Despite the road west being less than what Lao Bingyi felt it should be, there were still shelters kept up at regular intervals. On the main roads where Chih often traveled, the shelters could be large and accommodating with a regular rotation of food vendors and merchants to keep pilgrims well supplied, but here, it turned out to be just a shed open on one side with directions to a nearby spring carved into a post in front.

“Almost Brilliant and I can go fetch back some water,” Chih offered, and Lao Bingyi, who Chih suspected took over management of every endeavor in which she was involved, nodded.

“Thank you, cleric, but take one of the girls with you. No one should wander alone in the riverlands.”

“I’ll sweep out the shelter,” Sang said, gathering up a handful of fallen branches to create a makeshift broom. “We can get this place snug before—”

While still speaking, she had stepped inside the shed, and then she uttered a garbled scream, high and frightened.

Chih spun around as if they had been hauled by a rope, Almost Brilliant squawking with offense and going aloft, but the others were all faster, crowding ahead of Chih to see what Sang had discovered.

“Oh,” said Lao Bingyi very softly, and Khanh swore, low and savage. Wei Jintai reached for Sang, gathering her up into the wings of her voluminous silk sleeves, but her eyes were hard and sharp. It was only then that Chih could see the body hung up in the back of the shed, dangling like a gutted hare from the rafters with a white handprint on his chest.

Chapter Three

Sang stumbled from the shed with a gasping sob, as if someone had struck her very hard in the chest, and Wei Jintai followed her, her head still turned towards the shed with a predator’s inquisitiveness. Chih, against the rapid drum of their heart, stepped forward to join Lao Bingyi and Khanh.

“The Hollow Hand,” Khanh said, his voice remarkably calm, and Lao Bingyi scowled.

“Of course not. The Hollow Hand are dead. Poor imitators. Idiots stealing a monster’s mask to make themselves feel worthy. What a sorry mess this is, and this poor young man.”

Chih had seen dead bodies before, of course they had. However, death, in their experience, was an old person made as comfortable as they could be, or a cry of anguish during some terrible accident. Sometimes, it was a public execution, handled with pomp and circumstance, the condemned with a white hood over their face so you could never be certain of who it was. Death had a place in their world, even if it was a tragic or regrettable one.