Banners cracked like whips over the inner yard, their faded blues snapping against dusk. The mountain held its breath again. Fifty new robes stood in two lines, dust on hems, fear under tongues. Rat rolled his shoulders and pretended the ache was just weather.
Instructor Zhen stood at the center circle, staff planted, calm as carved stone. Steward Hao waited beside her with a ledger that could bankrupt a city. Higher up, on a balcony of gray slate, a handful of elders watched with the patience of hills. One of them leaned on a cane of pale wood. Rat did not look long.
"Demonstrations," Zhen said. "Technique is debt. You will show what you owe."
A disciple set a training puppet on the circle's mark. It was a frame of jointed wood with a sack tied where a chest might be. Hidden bellows huffed from its back. Every few breaths, compressed air snapped from vents in sudden gusts.
"Outer wind dummy," Zhen said. "If your strike is sloppy, it returns your gift with interest."
Jin Tao stepped forward first, face smooth with confidence. He drew a short saber, let his Qi gather, and sliced neatly. The gust kicked back. He slid his foot, absorbed it, sheathed as if the blade had never left. The balcony murmured approval.
Wei Yun went next with a spear from the rack. He was not graceful, but he was honest. Thrust, pull, turn, breathe. The dummy's gust shoved him a step, then two, then not at all. Zhen's chin dipped by a finger's width. Praise, in her language.
"Rat," she said.
He stepped into the circle. The yard went quiet the way a room goes quiet for a joke that might offend God. Rat set the staff across his palms and bowed to the elders because he liked living.
"Name your form," Zhen said.
"I do not have one," he said. "It keeps slipping its own leash."
"Then let us watch it run."
The dummy's first gust hit as he set his stance. It smelled faintly of oil and old hemp. Rat felt his legs try to widen on their own. He did not fight them. He set breath in his belly, let it press into bone, and traveled that road he had been paving since the temple.
He moved.
The staff looked like a plain stick until it did not. It angled, kissed the gust, rode it, and let Rat pour the weight in his shoulders down the length and into the dummy's ribs. Wood thunked. Air bucked. The bellow coughed a better breath back. Rat absorbed it with a hop that would have looked stupid if it had not worked.
The elders leaned.
He struck again, shorter this time, half-beat between inhale and exhale. The second impact felt cleaner. The dummy's gust rolled under the strike and slid past his waist, tugging at his robe instead of his spine. The mountain approved by staying quiet.
The Codex pricked his eyes with neat little needles of text.
[Horizon Flow Strike: stability improving.]
[Advice: reduce wrist tension. Follow through with hips.]
"Bossy," he muttered, and loosened his hand a touch.
This time he stepped with the heel, turned the hip, and let the staff finish the sentence for him. The dummy stumbled. One of the elders with the pale cane let out a single slow breath.
Jin Tao clapped, too loud. "Unexpectedly decent."
Rat smiled without teeth. "I aim for affordable excellence."
Zhen lifted a hand. "Again. Then stop before you break something you will need tomorrow."
He did as told. The fourth strike sang. The fifth fizzed, a misfire, and the gust slapped his chest hard enough to sting. He grinned at the dummy like it had told a clever joke. The yard finally breathed.
"Name it," Zhen said.
Rat blinked. He did not like naming things. Names drew rent collectors. But this was a house where everything had a label and a ledger line.
"Horizon Flow Strike," he said. "Incomplete."
Zhen nodded, as if she had been holding that name in her mouth already. "You may keep it if you keep paying."
Steward Hao's brush scratched the ledger. The elders conferred in low murmurs. A bell sounded far off.
Then a second bell. Shorter. Ruder.
Jin Tao's head snapped toward the lower terraces. "Warning signal. Outer slope."
Zhen did not move at first. She listened. The banners hissed. A smell slid into the yard, thin and ugly: iron, wet fur, old meat. A rasp of claws on stone followed, multiplied, echoed.
"Ravine gate," a steward shouted. "Beasts in the wash!"
"Carrion drawn by the serpent's blood," Zhen said. She raised the staff. "Outer candidates, form. Keep the line. Senior disciples, with me."
