2. The Sky Hunt Club

The dark-robed man held his cup aloft for three heartbeats, then lowered it without drinking. He turned away from the treeline and walked toward the pavilion, his steps unhurried, his bearing that of a man who had never needed to rush because the world had always waited for him. The servants parted around him like water around a stone.

Zong Ji remained motionless in his hollow. His heart beat steady and slow, the heart of a man who had learned long ago that panic was a luxury the dead could not afford. He had been seen. He was certain of it. But the dark-robed man had not raised an alarm, had not pointed, had not even altered his expression. He had simply raised his cup, smiled that bloodless smile, and walked away.

Why?

He filed the question away for later examination. The immediate problem was simpler. Eighteen nobles, at least thirty servants and guards, and one chancellor of Qin were spread across the clearing before him. The pavilion sat at the centre like an altar waiting for its sacrifice. And somewhere in that crowd, the dark-robed man moved with the quiet authority of someone who understood the game better than anyone else present.

Zong Ji settled deeper into his hiding place and began to observe.

The nobles were not difficult to read. They wore their privilege like peacock feathers, bright and ostentatious and utterly impractical. Their robes were dyed in colours that commoners were forbidden to wear — deep vermilion, imperial purple, the pale gold of autumn elm leaves. Their jade pendants clinked as they walked. Their laughter was too loud, their gestures too expansive. They were young men, most of them, the younger sons of ministerial families and cadet branches of the royal clan. The kind of men who would never inherit real power and so had constructed their own petty kingdom of cruelty to compensate.

He catalogued them one by one. The heavyset one in the boar-shaped helmet, already drunk despite the early hour. The thin one with the nervous twitch, who kept glancing toward Fan Ju as if seeking approval. The pair of identical twins in matching robes of indigo silk, who moved in perfect synchronization and never spoke to anyone but each other. The one with the elaborate topknot and the gold armbands, who seemed to be the informal leader, directing the others with the casual arrogance of a man who had never been told no.

And then there were the guards. Unlike the nobles, these were professionals. Their armour was practical rather than decorative, their swords well-maintained, their eyes constantly scanning the treeline. Zong Ji counted twelve of them, arranged in pairs at the four approaches to the clearing. They carried crossbows in addition to swords, the heavy military-grade mechanisms that could punch through lamellar armour at fifty paces. Those would be the real threat when the hunt began.

The servants moved among them like ghosts, heads bowed, eyes downcast. They set up silk pavilions and laid out bronze wine vessels and arranged platters of roasted meats and fresh fruits. None of them looked at the nobles. None of them looked at the altar. They had learned, Zong Ji suspected, the art of seeing nothing.

And at the centre of it all, seated on a folding camp chair inlaid with mother-of-pearl, sat Chancellor Fan Ju.

Zong Ji had seen the chancellor once before, years ago, at a military review in Xianyang. Fan Ju had stood beside the king on the reviewing platform, a thin, angular figure in robes of state, while the Iron Eagle Guard marched past in perfect formation. Bai Qi had saluted the king, and the king had nodded, but Fan Ju had not moved at all. He had watched Bai Qi the way a hawk watches a rabbit, and even then, Zong Ji had felt a chill that had nothing to do with the autumn wind.

Now Fan Ju was older, thinner, his cheekbones sharp enough to cut silk. He held a cup of wine in one long-fingered hand and surveyed the clearing with an expression of mild boredom. The hunt, Zong Ji realized, was not for his entertainment. It was a tool. A way to bind these young nobles to him, to create debts and obligations that could be called upon later. Every man here who killed a human being in the name of sport became complicit in something that Fan Ju could use as leverage.

It was, Zong Ji had to admit, elegantly done.

The afternoon wore on. The nobles drank and ate and told stories that grew louder and more exaggerated with each cup of wine. The twins in indigo performed a mock duel with wooden swords, their movements so identical that it was impossible to tell which one was leading and which was following. The heavyset noble in the boar helmet passed out beneath a silk canopy and began to snore. The nervous one approached Fan Ju twice, hovered at the edge of the chancellor’s presence, and retreated both times without speaking.

