Of Hunters and Immortals

The treeline broke on a slope of churned snow and trampled undergrowth. Jiang crouched low, drawing his cloak tighter against the wind. Below, half-hidden in the lee of a ridge, firelight flickered in the gaps of a ring of crude tents and lean-tos. A dozen figures moved in the glow, their silhouettes long and lazy against the snow.

He lay prone, watching. The camp was larger than he'd hoped – twenty, maybe more – but the man in the tavern hadn't been lying. Crimson cloth was tied to arms and weapons, and a crude banner hung near the central fire. Crimson Blades.

Jiang wondered briefly why they would advertise themselves like that. Wouldn't it be far better to pretend to be a group of travellers or settlers or something? Then again, the kind of people who chose to turn to banditry probably weren't the type to think laying low was a good option.

Most of the bandits were clustered around the central fire, laughing and drinking, but even out here, their guard hadn't totally dropped. A pair of men in patched leather wandered the perimeter, though, admittedly, they didn't appear to be paying much attention.

Good.

Jiang slid himself carefully back, his experience making the motion soundless. Considering how oblivious these bandits were, he hardly even needed his stealth technique. That didn't mean he wouldn't use it, though.

His bow came off his shoulder in one smooth motion, the string already taut under his fingers. Before he moved, he took a moment to breathe deeply, setting his mind. There was no room for mercy here – even with his recent advancements in cultivation, twenty bandits could very easily be the end of him. The fact that he needed information from them complicated matters a little, as it meant he couldn't simply kill them all.

He'd have to identify the leader and leave them for last, then.

For a brief moment, hesitation plagued him. He'd killed before – Kaelen, then Huo Jin – but this was different. This wasn't a single person; there were no mitigating circumstances here. This wasn't self-defence, or even necessity – he was going to kill over twenty people for nothing more than information.

No.

He was going to kill twenty bandits.

Murderers. Rapists. Monsters. Scum.

The hesitation vanished, and Jiang rose smoothly, stepping around the tree and taking aim.

The first arrow took the left sentry in the throat before the man's next breath. He sagged against a snow-heavy branch, mouth working soundlessly. The second had just enough time to gape in shock before Jiang's next shot buried itself in his side. He fell without a sound.

Jiang paused for a fraction of a second, surprised at his own efficiency. Even if he wasn't able to make the most use of his increased strength without destroying his bow, the physical advantages of cultivation completely removed any wasted motions. He'd drawn, nocked, and fired in a single smooth motion, not even having to think about it.

Well. That would make things easier.

The bodies wouldn't be found immediately. The snow would drink the blood for a few minutes, and the camp's laughter covered everything else. That gave him time – time to decide who died next.

He melted back into the treeline, feet finding the silent paths through frost and root without thought. The shadows seemed to lean toward him, draping him in their cover as he moved despite him not reaching for them with his Qi. The air felt impossibly crisp, every sound perfectly distinct in his ears.

His Qi rushed through him, not in a technique, not reinforcing, just… moving. It matched the rhythm of his movements, the flow of the hunt.

He'd never felt so alive.

A squat figure stood on the far side of the camp, just beyond the fire's reach, relieving himself against a half-buried log. Jiang drew and loosed before the man had even shaken off. The arrow struck between his shoulder blades, and he pitched forward into the snow without a sound.

Jiang was moving again before the man hit the ground.

The perimeter, however loose it had been, was crumbling. A woman with a crossbow slung carelessly over her shoulder wandered toward the ridge, muttering something to herself. The bandits' "watch" had been a joke to begin with, but now it was collapsing into chaos – small gaps in their lines widening into openings Jiang could slip through and exploit.

He took her at thirty paces, the arrow punching clean through her throat. She staggered a step, dropped the crossbow, and collapsed into the frost.

That one landed just close enough to the firelight for someone to notice.

Shouts broke out. A man crouched to check her, then looked up toward the treeline with wide, furious eyes. Jiang was already gone, angling around the camp's flank.

The voices grew louder, more frantic. Boots crunched through snow as two, then three men spread out, scanning the forest. One pointed to a patch of shadow where Jiang had been seconds earlier.

An arrow took him in the gut before he could finish the gesture. He folded without ceremony.

"Who's there?!" someone bellowed, the voice cracking under the strain.