Feet pounded. Banners flapped hard enough to crack. Rat grabbed a second staff from the rack and tossed it to Wei Yun.
"Left flank," he said.
"I like my right," Wei Yun said.
"Then defend both and make me look wise."
They sprinted to the terrace lip. Below, in the shallow wash where they had cleaned the altar, a pack of shapes slid out of brush and shadow. Not wolves. Their shoulders rode wrong. Their tails were too thin. Muzzles narrow as knives. Gale Jackals. Common beasts, mean as bite marks, fast as lies.
The first wave hit the lower stone like water poured from a bucket. Disciples met them with discipline. Spears planted. Blades flashed. Zhen went straight for the densest knot and lifted one jackal into the air with a single upward staff sweep that looked like scolding.
Rat and Wei Yun took the left steps where the wall had crumbled into sharp choices. Two jackals leaped as one. Rat met the first with the butt of his staff under the jaw, turned the skull aside, and let it kiss the stone. He cut the second's ankles from under it with a low sweep. Bone popped. The beast howled and kept coming, because hunger had taught it better manners than pain.
"Watch the tail," Wei Yun said.
Rat saw it whip late and did not pretend he had seen it earlier. The staff took the slap. He gave it back.
The Codex slid a line between hammer and nail.
[Reversal Instinct: minor window.]
He pivoted and did the bad idea anyway. The jackal's lunge took his staff on the cheek. He turned with it and guided chin into wall. Teeth fell out. The beast slid down the stone like a lesson learned.
Jin Tao dropped into their notch with more courage than sense, saber bright and face brighter. "Hold this stair," he said, slicing a jackal's ear, "I will cut a path."
"You should cut your orders into smaller pieces first," Rat said.
Jin Tao leaped. It was noble and nearly fatal. A third jackal slipped through his blind left as if it had been waiting its whole life to explain his mistake. Wei Yun stabbed short and saved him anyway. The spear took the jackal in the ribs. Jin Tao stumbled, grateful and furious.
"Do not cover me," he snapped.
"Consider it a refund," Wei Yun said, breathless.
A bigger shape muscled through the pack, scarred muzzle, ragged ear, eyes yellow as old piss. A leader, if jackals had leaders. It teased the edge of the steps, testing for foolishness.
Rat gave it a thin smile. "Hello, boss."
The jackal grinned back. It feinted. He did not bite. It went low for his shins. He raised the knee and brought the staff down hard between shoulder blades, then twisted and slammed the tip into the narrow notch where neck met skull. The beast shuddered and collapsed across his toes, heavy as unpaid bills.
"Promotion denied," Rat said.
Wei Yun barked a laugh that turned into a cough. Blood spattered his lip. He wiped it with the back of his hand and swung again.
The fight expanded and shrank like a set of lungs not sure if they wanted to keep working. Every time the lower line began to heave, Zhen was there. Her staff did not shout. It corrected. Each strike landed where a lesson needed to be taught. Beasts learned slowly. They still learned.
More jackals boiled out of the scrub, and behind them, a ripple in the brush that was not jackal at all. Grass lay down where it passed. Rat's neck prickled.
"Bigger," he said.
The scrub split and something slid through that was wrong for this low terrace. A long head, heavy mane, eyes like clouded glass. Not wind serpent. Not common. A carrion lion, pale and thin, mane clotted with river muck. Low Lord-tier at best, starved and angry that it had to hunt this low. It trotted forward with the sick confidence of a gambler on a losing streak.
Steward Hao swore softly. "It smells the pearl."
Zhen's staff lifted. She began to move to intercept.
The lion saw her, did the arithmetic, chose a cheaper meal. It turned and bolted for the stairs where the younger meat lived.
"For once," Rat said, "follow me."
He ran to cut the angle, grabbed a fallen banner pole with his free hand, and jammed it between two stones along the stair's edge. Wei Yun saw the line, anchored the other end around a cracked post, and yanked it tight.
"Again," Wei Yun said, eyes wide.
"Do not tell the mountain," Rat said.