The dark-robed man did not reappear.

As the sun began its descent toward the western hills, the tone of the gathering shifted. The servants cleared away the remains of the feast. The guards straightened and checked their weapons. The nobles gathered in a loose circle around the stone altar, their laughter fading into something harder and hungrier.

Fan Ju rose from his chair. The movement was slight, barely more than a shifting of silk, but it silenced the entire clearing.

“My young friends,” he said, and his voice carried without effort, the voice of a man accustomed to speaking in throne rooms and council chambers. “Tonight we honour a tradition that stretches back to the founding of our kingdom. The Sky Hunt is not merely sport. It is a reminder of the natural order. The falcon does not ask the sparrow for permission. The wolf does not negotiate with the deer. The strong take what is theirs, and the weak exist to serve.”

A murmur of approval ran through the assembled nobles.

“Tonight’s prey is special,” Fan Ju continued. “He was once a captain of the Iron Eagle Guard. He served under Bai Qi himself. He survived Changping. He survived the siege of Handan. He is a man who has cheated death more times than any of us can count.”

The nervous noble laughed, a high, brittle sound. “Then he’s overdue, isn’t he?”

Fan Ju smiled, a thin expression that did not reach his eyes. “Indeed. But do not underestimate him. He has already killed one of your companions. Young Master Zhao underestimated him, and Young Master Zhao is now feeding the worms.”

A ripple of unease passed through the circle. The twins exchanged a glance. The heavyset noble, now awake and nursing a cup of wine, scowled.

“The rules are simple,” Fan Ju said. “The prey has been invited to this preserve. He is somewhere within these woods as we speak. You will have from moonrise to moonset to find him and kill him. You may hunt alone or in groups. You may use any weapon you carry. The one who brings me his head will receive the Sky Hunt Tally of jade, and with it, a place in the inner circle of my patronage.”

The words hung in the air like smoke. Zong Ji, watching from his hollow, felt something cold settle into his stomach. Not fear. Something closer to recognition. He had heard speeches like this before, on the eve of battles, when commanders promised glory and plunder to men who were about to die. The nobles thought they were being offered a prize. They did not realize they were being offered a test.

“And the prey?” one of the twins asked. “Does he get a weapon?”

Fan Ju’s smile widened fractionally. “He already has one. He took it from Young Master Zhao’s body. Consider it a sporting gesture. A deer with antlers is more satisfying to hunt than a lamb.”

The nobles laughed. The nervous one laughed loudest of all.

Zong Ji slipped backward out of his hollow, moving with the silence that had been drilled into him during years of night operations. He had learned what he needed to learn. The rules were clear. The hunters were clear. The stakes were clear.

He had until moonrise, which gave him perhaps two hours.

He circled wide around the clearing, staying deep in the treeline, until he reached the eastern approach. One of the guard pairs was stationed here, two men in leather armour with crossbows held loosely at their sides. They were not expecting trouble. The hunt had not yet begun, and they were facing outward, watching for someone trying to enter the clearing from outside. They were not watching for someone who was already inside.

Zong Ji came up behind them like a shadow. The first guard went down with a single strike to the back of the neck, the blade of Zong Ji’s hand finding the precise point where skull met spine. The second guard heard the body fall and began to turn, but Zong Ji’s arm was already around his throat. A brief struggle, a choked gasp, and then stillness.

He dragged both bodies into the underbrush and stripped them of their weapons. Two crossbows. Two quivers of bronze-tipped bolts. Two swords of standard military issue, not as fine as the noble blades but sharp and well-balanced. He took the crossbows and the bolts. He left the swords, too heavy to carry in addition to his father’s blade.

The moon was beginning to rise, a vast pale disc that turned the forest into a maze of silver light and black shadow. Somewhere in the distance, a horn sounded, low and mournful. The hunt had begun.

Zong Ji moved.

