Chapter 15: The Rust Road

They walked faster after Tao's warning. The Rust Road helped. The orange dirt seemed firmer under Hao Min's feet. The air tasted of metal and old rain.

"The road likes you," Sao said.

"Roads do not like people."

"This one does. Watch."

She kicked a stone off the path. It rolled back onto the road within three breaths, as if the ground had tilted.

Hao Min frowned. "The Rust Circle left a scar. The scar remembers."

"Is that dangerous?"

"Everything is dangerous." He did not stop walking. "But this danger is on my side."

They passed a village where the well water ran orange. The villagers had learned to drink from rain barrels instead. An old woman sitting in a doorway called out to Hao Min.

"You are going to see the brush man," she said.

"I am going south."

"That is the same thing." She held out a cup of clean water. "Drink. The road takes moisture from travelers. It is greedy."

Hao Min drank. The water was cold and tasted of nothing.

"Did the brush man pass here?" he asked.

"Once. Years ago. He sat where you are standing and complained about the tea. Then he drew a circle in the dirt and the well turned orange." The old woman smiled, showing gaps in her teeth. "We did not mind. The rust keeps the bandits away."

They walked on. Sao looked back at the village.

"He changed them," she said.

"He changed everything." Hao Min touched his chest. The warmth was steady now, like a second heartbeat. "And he does not even remember most of it."

"How do you know?"

"Because men that powerful do not remember the small effects. They draw a circle and move on. The rest of us live in the rust."

On the second day they heard horses behind them. Hao Min did not look back. He knew the sound of Iron Bone cavalry. Eight riders, two officers, just as Tao had said.

"Run?" Sao asked.

"No." Hao Min pointed to a bend in the road where the orange dirt was widest. "There. Help me clear the stones."

They worked quickly. Hao Min drew a Wide Circle in the exposed earth, using all the rust paste he had left. The circle was large, almost ten paces across. Sao helped him hide it with dry leaves and broken bark.

"Will it work on horses?" she asked.

"Horses do not carry blood-touched metal. Their riders do."

"What if they shoot arrows?"

"Arrows have metal heads. If they have drawn blood, they will rust. If they have not, we deal with them as they come."

They waited in the trees beside the road. Hao Min's heart was calm. This was not like the duel with Bao. There, he had been measured and found wanting. Here, he had chosen the ground.

The riders came around the bend. They wore Iron Bone white and bronze. Their spearheads gleamed and their swords hung at their sides. The two officers rode in the center, blue sashes marking their rank.

Hao Min let the first rider enter the circle.

Then he stepped out of the trees and stamped his foot on the edge of the hidden shape.

"Stop," he said.

The lead rider laughed and lowered his spear. The others spread out behind him. They were inside the circle now. All eight of them.

Hao Min knelt and pressed both palms into the dirt.

The circle flared.

Not with light. With a sound like old metal groaning. The spearheads turned red. The swords rusted in their scabbards. The bronze fittings on the armor crumbled. The riders cried out as their weapons became dead weight.

One officer drew a blade anyway. It snapped in his hand.

"Dismount," Hao Min said. "Walk away. Your weapons are gone. Your pride will heal faster than your throats if you stay."

The lead rider spat. "You are a dead man, Hao Min."

"I have been a dead man for five years. You are not the one to make it final."

The riders looked at each other. They were trained soldiers, not fanatics. Without weapons, they were just men on horses.

They rode away. Slowly, without looking back.

Sao came out of the trees. "They will return with more."

"I know." Hao Min looked at his empty rust pouch. "I need more rust."

"There is plenty on the road."

"Not enough. Not for what comes next." He looked south, toward the Nameless Hills. "We are close now. The temple will have what I need."

"Will they give it to you?"

"No. But they will not stop me from taking it."

They collected more rust from the roadside as they continued. The land here was thick with it, orange and red and brown layered like sedimentary stone. Hao Min's pouch grew heavy.

"There is too much," Sao said. "More than we can carry."

"Then we leave what we cannot use. The road will provide what we need when we need it."

"You trust the road now?"

"I trust that decay is abundant." Hao Min looked at the rust-colored trees. "Everything here is dying beautifully. That is a kind of providence."

That night they camped in a hollow where the wind could not reach. Hao Min practiced the Wide Circle in the dirt, making it larger each time. By moonrise he could draw a circle ten paces across in the time it took to count thirty.

"Faster," Sao said.

"It cannot be faster and remain accurate."

"Then practice until accuracy becomes speed."

Hao Min looked at her. "You are a harsh teacher."

"I am a thief. Harshness keeps me alive." She lay down and pulled her blanket over her shoulders. "Practice. I will watch for riders."

He practiced until his hand cramped. Then he slept, and dreamed of circles within circles, all of them opening like eyes.