“This is boring,” said Falling Leaf with quiet menace.
“Didn’t I just say that I know?” asked Sen.
He hazarded a glance at Falling Leaf to discover that she was still glaring at him, as she had been for at least an hour. She was riding a horse next to him. Sen reconsidered that. To say she was riding the horse didn’t properly capture the relationship between rider and mount. The mare seemed to intuitively understand that Falling Leaf’s true nature was a giant cat. Needless to say, the mare was terrified to be ridden by something that would readily eat her if they crossed paths in the wild. There had been a tense moment when the mare appeared ready to buck or do something else violent. Falling Leaf had simply looked at the horse. Now, the horse had a sad, defeated air that made Sen feel guilty.
In truth, he felt sympathy for both Falling Leaf and the mare. Moving at a marching pace on a horse was excruciating for someone who could cover miles in moments. He’d been told repeatedly that he had to lead the march on the first day. Jing had said something about honor and symbolism. As to his sympathy for the mare, that was easy enough to understand. Having a giant cat angry with you was not a pleasant experience, even if she was wearing a human body.
Sen was just glad that none of the army officers had made some suggestion that Falling Leaf should go somewhere else. He doubted that they would have survived the experience. Then again, thought Sen, I don’t really like most of those people. And it would make things less boring, however briefly. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he couldn’t help but wonder if the tedium was affecting his mind. He thought that was the only explanation for him wishing some officer with an overblown sense of their importance would do something suicidal. He looked over at Falling Leaf, who had not softened her angry glare in the slightest.
“Look, I have to do this. You don’t. You can always go and scout ahead.”
Sen looked around. There was nothing but cleared land for miles in every direction. Land that they all knew was empty of spirit beasts, thanks to the daily excursions by cultivators to continue burning the wilds around the capital. There truly wasn’t anything to scout.
“Then, what would you suggest?”
“We can go ahead. Maybe we’ll find something to fight.”
“You know, I remember you sleeping all the time back on Uncle Kho’s mountain. I’d have thought you’d enjoy not having to do anything.”
“There were many dangers there. I often had to fight. Sleeping was a comfort and reward then. There are no dangers here. There is only boredom. I also don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“Why do you feel you must adopt their ways. You aren’t one of them.”
Sen had the feeling that when Falling Leaf said them, she meant both the mortals and the cultivators. She was right about that. Growing up as a street rat meant he had very little in common with the mortals. What he knew about them, he’d learned by observing rather than participating. The closest he’d come had been back on the Luo Farm, and even that hadn’t really been like living as a mortal. They had accepted him. Trusted him. But he had always been a cultivator first and foremost in their eyes. He understood why it had been that way, but it had changed how they treated him in fundamental ways.
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Being trained by Master Feng, Uncle Kho, and Auntie Caihong separated him from the cultivators as well. He had almost nothing in common with other cultivators of any kind. He hadn’t trained the way that sect cultivators trained with their hierarchies and politics. He also hadn’t really had time to live as a wandering cultivator. The disasters and problems had come at him too quickly. His rapid advancement made him an object of envy and fear for almost every other cultivator.
Those weren’t comfortable thoughts. He was less isolated now than he had been as a child, but he was still isolated. The followers and subjects he’d acquired weren’t peers in any sense. They were responsibilities more than anything. Everyone wanted things from him or expected him to do things. And that applied as much to this ridiculous exercise of riding a horse at the front of the army as it did to everything else. He was doing this for other people. She asked the right question, thought Sen. Why do I feel it’s necessary to do this? We’re far enough away from the capital now that no one but cultivators can see us.
“Alright,” said Sen. “Let’s go do something less boring.”
He pulled the reins to bring his horse to a stop. What he hadn’t expected was the panic that action seemed to kick off among the officers. Within half a minute, there was a crowd of them hovering around him and Falling Leaf.
“Lord Lu, is there a problem ahead?” asked a general.
“No. I’m simply tired of riding this horse for no reason. If I can’t trust all of you to march an army for a few miles, there’s no point in having you here,” answered Sen, swinging down off the horse.
A gleeful Falling Leaf followed suit. Sen noted with some amusement that the horse she’d been riding seemed almost as happy as the ghost panther. The officers started lodging protests and talking about tradition.
“Those traditions are for mortals leading armies. I am a cultivator. Having me ride a horse is both pointless and absurd. I will travel ahead and scout the surrounding wilds.”
“You must take—” started the same general, only to fall silent at a look from Sen.
“I must? Do you presume to give me an order, general?”
After a protracted silence in which a bead of sweat rolled down the general’s face, the man said, “No, Lord Lu.”
“I thought not. I will return before sunset. I expect this army to have progressed at least another three miles and made camp by then.”
There was a chorus of Yes, Lord Lu. Sen turned to Falling Leaf.
She walked to stand beside him, and he lifted them from the ground on a qi platform. As they rose away from the army, it felt like something that had been strangling him fell away from his throat. Falling Leaf was looking into the distance with curiosity burning in her eyes. Sen shook his head.
“You know, there’s almost no chance we’re going to find anything to fight, right? Not this close to the capital.”
She shot him a sour look before nodding.
“This is still better than sitting on prey.”
“You should be nicer to your horse. She hasn’t done anything to you.”
Falling Leaf gave him a look before muttering, “It’s still prey.”
Sen decided that was a fight not worth having. Especially when there was a more immediate irritation behind them. He looked over his shoulder to see a small contingent of cultivators trying to catch up to them. Falling Leaf saw where he was looking and turned to glare in that direction.
“What are they doing?” she asked.
“They’re trying to invite themselves to go with us,” said Sen, while trying to decide if he should hit them with lightning.
“Fools,” said Falling Leaf.
Then, she stepped off of his qi platform and onto her own. Sen drew to a halt and watched with a little alarm as the ghost panther went back to do…He didn’t know what she intended to do to their uninvited guests, which worried him a little. He hoped that she would just tell them to go back. A hope that died an almost immediate, whimpering death. In the span of a few seconds, Sen watched six cultivators plummet toward the ground before the rest scattered. Falling Leaf came back and lightly stepped back onto his qi platform.
“They won’t bother us again,” she announced in a bright, happy voice.
“That’s good, but what about him?” asked Sen.
He gestured at the futilely thrashing cultivator that she held by the throat in her left hand.
“I haven’t decided what to do with him, yet.”
Sen had so many questions, but the cultivator fixed him with a pleading look. Googlᴇ search ɴovelfire.net
“Don’t look at me. I wasn’t even there. You brought this on yourself,” said Sen and promptly sent his qi platform back into motion.