The Beggar Who Devoured Heaven

Chapter 10: The Road Out

Ren Kai had a plan for the Sect Master. It was a very short plan. The plan was: run.

"Come here, boy," said Sect Master Lu again. He did not shout. He did not need to. The fire behind him leaned toward his voice like a crowd leaning toward a speaker. "I am a patient man. My fire is not."

Do not touch him, said Old Crow, fast and low. Do not eat him. He is Saint Gate. His fire is a river, and you are a teacup.

"Then what do I do?"

Be a thief. Old Crow sounded almost happy. Take what you can and leave before anyone counts.

Boy, said Madam Du crisply. The paper bag the shopkeeper gave you. Throw it on the fire.

"The herbs? Those are for Ren Lan."

Cheap cough herbs, mostly smoke moss. Useless as medicine, wonderful in a fire.

Ren Kai pulled out the little paper bag. The Sect Master raised one eyebrow.

"A bag of herbs," he said. "Is that your weapon?"

Ren Kai threw it into the nearest burning house.

WHUMP.

Thick green smoke burst out like a giant's breath. It rolled across the road in one blink and swallowed everything. Ren Kai could not see his own feet.

"Stay close," he whispered to Ren Lan. He grabbed her hand and ran.

Behind them, a roar of fire cut through the smoke. The air burned. The wall of a shack beside him turned to ash in one heartbeat. Ren Kai threw himself flat, dragging Ren Lan down with him, and felt the heat pass over his back like a giant tongue.

LEFT! shouted Sergeant Pan. KNEES UP! DO NOT CRAWL LIKE A WORM!

"I am crawling like a worm!"

YOU ARE A VERY SAD WORM!

A black hole opened in the ground ahead, half hidden under a burnt noodle stall. It was an old storm drain, narrow and stinking. Ren Kai pushed Ren Lan in first and followed her, headfirst.

Above them, the Sect Master's voice drifted down, calm and cold.

"Run, little rat. Every road in the Ninefold Empire belongs to someone who answers to me."

Then the burning world was gone, and there was only darkness, dripping water and the smell of old rubbish.

They crawled for a very long time.

"Big Brother," Ren Lan whispered in the dark. "Is this the part where you are brave?"

"No. This is the part where we smell bad."

"That is also a story."

He laughed once, and the sound echoed down the tunnel like a bark.

Ren Lan coughed all the way. At first it was small. Then it grew wet and deep. When Ren Kai finally saw gray light at the end of the tunnel, she was shaking in his arms, and he could feel her chest rattling like a box of loose stones.

They came out in a ditch outside the city wall, beside a muddy river. It was almost dawn. The sky was pale pink. Behind them, black smoke rose over Azure City like a pillar, and the Gutters were gone.

Ren Lan coughed again. A small, bright red spot appeared on her sleeve.

"It is nothing," she said at once.

"It is not nothing."

"It is a little bit of something."

Ren Kai laid her on the grass and held her hand. He had saved one last piece of Moonroot, wrapped in a cloth inside his shirt. His hands were shaking so hard that he could not unfold it. Madam Du told him what to do. Chew it. Then give her the juice. Do not waste the root. It costs more than your whole street. He chewed. It tasted like wet bark and old socks. He put the bitter juice to her lips.

She made a terrible face. "Worse than the blue jars."

"Good medicine always does."

She smiled, with her eyes closed. In a few minutes, her breath grew softer. Ren Kai let out a long, shaky breath of his own.

Then he turned and looked back at the city.

On the top of the city wall, far away, a tiny white shape stood alone against the smoke.

It did not move. It did not wave. It only watched.

Dawn had come. The three days were over. And Bai Ming had his answer.

Ren Kai pulled up Ren Lan's collar and read the numbers between her shoulder blades.

980.

That is only one day, said Old Crow, very softly. He did not punish her. He is saving it for something bigger.

"That is worse," said Ren Kai.

Yes, said Old Crow. It is.

They walked for three days.

They kept off the main road, slept in barns, and drank from streams. Ren Kai carried Ren Lan on his back until his shoulders bled. His own stomach screamed from hunger. Old Crow was strangely happy about that. Good, he kept saying. Hungry is good. Hungry is alive.

At night, Ren Lan told him jokes to keep him awake. They were terrible. He laughed anyway.

Inside his head, the Guests argued the whole way. Sergeant Pan said they should march faster. Madam Du said they should stop and drink tea. Old Crow said they should both be quiet. Nobody listened to Old Crow.

Posters were nailed to every post and gate. WANTED. A BOY WITH A MOUTH ON HIS CHEST. FIVE HUNDRED GOLD. Someone had drawn his face. It was an ugly face, with a huge nose.

"That is not my nose," Ren Kai said.

It is a little bit your nose, said Old Crow.

On the second evening, hooves sounded behind them. Ren Kai threw himself and Ren Lan into a ditch full of cold weeds. Six Azure Peak riders trotted past, so close that he could smell the horses.

Ren Lan's chest began to tickle. He saw it in her eyes. He pressed his hand over her mouth, as gently as he could, and she coughed into his palm until her whole body shook. The last rider slowed. His horse stopped, right above them.

Do not breathe, whispered Old Crow.

A long moment passed. Then the rider spat into the weeds, said something rude about the road, and rode away. Ren Kai stayed flat in the mud until his heart stopped hammering, and Ren Lan whispered into his hand, "That was the part where you were brave."

On the fourth night, they reached a small crossroads market. Ren Lan was burning with fever now, too weak to walk. She had not eaten in two days, and she needed a hot meal, and Ren Kai had no money at all. The Sect had burned his coat, and with it the silver.

The crossroads market smelled of smoke, onions and frying oil. Hunger twisted in his stomach so hard that he almost fell. He kept walking.

At the end of the market, an old farmer was packing up his cart. On the back lay a basket of steamed buns, still warm.

Boy, said Old Crow. Do not.

"She is sick."

I know. But you are a terrible thief.

"I will be a good one tonight."

Walk slowly. Look relaxed. Do not look at the buns.

Ren Kai walked slowly. He looked relaxed. He looked at the buns the whole time. When the farmer turned to pick up a sack, he took one bun, then another, and slid them into his shirt.

The farmer did not turn around.

That, said Old Crow, in a voice full of wonder, was almost not terrible.

Ren Kai grinned. He walked back toward the dark road, where Ren Lan was waiting under a tree. With two warm buns inside his shirt, he felt, for one small moment, like a very good brother.

Then something cold touched the side of his neck.

It was the flat of a sword, thin and perfectly clean. A lantern clicked open somewhere behind him. A young woman's voice spoke, quiet and flat and very, very sure.

"Thief."