Ning Chen broke out in a cold sweat; the arrow had almost grazed his back.

“Careful. Bowman at my twelve o’clock.”

Ning Chen said it again.

Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng looked blank. What did twelve o’clock mean?

But they were not slow. They went for the nearest cover, rolling as they went, and came in behind the rock with Ning Chen.

THWIP. THWIP. THWIP.

The tearing sounds came one after another, and struck the rock they were hiding behind.

Ning Chen listened hard and said it heavily. “There should be six of them over there.”

Gao Ziping nodded. “That’s right. By the sound of the arrows hitting the stone, six.”

Feng Qizheng said angrily, “It looks as though they know we’re here.”

“Or perhaps not… Those two boys who came to lay the complaint got out this way, so they’ve put men here to stop anyone else leaving by the same road.”

Ning Chen worked it out calmly.

“There’s sense in what Ning Chen says… Luckily there aren’t many of them. Ning Chen stays here. Feng Qizheng comes with me and we’ll settle them.”

Feng Qizheng nodded.

Ning Chen was about to say he could cover them, and before the words were out Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng had already rolled clear, one left and one right.

The two of them came up out of it and went at the other side low, bent almost double.

The men opposite saw them, of course.

The tearing sounds started up again.

Arrows came at the two of them separately.

They moved like ghosts, weaving all the way, closing on the men shooting at them.

Arrows went past their bodies and struck the ground at their feet, and by luck none of it touched them.

As they came in close, both men drew a sword with the right hand and brought a crossbow up with the left, and loosed on the swing.

Both bolts took men in the throat. Neither of them needed a second.

The two of them rolled where they stood, together, came out from under the arrows and sprang like hunting leopards, and their service swords went out of their hands in the same motion.

Two more bowmen had just come out from behind a tree, and what met them was two cold flashes.

Both swords went in almost together, and the force of it carried the two men several meters backward.

Two bowmen were left, behind a rock.

Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng went at it like a pair of hunting leopards, pulling their swords out of the bodies as they passed, and came straight at the rock.

The two behind it stepped clear and put arrows at them.

Both men dropped into a slide together. The arrows went over their heads, and they came to a stop at the bowmen’s feet with both swords sweeping out. One cut apiece, and the throats were open.

Ning Chen was left staring.

The pair of them worked clean and quick, without a scrap of decoration in any of it.

Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng looked carefully all around them, and only once they were sure it was over did they call out. “Ning Chen. Come out. It’s finished.”

Ning Chen came out from behind the rock and asked, curious, “Why are the two of you doing all the same moves?”

Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng looked at each other and laughed.

Feng Qizheng said, “Because we came out of the same school. We studied under the same master.”

Ning Chen understood it then. That was why every move the two of them made matched.

“Which of you is the elder, then?”

Gao Ziping said, “I am.”

Feng Qizheng made a sound. “We knelt to the master on the same day. What makes you the elder?”

“I’m older than you.”

Feng Qizheng was contemptuous about it. “A school goes by standing, not by age… By that argument mine’s longer than yours, so I’m the elder.”

Gao Ziping had nothing to say to that.

Ning Chen didn’t know whether to laugh or not. No wonder the two of them had never once called each other elder or younger. Neither would give an inch.

Ning Chen looked at the bodies on the ground and said heavily, “You should have kept one alive.”

Gao Ziping said, “No need for it. These are small fry. They act under orders and they know nothing.”

Ning Chen nodded slightly, then asked, “What do we do with the bodies?”

Feng Qizheng said, “Dig a hole and bury them… Or, if we can’t be troubled, throw them off the mountain. The animals will have them clean soon enough.”

Gao Ziping said, “We’ve got nothing to dig with. A hole wastes time and it wastes strength, and we’ve got a river to swim shortly, so we save what we have… Men like these can go to the animals for rations.”

The six bodies went off the mountain.

The three of them stripped down to their undershorts.

They packed their things and wrapped the bundles in a layer of oiled paper on the outside… that kind of paper keeps water out.

They ate a little, rested a while, and got ready to cross.

“Ning Chen. You’ll be all right?”

Ning Chen said, smiling, “Rest easy. I won’t hold you back.”

Gao Ziping nodded. “Good. Ready to cross.”

The three of them went into the river one after another.

It was better than two hundred meters across and it ran fast.

Ning Chen had still underestimated the speed of it. He was rolled over several times the moment he was in, and it took some work to steady himself.

Worse than that, the insides of his thighs stabbed at him… The skin there was worn away, and water on it was very bad.

But Ning Chen set his teeth and swam for the far bank with everything he had.

The pain got worse and worse.

Halfway across, the pain had taken the strength out of both his legs… and the current carried him straight downstream.

By the time Gao Ziping and Feng Qizheng saw it, Ning Chen was a long way off.

“Ning Chen—”

“Ning Chen—”

Both of them shouted it in alarm and swam downstream as fast as they could, trying to reach him.

But the current was too fast. A few rises and falls, and Ning Chen was out of their sight.

Both their faces went white.

They got themselves to the far bank and did not stop to rest. They started along the bank looking.

They followed it for miles and found no sign of him.

Before they left, Pan Yucheng had told them a thousand times over that Ning Chen was to be kept safe.

They had not even reached Zhenyuan County, and Ning Chen had been carried off by a river — where, they did not know, alive or dead, they did not know… What were they going to say to Pan Yucheng?

And the thing that mattered was that by now the two of them had accepted Ning Chen from the heart. They counted him one of their own.

Feng Qizheng said heavily, “What do we do now?”

Gao Ziping said it one word at a time. “Look. We find him.”

Though both of them knew what Ning Chen’s chances were… The water was thick with silt, and a man who takes it into his throat goes under fast, and after that he drowns where he is.

The two of them dragged their tired bodies onward and kept looking.

“You’re awake?”

Ning Chen had only just opened his eyes, and his mind had not come back to him yet, when he heard somebody ask it.

His head felt heavy and his feet light, he ached all over, and his throat was dry and painful.

He turned his head and found he was lying in a small house. Every breath brought the smell of medicinal herbs.

A thin old man in a grey robe, his hair and beard gone white, was standing by the bed.

There was a young man beside him.

Ning Chen opened his mouth and found his throat too dry to make any sound.

“Sixth. Give him a little water. Not too much.”

The young man fetched a bowl at once and gave Ning Chen a few spoonfuls.

His throat felt a great deal better for it.

“Was it you who saved me, sir?”

The last thing he remembered was taking several mouthfuls of silt and going under.

The old man laughed. “I couldn’t carry you… Sixth was up the mountain gathering herbs, and he found you on his way and carried you back.”

(End of Chapter 51)