The carrion lion surged up the steps. The banner line drew a blue smile across the air. The beast hit it at the chest. The pole groaned, wood splintered, and the lion rolled, claws ripping stone, momentum pitched into a heap of flailing legs and bad decisions.
Rat did not wait. He stepped in, breath set, legs rooted, and hammered Horizon Flow into the side of its jaw. The world rang. The strike went truer than anything he had thrown all day.
The Codex clicked.
[Horizon Flow Strike: form recognized.]
[Classification: Minor Form established.]
[Cost: increased. Efficiency: increased.]
"Thank you," he told the air, and ducked as the lion's paw slashed past where his head had been.
Jin Tao found his spine and stabbed, blade lodging shallowly under a rib. Wei Yun thrust low into a thigh seam, then ripped back as the lion spun. Zhen arrived like the end of a song and ended the song. Her staff dropped on the crown of the skull and the skull forgot ambition.
Silence collapsed on them again. Then sound returned in pieces. Panting. Whines. A raven's cruel croak from above, disappointed that dinner had learned to use sticks.
Wei Yun leaned on his spear and bared bloody teeth in something like a grin. "We should stop meeting nobles."
"Agreed," Rat said. "The common ones hate us enough."
Jin Tao wiped his saber and tried to stand like a hero in a painting. His knees betrayed him and shook. He sheathed anyway and met Rat's eyes. What passed between them was not truce. It was a receipt.
Zhen surveyed the stair. "Body disposal. Triage. Tally. Carve markers. You will sleep when the ravens do."
Steward Hao sketched notes and sent runners. Disciples moved because they had been trained to move. The carrion lion's body steamed in the cooling air.
Zhen turned to Rat without ceremony. "What you did with the banner is still a crime."
"Educational crime," he said.
She let the smallest curve touch the corner of her mouth. It might have been a smile. It might have been the idea of one. "Report in the morning. Then you will accompany a steward to Dusthaven to recover a list of herbs for the infirmary. Take Wei Yun. Do not take Jin Tao."
"Excuse me," Jin Tao said, wounded pride louder than sense.
"You will remain and learn to hold a line without bleeding on it," Zhen said. "All three of you will live longer for this insult."
She walked away, staff ticking like a clock that did not belong to any man.
Rat breathed out and let the tremor leave his arms. The small sun in his belly turned, polishing the strain into something usable later. He pried the banner pole out of the stone and laid it along the stair like apology.
The Codex unfolded its neat little page.
[Codex of Strands of Fate - Status Update]
Vitality: 5
Qi Sense: 4
Comprehension: 3
Fate Entanglement: 15
Realm: Foundation Establishment
New Technique: Horizon Flow Strike, Minor Form
Effect: Stable channel through palms or staff. Returns a portion of opposing force into target when rhythm aligns. Costs stamina and Qi. Misuse risks sprain.
Passive Upgrade: Staff Affinity +1
Effect: Faster recovery after impact, improved grip under blood and rain.
System Note: Pattern repetition detected. Banner traps yield disproportionate success. Probability anomaly within tolerance.
Rat snorted. "Do not judge my brand."
Down the stair, disciples hauled bodies toward the bone pit and salted the stones. Above, the elders filed off the balcony like weather losing interest. Only the man with the pale cane lingered, gaze on the cleaned altar far below, then on Rat. His eyes were not warm, but they were awake.
Wei Yun nudged Rat's shoulder. "Dusthaven run in the morning. We can stop by the temple. Check the dog. Plant beans."
"Plant beans," Rat said. It felt like a promise to himself. It felt like a joke the mountain might help finish.
Wind slid along the yard, cold and curious. It carried a smell Rat did not like. Ink. Old coin. A hint of grave dirt no rain had washed.
The hair on his arms stood up.
From the canyon throat below, a second bell sounded. Not warning. Calling.
The beggar's voice brushed the inside of his skull again, soft as a thumb on a pebble.
Little horizon. Bring your coin.
He turned toward the steps before his feet had been consulted. Wei Yun frowned, sensing something he could not name.
"What is it," Wei Yun asked.
"Debt," Rat said, and started walking.
The mountain listened. It always did.