Volume 2- Chapter 22

Chapter 22

~~~~Tai Su~~~~



A trip to the healers did something I never expected to happen to me in this life, or my previous one, it genuinely surprised me with how pleasant it was. There were no waiting lines, no lights that made my eyes bleed, nor where there any noises of crying or prayer that none could be bothered to care for.

The chief healer was able to fix our uniforms on the spot too! They were an elder specialized in this sort of thing and did it without us even asking. He wasn't the one to look after us after that point, as his time was important and our issues were hardly urgent.

Our stay in the infirmary involved nothing but a quick check by one of the local doctors for any obvious wounds and a pill meant to get us to expel anything that shouldn't be in our body. For me this meant some white fluid mixed with blood, while for Rui Min that was some oddly off-color blood and then we were off.

There was also something else that surprised me, the fact that we were expected to reach here, because just as we left the house of healing a young man dressed in the armor of the local banner greeted us with a bow.

"Greetings, I am Gu Zi of the Ninth Squad of the Black Rose Banner, honored ones. My squad and I were assigned to you for the duration of this mission." The man declared, his tone crisp and clear.

I wanted to ask for clarifications, because from what I knew we were meant to be assigned to the Golden Apple Banner, not the Black Rose Banner, but I wasn't the senior cultivator here. Looking down at his boots I could see that on them was emblazoned the imaged of a purple rose on a black background.

"Greetings, are you certain you got the right people? We were meant to meet with the Golden Apple Banner." Rui Min replied, her tone smug.

I tilted my head to the side, was there something I missed? Normally it is us that we should be introducing ourselves as cultivators, but if the man was the leader of the squad then such could get complicated, as we were technically speaking guests and he was the highest ranked protector of the area.

This sort of thing gets complicated when guests and jurisdictions get involved and it's better to just ignore such weirdness and do what feels natural to avoid unnecessary friction. I understood that, but why was Rui Min smiling?

"Tai Su of the Blazing Fist Sect and Rui Min of the Stellar Blade Sect yes? Judging by your uniforms I think we got the right ones." The man answered wryly.

I frowned at the rudeness, first introducing himself first, then robbing us of the chance to introduce ourselves? These would have been fighting words in the Orange Prefecture.

'Did they do things differently here?' I wondered as I thought on whether to take offense to this or not.

Rui Min noticed my frown and shook her head.

"Do not take this as an insult Tai Su, bannermen that fight near the spiders get weird. Spiders love messing with their minds and them acting against all social norms is a form of defense to get a reaction. Infiltrators and those with their minds taken from them don't react strongly to anything, while those used to it learn to hit back or react strongly to it." She said.

I raised an eyebrow… that was… quite clever I had to admit. It was a method to deal with enemies that could mess with your mind and I could respect that, as it too was a tradition in it's own way. It was a set of actions and behaviors meant to deal with a specific issue and to those that don't need to deal with it, it sounds and feels strange to deal with.

I just wish I was informed of it ahead of time as I would have engaged in it too. It sounds like good fun when you knew what to expect.

"And I suppose that we passed this test then?" I asked and put a certain inflection on the word passed.

It wasn't the most respectful one, but until I knew more of how this game was played, I will play this safe. There's no reason to make enemies after all.

The man nodded, his features turning a touch softer.

"Yes honored ones. There is also a bit of a hazing for sect disciple and newcomers to get them used to this sort of thing too, but nobody is willing to try that with Practitioners, as everyone knows they are quite prickly. Please follow me, I'll take you to the rest of the squad." The man replied.

He waited for both of us to nod before turning back and leading us towards his squad. Rui Min and I quickly followed until both of us were just one step behind him with me to his left and Rui Min to the right.

I took the chance to look again at the bannermen that were gathered here. All of them had the boots of the Golden Apple Tree Banner, not a single one of them were of the Black Rose Banner.

"I was under the impression that most Prefectures only had one banner, and even those with two banners spread their tasks geographically." I said simply.

Most of the time there was only one banner per prefecture, but many had more, mostly the border prefectures but there were exceptions.

In Orange Prefecture operated The Cherry Tree and the Southern Lemon Tree Banners and they divided the Prefecture into the North and South. The more populous North had the Cherry Trees and the larger and more sparsely populated South had the Southern Lemon Tree Banner and from what I was told this sort of arrangement was, while not standard, it was normal.

The standard was that there was no standard, as the Generals had to negotiate with the Lord Protector and Sect Master of the Prefecture as to their quartering and where they are needed.