Jiang ignored it. He could feel the camp's mood shifting – no longer lazy and loud, but sharp with unease. In another few minutes, fear would set in, and fear was far more predictable than anger.

He slid behind a fallen pine, nocked another arrow, and waited.

A single man crept into sight, sword drawn, moving with the jerky, over-controlled motions of someone trying to look braver than he felt. Jiang let him pass – he wasn't worth the arrow yet. A second followed, this one muttering under his breath, eyes fixed on the snow as if he might see tracks there.

Stupid of them to split up like this, but he wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Jiang shifted his position a handspan to the left and loosed. The arrow punched clean through the second man's thigh, the impact spinning him into the snow with a strangled cry.

"Over here!" the first one shouted, whirling toward the sound.

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By the time he charged, Jiang was gone again, not bothering to kill the man yet. Better to leave him, create some more confusion and chaos.

Unfortunately, the bandits weren't slow to learn.

By the time Jiang circled back toward the ridge, the Crimson Blades had pulled in tight, abandoning the loose perimeter in favour of a shallow gully just beyond their camp. It offered them a little cover from the treeline and forced anyone approaching into clear lines of sight. He counted at least fifteen shapes crouched behind logs and rocks, weapons ready, eyes fixed outward.

Smart. Too smart for him to just keep plinking arrows from the dark.

One figure stood out – taller than most, broad-shouldered under a battered cuirass. His stance was steady, movements sharp, voice carrying over the wind.

"Hold your lines," the man barked. "Eyes on the trees. They want us scattered – don't give 'em the chance."

Damn. Figured the leader would be smarter than the rest of them. The Broker's information packet had mentioned that the man in charge was suspected to be a soldier who deserted his post – and clearly the man had experience. That was also the one that Jiang needed to leave alive somehow, which was going to be… tricky.

While it wasn't impossible to pick off a couple more of them from here, Jiang would have to move into their line of sight to take the shot—and that was a quick way to take a crossbow bolt in the ribs.

So he didn't.

Instead, he slid lower into the snow and angled toward the camp itself. The gully gave the bandits some protection, but it also left their supplies almost entirely unguarded.

A minute later, he was crouched beside a half-frozen cart stacked with crates, barrels, and sacks. Oil, food, blankets. The things needed to survive a winter in the wild. He set his bow aside, pulled flint from his pouch, and coaxed a spark into the edge of a sackcloth cover. The oiled fibres caught quickly, flames licking hungrily in the cold air.

He moved on to the next, leaving a trail of orange in his wake.

The smoke reached the gully before the heat did.

"Shit—our gear!" one of the bandits shouted.

"Stay in position!" the leader snapped. "That's what he wants—"

But discipline had limits. Two men bolted from cover toward the camp, ignoring his curses.

Jiang had already melted back into the treeline. He dropped the first one before the man reached the nearest crate, the arrow hitting hard enough to pitch him into the snow. The second skidded to a stop, turned to run back, and took an arrow between the shoulders.

That got the rest of them shouting again, voices ragged with panic. More smoke was rolling off the camp now, twisting above the treetops.

The leader swore viciously.

Jiang shifted position, circling to keep the gully in sight without exposing himself. The bandits were shouting over one another now, the leader's barked orders cutting through the noise. Jiang nocked and fired in a smooth motion, but this time luck wasn't on his side and the arrow skimmed past his target.

The bandit he'd aimed for didn't seem terribly comforted, practically throwing himself to the ground with a cry of fear.

A crossbow cracked from somewhere inside the gully. Jiang dropped flat without thinking, the bolt slicing through his cloak's hood and snapping twigs behind him. Too close. He slid sideways into deeper shadow before the next shot could come.

"Hold position!" the leader yelled, yanking the man to his feet. "Watch the treeline! They can't hit all of us if we stay tight—"

An arrow took one of the men beside him in the throat, snapping his head back and dropping him into the snow. The leader swore, ducking instinctively before forcing himself upright again. He scanned the forest, eyes narrowing, but Jiang was already gone.

Another shot punched through a man's gut as he tried to bring a crossbow to bear. The weapon clattered into the frost, useless. The remaining bandits hunkered lower, but staying still only made them easier marks. A lean man with a chipped axe finally had enough. "To hell with this!" he shouted, vaulting the cover and charging in Jiang's general direction.

