Orphan in the Mountains

The level-two Ironback Wolf did not step into the pit.

Dragging its injured hind leg, it stopped before the wet grass and sniffed the ground twice. Then it suddenly raised its head and looked toward the crevice where Helian Yuan was hiding.

Rain had just fallen in the valley. Water had washed away the scent of earth, rotting leaves, and blood. Only the fresh cut on Helian Yuan's wrist was still giving off a scent.

He did not move.

Neither did the Ironback Wolf.

Man and wolf faced each other from about twenty paces apart for a moment. The wolf moved one forepaw an inch to the side, skirting the pit covered with wet grass. It had suffered at hunters' hands before; it would rather drag a broken leg than take the easiest path.

Helian Yuan slowly relaxed the bowstring.

If he loosed the arrow, it would only bury itself in the wolf's shoulder at best. The wolf would charge, and he would not have time to shoot a second arrow.

He drew back the arrow and quietly hooked his left foot around a thin cord beside him.

The Ironback Wolf circled to the side of the pit and lunged at the crevice. As it leaped, Helian Yuan fell backward and pulled the cord taut. On the other side of the valley entrance, a round boulder propped up on a slope lost its wooden wedge and rolled down through the mud and water.

The wolf heard the noise behind it and instinctively turned its head.

That turn was all it took.

Helian Yuan slid out of the crevice and thrust his short spear along the ground. The tip pierced the wolf's lower jaw and struck hard bone. He did not force it. Instead, he shifted his shoulder aside, letting the wolf's weight drive the blade deeper.

The level-two Ironback Wolf fell beside him. Its forepaws scraped at the mud twice before it quickly lost its strength.

Helian Yuan sat on the wet ground and caught his breath before pulling out the spear.

"That was close."

He said it to the dead wolf.

The wolf, of course, did not answer.

There was no one else in the mountains to answer him, either.

Sixteen years ago, someone had found an infant wrapped in old animal hide on the outskirts of the Mountain Range of Magical Beasts. Inside the hide had been only half a wooden token bearing the words "Helian" and a copy of the Tiger Pattern Secret Canon, soaked through and ruined by blood. The hunter who adopted him died early, and Helian Yuan had lived in this leaky hunting shelter ever since. The people of Greystone Town called him a wild brat, and sometimes the Tiger-Striped family's wretched remnant-because the canon bore a name everyone had heard of, but few had ever seen.

Tiger-Striped Warrior.

Helian Yuan had trained according to the canon for seven years. He had carried stones, climbed cliffs, and plunged into cold pools in winter, wearing layer upon layer of calluses into his hands and feet. He was stronger than others his age, and his body was barely comparable to that of a level-two warrior, but he had never managed the most important step in the canon.

Beast transformation.

When his blood dripped into water, no markings appeared, and his bones did not heat up as the book described. Let alone grow tiger claws and a tiger tail and become one of the so-called Four Ultimate Warriors.

So he did not wait for his bloodline to save his life.

If the pit was too shallow, he added a rolling boulder; if an arrow could not pierce the prey, he made it run into the spear point itself.

Helian Yuan dragged the wolf to the stream, skinned it, removed its core, and cut off a piece of leg meat that was still warm. Just as he finished rolling up the hide, the valley floor suddenly shook.

Fine ripples spread across the water.

The second tremor was stronger. Loose stones on the cliff face tumbled into the stream with a clatter, as if someone had kicked the rock from within.

Helian Yuan slapped out the fire he had just lit and dragged the wolf hide into a crevice in the rock.

The third sound was not a tremor. It was a tiger's roar.

The sound bore down from deep within the mountain range. The stream's surface flattened as if pressed by wind, and dust sifted onto his shoulders inside the crevice. Helian Yuan had seen a level-three Ironmane Bear go berserk and heard level-four magical beasts fighting over territory from afar, but none of those sounds had made his bones tingle.

He looked up along the crevice and saw three figures on the high cliff.

They were too far away for him to make out their faces. He saw only one of them raise a hand and send a beam of white light down from between their fingers.

The white light did not explode.

