106 Cat and Mouse games

"I do not like this," grumbled Chénli in a low voice, discreetly watching for anyone nearby. Beside her, in the darkness near the moving edge of the camp, Dàilán methodically checked over her weapons and gear by the light of a single dim Essence globe, tinted red so as not to affect night vision, "the difference in our speed is negligible."

"In short battles perhaps, but over a long travel distance, my Sky level Cultivation - even at my low rank - will have me outpacing you considerably. Time is of the essence here."

Dàilán lowered her voice to a murmur, "the two of us together would be slower and more likely to be noticed by any roving Grass patrols."

Scanning the darkness as the formations shifted the camp at a quick walking pace towards the Eastern border, the young heiress continued quietly, "and in a running skirmish - if I am spotted - my only focus will be escape. Your combat ability is better served here at the camp where it is most needed."

"My place is at your side," replied her bodyguard in a low voice as she moved over and gathered up her mistress' long hair in a warrior's plait, "but I take your meaning. In this case I might end up a liability. And we cannot spare anyone else." She frowned, tugging firmly on her mistress' hair as she worked the knots out into some semblance of control, "You must definitely avoid fighting."

"Most of the Grass forces have left, the traitor and his followers are behind us. If I am careful, they should not discern my absence," reassured the young teen heiress, pushing the quiet words directly into Chénli's ears with the Speaking Wind air communication technique.

Chénli's hands stopped plaiting her hair and she fell silent. After a moment, Chénli shifted her own Essence into the air Essence technique and her voice carried directly into the younger woman's ear, "The Senior Enforcer told me about the message you received from the Sect."

Dàilán nodded and sent back with her own usage of the air technique "I am sorry, Chénli. There is nothing we can do. As it is - it is the will of the heavens whether we will be able to move the camp far away enough from the effects of the collapse."

"Senior did not pass on all the information to everyone - she only told me and Monitor Leng the full message." Chénli's transmission paused a moment, "I will guard against the unexpected."

"I wonder how Grass keeps finding us so easily," murmured Dàilán, dropping the air technique, "maybe now that they have to guess our direction, they will have a harder time."

Chénli's eyes narrowed slightly and she leaned her head on the other young woman's shoulder to hide the tapping of her fingers on Dàilán's shoulder, 'Suspect watcher?'

"Maybe some of the women who escaped were Second Elder's supporters," speculated Dàilán quietly, as she nodded her head slightly, "Look after father as well, please, sister?" asked Dàilán, stowing away her weapons and reaching for her bodyguard's hair to tuck it into the collar of her robes, "ready for a quick scouting patrol?" she asked in a normal tone of voice.

Chénli nodded and the Essence light winked out as the two of them darted together into the darkness ahead of the slowly moving camp.

---

A couple of Diǎn later the pair of young women halted ten or so lǐ outside the current location of the camp.

"No one out here for several lǐ at least," they agreed, looking around at the dimly star lit features of the small gully they had ducked into.

"Try to keep the illusion technique up as long as possible, Chén'er. Maybe hand it off to the Monitor or the BloodWitch so that I can be seen around different people and areas of the camp - it would make it easier for it to be maintained as well," suggested Dàilán.

"I know what I should do," responded the Enforcer quietly, "do not take any foolish risks, Mistress."

Dàilán stepped forward and wrapped Chénli in a fierce hug. After almost a Fēn, she stepped back and the two of them surreptitiously rubbed the cloth of their sleeves across their eyes.

With a deep breath Dàilán pushed her Essence into the technique that the BloodWitch had shown her after she had woken from her nap under her bodyguard's watchful eye - holding her hands palms outward. A slight shimmer in the air resolved into a carbon copy of the young heiress appearing beside Chénli.

Chénli nodded and raised her hands to Dàilán's. The air between their palms twisted and Chénli exhaled.

"Do you have the pattern?" asked Dàilán, her face set in concentration.

"Yes. You can release it," replied Chénli, her own expression focused as Dàilán nodded and dropped her palms as well as the flow of Essence.