"The Silver Shield Prefecture has three Banners actually, The Golden Apple Trees, the Black Roses and the Burning Lilies, and we don't separate ourselves based on location, but based on tasks. Also, all Prefectures near the Spider Clans have three of four banners I think." Gu Zi answered.

I frowned slightly, that was an interesting system.

"So, I would assume that the Imperial Banner is doing the offensive operations, the Golden Apple Tree are the garrisons and the Black Roses the one responsible for the patrols then?" I opined.

It made sense, not like there are other tasks that need doing. One banner keeps the forts manned, the other makes sure the countryside is safe and another goes into enemy territory.

The other man wished to answer, but Rui Min interjected with a question I wasn't expecting.

"I thought all banners are Imperial Banners, why the distinction?" She asked us.

We looked at one another before the man dipped his head down as a signal that I can answer.

"There are officers above the rank of general that Banners can take orders from, but Imperial Banners don't. All banners and sects with the term 'Burning' in them take orders only from the Empress, so we call them Imperial to differentiate between the Banners that answer to the Empress directly and those with some intermediaries." I answered promptly.

"Yes, on both counts." Gu Zi continued, but did not elaborate.

Rui Min looked thoughtful at that but did not ask any more questions.

We headed towards the edge of the outpost and passed through the gate that was guarded by some bannermen of the Golden Apple Tree Banner without any words being exchanged.

Outside of the Outpost was an entirely different world.

The Outpost was familiar to me, it was a settlement, it had buildings of stone and bannermen and the rare cultivator going about their duties in a calm and orderly manner. The outpost was organized, smooth and most importantly calm.

Outside of it, the world was anything but calm. The wind beat at strengths that threatened to pull me off my feet and into the air, the noise was constant, on-going and ever shifting as the sounds of men and women shouting fought against the wind for dominance.

There weren't many of them, a hundred at most would be my estimation, and they were all arranged around various carts.

I winced as a new explosion ran through the air and temporarily silenced everything else through sheer power. It was quickly followed by the sound of clashing stone.

"Lovely weather we're having." I remarked, my tone light and almost playful.

It was also the truth technically, as it was warm and sunny for what was meant to be late Fall. Nobody normal would be calling the strong winds with a chance of explosion lovely though, not unless it was falling on your enemy.

Unfortunately our enemies were underground, which meant they didn't need to deal with this noise.

Apparently, that was the right thing to say as the bannerman and senior cultivator both burst out laughing. I could barely hear it as the noise of explosions, wind and screams made even hearing my own thoughts difficult.

"Please follow me, the others are close. We'll have some peace and quiet there." The man shouted and we restarted walking.

Eventually, we reached what I assumed to be his own squad's cart, albeit the entire arrangement was odd. Why do they have a cart?

The cart was not large enough for all of them to be sleeping in it. It had enough room for two, perhaps three people to sleep in it, assuming it was full, and its two wheels could take it, and that it was empty. The cart was naturally not empty, but filled with various supplies and tools, which told me what it's purpose was, but not why it was used like that.

Standard procedure for bannermen is for the to carry their own supplies as much as possible, yet none of the people here did so.

There were four other bannermen near it, two men and two women, all of them sitting on the wide and paved road. They looked to be gossiping after finishing to eat, empty ration packages still near them, before one of them spotted us.

"Ninth Squad at attention! I managed to retrieve our cultivators!" Gu Zi shouted loudly.

I could barely hear it myself over the loud wind, but the bannermen must have been used to it or just saw their friend and probably superior with two cultivators and knew what that meant.

Rui Min looked ready to try and introduce herself, but stopped herself and turned to me.

"Tai Su, do you know any way to reduce this infernal noise around us? I know that Array and Talisman makers can create areas isolated from the rest of the world and I would rather not need to shout only to not be heard" She asked me.

It was difficult to parse her words through the noise, the wind covering some parts of her questions, but I understood the gist of it well enough.

"I have the means yes, but please remember that I have a limited amount of them available." I informed her.

"Please do so, I think both of us want this to start on the right foot." She asked me, her face turning into a soft smile.

I nodded and started looking through my pouch. I pulled out four noise canceling talisman, a piece of chalk and a Talisman of Unity and I then proceeded to get to work. Talismans and Arrays may not be the same thing, but there was enough overlap, that I could use them for a temporary array.

