Published: November 24th 2024, 6:25:15 pm
Orange-crest burst out from the underbrush, only to see a massive form bearing down again.
"Got you, you damn pest!" Wu Yingjie shouted, arms coming together.
He did not get orange-crest. The monkey dove through the lumbering man's legs again, turning on a hair to dive off the path again. The fat boy really should learn to keep his hips and knees more mobile.
"Down." The voice was impossibly close, the tones of the true tongue breathless.
Orange-crest obeyed on instinct, another impossibly fast projectile narrowly missing his head as he sprawled flat mid-dash. He tumbled, then scrambled, reaching the cover of vegetation before another could be sent for him.
"Society, on me!" The disciple with murderous eyes roared, his voice loud and clear. "It's veering north!"
"If only we had some dogs, then this would be a proper hunt!" Another shouted in answer.
Orange-crest kept running. His chest was getting tight, his breaths reduced to shallow panting. He was faster than these men, at least within the denser forest. But they circled around him, steadily jogging along the mountain trails. He could hear their shouted coordination, but the moment he turned, they knew. He'd dropped his makeshift bamboo stave in his rush, unable to keep hold of it in the tight undergrowth.
"Damnable archers." Formless-gleam hissed in his ear. "The lowest form of scum, they who dedicate their lives to ending ours. I thought you said they tolerated your presence!"
"They do!" Orange-crest insisted breathlessly. "Need escape. Find brother. Will drive off."
"Can you? Escape?"
Orange-crest didn't answer. Speech was breath wasted. He didn't know how the small fox was doing this, keeping up with him and out of sight at once, and still somehow speaking. But he'd long since accepted there were more secrets in the world than he could grasp.
"It's doubling back! Cut it off Hao!"
A man with eyes like steel and a blade dangling from a cord bared his way. Orange-crest turned, sprinting. The man gently loped along in his wake, letting out a single mocking laugh as he set his weapon twirling.
Orange-crest slipped back into the underbrush. He'd been running at full tilt for so long, yet he hadn't made any distance.
"Disciple Ying, stay here and place yourself between the bastard and it's master's home. Don't let it pass you by!"
Orange-crest made yet another turn.
"Not that way!"
He barely managed to throw himself out of the way, before the bolt of wood struck his head. The monkey flinched as it lodged itself in a nearby tree, vibrating ominously.
"I can only fire so many Black Arrows in a day, Disciple Wu." The dead-eyed man said. "Flush it out."
"Understood! I'm coming little monkey! Coming to make a coat out of you! Hao, hold the perimeter. Wu, don't get in my way!"
Orange-crest pushed deeper into the underbrush. If he couldn't escape, perhaps he could hide? They knew where he went, but not exactly. His brother would come for him eventually, if he could just hold out long enough. He could hide, then run, then hide again.
It was a bad plan, but it was a plan. He found a tree with a good canopy, and clumsily charged up it.
"It rose in elevation, then stopped. Check trees! Its about half a li from my voice, south by southeast!"
"Which way is that?"
"Look at the sun, you idiot! Useless initiate!"
That last shout came from dangerously close to orange-crest's tree. He cast his eyes about, looking for tree-paths. He was so tired already. Monkeys were not built for long chases.
"Do you trust me?" Formless-gleam's disembodied voice asked.
Orange-crest thought about it. Trust was a heavy thing. The fox had spoken many sweet words to him, but it was only he who had given freely.
"No." He answered honestly.
"Rude monkey!" The fox cried without venom. "Well, listen well all the same. This pack of men is stronger than either of us. But there's someone here stronger than him. A bear. No Speaker like us, but hot of blood and sharp of tooth. He looks to feast before bedding down for the winter. Follow the stream and veer left at the place it splits in three. Run the path and I will shield you from her eyes, let the men fight with her instead!"
Well, it was better than his plan.
"Stream?" He asked.
He was answered not with words, but by light. At the edge of his sight, a thin rivulet of water flashed like liquid moonlight.
"Ah. Formless-gleam. Monkey sees now."
"That's not... Forget it. Run!"
Silly fox, always telling orange-crest to do what he was already doing.
"Oh no you don't! Flea-faced bastard!" Disciple Wang roared. "Hao, follow my voice!"
As seconds passed, the rhythmic sound of heavy footsteps drew closer and closer.
Then the footfalls stopped. Orange-crest threw himself to the left, memories of a tiger's leap playing behind his eyes.