He had spent the daylight hours memorizing the terrain. The clearing with the pavilion sat in a natural bowl, surrounded by low hills on three sides and dropping away into a narrow valley on the fourth. The nobles would spread out in a line, he calculated, and sweep through the forest from west to east, driving him toward the valley. It was a classic hunting formation, the same technique used to drive deer into a killing ground.

But he was not a deer.

He found his first position on a rocky outcropping that overlooked the main trail. He strung one of the crossbows, fitted a bolt into the groove, and waited.

The nervous noble came into view first. He was moving alone, which was stupid, and he was carrying a torch, which was stupider still. The torchlight ruined his night vision and made him visible from a hundred paces away. He was holding a sword in his other hand, but he was holding it wrong, the grip too tight, the blade wavering with every step.

Zong Ji let him pass. The nervous one was not a threat. He was bait.

Twenty paces behind him came the heavyset noble in the boar helmet, moving with surprising stealth for a man of his size. He carried no torch, and his sword was held low and steady. He was the real hunter, using the nervous one to draw out the prey.

Zong Ji adjusted his aim and fired.

The bolt took the heavyset noble in the thigh, punching through the meat and lodging in the bone. He screamed and went down, his sword spinning away into the darkness. The nervous noble whirled around, his torch casting wild shadows, his sword flailing at empty air.

“What happened? Where are you? Are you hit?”

The heavyset noble was too busy screaming to answer. Zong Ji reloaded the crossbow, fired a second bolt into the ground three inches from the nervous noble’s foot, and watched as the young man dropped his sword and fled back toward the pavilion, his torch trailing sparks behind him.

He descended from the outcropping and approached the fallen noble. The man had stopped screaming and was now making small, wet sounds of pain, his hands clutched around the bolt in his thigh.

“You’ll live,” Zong Ji said. “If you don’t move.”

He stripped the man of his sword and his dagger and his jade tally. Then he bound his hands with a strip torn from his own robe and left him propped against a tree.

“Who are you?” the noble gasped. “What are you?”

Zong Ji did not answer. He was already moving again, a shadow among shadows, the moon cold on his back.

He took three more hunters in the next hour. One he caught in a snare made from a bent sapling and a length of rope taken from the guards. The sapling snapped upright, yanking the man off his feet and leaving him dangling upside down, screaming obscenities into the darkness. Another he disarmed with a thrown rock that shattered the man’s sword hand. The third he simply ambushed, stepping out of the shadows and driving the hilt of his sword into the man’s temple before he could cry out.

Each time, he took their weapons and their jade tallies. Each time, he left them alive.

By midnight, the hunt had fallen apart. The nobles were no longer moving in a coordinated sweep. They were scattered, some fleeing back toward the pavilion, others huddled in defensive groups, still others blundering through the forest in growing panic. The horn had sounded twice more, but the signals were confused, contradictory. No one was giving orders anymore.

Zong Ji had expected Fan Ju to be different. He had expected the chancellor to be a strategist, to have contingencies, to respond to the disruption with cold precision. But there was no sign of Fan Ju anywhere on the hunting ground. The chancellor, it seemed, did not participate directly in his own games. He watched. He judged. He awarded prizes. But he did not hunt.

That made him more dangerous, not less.

Zong Ji was making his way back toward the pavilion when he found the body.

It was the nervous noble, the one who had fled. He was lying on his back in a small clearing, his eyes open and empty, his throat cut from ear to ear. The wound was clean and precise, a single stroke delivered with professional skill. Not the work of a panicked noble. Not the work of a guard. Someone else had killed this man.

Zong Ji crouched beside the body and examined the wound. The cut was deep, severing the windpipe and the major vessels in a single stroke. The killer had approached from behind, one hand over the mouth to muffle any scream, the other drawing the blade across the throat. Quick. Silent. Efficient.

Military training. Or something very like it.

He looked up and found himself staring at the dark-robed man.

The man stood at the edge of the clearing, perhaps thirty paces away, his dark robes blending into the shadows so perfectly that he might have been a trick of the moonlight. He was not holding a weapon, or at least none that Zong Ji could see. He was simply standing there, watching, the same thin smile on his ascetic face.

