“No,” Hunter said.
“Nobody is walking in and asking.”
Tao lowered his hand, crushed.
Hunter sat back down on his rock.
Three faces turned toward him in the dark, waiting for their master’s wisdom, and it came to him with total clarity that there was nobody else.
No old leader, no manager, no department he could escalate to.
If he didn’t make the plan, Tao would try to sell the village a turnip.
Two days ago, he thought, I was adjusting claims.
My biggest decision was which microwave meal to eat.
Now he was about to plan a raid, and the worst of it was that some cold, organized part of him already knew how.
“Here’s what we’re actually going to do,” he said.
They snapped upright.
“Tao, you go in first, on your own.
Get inside quietly, find a storage shed or a barn near the middle of the village, and set it on fire.
Not a house, but something that’ll burn slow and throw a lot of smoke.”
Tao’s eyes went wide.
For a second there was plain fear in them, and then he swallowed it.
“Yes, Master.”
“While the men are fighting the fire, you two go in.” He turned to Lex and Xuan.
“Round up the old people, the women and the children, and bring them to the square where everyone can see them.” He heard Lex’s pulse jump, and made himself keep going.
“Don’t hurt anybody.
You only need them to believe you will.”
Is that enough, he wondered, or is that just the version I can live with?
If anyone looks like he’s about to play the hero, you whistle three times, short.
Then the men will come back from the fire and see their families in the square, and the three of you, and me.” He looked at each of them in turn.
“And they’ll give up without anyone bleeding, because no amount of grain is worth what they’d be risking.”
He said it as a fact, because he needed it to be one.
“Does everybody understand what they’re doing?”
“Yes, Master!” They sounded almost relieved, the way people do when someone else has finally made the decision.
“Good.
Now get some rest, all of you.”
He walked off along the ridge until the hollow was a glow behind him, then sat down in the dark with his head in his hands.
It ached, dull and deep behind the eyes, which seemed unfair for someone who’d been rebuilt from the bones up.
[SYSTEM] THAT’S STRESS!
CULTIVATION FIXES BODIES, NOT FEELINGS
[SYSTEM] BUT GREAT PLAN!
MINIMAL VIOLENCE, MAXIMUM LEVERAGE, HOSTAGES WITHOUT TECHNICALLY TAKING HOSTAGES.
VERY EFFICIENT
Stop congratulating me for planning to rob farmers.
[SYSTEM] “ROB” IS A STRONG WORD.
THEY’RE A MISSION OBJECTIVE
They’re people with families.
It came out sharper than he’d meant, even in his own head.
They’re trying to make rent, same as everyone.
There was a pause, long enough that he wondered if he’d hurt its feelings, if it had any.
[SYSTEM] YOU’RE TAKING THIS VERY PERSONALLY.
THAT WILL MAKE IT HARDER
Good, it should be hard.
[SYSTEM] BUT YOU’RE STILL DOING IT
Refuse, and the window said he died.
Run, and the forest had that thing in the thorns in it and who knew what else.
If it came down to his life or a stranger’s, he already knew which one he’d pick.
He’d picked it on a hillside the night before, with a sword in his hands.
Footsteps came along the ridge.
He knew who it was before he looked.
Lex’s heartbeat was as familiar now as a coworker’s walk.
“Master,” Lex said, stopping a respectful distance away and twisting his hands.
“Forgive me, there’s one thing.
I should have said it before.”
Hunter waved for him to go on.
“The village has a guard, old Shuan.
He wasn’t at the gate tonight, he’ll have been at the wine, but he’s always there in the afternoons.
He’s no fighter, Master.”
Lex hesitated before the rest.
“He’s just old and stubborn, and he won’t run.”
Hunter looked down at the scatter of lamps below them.
One of them, near the gate, was probably Shuan’s.
A man who wouldn’t run, standing in the one place Tao had to walk through.
Someone was going to get hurt.
He could feel it the way he’d once felt a claim going bad before the paperwork caught up.
The right thing, the only sane thing, was to call it off.
“Tell Tao to go around him,” Hunter said.