The season of peace was a time of transformation, measured not in moons, but in callouses formed and skills honed. Li's spear became an extension of his arm, its weight as familiar as his own heartbeat. Under Lao's relentless tutelage, his thrusts lost their wild desperation, becoming precise, economical strikes aimed at the vulnerable gaps in imaginary armor. He learned to use the spear's length not just for attack, but for control, hooking an opponent's leg or deflecting a blow with the ironwood shaft.
Mei's transformation was quieter but no less profound. She could now move through the forest with a silence that rivaled Lao's, her feet finding purchase on seemingly barren rock, her body flowing through the densest undergrowth without a sound. She could read the stories written in the mud—the passage of a deer, the slither of a snake, the recent scratch of a boar's tusks on a tree. She had filled their larder with rabbits caught in her clever snares and baskets of edible fungi and roots Li wouldn't have dared to touch.
They were becoming a single entity with two sets of skills. Li was the strength, the unyielding point of the spear. Mei was the awareness, the eyes that saw the threat before it emerged.
It was Mei who brought the first whisper of the outside world crashing back into their sanctuary.
She had been ranging farther on her foraging trips, mapping the valley in her mind. One evening, as the fireflies began their nightly dance, she returned to the clearing not with a basket of food, but with a face pale and tight with alarm.
"Smoke," she said, her voice low. "To the south-east. A lot of it. Not a campfire. It's a pillar, like… like before."
The words landed in the clearing with the weight of a tombstone. Li's hand tightened on his spear shaft, the familiar wood a comfort against the sudden chill that gripped him. The peace was over.
Lao set down the fishing net he was mending. "How far?"
"A day's hard travel. Maybe less," Mei replied. "It's coming from beyond the river bend, where the valley narrows."
"The Reedfoot Village is there," Lao said, his voice grim. "A small place. Fisherfolk. They bother no one." He looked from Li's set jaw to Mei's worried eyes. "The Azure Cloud Clan does not 'bother' people. They consume them. They are searching, and they are methodical. They will sweep this valley village by village until they find what they want."
"We have to help them," Li said immediately, the words coming out in a rush. The memory of his own village's pyre was a fresh, burning brand on his soul. He couldn't stand by and let it happen again.
Lao's gaze was unreadable. "Help them? With what? Your one spear and her knowledge of knots? You would add your bodies to their pyre, a noble but pointless gesture."
"So we do nothing?" Li shot back, his voice rising with frustration. "We hide here while they burn another village for this?" He gestured to the jade sphere, which now rested on a small altar Lao had helped him build—a place for focus, not for hiding.
"I did not say we do nothing," Lao corrected, his tone dangerously calm. "I said we do not throw our lives away. There is a difference. A hunter does not charge the bear. He studies it. He finds its weakness." He stood, his old joints cracking. "We will go. But we go to see. To understand. We are not an army. We are eyes in the forest. Perhaps that can be a weapon, too."
They left before first light, a trio of shadows in the pre-dawn gloom. Lao led, his movements sure and silent. Mei followed, her senses stretched to their limits, reading the trail. Li brought up the rear, his spear in hand, the weight of it both a comfort and a condemnation. It felt foolishly small against the might of the Azure Cloud Clan.
They did not follow the river. Lao took them on a higher route, along ridges and game trails that kept them under the forest's canopy. As they drew closer, the smell hit them first—the same acrid, greasy scent of burnt wood and something worse that had haunted Li's nightmares. Then came the sounds, faint but distinct on the wind: the distant, guttural shouts of men, and the sharp, terrifying crack of whips.
By midday, they lay on their bellies on a wooded bluff overlooking the Reedfoot Village. The sight below made the breath catch in Li's throat.
It was not a scene of total destruction like Dragon's End. This was something different, and in some ways, more chilling. Only a few huts on the outskirts were smoldering ruins, a clear message. The rest of the village stood, but it was a prison. The fisherfolk—men, women, and children—were herded into the central clearing, surrounded by a dozen Azure Cloud soldiers. Their postures were slumped in defeat and terror.
The soldiers were not killing. They were interrogating. A village elder was being held by two soldiers while a third, an officer with a more elaborate dragon-scale pauldron, paced before him, his voice a menacing growl they couldn't quite make out.
"They are looking for us," Mei whispered, her voice trembling with a mixture of fear and fury. "For the jade."
Li's knuckles were white on his spear. Every instinct screamed at him to charge down the slope, to do something. But Lao's hand was firm on his shoulder, holding him in place.
"Watch," Lao murmured, his voice like the rustle of leaves. "See the shape of your enemy."
Li forced himself to look, to see beyond his rage. He saw the discipline of the soldiers. They weren't brutes reveling in chaos; they were efficient, controlled. They moved with a purpose. He saw the officer, a man named Jiao, if the shouts of his subordinates were to be believed. He was lean and sharp-faced, his eyes missing nothing. This was not the Dragon Master, but he was a dangerous, intelligent tool.
Then, Li's eyes fell on something that made his blood run cold. Tied to a post near the officer was a man Lao's age, his face bruised and bloody, but his head held high. It was the fisherman from the clearing, the one who had been shaping his canoe. He had been caught returning to his home.
"They have Brother Shen," Lao breathed, a rare flicker of emotion crossing his face.
"We have to get him out," Li said, desperation edging his voice.
"A direct assault is suicide," Lao stated flatly. "There are too many. They are too organized."
"Then what?" Mei asked, her eyes glued to the pitiful scene below.
Lao was silent for a long moment, his gaze fixed on Officer Jiao. He watched the man's patterns, his movements, the way he positioned his guards.
"They are soldiers," Lao said finally, a slow, grim plan forming in his eyes. "They think in terms of walls and spears and direct threats. They do not think like the forest." He turned to Mei. "You said your weapon is knowledge. It is time to wield it. Can you get a message to the prisoners? Without being seen?"
Mei looked at the village, at the ring of guards, at the open ground between the tree line and the huddled villagers. It seemed impossible.
Then she looked at the river, at the reeds along its bank, at the way the shadows were beginning to lengthen. A determined glint came into her eyes.
"The river," she said. "They're fisherfolk. They know the river." She looked at Lao. "I can do it."
Lao nodded. "Good. Li, your turn. The hunter must sometimes make a noise to drive the prey." He pointed to the northern edge of the village, where a single guard was posted watch over the smoldering huts. "You will be a ghost. You will give them a distraction. One quick, sharp shock. Then you vanish. Can you do that?"
Li looked at the isolated guard, then at the spear in his hand. This was not a fair fight. It was an assassination. The boy in him recoiled. The survivor nodded.
"I can do it," he said, his voice cold.
"Then we have our roles," Lao said, his voice low and steady. "Mei, you are the whisper. Li, you are the sting. I will be the shadow that moves in the chaos. We do not fight their war. We play our own game." He looked at both of them, his ancient eyes holding a fierce, desperate light. "We show them that this valley has teeth."
As dusk began to bleed into the landscape, the three of them melted back into the forest, a tiny, desperate resistance preparing to strike a blow against an empire. The hunt was no longer a matter of survival. It had become a war of shadows.