Chapter 17: The Last Duel

Bao brought fourteen men. Two lieutenants, ten soldiers, and two archers. They rode up the hill in formation, white and bronze banners snapping in the evening wind.

An Ink Sect disciple standing near the gate watched them approach. He did not raise an alarm. He simply sighed.

"The Iron Bone survivors again," he said to no one in particular. "They never learn, but they never fully go away either."

The pilgrims scattered. Some ran down the hill. Others pressed against the temple walls, unwilling to miss what came next. A few had the sense to go inside.

Hao Min stood in the center of the road. He held no weapon. His hands were at his sides, coated with rust paste. The Wide Circle covered the ground around him, hidden under a thin layer of dust.

Bao reined his horse at the edge of the circle. He looked down at Hao Min with a mixture of hatred and fear. The fear was new. Hao Min liked it.

"You ran all the way to the heretic's gate," Bao said. "Did you think he would save you?"

"I did not come to be saved."

"Then why come?"

"To finish this where it started."

Bao dismounted. Fourteen men dismounted with him. They drew their swords. The blades had drawn blood before. They would answer to the circle.

"Kill him," Bao said.

The soldiers charged.

Hao Min knelt and pressed both palms to the earth.

The Wide Circle flared.

This time it was not a sound. It was a pressure, like the air itself becoming heavy. For a moment the light took on that familiar rust-colored tint, the one Hao Min had not seen in five years. The smell of metal returned, sharp and almost sweet, like blood but not blood.

The soldiers' swords turned red. Their spearheads flaked. The bronze scales on their armor fell away like autumn leaves. The archers' arrowheads dissolved before they could loose them.

The charge collapsed into confusion. Men looked at their hands, at their ruined weapons, at the red dust settling on their boots. One soldier dropped to his knees and tried to gather the flakes of his sword, as if he could reassemble it through will alone. Another backed away, making signs against evil with his fingers.

A horse reared, frightened by the smell of rust. Its rider fell. The man cursed and scrambled up, then stopped when he saw that his sword belt had crumbled and his scabbard hung in red tatters.

Bao alone kept his sword. He had not entered the circle. He stood at the edge, staring.

"What are you?" he whispered.

"A man with one trick," Hao Min said. "But it is a good trick."

He stood and walked toward Bao. His ribs still ached. His hands were empty. The rust paste was almost gone.

Bao raised the blade Hao Min had carried for twelve years, which had drawn his blood in a dozen skirmishes and would answer to the circle.

Hao Min stepped inside Bao's range. Bao struck. Hao Min did not block. He caught the blade with both hands, palms flat against the steel.

The sword screamed.

Not literally. But Hao Min felt it. The metal that had known his blood for so long recognized him. The rust started at his touch and raced up the blade. The edge crumbled. The fuller split. The bronze guard turned to powder.

Bao held the hilt of a sword that no longer existed.

Hao Min headbutted him. Bao fell.

The soldiers watched their commander fall. They looked at their ruined weapons. Then, one by one, they backed away.

"Leave," Hao Min said. "Tell the Iron Bone Sect that Rust-Eaten Hao is not erased. Tell them he is waiting at the Nameless Hills. Tell them to send better men next time."

They ran.

Bao lay on the ground, blood running from his nose, his empty sword hilt still clutched in his hand. Hao Min looked down at him.

"You wanted my sword," Hao Min said. "Now you have what is left of it."

He turned and walked toward the temple gate.

The sun was setting behind the hills. The air smelled of rust and ink. Hao Min's whole body hurt. But he was alive. He had faced fourteen men and a lieutenant and he had won.

Not because he was stronger. Because he had chosen the ground.

At the gate, a disciple stood with a brush in his hand. It was not Tao. This one was older, with calm eyes.

"The founder will see you," the disciple said.

Hao Min stopped. "I did not come to be seen."

"He knows. He is waiting anyway."

Hao Min looked past the disciple. Ti Mo was no longer sleeping against the wall. He stood in the courtyard, brush in hand, looking toward the gate.

Their eyes met.

Hao Min felt it immediately. The warmth in his chest, the trace of the Rust Circle he had carried for five years, flared into something like recognition. It was not pain. It was not pleasure. It was the feeling of a bell answering a bell, of one circle completing another across distance and time.

Ti Mo's head tilted slightly. His brush hand paused in mid-air.

No one else moved. No one else seemed to feel anything. The disciples went about their business. The pilgrims whispered. The wind rustled the red leaves of the trees.

But between Hao Min and Ti Mo, something passed.

A sentence written years ago, read aloud by a stranger.