“You’re not one of them,” Zong Ji said.

The dark-robed man inclined his head. “No.”

“Then what are you?”

“I am the one who invited you here.”

Zong Ji rose slowly, his hand moving toward his sword. “You sent the message.”

“I sent the invitation. The hunt was Fan Ju’s idea. I merely ensured that the prey would be worthy of the occasion.” The man took a step forward, and the moonlight caught his features more clearly. Late twenties, as Zong Ji had estimated. But the eyes were older, much older, the eyes of a man who had seen too much and felt too little. “My name is Ying Zichu. I am a grandson of King Zhaoxiang.”

The words landed like a physical blow. Zong Ji’s hand closed around his sword hilt. “A prince of the royal blood.”

“A hostage, until recently. I spent ten years in Zhao, a guest of their court. A guest, you understand, who would have been executed the moment relations between our kingdoms deteriorated.” Ying Zichu’s smile did not waver. “I learned many things in Zhao. I learned to wait. I learned to watch. I learned that the line between hostage and hunter is thinner than most people imagine.”

“And now you’re back in Qin.”

“Now I am back in Qin. And I find my grandfather’s court consumed by corruption, his chancellor running a private murder club, and his nobles hunting his own soldiers for sport.” Ying Zichu looked down at the dead noble. “Young Master Wei was a fool, but he did not deserve to die like this. I killed him because he saw something he should not have seen. He saw me speaking to you, earlier today.”

Zong Ji remembered the nervous noble hovering at the edge of Fan Ju’s presence, seeking approval, finding none. “He went to Fan Ju.”

“He tried to. I intercepted him. He was so frightened that he could barely speak. He kept saying that there was a conspirator, that the dark-robed man was working with the prey.” Ying Zichu shook his head. “He was right, of course. But he was also a witness, and I could not afford a witness.”

“Why?” Zong Ji asked. “Why would a prince of Qin help a disgraced soldier?”

Ying Zichu was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was lower, stripped of its ironic detachment. “Because I know what it is to be hunted. I spent ten years in Zhao knowing that any day could be my last. I smiled at banquets while diplomats debated whether to execute me. I bowed to men who had killed my countrymen. I learned to survive by making myself useful, by being invisible, by waiting.” He looked at Zong Ji directly. “You remind me of myself, veteran. You are a man who has been discarded by the kingdom he served, just as I was discarded by my grandfather when he sent me to Zhao as a child. We are both survivors. And survivors should help each other.”

“Or you’re using me,” Zong Ji said. “The way Fan Ju uses the nobles.”

“Of course I’m using you.” Ying Zichu’s smile returned, sharper now. “Fan Ju is my enemy. He opposes my father’s claim to the throne. He supports my uncle, Prince Ji, who is weak and easily manipulated. If I can expose Fan Ju’s crimes, if I can prove to my grandfather that his chancellor is running a murder club under the royal seal, then Fan Ju falls. And my father rises.”

“And I’m your proof.”

“You are the weapon I will use to dismantle his little kingdom of killers.” Ying Zichu reached into his robes and withdrew a small object, which he tossed to Zong Ji. It was another jade tally, but this one was different from the others. It was carved with the royal emblem of Qin, the same emblem that appeared on the boundary markers of the hunting preserve. “That is my personal seal. It will grant you access to areas that even Fan Ju cannot enter. In three days, there will be a private audience at the palace. My grandfather will be there, and Fan Ju, and the entire council of ministers. I want you to be there too.”

“To do what?”

“To testify. To tell the king what you have seen. To present the tallies you have taken from the nobles. To name Fan Ju as the patron of the Sky Hunt Club.” Ying Zichu’s eyes glittered in the moonlight. “The king loved Bai Qi once. He ordered his death because Fan Ju convinced him it was necessary. If the king learns that Fan Ju has been mocking Bai Qi’s memory, turning his execution site into a playground for murderers, he will be furious. And a furious king is a dangerous thing.”

