Chapter 6 - A Massacre
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The scream startled both of them so bad that Song Fengling actually unsheathed his sword enough for the silver of the blade to shine in the lamplight. Nie Ruyi's head had snapped in the direction it had come from. It was bloodcurdling, chilling and close.
"Did you hear that?" Nie Ruyi whispered, despite knowing Song Fengling did. He nodded anyway as if to reassure himself too. He'd gone pale, and Nie Ruyi was pretty sure she had too, her hands shaking. Several voices raised in chaos, some battle cries, other orders yelled over the din, and suddenly Nie Ruyi knew they were under attack.
Had the dragon decided their deal wasn't worth it? No, not enough roaring, not enough wind. Nie Ruyi turned to Song Fengling, who was staring at the tent-opening in a dazed sort of terror. She put herself between him and the door, forcing him to look at her.
"Song-Shidi, we need to find a place to hide. We need information about what's happening and how it's being dealt with. I can't fight, so you have to protect me, Song-Shidi. Do you think you can do that?" She felt terrible, telling a 12-year-old boy he had to fight to defend her. She wished it weren't necessary. But whatever was out there was hurting people, and she was near helpless in this world.
The objective reached him, and she watched him marshal himself with a firm nod. "Yes, Nie-Shijie." He grabbed her hand, and she could feel his fingers shaking as he led her to the back of the tent. Carefully undoing some ties she hadn't even noticed, he opened a little hole big enough for them to crawl through. Then, he peeked through it, before coming back in. "It's chaos out there. Stay close."
With that warning, he crawled out of the tent and she followed. Madness erupted around them. The sky seemed oppressively gray now, and the wind was still where moments ago it had been slightly pushy. Like the eye of a storm, it was still, with only screaming and shrieking to mark the moments.
Nie Ruyi shivered as the wind picked up a sliver of a cackle, some mad thing laughing in this din. Song Fengling pulled her along, past cultivators running this way and that. She had no idea what was going on, or who was supposed to be in charge. Song Fengling led her to the outskirts of the camp, and then hesitated.
Behind them, thick smoke was rising from the camp. Someone had set the tents afire. Nie Ruyi glanced nervously back at the camp, the sounds of steel clashing and that wicked laughter following them like a foul smell. There. Between the tents, she caught sight of someone, dark hair wild and pulled high, a sword as thick as Nie Ruyi's waist swinging wild with abandon. The slab of metal cleaved a young cultivator in half, moving through the sword as easily as its wielder.
Nie Ruyi's heart juddered in her chest as the person's face turned towards her. She wasn't close enough to see any of their features, but she was sure, absolutely dreadfully sure, that they were smiling. "We.... We have to go." She choked, tugging on Song Fengling's hand. "We gotta go, NOW."
"Where?!" Song Fengling's voice was high pitched with terror, and Nie Ruyi knew with certainty that he'd seen the saber-wielder too.
"Forest. The forest!" Nie Ruyi said, turning in that same instant and pulling the young boy after her into the underbrush. That person would murder them, certainly. But the Dragon could be reasoned with. And if the Dragon realized they were trespassing, as it surely would, it might alert those negotiating with it that something was wrong.
She didn't let them slow down, not for a moment, pulling Song Fengling through stinging thickets and sucking mud. "W-Wait, Nie-shijie!"
"We've got no time to wait." She replied, "Save your breath, we need to run as much as we can." She was already wheezing, and she was more out of shape than he was, but somehow, she was certain that she couldn't stop. That saber-wielder had more stamina than either of them, she was sure. She could only pray that the cultivator was having as much trouble with the terrain as them.
A thought occurred to her to call out to the dragon. After all, it's little spies must surely have spotted them by now, but she wasn't about to risk compromising their location in case the Cultivator chasing them didn't know where they were. When Song Fengling opened his mouth to argue, she hissed at him until he quieted.
They stumbled as fast as they could through the woods for what felt like hours but must have been only twentyish minutes before she started to recognise signs. That rock, she'd seen it before, and those two trees twined around one another. She turned, adjusting their path, heading for the copse of trees where the Dragon had crawled down like a gecko.
Breaking through the thick brambles, she near-screamed when she saw what awaited them. Red, drenched everywhere, dripping from the canopy like rain. It drew her eyes up, into the boughs of the trees, where the broken corpse of the dragon hung like a kite from the thick branches. Deep, awful gashes littered its body, white showing through the deep red of muscle.
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"No!" Nie Ruyi's desperate sob crawled up her throat, too loud and aching to keep quiet. The Dragon had been their last hope for safety. Had Lao Xiaojun and the others killed it? Had they murdered the creature when it met them for peaceful parlay? Or had that murderous monster with the saber behind them done it?
"Nie-Shijie, we have to go!" Song Fengling mimicked her from earlier, and she choked on a laugh that was a sob at the same time. Where? Where could they go? They couldn't outrun someone who could fly on a sword.
Her hand squeezed the boy's sweaty palm in hers, and she turned, desperate to find some escape for at least the child. Maybe if she carved the dragon's stomach out and stuffed him inside, the cultivator would think he ran off in a different direction and be satisfied with murdering her alone.
