North of Wildfire Town the land gradually leveled out, and vast stretches of forest covered most of the northern Wildfire Plain. There were no real mountains here; the occasional patch of high ground was nothing but earthen hills, and even those low rises often ran seven or eight li without a break — as if the heavens had laid down one roadblock after another across the plain.
Xia Ya Leiming went over hill and ridge the whole way, and every skill he had honed in the mountain woods since childhood came into play — running along hillsides and through thickets, he was in fact a little faster than he would have been on flat open road. Bent low, like a nimble, sturdy wildcat, he flitted and raced through the trees, his body twisting deftly aside from the branches that kept jutting out on either side. His feet, falling on ground deep in fallen leaves, made only the faintest rustle.
In truth Xia Ya Leiming was already deliberately holding his speed back. He had to conserve his strength, because he knew his rations were not much: one big slab of black-rye bread, no matter how carefully hoarded, would last him only two days.
Fortunately, toward evening he dug out a long-snout beast's burrow in the woods.
The long-snout was one of the few ordinary beasts left on the Wildfire Plain. About the size of a small dog, it liked to burrow in the dirt, which left its coat sleek and greasy; its limbs were short and stubby and its movements sluggish. Its snout, though, was flat and long, tapering to a sharp point. What it loved best was to jab that pointed snout down insect burrows in the soil and eat the eggs.
This particular long-snout was out of luck. It ran into Xia Ya Leiming, who slipped a noose over it with practiced ease, hauled it out of its burrow, and turned it into his dinner.
The meat was wretched, rank with an awful earthy stink, but for someone as penniless as Xia Ya Leiming, getting a bite of meat into his belly on a cold night like this counted as a rare luxury.
It wasn't that he hadn't considered other game — a deer, now, would have been tastier — but he knew better than to spend his strength; best not to go after the big animals at all.
Around noon the next day, his luck turned.
Xia Ya Leiming found a dopey grazing deer in the woods, its antlers snagged in a patch of thorns, where the foolish thing had already been struggling for a good while.
With a whoop, Xia Ya Leiming charged over. He had no intention of killing the creature; instead he took out his rope, tied two slip knots, carefully fastened them around the antlers and the deer's neck, and worked the antlers free of the thorns.
The moment it was loose, the deer panicked and tried to bolt, but Xia Ya had already picked his moment — he swung himself up onto its back and hauled on the rope like a man riding a horse.
Clearly this was not his first time. He handled the deer with practiced skill, yanking it left and right a few times until it finally submitted. Very carefully, Xia Ya used the "reins" in his hands to steer its direction, then wrapped his arms around its neck.
The deer ran with him for a good part of the morning. At noon Xia Ya Leiming let the exhausted, pitiful creature go — but not before poking a small hole in its hide with one end of his fire fork and drawing off a little deer blood. Then he plastered the wound with herbs he had picked in the thicket, and only then released it.
A few mouthfuls of deer blood went down, and soon a warmth kindled in his belly and spread swiftly through his whole body. Even with the cold wind whistling around him, he felt warm all over.
Xia Ya Leiming took his bearings and judged that he was now more than two hundred li north of Wildfire Town — though not due north; he had drifted slightly west.
He could not go any farther. Beyond this lay dwarven territory, and Xia Ya Leiming had no wish to throw his life away.
East was no good either: east was wasteland, goblin country, and those dirt rats were even nastier to deal with than dwarves.
From what the crooked old shopkeeper on Black Street had told him, the lion beast ought to be somewhere in this stretch of forest. Maybe a little farther west.
Time to make some preparations!
Xia Ya Leiming crept through the woods a while longer, and at last, beside a small marsh, he found a few croaking black mud frogs — creatures much like toads, with a patch of fluid sacs on their backs.
These little things were idiots. They would not move at all, just squat by the marsh and croak all day; you could walk right up and grab one and it would not so much as twitch.
Xia Ya picked out a sharp twig and drew some fluid from the sacs on the frogs' backs — not very poisonous, but it left a man numb.
