The pain squashed Xia Ya's eyes, nose, and mouth into one crumpled knot. He clamped a hand down hard on the wound and shook violently for a good long while before he could breathe again; with no attention left to spare for the business of his first kiss, he glared and cursed: "Are you trying to kill me?!"
The wretch flew into a rage. This bumpkin took a huge advantage of me, and he still has the nerve to curse me out? "You bastard, just now—"
"Shut up!" Xia Ya's face changed drastically and he gritted his teeth hard. "Nothing happened just now! You'd better hurry up and forget it! You—you're not allowed to tell anyone, or I'll never be able to show my face again!"
With that he looked around, spotted the goblin consort huddled and cringing in a corner, and his face turned murderous. "And you! You keep quiet too!"
At that, the goblin consort nodded frantically, terrified.
The wretch nearly fainted dead away from sheer fury.
That bumpkin took advantage of me—that's outrageous enough on its own! And now this bastard acts like he's the one who got robbed?!
After that little interlude, both of them turned their heads away and ignored each other.
Xia Ya tore off a strip of cloth, wrapped the wound as best he could, then sat with his head in his hands and began to brood.
And what was the great Xia Ya brooding about?
Stupid question. How could he not brood?
Now that he had calmed down, he made a bitter discovery: the great Xia Ya was, once again, flat broke.
That headlong flight had cost him every piece of property he had scraped together. The big bundle holding everything he owned had never even made it out with him!
Damn it, hell! There were dozens of gold coins in there!
And his battle-axe and his shield—both wrecked.
He hadn't even managed to keep that bloodthirsty mad wolf's pelt!
Xia Ya was now back to exactly where he had been when he left Wildfire Town. No—worse. Back then he had at least had a lousy axe in his hands; now all he had left was a fire fork.
Hmm... hmm?!
The fire fork!
He picked up the fire fork the wretch had dropped at his feet and examined it closely in his hands.
The lousy fork was caked in black charcoal soot from years of smoke, a layer so thick it probably couldn't be scraped clean. Pitch-dark, without a trace of shine.
He had been using the thing since before he could remember. Where it came from he had no idea—probably the old man had thrown it into the furnace at some point. Xia Ya had never noticed anything wondrous about it; day to day he just used it to spear coal balls or turn over the charcoal.
As for how sharp it was... Would you ever, out of sheer boredom, take your family's fire fork and try chopping a cleaver with it?
After fussing for a while, Xia Ya's temper cooled a little. He glanced at the wretch, remembered some questions that had been nagging at him, and cleared his throat. "Hey. You. I've got something to ask you."
The wretch turned around, face stiff. "What!"
Xia Ya sighed, his expression turning profound. "Hey... if I'm not mistaken, those fellows hunting us seem to have something to do with you, don't they? That horseman earlier asked me whether I'd run into any other humans, and... I noticed you looked at them like you'd seen a ghost!"
The wretch's expression changed. She knew she couldn't keep hiding it—and during the escape, they had already seen her, so they would never give up now. Her face dark, she nodded. "That's right... they really did come for me. Those men were probably all sent by my uncle."
"Your uncle?" Xia Ya frowned, staring at her. "So these men are here to rescue you?" But then he shook his head himself. "No—doesn't fit! You act like you're terrified of them finding you."
The wretch pressed her lips together, and finally said it in a low voice: "Stop guessing. They're under orders to... kill me!"
Xia Ya's eyes went round; he looked her up and down for a while. Under that stare the wretch grew uneasy and sighed inwardly. She was still wavering over whether, if this bumpkin pressed her, she ought to tell him the truth—though the way things stood, he was the only protection she had left...
Her face was sorrowful. "This was supposed to be a secret—a scandal inside my family..."
Before she could go on, Xia Ya suddenly barked out two ha-has, cutting her off, and clapped her on the shoulder so hard he nearly dislocated it. "Ha! Then I've saved your life again, haven't I?! Hey, wretch, your family must be loaded, to be able to hire killers that good. If we get out of this alive, you owe me a fat protection fee!"
The wretch's mouth opened and closed; she stared at Xia Ya in amazement, and at last couldn't help murmuring, "You—don't you want to ask me...?"
"No need to ask." Xia Ya waved a hand, his face settling into calm. "Even if I knew, so what? Would it improve our current mess? Let's first live long enough to get back, and talk about the rest after that!"
His solemn look lasted barely a moment before he realized his hand was still on the wretch's shoulder. A chill of horror ran through him; he snatched the hand back and shuddered from head to toe.
Not daring to look at her again, afraid it would set his mind running back over that recent tragedy of theirs, Xia Ya glanced around. "First thing is to find a way out of here. Those fellows won't let it go that easily, I think. Hmm, we..."
"Even with things the way they are, you still want to go find that dragon?" The wretch frowned, looking worried. "Even if you found the dragon's treasure, with these men watching for you, you'd never be able to carry it back."
