip before we cut each other?”

  Hao didn’t answer. It was hard to stay calm—that itch was on his neck again. Misquote bits and centipede legs wrapping around him. In his head, he held the spiked sword, he hardly remembered lifting it, the point placed against her neck in the same place her Shamshir poked him.

  “Whatever scheme you have won’t work, don’t bother…”

  Yao’s smirk widened, a dark light filling her eyes. “Am I such a bad person in your eyes? The turtle is hiding—all the dangerous people will gather over here soon. Who will start killing me or you? Or one of them?”

  She lifted her water pouch that fit more water than it should have, her arm crossing under his arm, holding the sword. They kept their eyes locked. Yao placed the water skin against Hao’s lips. Hao leaned back and drank. The acidic iron taste of the Pangolin’s stomach was all he could notice.

  “You.”

  Tonk…

  Hao felt something strike him in the back of his head, his face falling down to the ground, his nose filling with blood, the taste of iron filling his mouth. His vision seemed to swim in red. The tortoise is hiding in its shell, now only the people stand in your way, just down the tunnel…

  Hao lifted his head—he could feel how wide open his own eyes were, but his body refused to close them. It must have blood in them that made his vision seem so red. Something—Someone struck him in the head from behind. The skin of his neck breaking, blood flowing down in warm drops. The red droplets rolling down the curved edge of the tortoise’s blood-soaked shamshir. Hao looked up at her. Yao looked confused, more confused than Hao.