15 – Hunting Fiends
Wasn't all that hard to pick up a trail, truth be told.
Yamato had retrieved a few of the arrows from the damaged wagon and offered them to Smoke, who sniffed them in turn and caught the faint traces of their scent on the wind.
A stink of sweat, treated animal furs, and old leather.
It may have been a challenge for a normal animal to track the scents over such a distance, but Smoke had a qi-enhanced nose, and qi could transcend the earthly limitations of a normal tracker.
Indeed it was not just the scent that Smoke could track, it was the echoes of the very essence of the person who produced the scent. Focusing intently on that, their presence as it reverberated through the universe, gave them something to work with.
Another cultivator, potentially, could have masked themselves from such tracking. But a random bandit? Not bloody likely.
"This is exciting, isn't it?" Smoke asked as they trekked through the snow, over rising hills and passing thin black trees that had lost all their leaves. "The two of us, setting out to right wrongs and punish evil."
"It has a... pleasant ring to it," Yamato conceded. The cold did not much bother him, his qi-enhanced body more than strong enough to ward off earthly chills. Even so he had donned a thick parka, the outer layer designed to be waterproof. Or, at least, unlikely to become totally sodden with meltwater.
"And I am pleased to see you in higher spirits," said Smoke, offering him a wry grin.
"Don't know if I'd go that far." He didn't feel much better, in truth. Well he no longer thought about the edge of his blade anymore, of the honourable way to end things. But his sleep, whenever he got to, was haunted by nightmares, and even in his waking hours he was occasionally struck with foul memories of the Snake Flower's fall.
And on top of all that his mind was split two ways when it came down to it. On the one hand that sect had been his family, his home, containing all the people he had known and cared for. But now he also had to admit that they had been... bad people.
Not awful, universally, certainly not the junior disciples, but sects were by their nature cruel and exclusionary. At least, that was his experience of them with the power of hindsight. People who lorded their powers over mortals, often in cruel ways...
It was hard, making peace with any of that. Of his part in it.
But it was what it was. All he could do was try and accept the past and improve for the future.
He sighed out a long cloud of steam, turning his hawkish gaze to the distant hills. "Are we getting any closer?"
"Bit by bit, if my nose is accurate. And it always is," said Smoke.
"Horse must have travelled a damn broad distance after they got attacked. Impressive, making it so far in an injured state," said Yamato.
But, by now, he understood all too well what happened to a person when they were driven by a raw animal panic. He'd lived through it, after all.
Smoke nodded. "What will become of the horse?"
"Don't know. Guess it depends how well it recovers."
"How do you mean?" the hellcat asked, cocking his head.
"Injured leg," Yamato said, motioning below the waist. "That's what Guang said. Not broken, fortunately, but if the leg doesn't heal properly... well nobody..." He worked his jaw anxiously. "Nobody wants a horse with a lame leg."
That damn ache in his cheek was back... well, in actuality, it never left. But usually Yamato could will the pain of it into a distant background noise. Now though it was persistent, and he was willing to bet the icy wind had some part in it.
Every time he woke up in the morning, without fail, the first thing he felt was the sting of his cheek.
"Why not?" Smoke asked, and Yamato had to remind himself that the hellcat was essentially a child. A child nearly as big as a horse, with stone-rending talons, but one undoubtedly ignorant of the world.
Yamato sighed. "People buy horses for a reason. Either to ride them, or to have 'em pull carts. Only really rich fools would buy horses just to have them stand around. And they wouldn't spend money on a bloody old nag."
"That doesn't seem fair on the horse," Smoke muttered.
"I'll tell you something very important, Smoke. Life is very rarely fair."
The hellcat frowned, briefly, but brightened soon after as they advanced up a snow-caked slope. "Well, Father would take him in."
"Maybe. He does like strays," Yamato noted. Well, 'like' was perhaps a strong word for it. He tolerated strays in the same way a man could tolerate a pebble in his shoe if he was in a mad hurry.
"I mean, what's the alternative? Kill the horse?" Smoke asked, scoffing at the idea.
Yamato didn't respond, eye fixed on the horizon.
Smoke's jaw dropped. "They'd kill the horse?! But... but he is a noble and honourable beast who risked it all to save his humans!"
"Life is very rarely fair," Yamato repeated.
Smoke looked troubled, focusing back on the rise. A question had formed on his mouth, but whatever he was about to say was drowned out by a shrill cry for help only a short distance away.
Yamato cursed and ventured toward it, briefly reached for a sword that wasn't there and fought the urge to smack himself. A young woman in her late teens or thereabouts was racing their way, dressed in the roughspun and fur-lined robes of a farmer. But it was hard not to notice the smears of blood on her robe.
"Help!" she cried, eyes fixed on the two. "For the love of the Goddess, help!"
She must have seen them on the slope as indistinct silhouettes. But, as she drew closer, her eyes settled on Yamato's face and she paled sharply. Hurt every time, seeing how people reacted to his scars. But Yamato reminded himself that he deserved it.
"What is it?" he asked. "What's happened?"
"I... my family farm... bandits-" he could see tear tracks running down her ashen face, chilled by the icy wind. "They... they killed my parents, s-stole my brother!"
Smoke growled. "Must be the same ones we're looking for. Dishonourable fiends!"
The girl stared at Smoke, only now noticing that it was a bloody hellcat she was looking at. And that it was talking.
She fainted then and there, collapsing into the snow.
"Well that is... rude," Smoke said, staring down at her.
Yamato shrugged. "It isn't something one sees every day," he admitted. He reached down, tossing her onto one shoulder like a sack of grain. "Suppose we should make camp and wait for her to wake. She might have good information for us to work with."
"But the bandits-!"
"Are somewhere in the area. Doubt this girl could have run too far on her own in this weather." He squinted into the distance with his good eye. Further out a snowy wind was kicking up, making it harder to see the horizon. But a little qi burned through his senses, sharpening his eye until he could peer beyond that frosted veil.
Sure enough, smoke was hissing up on the horizon.
"We'll find them," he assured the hellcat. "And there will be a reckoning." They set off the nearest clearing, and as they went Yamato stole regular glances to that distant column of smoke.
Was banditry like this so common in the mortal world?