Nearly every hunter who knew the forest was familiar with the stuff; plenty of old hunters made a habit of using it as a painkiller for wounds.
Then Xia Ya Leiming found a tall pine, trod down several dozen needles that had dried hard and sharp, and picked out a slender branch, drawing the wood out of it without damaging the bark in the least — his hands moving fine and gentle as he did it, deft beyond question.
That too was thanks to the dead old geezer, who had taught him axe craft — spend every day for a few years carving flowers into tofu with a twenty-jin axe, and anyone would end up with a pair of clever hands.
Rolled bark served as a blowpipe, and the pine needles were dipped in the mud frog's poison. Just like that, he had himself a set of blowgun darts.
Xia Ya Leiming even smeared a little of the frog poison on his fire fork and his axe blade. Then he tied his trouser legs shut with rope and began to patrol and search the forest.
He had been gone from the marsh less than the time it takes to eat a meal when suddenly a rustling came from the thicket ahead. The sound brought Xia Ya Leiming instantly alert.
His eyes lit up. Could my luck really be this good?!
He brought the axe up into his hand at once and crept closer on tiptoe, while his other hand gripped the fire fork, ready at any moment to hurl it like a javelin.
A lion beast, after all, could have a savage temper!
When he was still a dozen paces from that thicket, Xia Ya Leiming caught a faint smell of blood. Puzzled, he hesitated a moment, then quickly snatched a stone up off the ground and flung it hard.
Bang!
The stone landed in the bushes with a dull thud, and right after it came a soft "hngh," a little muffled, but with a note of pain in it.
A person?!
Xia Ya Leiming froze for a moment, then walked over in a few strides and parted the bushes with his fire fork.
Behind the bushes lay a man on the ground. He wore a leather robe of fine quality, curled into a ball with both hands clamped hard over his head, and his head was bleeding; fresh blood was seeping out between his filthy fingers.
Plainly, that was the work of the stone he had just thrown…
Xia Ya Leiming let out a breath and snapped irritably, glaring at the fellow on the ground. "Hey! Mister! Don't you know that scaring a man can scare him to death? Good thing I didn't throw the fork — otherwise you'd be dead meat by now!"
The man clutched his head and moaned low, something that sounded like "it hurts."
Xia Ya Leiming walked up, annoyed. "No kidding — a head meeting a rock is going to hurt. What's wrong with you? Why were you hiding in the bushes? I nearly took you for a magic beast… you almost made me a killer, you know that?!"
He came closer — and then his eye suddenly fell on the man's left leg.
A round steel cuff was clamped tight around his calf.
It was an iron beast trap, its jaws bristling with sharp iron teeth. The man was badly hurt: he had been wearing thick leather boots, but the boot had been pierced clean through, and the flesh of his left calf between the jaws was a mangled mess, with a pool of blood on the ground beneath it.
Plainly it was a trap some hunter had set, and this unlucky wretch had, for some reason or other, stepped into it.
At the sight, Xia Ya Leiming stood frozen.
Uh… bashing a man with a rock is already low enough. And bashing a poor bastard who's badly wounded already?
Well, this is…
At that, even Xia Ya Leiming felt a twinge of conscience. So he ran over at once, helped the poor wretch up, then grabbed the trap with both hands and strained to pry the jaws apart.
At last, with a miserable shriek from the wretch, Xia Ya got him free, propped his body up and shifted him back a little.
But no sooner was the man free than he began thrashing wildly, shoving Xia Ya Leiming away with both hands and shouting thickly, "Let me go! I'd rather die than go back with you!"
Xia Ya Leiming was dumbstruck; the man wrenched himself loose, sprang up — where he found the strength was anyone's guess — and went hopping off, trying to escape.
He had gotten only two steps before Xia Ya could not help shouting, "Hey, wait…"
"Get away from me! I'd rather die than go back!"
"No, what I'm saying is…"
Before Xia Ya Leiming could finish, there came a shrill "Ahhh!!!" mixed with the clack of an iron spring snapping shut.
Unfortunately, the poor wretch had once again put his foot into that same beast trap…
And this time, it was his right leg…