The air tasted like sweet rot. It clung to the cloth over Rat's mouth and made his teeth feel wrong.
"Three steps back," Ruo said. "Slow. Do not break the rhythm."
They edged away from the narrow pit, leaves whispering underfoot. Inside the hole, something patient shifted its weight. Eight legs scraped silk. The sound of strings being tuned crawled under Rat's skin.
To their left, the brush bowed as the antlered thing paced, just outside vision. Its hide looked like bark. Its antlers were black branches wet from rain that never fell here. When it breathed, the sweet rot got stronger.
Wei Yun's whisper barely moved air. "It is shepherding us."
Rat kept his staff low and his tone lower. "I do my best work with an audience."
A silk line snapped as the vault spider tested its web. The ground around the pit flexed, and pebbles skittered over the lip and vanished into dark.
Ruo raised two fingers. Wei Yun shifted his spear point down, ready to hook silk if it shot. Rat rolled his shoulders once, finding the beat behind his belly. In. Hold. Out when the pain comes. He let the world fit the rhythm.
The brush parted. The bark-antlered beast stepped into view at last. It was taller than a horse, ribs carved by wind, eyes a flat green that liked this air. Moss grew along its spine. It lowered its head and tilted, as if asking a question in a language made of breath.
"Polite," Rat said through cloth. "I appreciate the manners."
Ruo did not blink. "Barkhorn Sentinel," he said. "Common high, near Lord. Territorial, smarter than it looks. It herds prey. The pit is part of its corral."
"Good," Rat said. "I was worried things were getting simple."
The spider moved. A pale leg stabbed up. Wei Yun hooked silk, yanked, and rolled away as the leg withdrew like a spear. Ruo flicked two stones into the pit. They vanished, then a web line snapped taut. The ground flexed again and settled.
The Barkhorn stepped closer. It inhaled, long and slow. Rat felt something tug under his tongue as the air itself leaned toward those lungs. Ruo grunted and dragged his sleeve over his mask to double the cloth. The sweet rot smiled wider.
"Back," Ruo said. "The pit is its gate."
The beast exhaled. Flowers bloomed along a rotten stump, yellow and stubborn. It scented them, satisfied, and took two more steps. The pit sat between it and Rat's ribs. Spiders waited below for clumsy meat to fall. The Sentinel wanted easy.
"Not today," Rat said softly.
He planted the staff and tapped a sharp beat into the soil. Once. Twice. Thrice. The rhythm he had learned from bad mornings and worse lessons. Breath in. Weight down. Breath out. Weight light. The staff took the tune and fed it into ground and web.
The spider flinched. Silk trembled. The pit mouth sagged a finger's width, not much, but enough to show the web was not a floor. It was a bowl.
The Barkhorn hesitated, then chose irritation over patience. It pawed the earth. Its hoof punched a clean hole into loam. It wanted them to panic. Panic falls.
Song Min's voice came from behind a tree full of thorns. "I can smoke it," she whispered. "Resin torch. Drive it back."
Ruo shook his head. "Sweet rot will carry fire. We will cook inside our masks."
"Hard pass," Rat said.
Another leg stabbed up. Wei Yun caught it with the spear hook, twisted, and felt the wrong kind of weight. The leg retracted with enough strength to pull a man shoulder-first. Wei Yun let go before it claimed him. The silk hummed, pleased.
The Barkhorn stepped closer still. It did not feel fear. It felt old. It lowered antlers to shepherd them toward the void again.
Rat took one quick inhale, then spoke without moving his teeth. "Ruo. Give me a count."
"One," Ruo said. "Two. Three."
On three, Rat slid right and tapped twice more, harder. The web bowl shifted another finger. The Barkhorn adjusted, hoof finding new ground. Its weight slowed for half a breath. It was careful. It was clever. It was not used to prey that tapped.
"Song," Rat said, eyes on the antlers. "Give me smoke anyway. Small. Toss it left."
She lit resin on a short cloth twist and pitched it into a heap of fern to the left of the pit. Smoke rolled, oily and low. The Barkhorn's head turned toward it, nostrils flaring. Its next step to check the threat would put more weight near the web's weak edge.
Ruo's voice was steady. "Now."
Rat slammed the butt of his staff into the ground on the web's rim. He fed the beat down his arms and into the soil, a short, rude pulse that told tension where to live. The spider surged to adjust. Two legs came up where it expected weight.
