It sliced branches off a tree, but the bandit ducked easily to the side, dodging the Striker move. He hurled his hatchet, approaching from behind with the awl. If she struck the hatchet down, she'd be exposed to his follow-up attack. He was trying to keep her on the back foot, where he'd keep her until he'd stabbed or poisoned her to death.
Which was all bright and shiny, as plans went, but she had skills beyond her advancement level. The Sword Sage wasn’t known for coddling his disciple.
She slapped the hatchet back toward him, just as he'd expected. His eyes gleamed like a tiger spotting a fat pig as he brought the awl forward.
With a mental effort she'd trained every day for years, she extended her attention to the sword aura that clung to her sword. It sheathed her blade in infinite layers, dense and powerful around her master’s weapon, and she struck it with her spirit like a gong.
This was the Ruler technique that had given her Path a name: the Endless Sword.
In her spiritual sight, the aura around her sword burst out in a silver storm. Everything sharp enough to cut within a dozen paces echoed the move, ringing and exploding in razor-sharp sword aura. The flying hatchet burst into dozens of unseen blades, smashing splinters of bark away from a nearby tree and cutting deep into the bandit's skin.
He stumbled and faltered, his awl dipping off-course, and she gathered sword-madra into the Goldsign that dangled over her own shoulder. The metallic sword carried her madra like a riverbank carried water, swift and smooth. It should pass through the bandit's chest and out again like the sharpest spear.
But her spirit cried a warning, and she aborted her attack to roll off to one side, whipping her blade in another Rippling Sword technique.
The wave cut a gouge into the nearest boulder, missing the new enemy, who had popped out of nowhere.
This man was smaller and thinner, a starving rat rather than a scavenging bear. He gripped a wooden spear in both hands, the spearhead a serpent's fang stained with what she could only assume was venom. The man had his own serpent on his arm, and the miniature Remnant snarled at her, revealing a pair of fangs in its mouth. Another Lowgold from the same Path.
Looked like somebody had sent half a sect out here to ruin her day.
She breathed deeply, cycling to hold back her anger, but that was trying to leash a dragon with a bowstring. This vermin had even less honor than she'd thought; they had the numbers and the power, and they still looked to murder a couple of sacred artists more than ten years their junior. In an ambush.
Her surroundings sharpened as she focused her anger and her spirit to a fine point. This fight was about to get bloody and rotten, and she knew it—she may have been the strongest being in Sacred Valley by a long margin, but in the real world, Lowgold practitioners like her were more common than flies on a dead dog. Skill only counted for so much against numbers.
She might even die here, in the woods on the back-end of nowhere, and her guest squirmed at the thought. If she did die, it would make sure that she took her enemies with her.
She didn’t even waste a thought on getting help from Lindon. Putting him in a fight against these men would be pushing a spotted fawn to a couple of wolves.
Only a blink after he’d shown his face, the spearman lunged at her. She ran for the bear; he was still off-guard and under-armed, and letting two men catch her in a pincer attack was just begging to die.
The man dropped to avoid her stab, though her sword still bit the meat of his shoulder. But it wasn’t free—his huge boot caught her on the outside of her leg.
She was using a basic Enforcement technique to strengthen her whole body with madra, but he hit hard enough to shake it. Pain flared in her thigh, and she stumbled off-balance.
If she hit the ground, she would die.
With that panicked thought, she triggered the aura in her sword. It exploded, detonating inside the man's shoulder, sending a spray of shredded meat into the air. He didn't even scream, collapsing on his back and writhing. His mouth flapped open and closed, as though all his air had leaked out through the hole in his shoulder.
Yerin caught herself before she joined him on the ground, but her leg moaned in red-hot pain...and her other wounds joined her in a chorus, dazing her for a critical second. She looked up to see the rat-like spearman coming at her just as blood dripped down into her eye, stinging and making her close it.
One-eyed, one-legged, all but crippled…and alone. Her rage blazed hotter, until she released a shout and staggered forward. A sacred artist lived and died on her feet.
For the first time, one of her opponents got to use a real technique.
The rat-like man grimaced and forced his spear forward. The strike was joined by half a dozen green reflections appearing out of nowhere. It was like he was striking with seven spears at once, and though six of them were made out of madra, she suspected any of them would kill her.
She filled her sword with madra, praying to the heavens that she could break all of her opponent's weapons in one hit. If she did, she lived. If she missed, she died.
Fitting that a sword artist's life would balance on a razor's edge.
Then her spirit flared in warning, and her eyes widened when she realized what it was telling her.
The fawn had thrown itself to the wolves.
***
With his pack on his back, Lindon lay belly-down on the Thousand-Mile Cloud. It sputtered and drifted, dragging him over the terrain on the pitiful trickle of madra he could muster. His Copper spirit had a noticeably greater effect, as he could move faster and farther than ever before, but he was exhausted after advancing.
He’d spent most of his madra in the last minute, drifting around the camp and planting six purple flags. He clutched the last one in his hand, urging the cloud toward Yerin and her opponent.
The screams of the dying woman still hung in the air, but Yerin and the filthy rodent with the spear were not distracted. As Lindon fed another drop of madra into the cloud and lunged toward them, they struck: the spear flashed forward, six acid-green mirror images blinking into existence around it, even as Yerin swept her white blade across.
Lindon tumbled off the cloud, resisting the urge to squeeze his eyes shut and desperately hoping that the impact from their attacks wouldn’t kill him where he lay.
As a deadly cold sensation of pure terror passed over the back of his neck, he jammed the formation banner into the soil along with the last of his madra.
The White Fox boundary was kept in place by seven short banners woven from purple cloth and stitched with white script. When arranged in a circle and activated, the formation summoned aura of light and dreams in the immediate area, creating a cloud of illusions.
This was the first time he’d seen the boundary as a Copper, and it was much more impressive. With half an effort, he saw glowing aura roll in like a sunlit cloud, half-formed images shifting and twisting in its depths.
He’d placed the last banner between Yerin and her enemy, with the circle on the spearman’s side. The rat-like man should be trapped at the edge of the boundary.
Lindon rolled into his back, propping himself up against his pack so he could see if his gamble had worked.
The spearman staggered back a step, his six madra-spears shattered by Yerin, his reptilian eyes flickering around. Lindon let out a relieved breath, and only then realized that he was panting—which would throw off his cycling until he restored his breathing rhythm—and covered in a light sheen of sweat. Sliding within a hair’s breadth of death was more exhausting than hiking up a mountain.