Cobert

"Oh? What medicine? How do we get it?" Zeng Mu asked hurriedly.

"Fragrant Herb Potion. It's mainly made by combining fragrant herb with some Elemental Rainbow Butterflies. Black-Feathered Sparrows hate its smell more than anything, and the fragrance can disrupt their communication. With it, they'd most likely scatter and leave. But right now, I only have some Elemental Rainbow Butterflies, not a single stalk of fragrant herb."

"There's only one place in Sand City that might have it," Kanni said calmly.

"You mean the shop run by the Fulin Taiyou People?"

He looked at Zeng Mu and nodded. "The herbal shop, to be precise. That's the only place that could have it."

Ma Linya took a yellowed roll of birch-bark paper from inside her clothes. Unfurled, it proved to be a simple map outlining the whole of Sand City.

"It's a thousand meters from here to the only Fulin Taiyou herbal shop in Sand City. You have to cross a square without any buildings, a dangerous stretch with no shelter whatsoever. Right now, there's no way to make it through the Black-Feathered Sparrows' attacks unharmed."

Zeng Mu nodded in agreement, then asked, "Is there any medicine that can weaken their attacks? Or reduce their urge to attack?"

Ma Linya took a bottle the size of a little finger from her medicine pouch. It contained a black powder that looked rather like ground coal.

"This powder is extracted from the liver of an Iron-Armored Beast. Applying it to your body can repel Black-Feathered Sparrows and many other vicious birds, but only temporarily. Once the powder evaporates, the effect disappears, so you'll only have ten minutes." As Ma Linya spoke, she uncorked the bottle and began smearing the powder over both men's faces.

In the room lit only by the hearth, the black powder made the two men far less conspicuous, yet their sharply defined features looked even fuller and more sculpted.

The powder had a faint alkaline smell. Zeng Mu thought it smelled no different from soap, and as it lingered around his nose, he even felt a little more energized.

"Don't worry. Ten minutes is more than enough for us," Kanni said, slowly drawing the silver sword from his back and looking at the stern eyes reflected in its mirrorlike blade.

"Be careful, and come back as quickly as possible. Preparing the potion will take time too."

With the knights outside on the move, the three could no longer see masses of dark shapes flying past.

"Be careful yourself. Don't leave the house." After that reminder, Zeng Mu lifted the door bar and slipped outside with Kanni.

With the map Ma Linya had given them in hand, the two raced toward the herbal shop.

Many corpses lay on the ground, almost none intact. Mangled flesh, exposed white bones, and blood-soaked earth made for a horrifying sight.

There were no large flocks of Black-Feathered Sparrows roaming nearby now; presumably, they had all gone after the moving knights. But there were simply too many birds circling above Sand City. The moment the two men's swiftly moving figures appeared, they caught the attention of the Black-Feathered Sparrows overhead.

Black specks swooped down on a foul, bloody wind, heading straight for their heads.

Kanni and Zeng Mu tightened their grips on their swords, their blades waiting hungrily for the diving Black-Feathered Sparrows.

When only ten meters of vertical distance remained between them, the Black-Feathered Sparrows suddenly stopped in midair. Their red eyes gleamed as they chirped, seemingly wary of the strange, contradictory scent on the two men. It was as though their prey carried the oppressive presence of a natural predator. The sensation filled them with hesitation and unease. For the moment, they could only fly along after the two men, not daring to descend and attack.

Without the Black-Feathered Sparrows blocking their way, the two reached the herbal shop marked on the map in just a minute.

The shop was small and oddly built, neither a single-story building nor a loft. Instead, it was semicircular, like a porcelain bowl overturned on the ground, with two ear-shaped upper rooms perched on top.

The shop door was tightly shut. Kanni kicked it hard twice but failed to break it open.

"You Fulin Taiyou in there! Open the door! We need herbs to make a potion that can drive off the Black-Feathered Sparrows!"

After more than ten seconds of shouting, a halting, slightly resonant voice finally answered from inside. "You should leave. There are too many Black-Feathered Sparrows. Even Elemental Medicine could only cover a small area. Finding shelter and waiting for them to leave on their own is the sensible choice."

"Damn it! Open the door now! Otherwise, I'll break it down and kill you when I get inside!" Kanni shouted furiously.

"But if I open the door, the Black-Feathered Sparrows will swarm in. The three of us won't be able to handle them."

Zeng Mu quickly cut in. "Don't worry! We've applied Iron-Armored Beast Powder. No Black-Feathered Sparrows will get in!"

Silence fell inside. A full ten seconds passed before the other man hesitantly replied, "All right, I can open the door. But you have to promise you won't get violent with me once you're inside."

Kanni was trembling with anger. Zeng Mu patted his shoulder and called back, "Of course! Open the door quickly! We don't have much time!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the gap in the sturdy iron door widened enough for the two men to slip inside.

A wall-mounted stove burned inside, providing ample light. The air was rich with the intoxicating scents of medicinal herbs and fruits, and both men felt themselves relax a little as they entered.

"You don't have any Black-Feathered Sparrows on you, do you? I don't want one suddenly popping out and hurting me." A voice rang out, but the space before them was empty. Zeng Mu couldn't see a single person.

"Down here." Cobert waved, and only then did Zeng Mu notice the fellow standing right in front of him.