Scarcely half a dozen monkey-lengths away, Disciple Wang crashed into a tree with the force of a raging bull. He landed feet first, the gnarled old pine first bending, then snapping.
"I'll crush you into dust! You hear me, you creepy little mute?"
Orange-crest didn't know what to say. He understood they might have grudges against him, but he knew no words that could calm their hate-filled hearts.
So he went in the opposite direction. After all, it wasn't as if man could get so angry they killed you twice.
"Stupid trash bastard man! Ugly coward afraid of little monkey!"
The resulting roar suggested he was doing something right.
"I'll kill you! Ruin my advancement? I'll shatter your dantian!"
There. The place the thin stream split into three. Orange-crest turned.
"Twelve hundred paces perhaps. Hold on!" Formless-gleam whispered.
Twelve hundred! That was way too far! Didn't the damn fox know he'd ready been running for half of a man's hour?
Orange-crest didn't want to be ungrateful, but it felt rather unfair he was the only one being chased. He added a fourth item to his list of coveted things, the fox's strange art of hiding. He wanted that!
"Keep going! I will shield you."
Something cold and sharp whistled to the side of the charging monkey.
Another titanic crash shook the earth.
Orange-crest kept running. His world narrowed to the rhythm of hands and feet against the stony soil. He found himself entering a valley, sheer cliffs rose up at his sides, boxing him in. Doom, or salvation. If that damn fox got him killed, he would kill her back.
"You could have avoided all of this, if you weren't too stupid to know your place." Disciple Wang said with glee, his headlong dash slowing to a jog. There was nowhere to run, now. "It's not too late to surrender, accept your beating. Prove me wrong, take your punishment like a man. I promise I'll let you walk away from the sect with your life."
"Keep going!" Formless-gleam whispered in his ear. "Pass at full speed, then you can rest. You're almost there."
Orange-crest almost missed it.
The cave was low to the ground. It's top barely reached above a grown monkey's head. Yet its mouth was wide and deep, half concealed by a hillock in front of it. A deep rumble emanated from it as orange-crest zoomed by.
Orange-crest staggered to a stop, barely resisting the urge to collapse to the ground. His limbs shook from exertion even after they'd ceased moving. His breaths tasted like blood. How did men do it? Running for long distances was terrible!
A growl like the grinding of mountains set his fur on end. Orange-crest rolled over, despite his exhaustion.
"No! It's mine, you stupid beast!"
"Disciple Wang! Get back!" The distant archer shouted.
To his shock, orange-crest saw another monkey at the bear's feet. No, not another monkey. His brother's green jade band was on its arm too. It's flaming crown of fur unmistakably his. Another orange-crest.
The bear formless-gleam had led him too was a colossus. It drew itself up to its full height, towering over the small glen outside it's cave like a mountain of burnt amber. How had such a thing even fit through that opening? A marking adorned it's chest, a brighter spot reminiscent of a rising sun. A distant, detached, part of orange-crest noted that its eyes were rather small, for an animal so gigantic. It dwarfed even a male tiger with its sheer bulk, its paws each large enough to encircle a young monkey's chest.
The beast leaned forward, and one of those massive hands came down upon the monkey lying at its feet. The false orange-crest shuddered as the hand passed through it, then faded away. The colors that made it up dispersed to mist, each travelling their own way through the empty air.
"An illusion art! How?" Disciple Wang cried. "Ying! Where is he!"
No words answered him. Instead, another arrow arced out from the entrance of the valley. Orange-crest rolled, dodging the missile. As he took cover behind a tree, he felt something around him shatter the same way the false-orange-crest had. Another spell of deception? Perhaps he'd been too harsh in his judgement of the fox's lack of contribution.
"This is all I can do." Formless-gleam's voice was strained. "Don't die. We'll meet again, in a safer place."
"Get him!"
"Wang! We have bigger problems!"
The bear roared. Orange-crest had seen bears before. Terrifying predators, but ones that rarely roused themselves to wrath. They preferred fish and fruit to monkey-flesh. When they did war, it was more often against tigers or bees than his own kind. Still, orange-crest had heard them roar before. In battles over mates or territory. This sound was not that.
This sound pressed down on orange-crest like a blanket of hatred. It was so loud it was felt more than heard. It shook his weary bones and squeezed at his eyes like deep water.
"Spirit Beast!"
"We can't fight that!" Wu Yingjie cried, stumbling onto the scene. His fleshy face was red from exertion, covered in sweat. "Run!"
"No! Just drive it off! We have the monkey cornered! Hao! Ying! With me!"
