Chapter 798 — The Report

CHAPTER 798

The Report

Four wardens came down the riverbed on tall grey horses, and the one in front was already writing.

He was a middle-aged man in Long yellow with a lacquered board strapped to his forearm and a brush behind his ear. He looked at the Tang hunter, at the palm-print, at the empty belt, and wrote three lines without slowing his horse.

“Tang banner, one hunter, out by token,” the warden said aloud as he wrote. “Wounded by bandits. Cores taken by bandits.”

Two of the others lifted the Tang man onto a litter between their saddles. He had fallen asleep, and the grey on his chest had stopped spreading.

“Bandits,” Shi Feng said politely. “How did bandits get inside the Imperial preserve, warden?”

The warden looked up from his board for the first time.

“Through a gap in the outer wall, honoured hunter,” the warden said. “It happens. The wall is very long.”

“Where’s the gap?” Shi Feng asked.

“We’ll find it. Wind comes through a crack in the door,” the warden said, and wrote another line. “Bandits through a gap in the outer wall. The Grand Warden will see that it’s closed.” He tucked the brush back behind his ear. “Did your banner see them?”

“No,” Shi Feng said. “We found him after.”

“Then you have nothing to report,” the warden said, not unkindly. “Good hunting.”

The wardens turned their horses and rode back up the riverbed with the litter swaying between them. The column of white light above the pines was already fading.

“He didn’t even look at the palm-print properly,” Hou Tieshou said, scowling after them.

“He looked at it,” Jiao Lanyin said. “He just didn’t write it down.”

The warden’s report reached the Tally Pavilion an hour before sunset.

A junior Tianji scribe carried it along the stand from lord to lord, as the Hunt’s custom required. Most of the banner lords glanced at it and passed it on. The Tang lord read it twice and went pale. The Gu lord, still red from the ford, snorted. “Each man sweeps the snow from his own doorstep,” the Gu lord said, and passed it on.

The scribe reached the princess and bowed.

“Bandits through a gap in the outer wall, Your Highness,” the scribe said. “In the Silver-Pine Ring. One Tang hunter wounded.”

Above her veil, Long Caili’s eyes went over the slip. She didn’t hand it on at once.

“Then the gap will be closed,” Long Caili said, and gave it back.

The scribe bowed and moved along to the next seat. Four seats away, the Third Prince took the slip from him, read it without any expression at all, and passed it on.

Shen Yaoqing had been watching the third Mirror. Now she looked at her friend’s hands instead.

Long Caili’s teacup sat on the little table in front of her, full to the brim. Steam had stopped rising from it long ago.

“Your tea’s been cold for an hour,” Shen Yaoqing said.

“It’s good tea,” Long Caili said. “It doesn’t mind waiting.”

“You haven’t moved it once since the ford,” Shen Yaoqing said. “Not an inch.”

Long Caili turned a page in her ledger and wrote something down. Her brush moved steadily.

“Eleven cores, plus the Gu pouch,” Long Caili said. “Before sunset on the first day. I’m calculating.”

“Is that all?” Shen Yaoqing asked.

“…” Long Caili lifted the hem of her veil an inch and drank half the cold tea in one swallow. Then she went back to her ledger. Shen Yaoqing turned back to the Mirrors and didn’t ask again.

At dusk, every jade token in the preserve grew warm at once.

Shi Feng took his from his collar. Faint lines of light rose out of the jade and arranged themselves into a short list: sixteen banners, and beside each, the Tally Pavilion’s estimate from the day’s Mirrors and the wardens’ counts. It was only an estimate. The real weighing would come at noon on the seventh day.

“Fourth!” Hou Tieshou shouted, so loudly that a roosting bird fell off its branch. “Fourth by weight! On the first day! The odds-sellers had us ninth!”

“The Gu are thirteenth,” Yue Shaoan said, peering at his own token. He sounded a little guilty. “They were fifth this morning.”

“Who’s first?” Shi Feng asked.

“The Third Prince’s banner,” Jiao Lanyin said. “Then the Azure Sun. Then the Cangming.”

Hou Tieshou sat down on a log by the stream and looked at Shi Feng for a long time, frowning. The firelight made his scowl deeper.

“I want to ask something,” Hou Tieshou said loudly. “And I want a real answer, not a cook’s answer.”

“Ask,” Shi Feng said.

“How does a cook hit like that?” Hou Tieshou demanded. “You dropped an Ironbark with one touch. You took the Gu captain’s pouch off his own belt. The Gu captain’s peak Deity Transformation! You’re only late! There’s a whole stage between you!”

“I’m an alchemist, not a cook,” Shi Feng said, poking the fire. “I’ve spent years moving heavy cauldrons and controlling qi with my hands. But I’ve also trained my sword. You watched the captain’s spear. I watched his pouch.”

“That’s not an answer!” Hou Tieshou said.

“It’s as much as I’m telling you,” Shi Feng said without offence. “You keep your own cultivation methods too. I won’t ask you to explain the Mountain-Carrying Fist by a campfire.”

Hou Tieshou opened his mouth, shut it, and laughed so hard he almost fell off the log.

“Fine! Fine! A man’s secrets are his own!” Hou Tieshou said. “Hou Tieshou asks no more! Just keep hitting things!”

Yue Shaoan had already rolled himself up in his blanket by the fire, with his boots still on, as Shi Feng had told him to. Jiao Lanyin took the first watch without being asked and sat with her back to a pine and her bow across her knees.

Shi Feng lay back and looked up through the branches.

The array wall glowed faintly to the east, a long gold line above the trees. For a moment, at the top of it, a man in grey sleeves stood quite still and looked straight down at their fire.

Then he wasn’t there.