NOVEL SIMPLE 42 – No-one can catch a break
Gou Dzing slowed his run as they approached the edge of Tsaam Lam. Gaam Yuk Ying dropped nimbly from his back, eyes still closed.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine. Overdid the Sword Eyes.”
With a heavy sigh, Gou Dzing leaned down and hugged him. Gaam Yuk Ying returned the embrace.
“Dzing.”
“Yeah?”
Silence. Gaam Yuk Ying seemed to be struggling for words. At last, he said, “Your grandfather... is a strong man.”
“You're trying to tell me he'll be okay, right? That... Thanks.” He held tighter. “I hope she didn't find him...”
Gaam Yuk Ying pressed a sidelong kiss on his cheek.
“It's been a while since we've been along like this.” Gou Dzing turned his head.
They fell in a tangle of limbs. When they finally broke apart, Gou Dzing began to laugh helplessly. “What are we doing? There's a war going on but just want to kiss you right now...” Suddenly, his expression changed. Pressing a hand to the ground, his eyes narrowed. Gaam Yuk Ying watched him in alert silence.
“I can feel something approaching quickly...”
They both twisted to look towards the forest. Moments later, a small red shape came hurtling from the trees.
“Hey, hey! What happened to you two?” The small fox Tsaam Lei came scrambling between the pines. “You look like shit. Sorry, but you do.”
“What about you? Why are you in such a hurry?”
“Ah! Demons! Demons have left the portal and are heading north. Sister Bik Bik went to try and stop them!”
“Lead us there.” Gaam Yuk Ying jumped upright, followed by Gou Dzing. Tsaam Lei raced into back in the forest, almost leaving them behind as he flitted ahead like marshfire.
Soon, they could hear the sounds of shouting and growling, and oddly, crackling. Smoke drifted to them on the damp air.
The demon raiding party numbered around fifteen, and they hissed and spat at Chan Bik, who stood squarely before them, flanked by several piles of burning pine needles. Tsaam Lei sighed with relief when he saw that she had cleared the ground around them to prevent the whole forest going up in flames.
“Si-hings! Help me!” Chan Bik shouted, catching sight of them. The ground under the demons' feet buckled and writhed, and they all fell to the ground, struggling.
“Where's Grandmaster?” Gaam Yuk Ying asked, landing beside Chan Bik. “Lady Gong?”
“Your eyes... They already left. We met Gong Lau Yan and Tsaam Lei outside the portal. After they left, I was about to go into the Demon Realm when these demons came out. I don't recognise them either. They must be from another colony.”
“They'll be hungry then,” Gou Dzing groaned. “It'll be hard to convince them to turn around.”
Tsaam Lei darted to the trees behind them. Raising his head, he let out a strange, wailing scream. For a moment, he looked huge, with nine luxurious tails splayed around him, then with a series of creaking groans, pine trees began to fall.
Everyone dodged out of the way as the massive trees fell with a heart-gripping swish and a bone-shaking crunch. Chan Bik made a snatching motion with her fist and the fires went out before the trees could catch alight.
One of the demons, a humanoid figure with three arms and dark blue skin, lunging for Gaam Yuk Ying. He sidestepped easily, drawing Lo Fu Ngaa and slapping the demon's back as it stumbled past him. The rest of the demons stared in hungry exhaustion, not even bothering to move from where they had fallen.
“Now what?” Chan Bik sighed. “They're obviously starving, so they'll keep coming out like this...” She eyed the demons. A number of them were very small. “I didn't really think about anything except stopping them, but now... Would it have been better just to let them go? Should we interfere like this? I don't know any more!”
Tsaam Lei jumped suddenly onto her shoulder. “Hush!”
Once again, Gou Dzing could feel something approaching. The vibrations of slow footsteps travelled through his feet, and oddly, whatever was approaching seemed to be covering ground rapidly in spite of the slowness of the footsteps.
Everyone had fallen silent, even the demons, as all eyes turned to stare towards the forest depths.
A face appeared amongst the trees.
Square, with features that seemed carved from wood, it was followed by a pair of multi-pronged antlers, a thick neck, and a sturdy body with hoofed legs. Two rectangular ears stuck out either side of the head, and from the straight, lipless mouth, a pair of blunt fangs protruded.
Everything was still.
The pupil-less wooden eyes stared at them, and then the being vanished.
“What the...”
“That was Lo Ma Luk!” Tsaam Lei barked excitedly. “I haven't seen them in a decade! I wonder why they came here tho- Oh!”
He leapt down from Chan Bik's should and rushed to the spot where Lo Ma Luk had disappeared. “Yellow Milk Fungi! These are edible! There's lots growing right now. We could gather these.”
“Why is Lo Ma Luk the one showing us these?” Chan Bik grumbled, prodding the fox as Gaam Yuk Ying lopped the fruiting mushroom heads with a single swing of Lo Fu Ngaa. “What kind of forest guardian are you?”
It took a lot of miming and a couple of bites from the Yellow Milk Fungus to convince the demons, but eventually they took the mushrooms and disappeared south into the forest to look for more.
“What happened to you two?” Chan Bik asked, as they walked back towards the portal.
When Gou Dzing didn't answer, Gaam Yuk Ying said, “Dzing's grandfather was scouting. And Teem Djeung Baak appeared.”
“What? That- Did she do anything to you?”
“Not us.”
“Then...”
“Gung-gung was with some soldiers from the Cheon and Sek'suen armies,” Gou Dzing finally began to explain with a sick smile. “I don't know why I'm so shocked by it, really. They turned away and I headed back to Ming Yuet to raise the alarm. When I returned, Yuk Ying said that Teem Djeung Baak had come by, but she'd gone over the border. And... Well, we could all smell the blood...”
