There wasn’t time to waste, but all the same, Jiang couldn’t afford to be hasty.

  He forced himself to take a deep breath, closing his eyes and ignoring the shattered bowl and overturned table. He wanted to rage, wanted to sprint out the door, find the bandits, make them hurt… but rage wouldn’t help him here. It may feel good, but it made people reckless and stupid.

  Think. Reason. Plan. Only then should you act.

  His father’s words echoed through his head as he took a low, slow breath. His eyes snapped open, and he turned, striding out of his house with purpose.

  Judging by the state of the village and the fact that no one was fighting the fires, his family was far from the only one to be taken. Liǔxī wasn’t a large village by any means, but it was still home to almost two hundred people. Any bandit group bold enough to pick this kind of target was either just as numerous - or dangerously competent.

  Not the kind of target he could fight.

  That was fine. He didn’t need to fight – his only goal was to retrieve his family, not punish the bandits. As much as the notion of them getting away with this burned, reason prevailed. Getting himself killed in a quest for vengeance helped no one.

  His first step, then, was to check if anyone was still alive in the village. Judging by the bodies lying around, he wasn’t hopeful, but he had to at least check.

  The second step was to track the bandits. A group large neough to attack the village would leave plenty of signs of their passing and would probably be moving slowly, so Jiang wasn’t terribly worried about that – not even at night. The tricky part was what to do once he caught up with them.

  Jiang exhaled through his nose, pushing the thought aside. That was a problem for later. First—the village.

  He moved quickly, his steps sure and steady as he crossed the open street. The fires were still burning in places, but they hadn’t spread enough to make navigation impossible. Even without anyone around to actively fight the fires, buildings were spaced far enough apart that it wasn’t easy for the flames to spread.

  Liǔxī hadn’t been a large village, but it had been home. His home. A collection of sturdy wooden houses, a few workshops, a central square where traders stopped every few months to barter their wares. The well. The apothecary’s hut. The tailor’s shop. The butcher’s place. All familiar landmarks, now twisted by violence.

  The well stood dark and abandoned, a bucket lying on its side where someone had dropped it in a hurry. The tailor’s shop had taken heavy damage, the roof caved in, half-burned bolts of fabric scattered in the dirt like discarded rags. The apothecary’s door had been smashed inward, its shelves overturned.

  Clearly, the bandits didn’t stop at just taking the people – though now that he thought about it, it was a little odd that the bandits had moved on so quickly. They clearly hadn’t had much trouble subduing the inhabitants, so why didn’t they take advantage of the buildings to stay a while, sleep in actual beds instead of out in the wilderness?

  Jiang dismissed the thought. It ultimately wasn’t important why the bandits did what they did, just that they had done it.

  A ragged cough cut through the silence.

  Jiang’s head snapped toward the sound. Near the butcher’s shop, half-buried beneath a collapsed beam, a man lay sprawled in the dirt, one arm dragging weakly against the ground. Blood darkened the snow beneath him.

  Jiang moved without hesitation, crossing the distance in long strides. He crouched, hooking his hands under the beam, and heaved. Wood scraped against wood as he shifted it just enough to drag the man free.

  Zhou Wei, the butcher.

  Jiang had known him his whole life. A thick-set man, heavy with muscle even in his age, a permanent scowl etched into his features. He had a daughter, younger than Xiaoyu, though just as stubborn.

  Now, his face was pale, his tunic slick with blood. His leg was bent wrong, crushed beneath the weight of the fallen structure. Even if Jiang had the skill to mend wounds, there was nothing to be done for him.

  Zhou Wei coughed again, breath rattling in his chest. His eyes flickered open, rolling for a moment before finding Jiang’s face. His lips curled, part grin, part grimace.

  “Thought… you were dead,” he rasped.

  Jiang shifted, pulling off his cloak and pressing it against the worst of the bleeding. It wouldn’t save him, but it might buy him a little time. “Who did this?”

  Zhou Wei’s fingers twitched against the ground, curling weakly. “Gao Leng.” The name was bitter on his tongue. “It was… the Hollow Fangs.”

  Jiang’s stomach turned.

  That… was worse than he’d thought.

  The Hollow Fangs were as close to an infamous gang of bandits as any could get. They had terrorised the region for years, always vanishing before any sect or magistrate could send a force after them. Led by Gao Leng, the Wicked Blade, it was said that none could stand up to them.

  In hindsight, Jiang should have known it was them – no other bandit group would be so bold as to attack a village like this. Just before winter was the perfect time to do it, too. Trade and travel were rare once the snow started falling heavily, and it could well be months before anyone even realised the village had been attacked. By then, the Hollow Fangs would be long gone.

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  “My family,” Jiang pressed, his voice sharp. “What happened to them?”

  Zhou Wei exhaled, long and shuddering. “Taken,” he said. “Most of the women. Some men, too. The rest…” He coughed, spitting blood into the snow. “They killed the others. Fast or slow, didn’t matter. Just for sport. Saw them go after Madam Hu.”

  A bitter, savage smile spread across Zhou’s face, broken a moment later by another cough. “The vicious old hag took three of them with her. Gutted a forth. He’ll be dead soon, wound like that.” Zhou Wei was rambling now, breath coming shorter as he faded.

  Jiang pressed harder against the wound, though it was useless. “Where did they take them?”

  Zhou Wei’s head lolled to the side. His breath came slower now, his eyes glassy. “South,” he murmured. “Toward the river. Left… a few hours ago.”

  Jiang gritted his teeth. It wasn’t the worst case scenario – even knowing the terrain like he did, the river was a few hours, and the bandits were no doubt much slower. Still, he would have to move fas—

  Zhou Wei’s fingers twitched again, grasping blindly. Jiang caught his wrist, and the butcher’s grip tightened with surprising strength. “My girl,” he whispered. “Lanying. They took her.”

