The cattail roots were a disappointment. Chewy, fibrous, and tasting strongly of mud, they did little to quiet the gnawing beast in their bellies. They provided sustenance, but no satisfaction, no comfort. Eating felt like a chore, a necessary intake of fuel for a body that was little more than a machine for survival.
Li's encounter with the soldier had cast a long, cold shadow. They moved with a new, heightened paranoia, their progress downstream a masterclass in stealth. They no longer walked on the open riverbank, but flitted from tree to tree, their ears straining for any sound beyond the river's roar. Every snapped twig was a potential footfall; every distant birdcall, a signal between hunters.
The mist burned away by mid-morning, revealing the valley in its stark, beautiful brutality. The river was their constant, churning companion, but it offered no easy path. They were forced inland to navigate around impassable gorges where the water plunged into thunderous cataracts, or to fight through dense, thorny thickets that guarded stagnant, mosquito-clouded swamps.
Hunger was a sharp-toothed companion that walked between them. It made Mei's hands tremble and put a brittle edge on Li's silence. The hope offered by the pottery shard began to feel like a cruel joke. What did one broken piece of clay matter in this vast, hungry wilderness?
It was on the third day after the encounter, their hunger a constant, dizzying ache, that they found the trail.
It wasn't a road, or even a proper path. It was a game trail, a narrow, beaten-down ribbon of earth that ran parallel to the river, a respectful distance back from the bank. But there, pressed into a patch of soft mud, was a print. It was not the cloven hoof of a deer or the pad of a large cat. It was the unmistakable imprint of a human foot, clad in a soft-soled shoe.
Mei gasped, pointing at it. "Li! Someone else has been here!"
Li crouched, his heart thumping with a cautious hope. He studied the print. It was fresh, perhaps from that morning. It was smaller than his own, and the stride was shorter. A woman, or perhaps a youth. Whoever it was, they knew this land. They moved with a purpose he and Mei had lost days ago.
"This is it," he whispered, a fierce, grim smile touching his lips for the first time in what felt like an eternity. "We follow."
The trail made their progress exponentially faster. It wound expertly through the most navigable parts of the forest, avoiding the worst of the thorns and the swamps. For the first time, they felt like they were going somewhere, not just fleeing.
The signs of human presence grew more frequent. A recently stripped berry bush. A feather from a fowl, tied with a cord—a simple lure. The lingering, cold scent of a campfire.
And then, they heard it. Not the river, but a new sound. A rhythmic, solid thwack… thwack… thwack… that spoke of deliberate, skilled labor.
They crept forward, using the dense foliage as cover, until they reached the edge of a small clearing. The sight that met their eyes was one of such mundane normalcy that it felt almost surreal.
A man was there, his back to them. He was of middling years, with hair tied back in a simple knot and wearing clothes of rough-spun, undyed hemp. He was working with a stone adze, expertly shaping a long, curved piece of wood into the hull of a canoe. Wood shavings littered the ground around him, smelling sweet and resinous. A fishing net, neatly folded, lay on a nearby log. A small, smoldering fire pit sat in the center of the clearing, and the smell of smoke and cooked fish hung in the air, a torment to their starved senses.
This was not a warrior. This was a craftsman. A fisherman.
Li's first instinct was a surge of overwhelming relief. They had found people. Sanctuary.
His second instinct, honed in blood and mist, was one of deep, instinctual caution. The man worked with a quiet, focused strength. He was at home here in a way they could never be. He was an unknown variable.
Mei made to step out of the trees, a cry of greeting on her lips. Li's hand shot out, clamping onto her arm, pulling her back into the shadows. He put a finger to his lips, his eyes wide with warning.
"Wait," he mouthed.
He watched. He studied the man's movements, the set of his shoulders, the easy confidence with which he existed in this space. This was his territory. To burst in, two ragged, wild-eyed strangers, could be seen as a threat. They had one chance to make a first impression, and getting it wrong could mean being driven away, or worse.
The man paused in his work, setting down his adze. He stretched, rolling his shoulders, and walked to the edge of the clearing to retrieve a waterskin. As he turned, his gaze swept idly across the tree line.
It passed over their hiding place.
Li held his breath. Did the man's eyes linger for a fraction of a second? Did a slight frown crease his brow? He couldn't be sure. The man took a long drink, then turned and walked back to his work, picking up his tool. The rhythmic thwack… thwack… began again.
Li made his decision. They could not stay hidden forever. They had to take the risk. But they had to do it on terms that didn't startle him.
"Stay here," he whispered to Mei. "If something goes wrong, run. Follow the river."
Her eyes widened in protest, but he gave her a look that brooked no argument—the same look that had faced down the forest cat. She nodded, reluctantly sinking back into the ferns.
Li took a deep breath, trying to shed the feral tension that gripped his body. He stepped out from the cover of the trees, but he did not walk directly towards the man. He moved slowly, at an angle, making sure the man could see him from his periphery. He kept his hands open and visible at his sides.
He stopped a good twenty paces away, at the edge of the clearing, and waited.
The rhythmic thwacking stopped.
The man did not startle. He did not whirl around. He simply finished the stroke he was making, set his adze down carefully, and then, with a calm, deliberate slowness, he turned.
His eyes were the color of dark river stones, and they held no fear. They held a deep, placid calm, and a profound, unsettling intelligence. They took in Li's emaciated frame, his mud-stained and torn clothes, the hollows under his eyes, the wariness in his stance. They saw everything.
He did not speak. He simply waited, his expression neutral, as unreadable as the forest itself.
Li, his heart thundering in his ears, bowed. It was the deep, formal bow a young person would offer to an elder in his village. It felt like a gesture from another lifetime.
"Honored elder," Li said, his voice rough from disuse and strain. "My name is Li. My companion and I… we are lost. We ask for…" His voice faltered. What did they ask for? Mercy? Food? A path? He settled on the most fundamental truth. "...for shelter."
The man's gaze shifted past Li, into the trees where Mei was hidden. He seemed to look right at her. Then his eyes returned to Li. He still did not speak for a long moment, his silence a weight that pressed down on Li's shoulders.
Finally, he gestured with his chin towards the smoldering fire pit. Beside it was a woven basket. From where he stood, Li could see it contained several smoked fish.
"The stomach of the world is empty for no one," the man said, his voice a low, resonant rumble, like stones grinding together deep underground. "Eat. Then, you will tell me what hunts you, that you walk with such ghosts in your eyes."