Chapter 326 — The Reed-Bank Fort

CHAPTER 326

The Reed-Bank Fort

The reeds on the north bank were taller than a man, and the path through them was exactly one plank wide.

Shi Feng poled the steward's borrowed skiff along a channel nobody had marked. Sima Lan sat upright in the bow, holding the ledger firmly as the skiff rocked. She intended to settle this before they returned to the merchants. Behind her, Old Soot's basket hissed gently at the water.

“There,” Sima Lan said.

Ahead, through a gap in the reeds, rose a stockade of bundled logs and river clay. Two watchtowers stood on stilts. A black flag hung from each. On the nearest tower, a lookout with a crossbow was eating a steamed bun and looking straight at them.

The lookout shouted a challenge through a mouthful of bun.

“Tell Tang Hai we’ve come about the ferry accounts,” Sima Lan called.

The lookout stared at her, plainly confused.

“We're here to settle accounts,” Shi Feng said. “With Tang Hai.”

The lookout looked at the skiff. At the woman in the bow. At the man at the pole with a broad grey Sword on his back. He swallowed the bun, and rang the bell.

By the time the skiff touched the landing, eighty men stood in the fort's yard. Some held hooks. Some held oars. A few held nothing but a look of pleasant anticipation. A large man with a gold earring sat on a tall chair at the far end, and a boat-hook spear as long as a boat leaned against his knee.

“So,” Tang Hai said. “The weakest sect sends a boy and a girl.”

“And a toad,” Sima Lan said.

“And a toad,” Tang Hai repeated, laughing until his eighty men joined in. He was peak Foundation Establishment, and he spread his qi pressure across the yard. “I heard you sold lumps of iron for fifty stones a piece. Not bad, brat. Not bad. A newborn calf doesn't fear the tiger, they say. Did the lumps come with a manual?”

“They came with a message,” Shi Feng said. “Your man threw one in the river. He said he doesn't read.”

“Nobody reads on the Jinsha!” Tang Hai roared. “Reading is for people who can't fight!”

“Then I'll explain it,” Shi Feng said.

“Explain what?” Tang Hai demanded.

“The merchants carrying that plaque are under our protection,” Shi Feng said. “Leave them alone.”

The yard was silent for a heartbeat. Then Tang Hai stood up, and the chair groaned in relief.

“Insolent brat!” Tang Hai shouted, and the spear came down in a long, hooked arc.

Shi Feng stepped back. It was a clumsy step. His Drifting Ash Step was still at Entry, and he could hear Lin Langtian's voice in his head: a crane with a bad leg. The hook missed his chest by a hand's width and carved a trench in the mud.

“Fight!” someone howled.

“Break his legs!”

“Throw the girl in the river!”

“Attendant,” Sima Lan said coldly, without looking up. Nobody threw her anywhere.

Tang Hai drove forward with repeated swings of the boat-hook. He followed each high strike with a low sweep. It hit a fence post and split it in two. It tore a net off a drying rack. Shi Feng took the Sword off his back, still in its cloth wrapping, and held it like a staff. Iron River Sword Art, Perfection. The wrapped blade rang off the hook's shaft with a sound like a bell, and Tang Hai's arms shook to the shoulder.

“You're a Golden Core!” Tang Hai bellowed, astonished.

“Early,” Shi Feng said.

“Then why do you move like a drunk?” Tang Hai demanded, frustrated that his swings kept missing.

“My footwork still needs practice,” Shi Feng replied, adjusting his stance.

He let the next swing pass, and the one after, and counted. The big man hit hard but always the same way: the hook high, then the butt low. Shi Feng stepped inside the third one, and Ember Rain Sword came off the cloth in a dull red glow. Sparks fell on the mud between them in a thin, bright rain. Tang Hai's boots slid. His knees buckled. The hook-head struck the planks of the landing with a loud crack and stuck there.

“Got you!” Tang Hai laughed, and wrenched at the shaft.

Something small and grey hopped out of a basket.

A long pink tongue shot out. There was a crunch. The hook-head, a good two catties of river iron, disappeared into Old Soot's mouth. The toad burped a little ring of smoke and settled down on the planks to digest.

Tang Hai stood holding a stick.

“…” Tang Hai stared at the bare shaft in his hands.

“That was my hook,” Tang Hai said hoarsely.

“It's sect property now,” Shi Feng said. He laid the wrapped Sword across Tang Hai's collar. “Don't move.”

“Impossible!” a gang member shouted from the back.

“The boss lost?”

“To a Golden Core who walks like a drunk?”

“And the toad ate the hook!”

“…”

Tang Hai looked at the grey lump on the planks. He looked at the Sword. Then he did something that surprised everyone. He sat down on the mud and started to laugh.

“Heaven above! A toad!” Tang Hai wheezed. “Beyond the sky there is another sky, and beyond people there are other people. All right, brat. Take my head, or take my fort. Tell me what you want.”

“I don't want your head,” Shi Feng said. “I want your men.”

“My men?” Tang Hai repeated, no longer laughing.

“You know every bend in the river,” Shi Feng said. “Every sandbank. Every reed channel. Which barges ride low, which captains pay, when the fog comes in. You know all of it, and right now it earns you five stones a cart if somebody's frightened enough.”

“And what are you offering?” Tang Hai asked suspiciously.

“Now you’re paid to use that knowledge for the merchants,” Shi Feng explained. “You don’t have to rob the men you can guide across safely.”

Tang Hai stopped laughing. Behind him, eighty men leaned in.

“The merchants have already paid for protection,” Shi Feng said. “You'll be the protection. Your boats will escort every barge across, and your men wear the plaque on their arms. No robbery. No flags on burned wagons.”

“And what do my boys get?” Tang Hai asked slowly.

Sima Lan stepped forward and opened her ledger. “One stone a day per man,” Sima Lan said. “One additional stone per cart delivered safely. One-tenth of the protection fee to the boss, paid weekly. Late payments carry no interest, because I find it embarrassing to collect from people who work for me.”

Eighty men looked at the woman in the plain robe. Not one of them laughed.

“Weekly,” Tang Hai said, eyeing her. “In silver?”

“In stones,” Sima Lan said. “Counted twice.”

Tang Hai looked at her for a long time. Then he turned back to Shi Feng.

“Who is she?” Tang Hai asked.

“My attendant,” Shi Feng said.

“Heaven help us,” Tang Hai said, with deep respect.