Chapter 375 — Where the Mountains Breathe

CHAPTER 375

Where the Mountains Breathe

The light swallowed them, and the first thing Shi Feng noticed on the other side was the smell.

It smelled like a forge on the morning after a fire. Old coal, cold iron, wet ash. He stood on a slope of grey gravel with eleven other people breathing hard beside him, and a warm rain fell on his face. Not water. Fine, soft grey flakes that melted into dust when they touched his sleeve.

Behind them the arch was gone. There was only a wall of drifting ash where it had stood.

One senior quietly confirmed that they were inside. Another impatiently told him to look up.

They looked up.

Mountains rose on every side, dark and enormous, and every one of them was shaped like a furnace. Each had a wide, flared mouth at the top, with a rim of dull red embers smouldering around it. Their sides sloped in thick, rounded curves, and thin threads of smoke rose from vents along the slopes. A hundred kilns the size of mountains stood in rows under a sky the colour of rust.

“It's a foundry,” Sima Lan said quietly. She had her ledger open in her hand, and she hadn't written anything in it. “Somebody built this to burn something.”

“Or to cook something,” Gongsun Ce said.

“Don't say things like that,” the youngest senior, Yao Min, whispered.

On the gravel to their right, the Martial Palace column was already fanning out. Thirty crimson robes, led by Yuan Kuang, a broad man with a scarred hand, who wore a Golden Core aura he made no effort to hide. He glanced at the twelve grey robes without interest and pointed his men toward a tall peak to the north. Hou Ping marched at his shoulder with thin, crooked new eyebrows and did not glance at anyone. To the left, Hundred Flower Valley broke into six neat groups of five. Shi Feng watched Ling Qingzhu take the lead group without looking back. She went up the slope at a brisk walk, the white veil lifting in the warm air, until the slope hid her from view.

“Three teams,” Gongsun Ce said. “Three directions. When the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman profits. Whoever finds something good first, the other two will pretend they didn't want it.”

“What do we do?” Yao Min asked.

“The sect list says herb terraces on the south slopes,” Pei Gang said, straightening as the oldest senior. “Nine of us can make a decent haul. With many people, the strength is great. The three of you—”

“We'll follow our noses,” Shi Feng said.

“You'll get lost,” Pei Gang said.

“I can find my way,” Shi Feng replied, undisturbed by the warning.

Pei Gang remained doubtful. He took his eight companions and went south, shaking his head.

The first ash beast came out of the gravel without a sound.

It was grey. It had the body of a hound, packed from ash and soot, with two ember eyes and no mouth that Shi Feng could see. It struck Gongsun Ce's silver crane out of the air, and Gongsun Ce yelped.

“It’s eating the puppet!” Gongsun Ce cried, trying to recall the silver crane.

“Eating qi,” Sima Lan said, stepping back with one hand on her thin straight sword. “Look at the crane. It's draining.”

The silver wings went dull in two heartbeats. The crane dropped to the gravel and lay still, a toy.

“Don't use qi!” Shi Feng said. “It'll feed on it. Hit it with metal!”

The hound turned toward the loudest source of qi, which was Gongsun Ce, who was yelling. It crouched and sprang. Shi Feng stepped in front of him, drew the Sword from his back in one pull and cut the beast in half without a drop of qi on the blade.

The two halves hit the ground and became ash again.

A short line appeared in the corner of his thoughts, flat and cold.

[Devoured: ash hound remains | Gain: faint | Note: tastes of old chimney]

Three more hounds were already coming over the gravel. Then six. Then a dozen.

“They're everywhere!” Gongsun Ce cried.

“Your puppet's dead,” Sima Lan said.

“I know it’s dead! Don’t say it like that!” Gongsun Ce snapped, upset at the ruined crane.

The first of the new hounds snapped at Shi Feng's left sleeve.

It didn't get a bite. Something inside the sleeve moved first. The cloth bulged, wriggled, and a small soot-grey head with two gold-rimmed eyes pushed out of the cuff and looked at the hound with great interest.

Old Soot croaked, watching the hound intently.

“You said it was in the furnace,” Sima Lan said, going rigid.

“It was,” Shi Feng said.

“It is on your arm,” Sima Lan pointed out.

“I can see that,” Shi Feng replied, holding still as it climbed.

“Then it wasn't supposed to be,” Sima Lan said. “Add it to your account.”

Old Soot climbed out of the sleeve onto Shi Feng's wrist, and from there onto the back of his hand. It looked at the hounds. Then it opened its wide mouth and spat a gout of slag fire the size of a bucket.

The ash hound burned. The one behind it burned. A third dropped and curled into dust, and the rest of the pack stopped and backed away in a half-circle, ember eyes flickering. Old Soot belched a little puff of smoke, licked its eye and looked pleased.

“It eats them,” Gongsun Ce said, staring. “It's eating the ash qi.”

“Of course it is,” Sima Lan said. “It would.”

Old Soot hopped from Shi Feng's hand to the ground. It did not look at the retreating hounds. It stretched its neck toward the slope on the east side, where a mountain with a flat, wide mouth stood half-hidden in the rain, and croaked twice.

It started to hop away, steadily, as if it knew exactly where it was going.

“Stop it,” Sima Lan said.

“Why?” Shi Feng asked.

“Because I know that walk,” Sima Lan said. “That's the walk it uses when someone's left a bowl out.”