The small mountain glen descended into a madness of blood and rage. As Disciple Wu wisely cowered, the two disciples from the cold cave charged at the bear. The mighty beast hesitated, indecisive in the face of so many intruders in its home. The two charging disciples were closest. Almost carelessly, it swung for them in a clumsy slap. Disciple Hao dove to the side, rope-dart spinning as he rose. Disciple Wang braced, arms raised to take the blow.
"Such power!" He grunted.
"Brother Wang!"
Dust and pebbles flew as Disciple Wang skittered backward, nearly driven airborne by the weight of the blow. Bloody poured down his right arm where claws bigger than a tiger's teeth had torn deeply into the meat of his arm.
"Get back!" Disciple Hao shouted at him. "It must be close to foundation establishment. We can't take that, not even together."
Orange-crest took advantage of the distraction to move to better cover. He needed to loop back around, pass out of the narrow valley without getting caught up in the fight or shot dead by that archer.
"Wu! Ying! Grab the monkey!" Disciple Wang commanded even as he slowly backed away, cradling his ruined arm. The bear's head swiveled to track him, eyes still bleary with sleep pondering if it was worth swatting the annoying man-fly.
It was, the bear decided. The man would not shut up.
Disciple Hao's rope dart found it's snout as it stepped forward. The bear yelped with pain as blood began to pour from its nose.
"Ignore the monkey! You can't take vengeance if you're dead!" He shouted. "Ying, give it everything you've got left!"
Arrows rained down, a steady rain that would have brought death to any lesser creature. Orange-crest watched in awe as the three disciples strove with a beast that even big-butt would have had no hope against. If it had come for his pack, they would have had no choice but to cry for the King's aid. The great bear was terrible, but it would have been nothing before the Monkey King. The King would have chastised it with a laugh, thrown it against the walls of the valley with a single hand.
These disciples had not the King's might, but they instead brought to bear their strange weapons with courage and unity. Disciple Wang suppressed a scream, as he blocked yet another killing blow. His bloodstained flesh twisted, taking on the texture of stone. His fellows moved to punish it, the wide arcs of the rope dart and steady stream of arrows staining dark fur with a hundred small wounds. For a moment, orange-crest wondered if the men could prevail over even such a monster.
"Initiate Wu! Stop being a useless tub of lard and grab the monkey!" Disciple Wang shouted, stumbling backward in a desperate attempt to gain distance between blows.
Then the bear roared a second time, and the valley descended into hell. The bear's cry shattered the air, a blood-mad song of wrath and ruin. Sourceless flames emanated from its maw, leaked from every small wound. Flames flickering in its beady black eyes, it charged towards Disciple Wang.
Orange-crest took the opportunity to bolt. In the burning madness, none of the men saw the small flash of orange creeping around the edge of the valley.
"What in the ten thousand hells is that?" Disciple Hao screeched.
"A Sun-Swallower?" Disciple Ying mused calmly. Times like these were wonderful reminders of why exactly he favored the bow. Repaying his debt to Disciple Hao would have gone from troublesome to life-threatening if he'd been an spearmaster or swordsman.
"Who cares! Run!"
"Not without the monkey!" Disciple Wang said, staring down the flaming bear as it barreled toward him. "Find him-"
His words cut off, as he threw himself to the side. The flaming bear rushed past where he'd been standing, trampling a patch of trees into mulch. With every motion, small embers rained from its underside, steaming in the damp grass. Already small flames were taking root in the bear's path, overcoming the cool and dampness of the early autumn.
Disciple Hao's blade danced like a winter storm, mercilessly slicing into the bear. Frost gathered anew with every pass, vanishing into steam as it struck. But the edge of the cord the blade rested upon was already beginning to blacken from the heat.
"We need to get out of here now!"
Orange-crest could not have agreed more. He abandoned stealth, galloping headlong for the mouth of the glen.
"I see it!" Wu Yingjie shouted. He stepped in front of the monkey. This time, his knees were braced correctly, ready to turn inwards and block the space between his legs at a moment's need. His long arms and great bulk spread far to either side, making him a most formidable obstacle.
Orange-crest went up instead. Paws found purchase on the fat initiate's robe, as orange-crest scrambled up his body. Wu Yingjie's lumbering arms closed on nothing save air, as the monkey passed over his shoulder. Orange-crest gave him a gentle thwip on the nose with his tail as he passed by. A classic monkey way of saying 'No hard feelings, but I am objectively better than you.'
"Gack!" The man spat, trying to clear his mouth of fur.
