The Price of Crossing

The firelight by the cliff came from a small hammer.

Each time the hammerhead fell, it struck a shower of sparks from a black iron spear shaft. A red-haired girl was hammering it, pinning the butt of the spear beneath her left knee and wielding the hammer in her right hand. A half-open toolbox lay beside her. Without looking up, she called into the woods, "Three more steps and you'll snap that cord."

Helian Yuan stopped.

Sure enough, a thin cord lay hidden beneath the fallen leaves before his feet. It was not a trap line, but connected to a wooden winch at the cliff's edge. If it snapped, the remaining half of the rope bridge on the winch would slide all the way into the valley below.

A tall, powerfully built young man rose on the other side of the fire, holding a shield across his body. He did not draw his blade, only positioned himself between the red-haired girl and Helian Yuan. Farther back, a thin boy was spreading several wet maps on a rock to dry them. When he saw the stranger, his first reaction was not to reach for a weapon, but to roll up the maps and stuff them inside his clothes.

Three people, each protecting something different.

Helian Yuan came no closer. His right arm hung in a cloth sling, and he had no long weapon on his back. Only a hunting knife and a route tube remained at his waist. He did not look threatening enough to take on a full hunting party, but he looked as though he had just come out of trouble.

The red-haired girl finally looked up. She looked first at his injury, then at the copper tube, and finally at his empty back.

"Where's your spear?"

"Left it on the road."

"The man made it back, but the spear didn't. Sounds like the spear had worse luck."

The tall young man frowned. "Ailina."

"I'm asking if it can be repaired." She put down the hammer. "If he meant to seize the bridge, he would have looked at the winch first, not my spear."

Helian Yuan's gaze fell on the black iron shaft. It was not her weapon, but looked more like an axle taken from the bridge winch and hastily straightened. There had been a rope bridge across the cliff, but a flash flood the night before had snapped two of its main ropes. The three were stranded on this side and trying to use the spear shaft as a replacement winch axle to pull the remaining ropes back.

"Do you know another way?" Ailina asked.

"I know an old beast trail."

The thin boy immediately looked at the route tube tucked against him. "Where did the map come from?"

"Someone didn't want me bringing it in."

"Then it's not necessarily reliable," the boy said.

Helian Yuan nodded. "That's why I'm not selling it."

"Then what do you want in exchange?" the tall young man asked.

"Passage across the ravine, and a weapon repaired."

Ailina looked him over. "You don't have a weapon."

Helian Yuan pulled the Throat-Locking Wind Wolf's neck ring from the bottom of the route tube. A short spear had gouged a deep mark in its edge, and fragments of sheet iron still clung to the groove.

"I need a new spear. The head can be fitted later. First I need a shaft I can use."

Ailina took the neck ring but did not immediately agree. She scraped some cyan flakes from its inner surface with a fingernail, then held them near the fire to examine their color.

"This isn't ordinary iron."

"I know."

"How much do you know?"

"It resonates with a whistle. Put it around a beast's neck, and it makes the beast stop."

The expressions of all three changed at once.

The thin boy hugged the maps tighter. "The Recovery Society?"

Helian Yuan did not answer with the organization's name. It was the first time he had heard it, and he was not sure whether it belonged to the same group as the gray-robed people.

Ailina noticed his hesitation. "You don't know their name, but you took something from them."

"They took the mountain first."

She gave a laugh, though it was unclear whether she agreed or thought the statement was too simple. Then she tossed the neck ring back into the toolbox. "Lead us across the ravine by the old beast trail, and I'll make you a short spear that'll hold up for seven days. It won't be a good spear, so don't come looking to settle accounts with me if it breaks."

"I'll only guide you as far as the other side," Helian Yuan said.

"And the spear's only guaranteed for seven days."

The deal was struck.

The tall young man introduced himself as Leien and handled the fighting at the front. The thin boy was named Kelin and kept the maps, accounts, and medicine. Ailina used Wind-Style Battle Qi and maintained their weapons. They were not a permanent mercenary group, but had temporarily joined forces to hunt a third-level Windclaw Lynx. Their prey had torn through the rope bridge and escaped to the other side with its injuries.