He was four feet four inches tall, wearing a mink coat and a formal hat. His face was exceptionally handsome, his hair and eyes pale blue-green. He looked about fifty, making Zeng Mu frown involuntarily. He had never seen a man in his fifties who was so handsome; even Kanni fell somewhat short by comparison. The impression was deeply contradictory, as jarring as twenty-year-old features set into a fifty-year-old face.

"That's how the Fulin Taiyou People are. Handsome men and beautiful women. Naturally, you'd be surprised the first time you saw one. Of course, I've heard there's a reason for it," Kanni explained, immediately recognizing the meaning behind his expression.

Cobert smiled. "Heh, thank you for that entirely accurate compliment, young man. Even among my people, my looks rank among the finest. And you're absolutely right. There is indeed a reason we look this way."

"But that's a secret of our people, and we absolutely cannot reveal it to outsiders. Of course, if you're truly interested, I could explain the reason, provided you pay ten thousand Livres. Consider it the fee for learning this secret."

Kanni pointed down at him and said contemptuously, "See? That's how good the Fulin Taiyou People are at doing business. Be careful when you run into them, or they'll fleece you."

Cobert immediately protested, "Hey, hey, young man! Aren't you undermining me? And mind your language. What do you mean, swindling? I, Cobert, have always been upright, honest, and trustworthy. I would never stoop to cheating or deception. I've always stated my terms openly."

Kanni couldn't be bothered to waste any more words on him. "Stop wasting time. Hurry up and bring out all the fragrant herb you have."

"Fragrant herb?" Cobert looked astonished.

"Hey, don't tell me a herbal shop this big doesn't have any fragrant herb."

He waved his hands. "No, no, no. Fragrant herb is quite common. I buy large quantities every month, so there should still be plenty in stock. However..."

"However what?" Zeng Mu asked anxiously.

"However, I keep all my fragrant herb in the highest medicine cabinet in the upper room, and I happened to break the ladder by accident yesterday. So the three of us will have to make a human tower to get it down."

Both men were rather speechless at the way his mind worked. They nodded repeatedly. "Fine, fine. Just take us there."

Cobert led them up to the second floor, beneath one of the upper rooms, then climbed up using recessed steps hidden in the stone walls on either side.

The space above was small, packed with broad wooden cabinets three meters tall. The medicinal scent was somewhat fainter than downstairs, presumably because the herbs here were of ordinary quality.

Cobert pointed to one of the wooden cabinets. "There. The fragrant herb is in the top drawer."

"Nameless, up you go." Kanni spread his feet and cupped his hands together, beckoning to him.

Zeng Mu stepped onto his hands and rose as lightly as a swallow, landing easily on his shoulders.

"Uncle Bert, your turn," he said, beckoning.

Cobert nodded, retreated dozens of steps, then raised his head and charged toward them, apparently intending to mount the tower as gracefully as Zeng Mu had.

His fierce momentum changed both men's earlier impressions of him. Kanni's eyes even held a hint of admiration, but a moment later, that admiration vanished.

Allowing for Cobert's lack of height, Kanni had lowered his hands as far as possible. Yet he hadn't expected Cobert's coordination to be this poor. The man missed his step completely, lost control, and fell flat on his face.

"Uncle Bert, are you all right?" Zeng Mu asked tentatively.

His hat had fallen off, exposing a shiny bald head. Cobert waved awkwardly, climbed to his feet, and put his hat back on. "Ahem. That was just a little mistake. The light isn't very good in here, after all, and at my age, my eyes aren't what they used to be."

He wanted to continue, but Kanni gave him a look that seemed to say, One more word, and you're dead.

Cobert obediently walked over and slowly raised his foot. With their help, he successfully climbed onto the human tower.

He took a large bunch of keys from his waist and, using the flickering light and shadows beyond the barred window, identified the right key and unlocked the medicine cabinet.

The drawer was filled with pale gray, clover-shaped herbs with blue-green veins. The moment they appeared, a much stronger medicinal fragrance filled all three men's noses. This was clearly the fragrant herb Ma Linya had mentioned.

As Cobert scattered the herbs down, he chattered, "Ma Linya must have sent you, right? That young lady is clever and quick-witted. Despite her age, her skill with Elemental Medicine is considerable. You could call her the finest recruited healer in Sand City."

"Back in his day, my grandfather was a master healer. He knew the properties and effects of every medicinal herb like the back of his hand, and the medicines he prepared achieved twice the results with half the effort."

"Unfortunately, my father didn't have the talent, so he couldn't inherit that precious medical expertise. But my grandfather planned ahead and left me a book on Elemental Medicine."

"There's a saying in the Seven Kingdoms: dragons beget dragons, phoenixes beget phoenixes, and young mice know how to dig holes. If the father isn't any good, the son won't amount to much either. So I'm not cut out to be a healer. Fortunately, my family had enough money for me to open herbal shops in many capitals. You could still call it carrying on the same tradition."

"I only arrived in Sand City half a month ago, and young Ma Linya was my first customer. Seeing that she was a good person and highly skilled at preparing medicines, I reluctantly parted with the book for five hundred Livres. After all, as another saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Things belong not to their owners, but to those destined to receive them. That was another of my grandfather's admonitions."

Cobert rambled on and on, only stopping once he had emptied out all the fragrant herb.