"Useless!" Disciple Wang cried, watching as the monkey gained distance.
Freedom! Sweet freedom! Orange-crest hooted and hollered his joy in the true tongue as he rushed headlong toward safety. They'd never catch him now, not without exposing their backs to the irate bear.
An agonized scream caught the monkey's attention.
"Disciple Wang!"
The man's arm was a red ruin. The bear's terrible claws had rent deep gouges in it. The man stumbled backwards. His death stalked forward. Despite the countless small rents in its coat, the bear's eyes shined with not the rage of the injured, but a predator's calm certainty.
It knew this one was the strongest of the interlopers. It might not speak, but it was smart enough to see the battle was over. All that remained was the conclusion. One would fall, then the rest in turn would flee or die with him.
Disciple Hao's rope was dartless, its end eaten away by the heat, until the blade fell useless to the earth. His legs were frozen, trapped in a mire born of fear. Grab his fellow, or run?
Orange-crest mustered his heart-fire, feeling it rage within his chest. His mind warred with itself. Should he help them? Cast his commandment of stillness upon the bear?
If it were a monkey in danger, he would not hesitate. All grudges vanished before the claws of a bear or tiger. But orange-crest had seen the murder in Disciple Wang's eyes. He could see their hate, but despite his attempts to listen between their many words, he understood so little of what they said, their cries and accusations. Disciple Wang would not show him any mercy. Whatever Daoist Scouring Medicine said, they were not pack. But there was so much he did not know.
Was this a grudge set bone deep, only curable by death? What had he done to merit such enmity?
He hated this. Not the men, nor the danger. He'd chased one of his own will, long known the other. He hated the uncertainty, the clamor and war within his mind. Monkeys did not hesitate. Did not doubt.
So orange-crest acted.
"Stop." He commanded, a paw outstretched to grasp all the world. For a moment, his existence became agony. It was like holding back a mountain. A mountain of fire and gnashing teeth.
The spell lasted but a moment. The bear paused mid-step, even the flames upon it's back frozen in stasis by a will that would brook no disobedience. A will that flickered like a candle in a hurricane.
Disciple Hao's eyes widened, as he took in orange-crest's actions. He ran, grabbing the injured Disciple Wang and dragging him as best he could. His fellow disciple's arm was a twisted ruin of burnt flesh and exposed bone.
An eerie silence fell over the glen turned battlefield, the only sounds the gentle crackle of mundane flames and the shuffling steps of two disciples.
A needle of shadow rushed across the clearing.
The spell broke, and this time it was not a man that cried out in agony.
"Run!" Orange-crest shouted, taking his own advice even as he spoke it. An arrow of black wood protruded from the bear's eye. Its great bulk raged wildly, crushing stone and tree alike in a fruitless search for an escape from its pain.
Four men and one monkey fled madly, all enmity forgotten.
"Yep. Bow was the correct choice." Disciple Ying muttered under his breath.
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Daoist Scouring Medicine watched as the monkey ambled through his door. The little fellow was filthy. No, not just filthy. That was blood, staining the fur of his back. He crushed the flash of anger that rose in his chest, swallowing his reflexive complaint about the beast tracking mud into his home.
"Did you have a good day out?" He asked instead.
The monkey stared at the wall, thinking deeply. Or perhaps out of it.
"Yes." He finally answered. Odd. Usually the little beast had opinions about everything and sundry. It was unlike him to be so quiet.
"What did you do?" The Daoist asked, feeling queerly parental. He hoped it would grow out of this phase quickly. He would be so disappointed if it's development plateaued at such a level.
"Fish. Make friend. Almost get eaten. Save disciples from big fire sleepy-great-beast. Felt like mountain monkey again. Maybe chop chop not all bad."
Daoist Scouring Medicine quirked an eyebrow.
"I'm going to get another visit from Internal Affairs aren't I?"
"No know. Men like visits much for beasts that no share caves."
"I see. When I get that visit, will they tell the same tale as you?"
"No know. Men silly. Mind like clouds, temper like fire."
"You'll have to tell me all about it."
"No." The monkey said.
"No?" Daoist Scouring Medicine asked mildly. Was his little monkey developing an attitude? That wouldn't do.
"No. Need know more. Many question. About men. About sect. You answer."
The daoist smiled. He'd pull the truth out of the beast eventually. This was good. He could see the resolve growing in its eyes, behind the hurt. That was something he could refine into what he needed Li Hou to become.
"Very well. Come then, we'll get you clean, dress those wounds. And I'll answer your questions."