The Barkhorn stepped forward to shove Rat away from the fire-smell. Hoof met loosened ground. Silk sagged. The bark hide rippled. For the first time, it looked surprised. Its front leg plunged to the knee.
Wei Yun did not waste surprise. He stabbed low, not for heart or head, but for the rear tendon that keeps a beast fast. The spear sliced hide and caught, then tore free as the Barkhorn wrenched away with a hiss like leaves burning.
The spider lunged again, angry now. A pale dinner-plate body flashed up, fangs like black needles seeking anything soft. Rat moved on rhythm, not thought, let the head graze air where his throat had been, and brought the staff down hard between eyes. The skull caved with a wet crunch. The body fell back into dark. Silk shivered in pain under the blow and held.
The Barkhorn shook its trapped leg, muscles bunching, and tore free of the web. It backed two paces, watching features that were not human decide between pride and hunger. Pride lost badly. It blew hot air through moss and came again, angling to drive them into a different hole.
Ruo stepped forward and stamped a root. Qi rippled from his heel into the ground. The soil settled an inch, enough to firm a path that was not there a moment before.
"Through," he said. "My line."
They took the path in a low rush. The Barkhorn matched, surprised by ground that would not obey. Wei Yun feinted right and darted left to buy them a single, narrow breath. The beast turned and found nothing to shepherd. It snapped at empty air and lost more pride. That hurt it in a way knives did not. It stood tall and watched until trees swallowed them, then faded back into brush with the silence of something that owned the map.
They did not talk until the smell of rot slid away and the pines returned them a cleaner knife for the lungs. The wind finally moved between their shoulders again.
Rat bent, hands on knees, and laughed once into cloth. It sounded too high in his own ears.
"You laugh," Song Min said, pulling smoke smell out of her hair with her fingers, "so you do not shake."
"I can do both," Rat said. "I am talented."
Ruo checked Wei Yun's cut. Clean slice. Not deep. He tied it with steady hands, then looked back down the trail.
"It will remember us," he said.
"It can send a letter," Rat said. "We do not accept gifts."
They skirted the voided path and took the long way around to the boundary stone, stepping where the mountain said step and not where tired knees requested. The stream's soft talk returned. The sky showed a penny of blue between leaves. The carved character on the boulder looked more worn, as if the forest had licked it while they were gone.
Their footprints from earlier had been churned by others. Narrow-heeled boots again. The same three sets. Add a fourth, lighter, quick, that had come and gone twice.
Ruo's mouth became a straight line. "They circled us."
"They set the pit for our return," Song Min said quietly.
Wei Yun's grip on the spear tightened. "Rooted Stone plays farmer."
Rat crouched by the boundary stone. A smear marked the rock two handspans above the cache hole. Pine resin, the sticky kind used to seal oilcloth. He pressed the pad of his finger into it. Grain grit clung and held. It was fresh enough to be rude.
"There," he said, pointing at a scuff by the stream. "Heel slipped. Runner was in a hurry."
Ruo's eyes traced the slope where a man who thought he could not be caught would go. He found the shortcut only a fool or a local would take. He inclined his head to Rat, then began to move.
They chased sound. Not the loud kind. The little mistakes. A broken twig that had not earned its break. A disturbed mat of needles where a knee had sunk to catch breath. The tracks cut upslope and along a shelf banded with lichen. The runner had trusted the shelf. The shelf trusted no one.
The shelf frayed into stones set like teeth. Below, a narrow ravine held a stand of young cedars that remembered winter wrong. The runner slipped one more time and corrected with the reflex of someone who had done this since he had knees.
Rat waited where the path narrowed to a single argument. He did not hide. He leaned on the staff and picked at his mask tie, louder than he needed to be. When the runner appeared, eyes wide at the sudden man-shaped annoyance, Rat smiled behind cloth.
"Good day," he said. "I am here about a damaged deposit."
The boy skidded. He had Rooted Stone green at the sash and a lacquer tube at his belt. His knife came out and did a nervous dance that fooled only its owner.
"I do not carry coin," the boy said. "I carry nothing."
"True," Rat said. "You carry lies and poor knife habits."
He moved when the knife did. He did not block it. He gave it a lane and let it beg to be useful, then tapped the boy's wrist with a quick flick that numbed three fingers. The knife leaped into the leaves as if it was glad to be free of that job. Rat hooked the lacquer tube with the staff and popped the tie. It fell into his hand as if meant to be there.
The boy gaped. "You are not allowed to take sect property."
Rat looked at the tube, then at the sash. "Which sect?"
