The Beggar Who Devoured Heaven

Chapter 9: Smoke Over the Slums

At dusk, Ren Kai finally looked at the number.

He lifted the edge of Ren Lan's shirt while she slept. The golden marks glowed softly between her shoulder blades.

981.

That morning it had read 989. His one bite of Elder Huo had cost eight days.

Eight days for one old man's fire, said Old Crow quietly. Heaven keeps good accounts.

"Then I will not eat again." Ren Kai pulled the shirt down. "Not until I have to."

That will be tonight, boy.

Ren Kai knew it. And at dawn, Bai Ming would come back for his answer. He woke Ren Lan with a gentle shake. "Get up. We are leaving."

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. "Is this about the story with the shoe?"

"It is about the end of the story. Pack only what you can carry."

She looked at his face for a long moment. Then she did not ask another question, and that frightened him more than anything that day. She crawled to the corner, lifted a loose brick, and took out a small cloth bundle. Inside lay two pieces of a broken clay bowl.

Ren Kai stared. "You kept that?"

"It was your only bowl. You cried for an hour." She wrapped the pieces again. "I am not leaving it for the fire."

His throat hurt. He picked her up, blanket and all, and she weighed almost nothing.

The evening bell rang over Azure City.

Then the first arrow hit the roof.

It was an arrow of fire. It came whistling out of the dark and landed on the thatch above them with a soft whump. Another followed, then ten, then a hundred. Through the holes in the roof, the sky turned orange.

They are early again, said Old Crow. These sect people have no manners.

MOVE, MOVE, MOVE! roared Sergeant Pan.

Ren Kai kicked open the door and ran.

The Gutters were burning. Smoke rolled down every lane in thick black rivers. Families ran barefoot with babies in their arms. A woman screamed for a lost goat. Someone's whole shack fell in with a crash, and sparks rose like angry fireflies.

"Big Brother," Ren Lan coughed into his neck. "Are those people burning because of us?"

"No," said Ren Kai. "They are burning because of them."

He said it firmly. He did not feel firm at all.

At the corner of Rope Alley, a huge shape stumbled out of the smoke and nearly ran into him. It was Gao the Iron, with a child under each arm. His face was black with soot. He saw Ren Kai and froze.

"Demon," Gao whispered.

"Please move."

Gao looked at the children, then at the burning street. "...The east lane is blocked. Go through the old canal. They have not found it yet." He swallowed. "I did not say this."

"I did not hear it," said Ren Kai.

Interesting, murmured Old Crow. He has a heart under all that mud.

The dry canal ran along the edge of the Gutters like a long, empty grave. Ren Kai slid down the bank, still holding his sister. The air was cooler here. The roar of the fire grew softer. For one moment, he thought they might make it.

Then a lantern lit up the far end of the canal.

Seven Azure Peak disciples stood there in blue and black robes. In front stood a thin man with a long scar down his cheek and a sword already in his hand.

"Captain Wen," whispered Old Crow, in a voice with no jokes in it. "Spark Gate, peak level. He is the one who burns villages for the Sect."

"Hand over the coin," said Captain Wen. "Or the girl burns with the rest."

Ren Kai set Ren Lan down behind him. She grabbed his sleeve with both hands.

"Stay here," he said. "Do not look."

"I will look if I want to," she said, and her voice shook.

Ren Kai almost smiled. He turned. The hunger inside him had been growing for two full days, and now it filled his whole body like a lit furnace. His stomach was a cave. The black mouth on his chest burned through his shirt, and all nine teeth shone.

"I have no coin," he said. "Only a very bad temper."

Captain Wen laughed. "Kill the boy."

The disciples rushed in. Ren Kai dodged the first sword and caught the second blade with his bare hand. Ting. The Iron Bell Skin was almost gone, but it held for one breath. He slammed his palm into a boy's chest. Gray light poured into him, and the disciple fell, crying, with his strength gone. Two more went down the same way. The others stopped and stared.

"Cowards," said Captain Wen. He stepped forward himself. His sword burst into blue sparks.

It was fast. Ren Kai felt it cut across his shoulder, hot and wet. He cried out. A second cut opened his leg. Captain Wen moved like a man who had killed many times, and he did not waste anything.

BEHIND YOU! shouted Sergeant Pan.

A sword whistled toward Ren Kai's back. He turned, and in that moment, Captain Wen darted around him toward the small figure in the blanket.

"No!" Ren Kai screamed.

He did not decide anything. The great dark thing inside him simply opened wide.

He seized Captain Wen's wrist.

The golden mouth did not take a little this time. It took everything. Blue light poured out of the Captain's body, his fire, his sword art, his years, his breath, all of it, in one long river. His eyes went wide. His mouth made a small sound, like a man who has stepped on a stair that is not there.

Then he was empty, and he fell on the stones, and he did not get up.

The disciples ran.

Ren Kai stood with his hand still raised. Silence filled the canal. Behind him, Ren Lan was not looking at the body. She was looking at her brother.

"Is he...?" she whispered.

"Yes."

She did not say anything. She only came and took his bloody hand in both of hers.

A first one is always hard, said Old Crow gently. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.

He will not speak, said Madam Du, almost kindly. Some of them never do. He is only there, in the dark, like a stone.

Ren Kai felt it. A new weight, cold and still, sitting somewhere deep inside him. Not a voice. Just a presence. It made his skin crawl.

"We go," he said. His own voice sounded strange. "Now."

They climbed the far bank. At the top, the air was thick with smoke, and the heat of the burning slums rolled over them like a hand.

And a man stood in the road ahead, waiting.

He wore long robes of deep azure, stitched with silver. He was old, but tall, with a white beard and eyes as flat and cold as winter ice. He held something in his left hand. A single white boot.

Behind him, the whole sky burned. The fire seemed to bend around him, like a dog that knew its master.

"So you are the boy," said Sect Master Lu softly. "My son cried in my hall tonight. He told me that you spared him."

Ren Kai's hands went numb.

"I am so grateful," said the Sect Master. He lifted the white boot and looked at it, as if he were deciding what to do with it. "Now come here, and let me thank you the same way."