The illusion of Dàilán twitched slightly but otherwise stayed stable and Chénli made a noise of satisfaction, "En. I will take it back with me and hopefully it will be enough to avoid suspicion at least for a few days."

Dàilán blinked, "Ask Monitor Leng to work on speeding up the camp. I am worried we will be still too close when…" she paused, "if they are not at least a thousand lǐ by crow's nesting tomorrow, have them break camp and run the remainder. All but the most seriously wounded should be able to manage after resting - they can transport the others."

"Understood. Go swiftly and return swiftly, Mistress." Without waiting for a response Chénli turned and vanished into the darkness, back the way they came, the illusion of her mistress keeping pace with her.

Sinking momentarily into a light standing meditation, Dàilán pushed out the Veil technique she kept running beneath her skin, vanishing from all senses even as the two young girls appeared, for all intents and purposes, to reappear at the edge of the gully and dash back towards the camp.

A Diǎn after Chénli left, Dàilán carefully retracted the veil technique into her skin, watching for any sign of any observers. Only the cool night breeze and the sounds of various insects and small animals greeted her cautious ears and small pulses of Essence that she sent out to scan for other presences.

"Very well," she muttered to herself. Pushing Essence into her legs she jumped to the other side of the gully and then rushed swiftly off into the darkness in the direction shown on the map.

---

The first feathers of crow-light appearing over the Eastern horizon found Dàilán moving quickly in a ground eating loape that had her skimming over the ground, through the lightly wooded grasslands, deeper into the wilderness.

Noting a larger than usual tree, she reduced her speed and came to a gradual halt in the shade of the tree. She bent over with her hands on her thighs, breathed in and out deeply a few times, then straightened up and pulled out a flask from the pouch at her belt and took a drink.

"I have travelled the majority of the night," she said to herself thoughtfully, replacing the flask and pulling out the peddler's map, "between his higher cultivation versus my unburdened state, I have been traveling at almost the same rate - which puts me - there," she prodded a spot on the map with one dirty finger, living a fingermark. She grimaced ruefully and ran a quick pulse of Essence through her skin and robes, throwing off the accumulated dirt, grime and sweat.

"I will be happy when I can take a bath," she muttered to herself, then shook her head, "I think I should bear northwards a bit so that I am not looking at the Golden Crow all morning."

Looking around, she absently sent out a pulse of Essence out of habit and froze as she registered a return from just ahead of her. There were four Cultivators bracketing the route up ahead between the trees that she would have taken if she had continued straight onward.

Carefully she rolled the map and stowed it as she pushed the Veil Technique outward, slowly crouching into the undergrowth as she vanished. As quickly as possible without leaving traces of her now invisible passing she moved behind another larger than average tree, several zhàng to the left after, bypassing the first couple.

That could not be a coincidence, Dàilán thought, Monitor Leng said there were no Grass forces in this direction, but these are waiting in ambush?

"Come out, come out, Heir… It is rude to keep guests waiting - you are not giving us any face! And after my brothers and I have travelled such a long way to greet you specially!"

The young teen woman stiffened in alarm at Cǎo Jiàn's familiar and hated voice, slowly turning her head to try and get a fix on his location.

"I know you are close, little knife," Jiàn's voice taunted, "maybe this time we will have a fair fight?"

Dàilán restrained herself from spitting in disgust, knowing that would be sure to give away her position. It was odd that the turtle egg only started speaking after she stopped moving, she thought, I wonder…

As cautiously as she could, with the Veil Technique running as strongly as she could hold it, she pushed her Essence into the Mountains Mist technique to increase the lightness of her footsteps and calmly moved further to the left away from the ambush.

"Heir? Show yourself. I grow tired of this," the traitor's voice held a definite shading of frustration - and it was coming from an area close to the ambush site.

"Are you sure she's here, Cǎo Cǎo?" she heard a lazy, drawling, male voice say casually from the same place, "as far as I can tell there is no one around for several lǐ."

"She is here," snapped Jiàn's voice, a little further away now and accompanied by the sounds of something smacking into bushes and plants - Dàilán guessed that he must be searching the area.