Xia Ya let out a heavy breath and snorted. "No choice. Those fellows are to the south; turning back now would just be walking into their net. North is the only way."
Then, fire fork in hand, Xia Ya studied the cliff face opposite. He gave the fork a couple of test swings, took a step back, and leaped.
His strength was truly frightening: that one leap carried him several meters into the air, and he slammed into the cliff. With a low shout he drove the fire fork into the rock—and it cut the stone as easily as a knife through tofu!
With the fire fork as his foothold, Xia Ya freed one hand and threw down a coil of rope he had wound around his belt. "Grab the rope—I'll pull you up."
The man's physique was practically that of a monster; hurt in several places and he still had this much energy.
After hauling the wretch and the goblin up with the rope, he wound it around his waist and tied it tight, freed his hands, and worked the fire fork back and forth in the cliff until he had cut a notch. He jammed his hand into it and gripped it hard, pulled the fork out, strained upward, and stabbed it into the rock above his head.
Repeating this a few times, he finally dragged the wretch and the goblin consort up a cliff several dozen meters high.
Xia Ya dropped to the ground gasping for breath, and blood from the shoulder wound ran again, soaking his clothes red.
The wretch's heart ached to see it. "Your wound is bleeding..."
Xia Ya groaned twice through his teeth and snapped, "No kidding—you'd bleed too if you took a hit like this. It's just that there's no medicine to be found here, damn it..."
At the word medicine, the wretch's eyes lit up. She sat right down, yanked off her boot, and bared her foot.
On her foot was the wound, and on the wound the fresh medicine she had put on that morning. With conditions what they were, there was no time to be fussy; she reached down and scraped a bit of the leftover medicine off her own wound.
One look and Xia Ya was furious. "Hey! That's been on your stinking foot, and you want me to smear it on my wound?"
The wretch was so angry she nearly cried, but she bit her lip. "Use it or don't—if you don't, then just die of the pain!"
In the end Xia Ya was used to surviving in the wild. He knew a wound like this, untreated, could bleed a man to death, and though his constitution was tough, danger was everywhere now—so he couldn't afford to be particular.
After that they went on their way—only with his injury Xia Ya couldn't carry the wretch anymore, and so... poor Oakes drew the worst of it.
It was forced to carry the wretch, who was a good head taller than he was, and stumbled along behind Xia Ya.
The group didn't dare follow the riverbank. They headed east for half a day, and only toward evening did they turn north.
Knowing the pursuers could find them at any moment, they naturally didn't dare make camp; they traveled straight through the night.
They had no food, and were tired and hungry; afraid a fire would give away their position in the dark, they lit none. After half a night of walking, only Xia Ya could still keep going—the wretch and Oakes were both nearly done in.
The wretch especially: she had been soaked in the river the day before, and it was winter now. The night wind had blown over her, and by morning her face was a sickly green and she was slumped on Oakes's back, teeth chattering.
Xia Ya saw it and felt a pang of worry himself. When day broke they finally sat down to rest; the goblin consort's skinny little legs had been wobbling for a while, and once she flopped down she couldn't get up again.
Xia Ya forced himself to stay alert and searched the area for a while. After turning over a rock he let out a cheer, drew his fire fork, and started digging furiously at the earth.
A moment later he came running back, both big hands cupped around a mass of fine reddish stuff that looked like fish roe.
The wretch was so cold her mind was clouding over. She saw Xia Ya's hand thrust in front of her face, glanced down at what it held. "What is it?"
"Eat it!" Without another word, Xia Ya gripped her chin, forced her mouth open, and stuffed a clump of the stuff inside.
Its texture was fine and crumbly, faintly sour, and—surprisingly—it tasted quite good. The wretch got a couple of mouthfuls down, and with food in her belly her spirits revived at once; a thread of warmth spread through her stomach. She looked up at the bumpkin, gratitude in her eyes. "What is this stuff?"
Xia Ya licked his lips and looked at his hands—there had only been that one small clump, and the wretch had eaten every bite of it.
"Red ant eggs," Xia Ya said flatly. "They're good stuff. They fill you up, and red ants are hot by nature, so the eggs drive out the cold. In a little while you'll break a sweat and feel much better."
The wretch wanted to say something more, but then she noticed Xia Ya's throat move as he swallowed, and saw that the bumpkin's hands were empty. Understanding struck her at once. A person is fragile when weak, and now her heart softened; the warmth the ant eggs had put in her belly somehow reached her heart too, and she stared at the bumpkin blankly, unable to say a single word.
They rested until the sun was up before setting out again. The wretch did break a sweat after all and recovered a little of her spirits—but for some reason she fell silent and stopped talking to Xia Ya. She seemed to have lost even the urge to squabble with the bumpkin; only now and then her eyes would drift, and she couldn't help looking at him.
The bumpkin strode out in front, chest out and head high. In the cold morning wind his breath plumed clearly in the air. The wretch watched that broad, powerful back of his, and the longer she watched, the more she lost herself...