Sen refrained from looking at the cultivator that Falling Leaf still held. He was half-convinced that she’d forgotten she was holding him, but then she’d tighten her grip any time the man tried to gather his qi or started to struggle again. He supposed that the cultivator was getting a very condensed lesson in the humility he never bothered to develop. They’d long since crossed out of the cleared lands around the capital and were passing over the wilds. They had been as devoid of spirit beasts as he’d expected. At least, they had been up until now. He’d sensed one. Not one that would pose a challenge to him, but one that might sate Falling Leaf’s need to break up her boredom.
“Over there,” he said, gesturing in the direction of the lone spirit beast. “About three miles.”
Falling Leaf immediately released the cultivator, who slumped down onto the qi platform, and shot off in that direction. Sen was a little worried that the spirit beast had been left as either a spy or a trap, so he started moving in the same direction. Not fast enough to encroach on Falling Leaf’s hunt, but close enough to act if it were a trap. He finally looked down at the cultivator who had struggled up to his knees.
“I find that cultivation is an exercise in constant learning. So, what have you learned today?” Sen asked.
“That Lady Fa’s patience is not to be tested,” answered the cultivator.
Sen’s mind caught on the name Lady Fa for a moment before he remembered that he’d given Falling Leaf the name of Fa Ling Li to use with mortals and other cultivators. It was good that she’d remembered to use it. He pretended that he was considering the answer before he offered a sage nod.
“Indeed,” said Sen. “Have you learned anything else?”
“That one should not go where they are not invited?”
“Yes. I’d consider that a truth for life in general and not simply with more powerful cultivators. Now, I am aware that all of you were likely ordered to ingratiate yourselves to me at any cost. After your experiences today, how successful do you imagine such efforts will be?”
“Not successful at all, Lord Lu.”
“Good. I’m glad you understand. Now, if I were you, I’d hurry back to the army. If Lady Fa returns and finds you here, she might decide that the lesson isn’t over yet. And, honestly, I have no idea what she might see fit to do to you. It is, of course, your choice.”
The cultivator flinched before rising to his feet.
“I believe that I will take your advice and return immediately, Lord Lu.”
“Wise. You might also inform the others of what you learned today.”
“I will, Lord Lu,” said the cultivator with a bow.
Sen idly watched as the other man fled back toward the relative safety of the army. He wondered if the cultivator might try to pretend that he’d been given some rare honor by being allowed to accompany them. He dismissed that idea after a few more seconds of thought. That particular cultivator would likely do almost anything to avoid drawing the ire of Lady Fa. Especially after Sen had let him remain her captive. That had been a message in its own right. He wouldn’t stop Falling Leaf from punishing people who irritated her. That might invite other kinds of problems later, though. The cultivators with the army should implicitly understand that he would not be so forgiving of attacks directed at his friend. He frowned as he considered that. Cultivators could be foolish about what they chose not to understand.
“I might have to make an example of someone,” he muttered. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
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Sen was more worried about the cultivators challenging each other to settle old grudges. As the army’s leader, it was ultimately his responsibility to maintain order. He couldn’t task the mortals with keeping the cultivators in line. Nor could he just send the cultivators home if they proved troublesome. He needed them to fight the spirit beasts. A fact that would give them some perceived leverage over him, even if it didn’t give them any actual leverage. Too much defiance, and he could decide to kill them. Of course, dead cultivators were just as useless in a battle as absent cultivators would be. He’d need to come up with some kind of punishments that would be bad enough that the cultivators wouldn’t want to face them. But the consequences couldn’t be so bad that they’d try to run away, which would force him to do something very final to them.
“This is why I hate being in charge,” he told the air around him.
Setting aside those thoughts for later consideration, he turned his attention fully to what Falling Leaf was doing. It seemed she was chasing the spirit beast. It has to be very damn fast if she’s struggling to catch it, thought Sen. Just to be safe, he extended his spiritual sense farther out in the direction the chase was headed. It seemed that Falling Leaf had the same thought he did, because she abruptly broke off her pursuit. There were at least a dozen spirit beasts in the distance. Far enough away to escape immediate notice, but close enough to spring a trap on any unwary cultivators who took a hunt too far into the wilds. Sen abandoned his qi platform in favor of flying to where Falling Leaf was scowling into the distance.
“They ruined it,” she complained the moment he landed.
“You don’t want to fight them?” asked Sen, a little surprised.
“We could, but this is a trap. Better to just kill them and be done with it.”
Sen’s first thought had been to capture and question them. Then again, he doubted any spirit beasts left here to spring traps knew anything particularly useful. He wouldn’t have left anyone for a task like harassing the human army if they possessed important information. It was simply too likely that a few of them would be captured. He was just surprised that they were this close. He hadn’t expected things like this before they’d gone fifty, maybe even a hundred miles farther if even then. It had seemed more likely that they would have run off when they saw that he meant to make good on his threats to burn the wilds. He pondered what to do while he tried not to notice Falling Leaf’s disappointed expression.
“What if I just kill most of them?” asked Sen. “It’ll be easy enough to leave one for you.”
Falling Leaf’s eyes took on a focused sharpness.
“Yes. That sounds like an excellent idea. We should go now.”
“Go?” asked Sen. “I’ll just do it from here.”
He waved a hand, and a dozen bolts of lightning fell from a clear sky. He was a little proud of that. He’d finally mastered that technique he’d seen Uncle Kho use all those years before. He frowned when he noticed that one of the spirit beasts he’d meant to kill was still in his spiritual sense. Somehow, it had survived the strike. Sen sent earth qi out, and a lance of sharpened stone finished the job. He widened his spiritual sense to its maximum range before he turned to Falling Leaf.
“There's just one spirit beast within ten miles of here. Enjoy your hunting.”
Falling Leaf burst away into the trees, and Sen resumed his quiet trailing from a qi platform. He thought he’d left the fast one alive, and it seemed he’d been right. It took the better part of an hour for Falling Leaf to finally corner the fast-moving spirit beast. Once she did, though, the fight was over very quickly. Sen landed nearby, and Falling Leaf walked over with a beast core in hand.
“What kind of spirit beast was it?” asked Sen. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one that fast.”
“It was a kind of—” she muttered something under her breath that even Sen couldn’t catch. “What is the word you use? Weasel! It was a kind of weasel.”
“Aren’t those really small?”
She shrugged and pointed first at one tree and then another.
“It was about that long.”
Sen eyed the distance between the trees.
“So, about ten feet long?”
Falling Leaf squinted for a moment, reminding Sen that she sometimes struggled with human numbers, before she nodded. Sen thought about asking more questions, but decided that they could wait. The sun was setting, so they needed to get back to the army. He only stopped long enough to collect the beast cores from the ones he’d killed before sending his qi platform on a course for where the camp should be. Part of him expected some kind of disaster to have struck the army in their absence. However, there were mostly orderly lines of tents. Things got less orderly on the outskirts of the camp where the cultivators had set up. He didn’t even try to understand what kind of twisted logic they were using to assert superiority. Landing near the center of the camp, he found himself surrounded almost instantly by officers who all tried to give him reports at the same time.
Closing his eyes, he whispered, “I hate this so much.”