Days passed. The land continued to shift, as small fields carved out of the forest borders transformed into larger farms and rolling pastures, filled with green shoots and fluffy sheep. Here, the First Son broadened further, now wide enough that I could only make out the faintest details of the farmland and homes on the other side, though still fast enough that attempting to swim across would send you miles downstream, if you even made it in the first place.

  Along with the greater level of development along the First Son came more signs of its residents. Small villages started appearing every ten or so miles, and farmers were apparent in their fields, working away under the sun and occasionally standing to watch as I walked by, sometimes exchanging waves and more often staying still, peering out from underneath straw hats. Still, it was a welcome change from the quiet, nearly uninhabited forests near the Sect itself.

  What didn’t change, however, was the pinchers.

  On the fifth morning since leaving the Sect, I woke up with my hand halfway inside a pincher’s mouth, its beak slowly pulling my arm in. I shook the bird off and leapt to my feet, staring down the vulture until it clicked its beak and stropped away in a mood. I looked over at another two of them collaborating on opening the leather knapsack I’d been given. One was using its beak to hold the flap open as the other ruffled around inside, until it withdrew its head with a cheerful squawk, tongue wrapped around a loaf of bread. They both cried in victory, wings reaching for the skies- only to freeze as I harrumphed at their sides, arms crossed as I stared them down.

  “I haven’t eaten pinchers before, but I’m willing to try it,” I told them. They clicked their beaks in confusion. I sighed, then lifted my hands and wiggled all of my fingers in the closest approximation to hunger that I could understand from their behaviour. That sent them scurrying, the thief tossing the bread up into the air in panic which I caught easily. I immediately regretted it, grimacing as I beheld the now disgustingly wet loaf. “Fuck these birds,” I muttered again.

  “I think they’re cute,” Isabella hummed from her cross-legged position near the burnt-out fire, moving a rock back and forth in the air. The pincher in front of her avidly watched it, utterly absorbed by the mystery of the floating stone.

  “You couldn’t have brought yourself to stop them from trying to eat me?” I threw the soaked bread up into the air where a waiting pincher quickly seized it, cawing in success as it taunted the other pinchers that began to chase it down. I knelt down to inspect the knapsack, then sighed as I pulled out a few crumbs. “There goes my breakfast.”

  “How terrible.” Isabella, as expected, was utterly uninterested in my own suffering, more focused on entertaining the pincher in front of her. At some point the game had evolved into passing the stone back and forth, the bird clapping its beak whenever the rock managed to miraculously catch itself in the air. “Weren’t you just complaining about them eating you? Better the bread than that.”

  “Better .” I pulled the knapsack over my shoulders as I returned to my feet, facing Isabella. “We’re going to need to stop again at some point for more food. We’re still a few days out from home.”

  “You sure?” Isabella finally looked up from the stone. “I know we were willing to stop for Xing and Ren, but I figured we were avoiding people for now.”

  “That was when we were still close to the Sect,” I explained. “I was willing to ignore an empty stomach just to get away a bit faster. But, if they haven’t caught up to us yet, then it’s likely that they don’t even know which Son we’re on.”

  “Gotcha.” Isabella set the stone down and patted the confused pincher before her a few times, before standing up and stretching. “So, ask a farmer for more food?”

  “I don’t think we need to.” I gestured off in the distance, where the tell-tale curls of smoke were just visible in the morning light over the edges of the hills ahead. “If I’m right, that village over there will have everything we need.”

  After all, the lands may have steadily changed from further upstream, but to my eye that just made them more familiar. I was even beginning to recognise some of the landmarks in the distance, like those same hills before us which had so often been the backdrop of the horizon, when I’d travelled in the other direction with my father.

  “It’s called Shepherd’s Cross,” I explained as we started walking, the flock of pinchers slowly following. “It’s where my family would go to sell wool, or any spare lambs if the herd was getting large. Traders come through all the time, picking up more goods on the way to the Sect, or on the way back to the Big Sea with fancy cultivator stuff.”

  “A market town then,” Isabella nodded, resting her scythe on her shoulder. “Alright. You can get some new clothes then too.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “What’s that meant to mean?”

  “I’ll give credit to whoever made them,” Isabella pointed at me, “but they’re meant to survive the Seven Falls Sect, not the . I know you tossed the robes to go incognito, but someone stumbling about looking like they should be dead is probably just as bad.”

  I glanced down at my own clothes, grimacing slightly as I took in the amount of damage they’d taken. Isabella was right; it was frankly a miracle they’d survived in the first place, considering how much my own body had been ravaged by the falls. That still left several rips and tears throughout the shorts and shirt I wore, only barely enough to preserve my own decency, and certainly not enough to maintain any dignity.

  “Food, then clothes,” I agreed out loud, running my fingers over my necklace. Even if my shirt wasn’t in tatters, it would probably be worth buying something like a cloak, just for the sake of hiding my face. Best of all, I wouldn’t have to impoverish myself for the opportunity, unlike up in the Sect.

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  The road slipped away beneath us as I continued to ponder delicious bowls filled with soft rice and succulent pork. The pinchers followed us for a little longer, though as we approached the hills they began to scatter, pulling up further into the sky to hover high overhead where the living couldn’t punish them for harassing the dead.

  And then we were over the hill, and the village of Shepherd’s Cross expanded out before us. It was the largest village I’d ever seen before I’d ascended the Seven Falls, and its bustling streets had once awed me with the thought that so many hundreds of people could live together in such a space. But now, compared to the main streets of the Sect where you couldn’t see thirty feet in front of you for the number of vendors and haulers and disciples, it appeared positively empty.