The leader swore again, but followed. "Everyone rush 'em! You two, get the damn bows!" he snarled, jabbing a finger toward the camp. "Now!"

They obeyed, scrambling over the lip of the gully toward the burning carts. Jiang let them reach the edge of the firelight before dropping one cleanly. The second dove behind an overturned crate, fumbling with string and shaft.

Jiang snapped off another shot in the man's direction before he was forced to give ground, flaring his stealth technique as he faded deeper into the treeline and broke line of sight again. The remaining bandits – a dozen or so – charged after him, kept in a loose formation by the leader yelling invectives.

They crashed through the snow, their boots loud in the stillness, but none of them were slow. Jiang moved steadily backward, never letting them see more than a flicker of movement before he was somewhere else. His bow came up and down in a rhythm as natural as breathing – draw, loose, step, vanish.

The first man in the charge pitched forward, an arrow buried deep between his shoulders. Another dropped to one knee with a shaft through the calf, howling. The rest slowed instinctively, some glancing at the dark trees around them as if expecting the shadows themselves to strike.

One didn't slow. A big man with a cleaver ignored the growing gap and lunged through the snow, his shadow looming at the edge of Jiang's vision. Jiang twisted aside, the cleaver biting into a pine trunk where his head had been a heartbeat ago. The man snarled, swinging again, but Jiang let the momentum carry him forward and drove an arrow up under his jaw from barely an arm's length. The bandit sagged, and Jiang shoved him aside before the others closed the gap.

That was all it took for the cowardice to creep in. One man turned, bolting back toward the gully. Then another. Within moments, half the charge had dissolved, fleeing for the false safety of cover.

The leader's voice snapped over the snow. "You run, you die tired!"

Actually, that wasn't quite true – Jiang hadn't really considered what he would do if they simply ran for it. Realistically, there wasn't much he could do, except for making sure that the leader didn't escape. That was the only one of them that could answer his questions, after all.

The leader's words steadied a few of them, but Jiang could already see the fight bleeding out of the group. They weren't soldiers, not really – just thugs with weapons, unused to prey that fought back harder than they did.

An arrow hissed past his ear, loosed from somewhere behind the leader's position. So they had their bows in play now. Jiang slid sideways into a deeper pocket of shadow, circling to put a pair of thick pines between himself and the marksmen. The charge had devolved into a confused mess, a mix of men still pushing forward on grim determination and others already scrambling back toward the relative safety of the gully. The leader's roars were lost in the chaos. This was the moment a hunt turned into a slaughter.

Jiang used their panic as a weapon. An arrow took one of the charging men in the side, his momentum carrying him stumbling into another. A second shot found the throat of a man who had paused, indecisive, between advancing and retreating.

That was the final straw. The remaining bandits, seeing half their number cut down in minutes, broke completely. They didn't even try to retreat in an orderly fashion; they simply ran, a panicked scattering of bodies fleeing into the darkness. One of the men with a wounded leg tried to keep up, then fell, sobbing in the snow.

Jiang let them go. He couldn't catch them all, and they didn't matter. His gaze was already locked on the only man he cared about.

The leader, seeing his crew disintegrate, stared into the woods for a long, frozen moment, the firelight catching the despair and fury on his face. Then he too turned, not to flee into the forest, but to run back through the burning camp, hoping the smoke and flames would cover his escape.

It was a sensible plan, for a mortal.

Jiang didn't bother with stealth. He sprinted, his Qi-reinforced legs eating up the distance with an inhuman speed. He vaulted a burning crate, the heat a passing sting against his face, and landed in a crouch directly in the leader's path.

The man slowed to a halt, his breath a pale mist in the cold.

"You're not just some hunter," he said, expression somewhere between furious and resigned. "No man moves like that."

Jiang tilted his head to one side, feeling his Qi churn beneath his skin. He let a little of it seep out, pooling around his feet as the shadows cast by the fire flickered and bent towards him.

"Cultivator." The man spat to one side, never taking his eyes off Jiang as his hand clenched and unclenched around his sword. "I suppose you want me alive, for some reason?"

"For now."

The leader gave a short, humourless laugh, though it ended in a cough from the smoke. "Figures."

Jiang didn't return the smile. "Drop the sword."

After a long moment, the man let it fall into the snow. The fight was gone from him, but not the defiance – his eyes stayed locked on Jiang's, steady even through the pain.

Good. That made things easier.