"Hahhh...." A soft rattle of pained breath escaped the corpse above them, scaring Nie Ruyi out of her fucking mind. Her head snapped to look at the great creature, meeting one of it's massive eyes. Even to someone as unused to reptiles as she, it looked dazed and out of sorts. She imagined she would look the same, were she dying. "What strange things humans do. To send an assassin, and then come to me as I lay dying, stinking of fear and maternal concern."
Nie Ruyi didn't understand what it meant, but she was certainly afraid. "We're being chased, I think. Some cultivator with a massive saber. They were massacring the camp when we escaped into your woods, seeking sanctuary. Please. I ask only for a place to hide him, at least. He's just a child!"
The dragon let out a weak snort of breath that stirred Nie Ruyi's braided hair. "And why should I care for a human child, when my own shall be orphaned in minutes."
"...What if it didn't have to be!" Nie Ruyi cried, desperate, "Please. I could care for it! I know a lot about your species from the books in my world. I could raise it well, and when it's old enough, set it up in a territory with its own horde. Please. I would treat it as if it were my own child." She would try anything if it meant saving Song Fengling, who didn't deserve to be in this situation. The Dragon's eye slid shut.
"Nie-Shijie... They're getting closer." Song Fengling squared his shoulders, trying to be brave as he stared in the direction of the monster in human flesh coming after them.
"Please! We don't have time!" Nie Ruyi cried, her voice aching with tears and fear. "Please. I beg you, please! Just somewhere safe!"
"Enough... So noisy." The Dragon groaned. It pushed itself up from the branches, slipping a bit, as the trees groaned under its weight. A wheezing gasp escaped it as one of the trees impaled in its side dug deeper into the wound. "Follow the blue flowers. You will know them. If you miss one, look for a sparrow. It will lead you to the next. Hurry, for if I die, neither will lead you anywhere good. I will hold her off."
Relief fell over Nie Ruyi like a snowfall. "Thank you! Thank you, I will never forget this!" She tugged, pulling Song Fengling towards where the bluest flower she'd ever seen had just bloomed.
The flowers were surprisingly easy to spot, and in her terror she was alert enough to find them quickly. They lead them through the trees and under dense thickets. Several minutes into their mad pursuit of blue flowers, they heard the dragon roar loud enough to shatter the silence for miles. Nie Ruyi tugged Song Fengling harder, the boy clinging close as he followed.
Eventually, the two of them were led to a cliff face, a river flowing sluggishly beneath it. "Her lair is here." Nie Ruyi stated. "they always build their lairs in cliffside or hills. It's got to be here. Can you fly down and guide me as I climb?" She turned to Song Fengling, who was looking over the side with terrified eyes.
"I... yeah, Yes, Nie-Shijie, I can." He tossed his sword over the side, and instead of it falling into the burbling water below, it floated in the air and returned to him. She would never get used to that.
He guided her down the twisting vines carefully and went back above her to move the ones shifted by her weight back into place, to hide their trail. It would look a little like they had jumped in to escape their predator. Nie Ruyi was so thankful for this little measure of foresight that she had to bite back the sting in her eyes again, even as her hands ached from holding onto thorny vines.
"I'm so sorry, Nie-shijie, I wish I was strong enough to carry you..." Song Fengling sounded so wrecked by the fact that he wasn't, that Nie Ruyi had to laugh a little.
Breathless, she comforted him, "Don't worry so much. You're still very young. When you're older and stronger, I'll have you carry me from place to place. You'll see. I'll never have to set a foot on the ground again since my little Song-Shidi will take good care of me, won't he?" Half-teasing, half offering him a future to glance to instead of the terror of their last few hours, she made sure her voice was light.
It was only when she could no longer find rocks under her feet that she looked down. Beneath her was a long fall, but closer, there was a huge cave entrance. She shuddered, realizing she didn't know how she was going to get in. "O-Okay, Song-Shidi, I know you aren't strong enough to carry me. But do you think you might be strong enough to help me fall?"
"Huh?" The boy cried, confusion turning his eyes wide. She sighed, her arms shaking so bad she could feel her fingers slipping.
"Okay, so, come closer, close enough that you can grab me. In fact, grab the cloth of my dress at the shoulders, okay?" She waited anxiously, until she felt his little paws grab on. "Okay, now, when I let go, we're going to fall very quickly. I need you to push with that sword of yours, so that we fall INTO the cave, and not away from it. Do you understand?"
"I-I think so?" Song Fengling sniffled, and she could hear his fearful panting.
"Hey. Listen, no matter what, we're going to get through this. Just need some quick thinking to do so, okay? Just remember, push about the count of three after I let go, okay? Too soon, and we hit the ceiling. Too late, and we fall. Count One-mississippi, okay? I'm going to let go on the count of five."
"One-mississippi." She felt the little hands holding her shoulders turn into claws, and winced at how tight they gripped her.
"Two-mississippi." She slipped, her fingers sliding along the vines a little, and Song Fengling heaved against her sudden weight dispersal. "I'm okay! It's okay! I just slipped. Three-mississippi."
"Hurry." Song Fengling whispered, and she wasn't sure what he'd heard, but she didn't want to find out.
"Four-mississippi, five!" She rushed, before letting go of the vines entirely and kicking (just a little) away from the wall, so she wouldn't scrape down it. The wind rushed by her as she fell, and she wondered if Song Fengling had remembered to count, had remembered to say Mississippi after each word, because if he didn't--
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