Zong Ji turned the jade tally over in his hand. It was heavier than the others, warmer, as if it had been carried close to the body for a long time. “And what do you get from this?”

“I get justice,” Ying Zichu said. “I get revenge for ten years of fear and humiliation. I get a future where my father is heir and I am no longer a hostage to anyone.” He paused. “And you get your life back. Your rank, your honour, your place in the kingdom. Is that not worth a little risk?”

Zong Ji looked at the dead noble at his feet. He looked at the jade tally in his hand. He looked at the prince who had killed a man to protect a secret and now offered salvation with a smile.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

Ying Zichu nodded, as if he had expected nothing else. “Don’t think too long. The hunt is still in progress, and Fan Ju is not a patient man. He will send his guards to finish what the nobles could not.” He stepped backward into the shadows. “I will find you again, veteran. At dawn, if you survive that long.”

And then he was gone, as silently as he had appeared, leaving Zong Ji alone with the body and the moon and the weight of a prince’s promise.

Zong Ji stood motionless for a long time after Ying Zichu departed. The forest had gone quiet again, the sounds of the hunt fading into the distance. Somewhere an owl called. Somewhere a wounded man groaned. But here, in this small clearing, there was only silence and the slow cooling of a dead man’s blood.

He knelt and closed the nervous noble’s eyes. The boy could not have been more than twenty. He had probably joined the Sky Hunt Club because he wanted to belong, because the older nobles had mocked him until he proved his cruelty, because cruelty was the currency of their world and he had been born too soft to spend it easily.

And now he was dead, killed not by the prey he had been hunting but by a prince who had deemed him inconvenient.

Zong Ji searched the body, found the boy’s jade tally, and added it to the collection in his pouch. Eleven tallies now, each one a name, each one a crime. He had taken them from the nobles he had ambushed, from the ones he had left tied to trees and dangling from snares. Evidence. Ying Zichu was right about that much. The tallies were proof of membership in a society that had no official existence.

But Ying Zichu was also wrong about something. The prince thought he was using Zong Ji. He thought the veteran was a tool, a weapon to be aimed at Fan Ju and discarded when the job was done. He did not understand that Zong Ji had spent three years being used by powerful men, three years paying the price for loyalties that had been deemed inconvenient. He was done being anyone’s tool.

He tucked the prince’s jade tally into a separate pouch, apart from the others. Evidence of a different kind.

Then he rose and continued toward the pavilion.

The clearing was mostly empty when he arrived. The servants had fled. The silk pavilions stood abandoned, their banners drooping in the windless night. The stone altar still held the bronze suicide sword, its blade gleaming dully in the moonlight. And seated on Fan Ju’s mother-of-pearl chair, his legs crossed and his hands folded in his lap, was the chancellor himself.

He was alone.

Zong Ji stopped at the edge of the clearing. His instincts screamed trap, but there was no sign of guards, no sign of nobles, no sign of anyone except the thin old man in the ornate chair.

“I wondered when you would arrive,” Fan Ju said. “Come closer. I won’t bite.”

Zong Ji did not move. “Where are your guards?”

“Dead or fled, I imagine. You’ve been quite effective tonight. My compliments.” Fan Ju’s voice was calm, almost pleasant, the voice of a man discussing the weather. “I underestimated you. I assumed that a disgraced soldier would be desperate, frightened, easy prey. I should have remembered that Bai Qi did not tolerate weakness in his officers.”

“You knew Bai Qi.”

“I knew him very well. I was the one who convinced the king to kill him, after all.” Fan Ju smiled, and there was no humour in it. “Do you want to know why? Truly? Not the official reasons, not the political justifications, but the real reason?”

Zong Ji said nothing.

“Because he was boring,” Fan Ju said. “Bai Qi believed in things. Loyalty, honour, duty, the glory of Qin. He believed that a man’s worth was measured by his service to the kingdom. He was so tediously earnest. He never understood that the world is not a battlefield. It is a game. And the only rule that matters is that the winner writes the history.”

“You killed him because he was boring.”