The boy shut his mouth. His eyes had the scared pride of a stray who had joined a gang because gangs had food. Rat knew that look in mirrors he no longer owned.
"Go," Rat said, stepping aside. "You did not see us."
The boy glanced at the tube, then at the path that would take him back to a man who counted and did not forgive. He chose to live anyway and fled downslope like a deer that had learned too late about pit traps.
Rat flipped the tube's cap. Inside, a folded sliver of parchment slept against a rolled strip of oiled silk. He slid both free. The parchment held a map of the canopy's gullies and an old trail marked with three little bells inked in faded green. The oilcloth held a prayer written in a hand that had believed in neatness even when the world did not.
Song Min read the prayer under her breath. "'When the bell rings, the valley drinks.'"
Wei Yun whistled soft. "Spiritual treasure."
Ruo studied the marks on the map. He did not speak for a time. The wind said nothing. The trees tried not to look eager.
"The bell feeds the valley," he said at last. "The sects will fight without saying fight. We return."
The Codex stirred behind Rat's eyes the way silk knits back together after a tear.
[Harmonic marker detected. Low-grade spiritual resonance. Distance: two valleys.]
[Note: Growth Qi saturation beyond seasonal limits. Artificial source probable.]
Rat rolled the map small enough to be swallowed by a coin, then did not. He tucked it inside his sash where the copper lay warm. "A garden bell," he said. "Heaven's little dinner bell for roots."
Wei Yun looked at him over the spear. "We are outer disciples."
"Outer disciples collect herbs," Rat said. "And sometimes they collect trouble by accident."
Song Min's eyes caught the way his hand rested on the sash. She said nothing. Ruo said nothing louder.
They made the climb back toward the sky-bridge. Twice they heard the Rooted Stone boys in the distance, making noise on purpose to sound bigger than they were. Once a quill from the boar fight clattered out of a cedar where it had tried to become bark. The mountain's breath moved across their shoulders again. For a few minutes, the world pretended to be simple.
At the bridge, two Open Sky sentries took one look at Ruo's sleeve and the way Wei Yun held his arm and stopped asking questions. "Steward," one said, already turning to run for the infirmary. "We will send word."
Ruo nodded and handed the tube to Song Min for a heartbeat, then took it back. He did not look at Rat. He did not need to. Rat already knew the next part.
They crossed, feet thudding on old planks that had learned to trust men even after men had taught them not to. The wind under them smelled like rock and distant snow. The mountain watched with the patience of a landlord.
At the far side, Jin Tao waited with a face that tried for concern and landed on annoyed curiosity. He had fresh bruises and a new shine on his boots. Two stewards in gray stood behind him, faces unreadable.
"You took long," Jin Tao said.
Rat pulled his cloth down and smiled. "We stopped to sightsee. The pit has excellent views."
Jin Tao's smile twitched. He looked at the tube in Ruo's hand. "Found something?"
Ruo answered with his back. "Report to Instructor Zhen," he said to the stewards.
Jin Tao opened his mouth again, then noticed Song Min's expression and closed it. The stewards took Ruo toward the infirmary. Wei Yun leaned near Rat as they walked, voice low.
"That map," he said. "Three bells."
"Old shrines," Rat said. "Or new trouble."
"Both," Wei Yun said, and grinned with lips that had not yet learned better.
Night came quick over terraces and tile. The dormitory's lamps wore tired halos. Rat found a quiet corner in shadow where the wind snuck in under the roof and brought the smell of the high peaks. He unrolled the map again and traced the ink bells with a thumb.
The Codex flickered.
[Appendix Update: Canopy Lore, Fragment Two]
"Where bells hang, the ground remembers rain."
He closed his eyes and let the mountain's breath count time. The copper coin warmed. For a moment, just a sliver, he thought he heard something far away answer the counting.
A single, soft tone, too faint to wake the lamps, ran through the wood under his hand. It came from under the map's third bell.
The wind exhaled, and something else exhaled back.
[Codex of Strands of Fate - Status Update]
Vitality: 5
Qi Sense: 5
Comprehension: 3
Fate Entanglement: 18
Realm: Foundation Establishment
Skill Refinement: Horizon Flow Strike → minor stability increase during multi-target pressure.
New Passive Effect: Rhythm Tap (Nascent)
Effect: Ground pulse disrupts thin webs and unstable footing within two paces.
Appendix Unlocked: Canopy Lore, Fragment Two.
Rat touched the coin and smiled without humor. "Heaven rings for plants," he whispered. "Good. I am learning to garden."