~~~~Rui Min~~~~

Seeing Array and Talisman Masters work is always strange. I never understood how the two arts worked, how with a few scribbled together symbols you could get Qi to do something.

Tai Su was a Talisman Maker, not a master still, by his own admission, but yet with some chalk and some pieces of paper he could make a temporary array. One moment the cacophony of another explosion was washing over us and the next all sounds beyond the bounds of the chalk were but a distant memory.

The Bannermen certainly looked appreciative. They were no longer at attention, as the drawing of the temporary formation took a few minutes, but it's not like that was too important.

"Better, this should last for some two minutes, so we better make them count." Tai Su declared before he returned to my side.

The noises and cacophony of burning mountains were no longer as audible and instead all that was left were the sounds of the people inside of the small temporary array. I'll have to ask him how many talismans he had left and what they did when the time permitted us.

"More than enough. Greetings Bannermen, I am Rui Min a Practitioner of the Stellar Blade Sect and to my side is Tai Su a practitioner of the Blazing Fist Sect, it is a pleasure and an honor to meet you." I declared proudly to the bannermen.

The five bowed, their left hand clasping the right one. I was used to noticing these little things, all those that dealt with the spiders and their schemes are.

The little tricks the bannermen learn to use to check for infiltrators and those with their minds taken from them, may not always work, but they are more useful than not. Trying to find the way to get under the other's skin by pretending to not notice the social mistakes and then doing it yourself is but one trick, but all of them rely on one thing to work.

Spiders are not Imperials, they do not subscribe to our own social norms, the way we think and talk and react to things, will always feel off to them and they will often stumble where others run free.

"I am Gu Zi, the leader of the Provincial Ninth Squad of the Black Rose Banner." The man that brought us here said.

The others introduced themselves shortly after as Lao Lu, Zi Xi, Zhi Lu and Hu Lao, two men and two women, all with the same armor, boots and haircuts. You could only differentiate them from one another through the way they moved and their faces as some of their heights were quite close to one another.

Lao Lu was the only one present shorter than me, she was an average looking woman that reminded me of one of my aunts, Xia Min, a lazy woman that wanted to do nothing but sleep all day. It was the way she moved I realized, all of her moves were done with the bare minimum of effort and movement, as if slacking too much would create too much movement and focusing too hard was too bothersome. She was the only one noticeably shorter than the rest of her squad mates.

Zi Xi was a beautiful woman of what must be high breeding, but she seemed to wither under any direct attention. The way she moved was unremarkable, neither too quick or too slow, but her gaze held a strange uncertainty as if she wasn't sure why she had to be uncertain about what she should be doing.

Zhi Lu on the other hand had certainty to spare for the two of them. He was unremarkable as far as his looks went, but the way he moved told me that he held a certain confidence I found was missing in most people.

Hu Lao on the other hand, reminded of his namesake. The man's eyes were like those of a tiger, constantly looking at me and trying to determine if I was a threat or not. He was the tallest.

Remembering heights is important, sometimes the afflicted don't remember their names and if they respond to the wrong name, especially when wearing a face covering helmet, you have no other way to tell them apart in the midst of battle.

I looked down as I smelt the scent of something burning, the talismans were burning already, and so was the chalk.

"Well met bannermen. I believe I speak for everyone when I say that we would rather get moving and talk the details of our assignment where there is less noise?" I asked them.

"Yes Practitioner, we already have our supplies handled and made sure to bring extra just in case." Gu Zi answered.

The other bannermen nodded at that and looked excited to get moving.

"Excellent, who's on cart duty?" Tai Su asked.

That wasn't something I thought of, but there was no draft animal, this means that someone would have to push the cart forward. Every single one of the bannermen pointed towards Zhi Lu, including the man, who looked far too tired about it already.

If he was hoping for either of us to just offer ourselves for it, then he was mistaken. I don't know how the Blazing Fist Sect and its Practitioners were handling things, but back home nobody is volunteering for any mission or task unless it involves danger, and pulling a cart was the least dangerous thing I could think of doing right now.

"Then we can leave." I declared.

And not to soon, as the talismans finished burning and the cacophony was back. The Ninth Squad already started arranging themselves around the cart as Zhi Lu started pulling it, while Zi Xi was gathering the ration packaging off the ground.

Tai Su and I settled in formation behind the cart to ensure everyone remains visible.

"Don't worry they won't leave a mark. The talismans are made to have their remains be taken by the wind and not leave behind any smudges and the chalk burned out already." Tai Su shouted from my side.

I nodded at his words, but internally I was sighing. I had not taught about that and the last thing I wanted my mission to start with was littering. It may not be an important thing to worry about, but it was still a crime and it was an ill omen if any mission started like that.

'Is this what leadership is? Little things coming at you when you don't expect them?' I wondered.

Hopefully I won't have these little things turn into large issues, this is the first time I ever was in a position of authority over someone else while on a mission. The bout of excitement I felt after the duel to decide that ended still hadn't fully faded and hopefully it will continue to warm up my chest for some time still.