“And your grandfather? Was he alright?”
“I didn't look. I was... scared to look,” Gou Dzing admitted. “Well, even if I did, what would that change? If Gung-gung is... dead? If he were injured? If he were fine? It seems we're on different sides of a war right now.”
“He's still your grandfather!”
“And we're still on opposing sides, Chan Si-mui,” Gou Dzing said softly. “What if one day it wasn't Teem Djeung Baak with a sword at his throat, but me?”
She bit her lip. “I'm glad my family aren't warriors. I don't want to fight them.”
“Who is Teem Djeung Baak's family?” Gaam Yuk Ying said suddenly.
“That's a good point.” Gou Dzing frowned. “We don't know anything about her. Where's she from? Is she acting on her own or under someone's orders? Why is she apparently attacking everyone? We... Well, I certainly didn't think about such things.”
They reached the portal and climbed through, only to find Dzan Dzit Fan leading a small group of loong soldiers and disciples towards them.
“Commander Dzan?”
“Oh, Yuen Muk, Jade Exorcist. And is that the Shooting Star behind you?”
“I can understand you calling me 'Hawk Eye',” Gou Dzing said, “but when did Chan Si-mui start being called the 'Shooting Star'?”
“I'll explain later. We're currently trying to stop some demons who have left the Demon Realm.”
“We already found them,” Chan Bik said proudly.
“Really? Was it a group of about ten, led by a a one-winged bird-like demon?”
“Oh. No, there were around twenty in this group.”
“I didn't see a bird-like demon.”
“Chan Si-mui, Dzing, go to camp.” Gaam Yuk Ying gave Gou Dzing a light pat on the shoulder as he joined Dzan Dzit Fan's group. “Let's go.”
“I can go too...” Chan Bik began to say, but Gaam Yuk Ying shook his head. The group disappeared through the portal.
“You should go and check on Cheng Si-mui,” Gou Dzing said. “Lady Gong and Commander Dzan are both gone, remember?”
They picked up the pace once more, racing back to camp to find it thankfully quiet, with Cheng Baak-hap alone in a tent surrounded by paper. Chan Bik hugged her, relieved.
“Has everything been alright here, Cheng Si-mui?” Gou Dzing asked, picking up papers and squinting at the drawings and writing on them.
“Slow, but it's starting to pay off,” Cheng Baak-hap said, resting her head on Chan Bik with a sigh. “Some of the demons are learning words very quickly. I'm able to have short conversations with the red-skinned humanoid demon, for example. It's absolutely a work in progress though. I'm constantly having to change pronunciations to fit with the demon's anatomy.”
“We're going to have to learn this too, aren't we?” Chan Bik groaned. Cheng Baak-hap giggled and squeezed her hand. “I'll teach you. Now what's been happening outside?”
“The talks failed,” Chan Bik replied. “Sek'seun and Cheon have joined hands with the Mou Dong, Kwan Leon, Hung Tung and Ming Cultivation Sects to form the Two Dragons Four Tigers Alliance. Gou Si-hing's grandfather tried to lead a scouting party to cross the Dzue-Cheon border in the west, but Gaam Si-hing and Gou Si-hing stopped them. And then Teem Djeung Baak turned up!”
“She did? Is Gaam Si-hing alright?” Cheng Baak-hap looked askance at Gou Dzing.
“He's fine. He just went with Commander Dzan to track down those demons that just left.” Gou Dzing added with a smile, “Chan Si-mui was single-handedly trying to stop another group when we arrived.”
“Just because we don't see them as an enemy doesn't mean they see us the same way,” Cheng Baak-hap reprimanded, but she patted Chan Bik's freckled cheek affectionately.
“His Majesty, the Dzue Regent was headed to the Tsun Dzan Sect to determine their stance,” Gou Dzing added. “And Queen Ming Yuet couldn't help herself and took over from us at the western border.”
“Gong Lau Yan will be joining her. I saw her outside the portal and she left straight away.”
“So what did Teem Djeung Baak do?” Cheng Baak-hap asked.
“She left Gaam Si-hing alone and went over the border,” Chan Bik said quietly. “Apparently there was a smell of blood soon after...”
“Gou Si-hing, your grandfather...”
“I don't know yet. We'll see.”
“He seemed like a very capable and tough person. He'll be alright, Si-hing.”
Gou Dzing shook his head. “We're at war, Cheng Si-mui. Right now, my priorities are with the two of you, and with Yuk Ying. I'll rest easier once he comes back to my side.”
At that moment, Gaam Yuk Ying was skimming through Tsaam Lam alongside the loong soldiers, the less speedy human disciples following at the rear. They were getting closer and closer to the border with Sek'suen, with no sign of the demons except disturbed pine needles. Dzan Dzit Fan raised a hand to slow everyone's rapid pace; they slowed, still moving at the speed of that a normal human could sprint, until the pines began to thin and they could see grasslands through the trees.
Gaam Yuk Ying finally caught the familiar scent that Commander Dzan's loong nose had smelt much earlier – blood.
The group proceeded in silence, eventually halting while Commander Dzan and Gaam Yuk Ying crept forwards alone. From their hiding places behind two large pines, they observed soldiers of the Sek'suen army making a pile of demon corpses. The bodies of several human soldiers were being laid out and covered with a cloth.
“Too late,” Dzan Dzit Fan muttered grimly. “Let's retreat.”
He crept back to the troops. Gaam Yuk Ying continued to watch for a little longer. In particular, his eyes followed one well-dressed young woman standing with a man who seemed to be the officer in charge, a cloth covering her nose as she scowled at the dead demons. Why was Gou Hei Lok here?