Sparrow dropped Brother Han off at the first oasis he reached. It was a small town of 100 camel riders and nomads. The people didn’t even notice when Sparrow slipped off with a couple of their goat-skin water flasks and a wheel of sour cheese.

Sparrow felt a little bad about leaving Brother Han behind – but there was no way either of them would survive very long if Sparrow had to drag Han through the desert.

Sparrow’s footsteps left imprints in the sand as he climbed the lines of dunes between him and the mountain. Wind stung his eyes and struck his face like sandpaper.

After days of walking he stumbled into a second oasis just as the sun was setting. The small patch of water between the date trees carried the sky’s pink glow.

Sparrow’s reflection splashed on the surface as he gasped in as much water as he could, then looked down at his pants, they hung like bags from his hips. He tightened the belt Master Lee had given him by three notches.

Then, as he bent over again, he sprang back in surprise – his reflection was gone!

Sparrow looked at his hands, touched his face – he was definitely still there – perhaps he was hallucinating from the lack of food and water?

He bent over the water again – still no reflection.

His hands gradually travelled down his body to the belt – could it be?

He loosened it three notches and his figure sprang back into view on the lake. My god! He thought, A magic belt.

He tightened it back up again to stop his pants falling down, then peered at the sky in the water. This could be a very good thing.

Before the sun’s light had risen Sparrow drank all the water he could, and gathered sweet dates from beneath the trees. He ate as many as he could, stuffed a heap into a wrapped up shirt of his, then plunged face-first into the shallow pool.

Soaking wet, and feeling better than he had in days, he continued toward the mountain.

Within half an hour of the sun being up, his clothes were dry. His face was burning in the heat.

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Still, he was closing in on his target, the mountain loomed above him, and after midday he cooled himself in its shadow.

He stared at it – maybe it was the dehydration affecting his brain – but he could swear there were massive birds zooming up and down the mountainside.

A day later, the birds became human-shaped. Some carried bows, or bamboo dart guns. They zoomed to and from the mountain, riding the air like birds – yet not one of them had any sort of wing.

By the time he reached the foot of the mountain Sparrow was exhausted, burnt, and dehydrated. He lay face-down in a cool mountain stream for a long while before taking his belt off and waving up at the people moving through the sky.

‘Hey!’ He called, ‘Hey!’

A party of figures zoomed down the mountainside toward him. Sparrow sat back with a restful sigh. I hope they have duck, he thought, I would die for just a tiny piece of duck, sizzling in its own fat and…

He wiped off the stream of dribble that dropped from his mouth.

The black-clad figures were approaching him – and fast. He watched as two pulled bows from their backs mid-air.

‘Hi!’ Sparrow called out as they zoomed toward him, his voice seemed small compared to the mountain, ‘I’ve come to your mountain in search o-’

An arrow smashed into his shoulder, tearing a chunk of flesh from it and slamming into the ground behind Sparrow.

Sparrow let out a scream and began to run just as a second arrow thudded into the ground behind him.

His run was wild – with both hands thrown in the air and a wailing scream. As the black-clad people closed in on him, he remembered the belt.

He threw it around his waist and tightened it so much it bit into his skin, then threw himself onto a rock and curled up into a ball, trembling.

The black-clad group gracefully landed on their feet right beside him. Their gleaming black bows were pulled taut.

‘You see him?’ A man’s voice said.

‘No,’ A woman replied, ‘Gone without a trace.’

‘Teleportation… ‘ another one suggested, ‘No-one’s got this close to the mountain in years.’

‘He looked small,’ the woman said, ‘Could be one of the nomad’s children?’

‘No,’ The first man said, ‘They know what happens if they come near here… most likely it was a dwarf.’

One of the figures who hadn’t spoken yet pulled a scroll of paper from a tube beside his hip and began to write on it, ‘Teleporting dwarf spotted, east…’

‘South-East,’ the leader interrupted.

‘South-East of the mountain, beside Little Bow Stream.’ With a flourish, the man pocketed both his quill and the scroll, ‘Let’s get back to the guard tower.’’

The others swept the area with a final suspicious gaze and then leapt up into the sky and raced back toward the mountain.

Sparrow waited a good long while before he sucked in a breath of air. His shoulder was painful, but the arrow had only taken out the top layer of flesh and his Qi was beginning to knit the muscle back together – still, it hurt a hell of a lot.

Sparrow looked out into the desert – where heatwaves were still rolling along the land – and then back to the mountain with the swarms of black-clothed folders buzzing around it.

He shrugged, realised he didn’t have a choice and began to climb the mountain.