“I killed him because he was dangerous. Because men who believe in things are always dangerous. They cannot be bought or bribed or reasoned with. They will always choose their principles over their survival.” Fan Ju leaned forward slightly. “You’re the same way, aren’t you? You could have run. You could have disappeared into the mountains. But you didn’t. You came here, to this place, to fight men you could never defeat. Why?”

“Because someone had to,” Zong Ji said.

Fan Ju laughed, a dry, rustling sound. “Exactly what Bai Qi would have said. He stood right there, you know. On that very spot. The king’s messenger offered him the sword, and he took it, and he said ‘I have killed too many men to fear death.’ And then he fell on the blade.” The chancellor shook his head. “So theatrical. So pointless. He could have fled to Chu. They would have made him a general. He could have lived.”

“He chose not to betray his kingdom.”

“He chose to die for a kingdom that had already betrayed him.” Fan Ju’s eyes were cold and glittering. “And you will do the same. You will fight and you will kill and you will die, and in the end, nothing will change. The nobles will find a new game. I will find a new way to control them. The king will find a new favourite to replace the old one. And Bai Qi’s ghost will still haunt this pavilion, waiting for a justice that will never come.”

Zong Ji drew his father’s sword. The bronze blade caught the moonlight, and for a moment, the clearing was filled with a pale, cold radiance.

“You talk too much,” he said.

Fan Ju smiled again. “I’ve been told that before.” He rose from the chair, moving with the careful dignity of old age. “But I didn’t stay here to fight you, veteran. I stayed here to give you a message.”

“What message?”

“The prince who sent you here — Ying Zichu — do you know what he wants? Truly?” Fan Ju walked toward the pavilion, his silk robes whispering against the grass. “He wants to be king. Not his father. Himself. He spent ten years in Zhao learning patience and cruelty, and he has returned to Qin with ambitions that make my little hunt look like a children’s game. He is using you to destroy me. And when I am gone, he will use someone else to destroy his uncle. And his father. And anyone else who stands between him and the throne.”

“And I should believe you?”

“Believe whatever you like. But consider this.” Fan Ju stopped at the foot of the pavilion steps. “Ying Zichu told you he killed Young Master Wei because the boy saw him speaking to you. But did you see the wound on the boy’s throat? That was not a soldier’s cut. That was an assassin’s cut. Ying Zichu did not learn that skill in a Zhao palace. He learned it in the employ of someone who has been eliminating obstacles for him for years. Someone who has been training him to be king.”

“Who?”

Fan Ju turned to face him, and his expression was no longer sardonic. It was serious, almost urgent.

“Ask him,” the chancellor said. “Ask him who taught him to kill. Ask him who arranged for him to return from Zhao. Ask him who has been whispering in the king’s ear, convincing the old man that his grandson is loyal and trustworthy and worthy of favour.” He paused. “Ask him who his real patron is.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m a politician. Of course I’m lying. But I’m also telling the truth.” Fan Ju began to climb the pavilion steps. “You have three days until the audience. Use them wisely. Find out who Ying Zichu really serves. And when you do, ask yourself whether the man who sent you to kill me is any better than the man he sent you to kill.”

He disappeared into the darkness of the pavilion, and a moment later, Zong Ji heard the soft sound of a hidden door opening and closing. A tunnel. The chancellor had planned his escape long before the hunt began.

He stood alone in the moonlit clearing, surrounded by abandoned pavilions and empty chairs and the bronze sword on the altar, and he thought about what Fan Ju had said.

Ying Zichu. A prince who had learned to kill like an assassin. A prince who had returned from exile with ambitions of the throne. A prince who had chosen a disgraced soldier as his weapon.

And someone else. Someone behind the prince. Someone who had trained him, protected him, guided him.

Who?

The question followed him as he left the pavilion and melted back into the forest. It followed him as he found a safe place to rest, a hollow beneath the roots of an ancient oak. It followed him into an uneasy sleep, where he dreamed of wolf masks and jade tallies and a dark-robed man whose smile never reached his eyes.

And when he woke at dawn, the question was still there, waiting for an answer.