  Zhou Wei’s fingers dug in, desperate. “Get her back.”

  His grip loosened. His breath hitched.

  Then, nothing.

  Jiang’s mouth worked uselessly, and he wrenched his eyes away, forced calm on the verge of breaking.

  “I will,” he promised thickly, though there was no one to hear it. “I swear it.”

  — — —

  There was no one else alive in the village.

  He didn’t let himself dwell on it.

  The trail wasn’t hard to find. Even in the dim moonlight, the path was clear. Trampled snow, broken branches, deep footprints where carts or heavily burdened men had sunk into the cold earth. Scattered debris—a discarded waterskin, a torn strip of cloth, a snapped arrow shaft—marked their passage. The Hollow Fangs had numbers, and they weren’t trying to hide their movements. They didn’t have to.

  Jiang moved swiftly, his breath steady, boots near-silent against the frozen ground. He kept off the direct trail, following parallel through the trees, avoiding open ground where the light of the rising moon might betray him. The night was cold, the wind sharp, but he ignored it. His focus was on the path ahead, on the faint echoes of movement carried on the wind.

  Hours passed. The scent of smoke reached him first.

  Jiang slowed, dropping lower as he crested a ridge. Below, nestled in a shallow valley beside the river, firelight flickered through the trees.

  The bandit camp.

  He edged forward, keeping to the cover of the undergrowth, and took in the scene.

  They had set up in a natural clearing, using the river as both a barrier and a resource. At least a dozen fires burned, their glow casting long shadows against the trees. A larger bonfire was set in a cleared area ringed by tents, providing a central area for the bandits to drink around. Crude tents and lean-tos littered the space further from the bonfire, some barely more than patched-together tarps slung over branches. Horses were tethered near the water, stamping and snorting in the cold.

  Everything – from the tents to the men’s clothes to the saddles – was stamped with the crude symbol of a fang dripping poison.

  And the bandits—far more than he had expected.

  Jiang counted at least a hundred, maybe more. Some sat near the fires, sharpening blades or drinking. Others patrolled the edges of the camp, weapons in hand. These weren’t mere raiders; they were organised. Efficient.

  The Hollow Fangs were supposed to be a roving band of killers, dangerous but small enough to avoid drawing the attention of larger sects or magistrates. This wasn’t a handful of outlaws scraping by on stolen grain. This was an army.

  How had they not been stopped? How had no one realised the extent of the problem? These were not the kind of numbers that developed over night – a group this large needed food, resources, weapons, gear. That they could avoid notice like this… it boggled the mind.

  Jiang’s jaw tightened, and he shrugged off the feeling of hopelessness.

  It didn’t matter how many of them there were, or how they had survived this long. He wasn’t looking to fight these bandits, his only goal was to free his family.

  He shifted his focus. The prisoners.

  Irritatingly, they were being kept in two large, crude cages made of lashed-together branches near the centre of the camp, right beside the bonfire. The makeshift nature of the cages wouldn’t stop a determined escape attempt, but they would certainly slow anyone down enough for the bandits to have plenty of time to react.

  The prisoners themselves were separated into two groups by gender. The men sat hunched in one cage, hands bound, feet shackled. Some looked alert, watching the bandits with quiet hate. Others stared blankly at the ground, their will already broken. None spoke.

  The women, in the other cage, were guarded more heavily. A few of the bandits lounged against the makeshift bars, leering. Others laughed, passing a wineskin between them.

  Jiang’s stomach clenched.

  His eyes swept over the women, searching—

  There.

  His mother sat stiff-backed, her arms wrapped around Xiaoyu, who pressed herself into her side. His sister’s shoulders trembled, her small hands twisted in their mother’s sleeve. She wasn’t crying—too scared, maybe, or too exhausted. Jiang let out a slow breath, tension seeping out of his frame.

  Alive. They were alive.

  Now, the problem.

  The placement of the cages left little room for stealth. He could reach the edge of camp easily enough—getting past the guards was another matter. Too many men were still awake, too many eyes watching.

  He stayed low, shifting his position to get a better look at the camp’s layout. The bandits had settled in for the night, but they weren’t all resting. Some still patrolled the perimeter. Others drank and laughed around the central bonfire. A group of them had gathered near a large, half-collapsed structure—remnants of an old outpost, maybe—where their leader was likely camped.

  After a moment’s thought, Jiang shifted back into the trees, moving carefully to avoid snapping branches or crunching snow. He found a thick cluster of undergrowth near the ridge, low enough to stay hidden but with a clear view of the camp.

  He unfastened his cloak, wrapping it tightly around himself. The cold would be harsh, but he had prepared for a night outside – though, of course, he had assumed there would be a fire.

  No matter. His clothes were warm enough that the cold wouldn’t kill him. He would wait for an opportunity to move.

  But as the hours stretched on, doubt gnawed at him.

  The bandits were more disciplined than he had expected. Even as the night deepened, the camp didn’t fully settle. The men at the fires drank and laughed, but not all of them. Others patrolled the perimeter, torches flickering as they made their rounds. The guards near the prisoners didn’t relax, and those who drank never let their weapons stray far.

  He ground his teeth, forcing himself to stay calm. He had assumed he would be able to slip in under cover of night, take advantage of their drunken stupor. But now, watching the way they moved, the way the camp was organised, he wasn’t sure that opportunity would come.

  And if it didn’t…

  Jiang exhaled sharply, shoving the thought aside. No. He wouldn’t allow it to come to that. There had to be a way. He just needed to find it.

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