It sliced cleanly through the cliff. Half the rock face stood still for a moment, then slid downward. Massive stones crashed into the valley floor, raising a wave of dust that blotted out the sky.

Helian Yuan pressed his face against the wolf hide and breathed as quietly as he could.

Through the wave of dust, a giant black tiger leaped onto the broken cliff.

Its shoulders and back stood higher than the hunting shelter. Its flank had been torn open, and black blood dripped in its wake. The three figures stood in different directions. None approached; they only kept narrowing the places where it could land.

They were not hunting an ordinary magical beast.

They wanted to leave it nowhere to escape.

The black tiger suddenly turned its head and looked beyond the valley.

Even from so far away, Helian Yuan felt those eyes sweep over the crevice where he was hiding. He did not know whether it had seen him. He saw only the black tiger lower its hindquarters, as if preparing to pounce again.

The three figures raised their hands at once.

But the black tiger did not pounce.

It opened its mouth and let out a roar much lower than the one before. There was no plea for mercy in it; it sounded more like something being crushed between its teeth.

The next moment, black light burst from its body.

Helian Yuan had only enough time to pull the wolf hide over his head.

The blast swept away the loose stones outside the crevice and slammed him and the hide against the rock wall. His ears rang, flying fragments cut open his right arm, and his short spear flew from his grasp.

He did not know how long he had been unconscious.

When he woke, the sky had already begun to darken. A corner of the high cliff was gone, the stream had been blocked into several sections by mud and stone, and the air smelled of scorched earth, blood, and a pungent reek of lamp oil.

Helian Yuan first felt for his short spear, then for the canon tucked inside his clothes. Both were there.

The three figures were gone.

The black tiger was gone too.

Scorched fur, broken bones, and rocks sheared flat lay scattered across the valley floor. Some of the bone fragments could be taken to Greystone Town and exchanged for more money than he could earn in half a year.

Helian Yuan did not go to pick them up immediately.

He lay behind the rubble and waited a long time. Only when a startled mountain bird settled back onto a tree did he move out, dragging his injured arm.

He did not touch a single thing that could reveal the origins of that battle. He picked only a few black bone fragments that had been flung to the stream by the blast and had no recognizable shape, then stuffed them into the bottom of his pack.

Beside the last fragment was a pool of black blood that had yet to cool completely.

Helian Yuan used his hunting knife to move it aside, but the wound on his right hand touched it first.

The blood shrank into his flesh as if it were alive.

He jerked his hand back, but his palm was already empty. Several blue-black lines appeared around the wound and crept up his forearm. They were not the tiger markings shown in the canon; they looked more like something had hidden itself in his blood vessels and was searching for a place to settle.

Helian Yuan cut a strip of cloth with a backward stroke and tried to squeeze the wound clean.

The first drop he squeezed out was still red blood.

So was the second.

When the third drop fell to the ground, the shadow at his feet suddenly raised its head.

Helian Yuan froze.

The sun had already sunk behind the mountains, and there was no wind. Yet his shadow no longer lay flat against the ground. A section of it rose behind him, vaguely taking the shape of two forepaws.

In the distance, a point of white light suddenly lit up again atop the cliff.

As if someone had looked back.

Helian Yuan grabbed his short spear and plunged into the dense forest downstream with the black bones on his back, leaving even the wolf hide behind. His right arm grew hotter and hotter. The shadow behind him sometimes drew close, sometimes stretched out along the tree trunks, but it always kept the shape of a tiger crouching low to the ground.

The black bones knocked against one another in his pack. Each time they sounded, he changed direction. The light from a Saint-level battle might attract powerful experts, and the wolf's blood would draw magical beasts too. He could not take the route he knew best back to town. By the time he reached the second stream, Helian Yuan even reversed his outer garment, pressing the bloodstained side against his body.

Only after running five li did he stop in a cave.

Outside, the sky had turned completely dark.

Helian Yuan laid the short spear across his knees and looked down at the ground.

Moonlight shone in through the cave entrance.

The tiger-shaped shadow had one forepaw resting on the shoulder of his shadow.