Chapter 18

Pao set the pace.

Tan was slowed by the others. By a lot. He could have been halfway there by the second day, but Pao set the pace, and Pao was slow.

Well, not really slow. They jogged at a pace that saw them crossing the horizon every few minutes. And the pace that Pao sent, while slower than what Tan could manage on his own if he were flying the distance, was steady and relentless.

Won and Ko had to both push themselves to keep up. Tan, to his surprise, found himself growing tired as well when he tried to run with the others. While Tan would have gone faster alone, he would have also stopped to take breaks along the way. Not too frequent, once an hour or so.

They stopped once all day, and that was to eat.

Were they mortals, they would have fallen behind. But they were each advanced cultivators, and while they were forced to tap into their spiritual energies in order to do so, they kept going long after a mortal would have lain down and died from exhaustion.

They drew surprised looks as they passed wagons and commoners traveling on foot and horseback. Humble as they were dressed, the weapons they carried now were out of place on children so young. Each weapon radiated power and history, and those that saw them gave the children a respectful bow, correctly identifying them as cultivators of great power.

Many didn’t spare them a second glance, seeing only four poorly dressed children traveling alone and thinking nothing more of it. This might have been a critical mistake were the children of the Shen farm ones to take offense, for insulting a cultivator was like sticking one’s head in the mouth of a dragon.

The children didn’t notice the bows, and they didn’t notice those who ignored their presence either.

Pao set the pace, and he was relentless. All of their focus was on keeping up with him as he jogged faster than mortals could sprint.

The horizon stretched ever onward, and the children raced towards the east. Into the rising sun in the morning, and away from the sunset. Never slowing, rarely stopping for more than a meal, the children rested only at night, and even then only after nervously taking their weapons and practicing the katas that Tan’s parents had shown them.

They knew better than to try to spar with each other with the weapons. These were tools that were intended for serious self defense at the highest levels of combat, and none of them wanted to take a wound from them. Tan’s sword could cut stone with ease. Ko’s quarterstaff and Pao’s warhammer, while not as powerful in the children’s hands as they’d been in the hands of the adults who’d given the weapons to them, remained capable of shattering stone and bone alike.

As for Won’s bow, it spent the day feeding on his Qi and when he drew the string back to his cheek at night it greedily sucked in more, concentrating the energy into a fiery arrow of its own volition. He’d never practiced archery before, but he did so in the evenings after Pao finally called a rest and found that it came naturally to him.

At least, it did with the mystical bow that Wensho had given him. When he later tried practicing with a natural bow, he found himself fumbling and awkward at first. But the weapon he had been given knew how to be used. It seemed to tell him what needed to be done, even in the practice hours that the children spent familiarizing themselves with their weapons in the hour before dark.

All of the weapons were like that. They carried memories of being in the hands of masters, and those memories had imprinted upon them. Now, in the hands of mere children who had never truly had to defend themselves before, the weapons knew their purpose and guided the hands that wielded them.

The three children who were not born into the Shen family, but who had come to be part of it all the same, gathered out of earshot of Tan and whispered about their gifts.

“Do you think that he stole them from the imperial armory before he left?” Won asked, holding his bow with reverence.

“Don’t be absurd. It’s not theft when the emperor takes what is his,” Ko chided.

“I’m worried that we’re not worthy of these weapons,” Pao said seriously. “I understand why we were given them, though. They sent their son out to prove himself in the world, and we’re here to protect him. Worthy or not, they armed us with the mightiest weapons they could for the purpose of keeping him safe. Do not forget who it is that we serve.”

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“It’s so weird sometimes, knowing who the Shen family really is,” Won commented. “I mean, Lady Wensho helped our mother when she was giving birth to us. What sort of imperial concubine would do that for a bunch of dirt farmers?”

“The kind who is worth honoring by protecting her son,” Ko said seriously.

In the distance, Tan danced a kata with his blade, listening the the voices in the wind. He couldn’t make out the words, not without straining and he wouldn’t violate his friend’s privacy like that. But he recognized the tone.

His friends were being weird again.

He looked at the sword in his hands. It was sleek and deadly, and yet he felt a sliver of disappointment.

“Of course I got a hand-me-down,” he said, sighing.

He danced the kata his father had shown him only once, the blade itself correcting his movements. He was fast and elegant, moving from one pose to the next with speed and grace.

Until he tripped on a stone and almost cut off his nose.

He laughed at the near-accident.

He sensed a faint sliver of amused intent from … somewhere. He looked around, but his friends were nowhere to be seen, and he could sense nothing else breathing nearby.

He looked at the sword in his hands, which gave off an aura of perfect innocence. As innocent as a deadly weapon could be. Too innocent.

“Shut up,” he told the sword. He corrected his stance, and started the Kata again from the beginning.

They slept in tents that were stored in Tan’s spatial ring, and they ate food that was still hot from the oven, likewise stored in the same place. Time did not pass inside a spatial ring, and it was perfect for storing things which were fragile, volatile, or needed to be kept at a certain temperature. Or, conversely, things which were large and cumbersome and difficult to carry.

Tan hadn’t been using the ring much around the farm, since he was so used to doing his chores without it, but he was grateful to have it for this journey. It made things so much easier than the last time the four of them had set out on their own, on the spirit stone hunt the year before.

He offered to carry the weapons of the others for them in the ring. Pao’s weapon especially was heavy and probably slowed even him down with its weight, but he insisted that it wasn’t as bothersome as it looked, that he wanted to get used to carrying it around on his back, and that if the group needed their weapons, they might not have time for Tan to distribute them from his ring.

The others made the exact same excuses when Tan offered to carry theirs as well, but he thought it was secretly just because they liked holding them and pretending to be great warriors.

Not that he wasn’t like that too, wearing the sword on his hip and being aware of it all of the time. It was awkward at first, but it seemed like the sword itself was teaching him how to walk with it swinging from his hip.

Hand-me-down or not, it was a valuable weapon, he admitted to himself. And it made him feel grown-up to wear it.

They traveled through the first three days, passing through the hilly foothills of the Black Sky Mountains, crossing the vast rivers with their various methods. That was one of the few times when Tan actually was given their weapons, as well as most of their clothing, as while he could fly over the river, the others had to swim.

Except for Ko, she could walk on water, so she walked along while the others splashed their way across the deep rivers of the Blue Dragon Empire and promised to defend them should anything occur while they were in the water.

If they were mortal, they would have had to find a ferry to cross.

And they would have had to follow roads.

And they would have taken much, much longer to get so far, leaving their home hundreds of miles behind them.

They traveled for three days before they ran into trouble.

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