  “Quiet place,” Isabella commented, staring down the hill towards the village. “Thought it’d be busier.”

  With the hill giving us a clearer view inside the village, none of the bustle that I could remember appeared to be there; rather than streets filled with dozens of farmers coming into town to sell their goods, or merchants from far downstream here to ply their trade, I could only pick out one or two people, none of them staying in view for very long before they dipped into another building. It was only the market square, with its stalls and colourful sun shades, that still declared Shepherd’s Cross to be a town of trade.

  “Wrong season?” Isabella guessed. “Farms looked like they were still a few months out from harvest.”

  I frowned, eyes searching for a cause. I started walking down the hill, Isabella following me. As we descended down into the town, the initial impression I had was reinforced; the streets were much emptier than I could ever remember them being, and up close the few residents I did see had a worried air, their heads down even as they walked by quickly.

  My attempt at stopping a matron carrying a basket of clothes hardly went any better. “Excuse me-”

  “Pardon,” she muttered, eyes only glancing at me for the briefest moment before she walked around me, her pace speeding up as she hustled away.

  Isabella watched her go, her fingers drumming along her scythe. “This isn’t normal, is it?”

  I frowned at the matron’s back as she turned around a corner, and glanced back at Isabella.

  “Maybe,” Isabella said, falling in behind me as I continued down the main road to the market square. The stalls were just as I remembered, carved wooden stands sitting underneath an army of umbrellas and canvas tarps that kept the square in the cool shade, but the people behind them were quiet, not even crying out the quality of their goods to the masses. Not that there were masses; the few shoppers I did see were just as quick to move about as the pedestrians I’d seen earlier, murmuring to the vendors in hushed breaths and exchanging money before they moved on.

  I put aside my concerns for a moment as I set my eyes on the closest stand, where a middle-aged man tended to a fiery grill where several skewers of meat and vegetables waited for me. I made a beeline for them, placing myself in front of the gentleman near the counter in front of the grill as I fiddled to untie my necklace. “How much for a skewer?”

  The man grunted. “Six yuan.”

  “I’ll have three, please.” I pulled a few coins off the string, placing them on the counter as I re-tied my necklace. “So, I was curious-”

  “Here.” I was interrupted as three of the skewers were thrust in front of my face.

  “Ah! Just, give me one moment-” I finished the knot to fasten my necklace, and grabbed the skewers. “So, I had- excuse me?”

  The second I’d taken the skewers the vendor had turned away, fiddling around with the pile of crates behind him. I stepped forward, careful of the grill as I leaned over. I watched as he pushed some cut vegetables to the side, dropping the coins down into the box. “Is everything alright?”

  The man glared up at me. “” he hissed, brushing the vegetables back over, hiding the coins beneath the layer of chopped tubers.

  I lifted my hands in defense. “I just had some questions!”

  “Ask them elsewhere,” he muttered, grabbing a fresh skewer and forcefully stabbing on fresh chunks of meat. “,” he repeated with another glare, before ignoring me entirely as he set the skewer down on the grill, the fire flaring and spitting below.

  , I thought, turning away from the stand and biting into one of the skewers. .

  The meat was delicious, the wonderful flavour of lamb like a balm to my soul, and the vegetables were cooked to perfection as well, with crispy edges and a soft inside that sucked up the juices like a sponge. I consumed one of the skewers in fifteen seconds flat, and only slowed halfway through the second as I relished in the wonderfully familiar taste of home.

  And all of that was still not enough to distract me from just how strange the entire situation was. The answer was perfectly obvious. I swallowed the bite, and sighed. .

  “Fucking cultivators,” Isabella muttered, pointing down the market. “Look.”

  The robed man walked down the market like he owned it, though the way that the vendors reared back to avoid notice spoke as to the nature of his control. Not that he seemed to care; he swaggered through the square with the sleazy air of a man who was fully aware of his deficiencies, and took an awful pride in all of them. Considering his bulk, he probably worked to maintain them. He came to a stop by the skewer stand where he leaned on the counter with an odious familiarity, the wood groaning slightly underneath his weight.

  “Well well, Mister Cho, looks like you do have a customer!” The man turned to smile at me, yellow teeth shining. “Isn’t that just wonderful?”

  “Of course, Master Chin,” the vendor said, eyes fixed on the grill. “He’s a stranger in town. He must be hungry.”

  “Hahaha!” The now-named Master Chin laughed, reaching across to slap the vendor across the back, who barely avoided stumbling into the grill. “Hungry! Of course! Who wouldn’t be, seeing your delicious skewers! I always thought that was funny, considering how few you’ve seemed to sell!”

  “I suppose the traveller has an appetite,” the vendor, Cho, muttered as he turned the skewer over. “Must not have gone further into the market to see what else there is. My skewers aren’t so good.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember you saying that everyone locally preferred Dylan’s sandwiches. And they’re good too!” Master Chin chuckled. “And yet, Mister Dylan returns the compliments right back. Says that everyone can’t get enough of your skewers!”

  “T-that’s very kind of him.”

  “It’s funny how those recommendations work,” Master Chin said softly. “Everyone must be so busy running back and forth that they never get to buy something.”

  Cho swallowed, eyes fixed on the grill.

  “Ah, well, not to worry. We should be happy that you’ve had a customer at last,” Master Chin stood up, brushing his hands over his robe before tucking them into his pockets. The large man turned towards me, eyes running over my ripped clothes, and pausing on my necklace. “And what a customer. You’ve had a rough time on the road, eh? As the Guardian of Shepherd’s Cross, I should welcome you, and inform you of the protection fee.”

  Master Chin grinned. “After all, bandits are a real problem around here. Wouldn’t want to worry, would you?”