“Oh, don’t worry about me,” he said easily. “Just stepping off to do what needs to be done, you know.”

“Ah, don’t worry about him,” called Lao Bingyi from the front. “He’s tough as old leather. If they stab him, they’ll only lose their swords in his gut.”

Chih smiled because they knew that Lao Bingyi and Khanh meant to be comforting, but when they looked back a little later, Khanh was gone again. This time they didn’t say anything, and when they counted to a hundred and looked back, he was walking behind them as easily as if he never missed a stride.

A short time after noon, the ground took a much steeper slope, and Chih could hear the rushing of the river below.

“That’s the Huan River,” Lao Bingyi said with satisfaction. “When it was young and wild, it carved this valley from the earth in four days.”

The road switched back and forth, attempting to alleviate the steepness of the descent, and after a turn that looked like any other, they could see down on the river itself, broad and shining, beaded on either side by houses of reddish stone and docks painted pale green and white. On the near bank, there was a large hall built out onto the water, and Lao Bingyi nodded with happiness.

“Home,” she said with pleasure. “Girls. Cleric. Welcome to Betony Docks.”

It was only when they descended to the valley floor that they heard the cries, shouts of fury and the clang of swords. From where they stood on the road, they could see a roil of people between the houses and the clamor of something that could only be violence.

Even bad imitations can get up the courage to attack, Chih thought numbly. Even cowards can swing swords …

With a furious cry, Lao Bingyi shrugged off her pack, dropping it to the road. She flew into the fray, each stride seeming to cover more distance until her feet barely touched the ground at all, and hot on her heels was Wei Jintai, her sword drawn and her robes fluttering after her.

Khanh clapped both Chih and Sang on the shoulders.

“You two should stay out here,” he said. “That’s going to be a mess, isn’t it?”

He smiled at them both, and Chih’s vision doubled for a moment as they tried to see two things (or perhaps three or four things) at once. Then he was gone, not with the flashing quick steps that Lao Bingyi and Wei Jintai had employed but with the long lope of a wolf that knows to pace himself for a hunt.

“We can’t just stay out here,” Sang said indignantly, but Chih was already shaking their head.

“If those people came prepared to fight the likes of Lao Bingyi and Mac Khanh, I sincerely doubt we’re even going to make them pause,” they said, and then they considered.