Helian Yuan mentioned neither Tiger Shadow nor the gray-robed people. He said only that he had entered the mountain from the outskirts and needed to take the old beast trail.

He led the three away from the fire and along the north side of the cliff. The dotted line on the beast-hide map did not cross the ravine directly, but descended to a natural stone span in the valley. Large magical beasts often passed over it, and ordinary people did not dare use it, but the flood had not washed it away.

Halfway there, Kelin suddenly stopped. "There's fourth-level beast dung here."

Leien tightened his grip on his shield. "What does the map say?"

"The map didn't say it was safe," Helian Yuan said. "Only that we could get across."

Ailina walked past him with the toolbox on her back. "That's the price of crossing."

"What?"

"Roads where no one charges money usually charge in risk."

She did not complain or ask Helian Yuan for a guarantee. Their deal only included a usable route, not his taking on all the dangers along the way for them.

Deep breathing came from the narrowest part of the stone span. A fourth-level Rock-Armored Rhinoceros was drinking below, its armored plates almost the same color as the rocks. If the four continued, they would certainly enter its line of sight.

Helian Yuan raised a hand to stop everyone. He checked the wind, then picked up a small stone and tossed it upstream. The sound of the stone hitting the water was not loud enough; the Rock-Armored Rhinoceros merely flicked its ears.

Ailina took a thin piece of copper from her toolbox and handed it to him. "Tap this."

Helian Yuan glanced at her.

"The sound of copper is like a mountain eagle dislodging a stone," she said. "The rhino will look up first."

Helian Yuan lightly tapped the copper sheet with the neck ring. The clear sound traveled upward along the valley walls, and the Rock-Armored Rhinoceros raised its head as expected, turning toward the opposite cliff face.

Leien escorted Kelin across first, while Ailina went last. As she passed Helian Yuan, she said quietly, "The route's yours, the sound's mine. If we're discovered, everyone runs for themselves. No looking back to save anyone."

Helian Yuan did not agree to the last part.

"Didn't hear me?"

"I heard you."

"Then say you agree."

"We'll see who runs slowest when it happens."

Ailina glared at him but pressed him no further.

Just as the four stepped onto the far side, the Rock-Armored Rhinoceros turned back. It saw the figures on the stone span and let out a low roar, its forehooves sending loose stones tumbling. Instead of running ahead, Helian Yuan had Leien block its view with his shield, then struck the copper sheet once more with the neck ring.

This time, the sound came from behind it. The Rock-Armored Rhinoceros mistakenly thought there was more movement above and hesitated for a moment.

The four seized the chance to slip into the woods.

Only after they had run far enough did Leien lower his shield. "We're across."

Kelin immediately added the stone span and the wind direction to the map. Ailina, meanwhile, sat down beside a tree root, opened her toolbox, and pulled out a black wooden spear shaft in two sections.

"It was a spare for the winch," she said. "Shorten it, wrap it in iron, and fit your old spearhead on it, and it'll be ready to use."

"The spearhead's still in the Wind Wolf."

"Then use this for now."

She took out a narrow, elongated, three-edged spear point. Its tip had an old nick, making it unsuitable for hard impacts, but well suited to piercing soft spots in the woods.

Helian Yuan took the spear point without asking the price.

Ailina spoke first. "If we kill the Windclaw Lynx, it has nothing to do with you. If you join the fight, we'll work out the spoils again."

"Understood."

"And one more thing." She pointed at the copper tube tucked against him. "If the trouble you brought follows us across the bridge, you need to tell us beforehand."

Their deal had not turned into trust just because they had crossed the ravine.

It had merely put the four of them in the same patch of forest for the time being, with each aware that the others had the right to turn away at the next step.

A short beast cry came from deep in the forest.

Kelin looked at the ground. A fresh set of claw prints marked the wet soil, broad at the front paws and narrow at the hind paws, with a short length of thin chain trailing beside them.

It was not the adult Windclaw Lynx they were hunting.

It looked more like an immature tiger cub.