"Then she must have some sort of concealment technique up, because as far as I can tell, you are screwing with a bull's horn while yelling to no one," pointed out another male voice, "just like you have had us doing all morning."

"I am telling... she is... The... made… this direction," the traitor's tone of voice was ugly, but it was also getting further away. Dàilán cautiously began moving as fast as she dared northward, the argument behind her growing fainter as she gained distance and sped up.

This would add distance to her trip, she thought in frustration. How had that dog's son found her? Why was he out here chasing after her instead of attacking the camp?

Okay, perhaps that last thing was not so bad, but it seemed like he was out here with only three others. From the map monitor Leng had been tracking Grass movements on Dàilán was sure that although the main body of the Grass forces had retreated back to their Cult's lands that the traitor still had other followers besides those three that had remained behind - so they were probably still harassing the camp even if they no longer had the manpower to launch full attacks any more.

Dàilán frowned and sped up further. If she was going to loop around and get back onto an Eastern heading then she had to make up time. Checking her Essence levels she grimaced at the rapid decrease - between holding a full Veil and moving as fast as possible with Mountain Mist, her Essence was quickly depleting.

Making a quick decision, she dropped the Mist and reduced the Veil as much as she dared; she would have to drop it eventually but hopefully by then she would be out of range of whatever technique they were using to track her - that other Grass Cultivator had complained he could not find her with it up, so hopefully the Veil was blocking whatever it was.

---

Nearly a shi later with no signs of pursuit and the Golden Crow now firmly over the Mountains of Fusou that stood like a wall in the East, she skimmed through woods that were rapidly beginning to thicken into true forest - showing less and less signs of human influence - Dàilán set her course for the Eastern border again, although she kept to a north-eastern line rather than heading directly east.

Thinking it through carefully, if there was an informant in the camp, unless they were very skilled and actively looking for it, they would not have realised the 'Dàilán' that returned from patrol was an illusion - she had confidence in the skills of the others to prevent anything so obvious.

That did not really explain how Grass had known she was out here in the first place, she considered worriedly. Her patrol with Chénli had been deliberately in a different direction than the eastern border - perhaps the traitor had merely drawn a line outward from the movement of the camp after it changed directions?

"Not enough information," she muttered to herself, sending out another Essence pulse and sensing no one for literally hundreds of lǐ. Hundreds of animals, mortal or low Earth level Essence Beasts were scattered over the area, but no Cultivators - unless they were hiding under a concealment too. Sighing in frustration she began to draw the Veil technique under her skin then hesitated.

"I need everything I have - holding back will not help me here and it hardly matters now if the Essence Beasts notice my true strength - it might even scare some of them away," told herself and released the Veil Technique entirely.

The sudden strengthening of her limbs and eased breathing took her by surprise; reflexively she focused on her Essence levels and saw that despite the fact that she was expending Essence moving so quickly, her Essence levels were slowly recovering.

"I suppose my meridians and dantian have gotten used to being constantly drained by running the Veil constantly - like wearing a training robe or that blasted limiter. Useful," she nodded in satisfaction as she speculated aloud, " I just need to remember to keep sending out sensing pulses."

Pulling out the map as she skimmed over the grass, she grunted in displeasure when she estimated her progress against the route marked out, "Tch. Dog sons made me lose ground - have to make sure that does not happen again."

---

Dàilán swore as her returning Essence pulse indicated a familiar - and despised - set of cultivation signatures several lǐ ahead - almost directly in her planned route.

Shifting Essence into the veiling technique at full strength was reflexive and she immediately reversed course as she became invisible.

"Must have stepped into some dogshit," she growled, rubbing the sleeve of her robe across her forehead in irritation.

Late afternoon and she had only a few hundred lǐs progress towards her goal to show for it. By now she was certain that the quartet were tracking her specifically somehow, despite running several Essence flash techniques that should have overloaded any tacking formations or talismans that someone might have slipped into her clothing or belongings.

She had even taken the risk of changing out her clothes and weapons and taking a hasty swim in a forest stream she had run across, after the third near encounter had caused yet another detour, keeping up the Veil Technique the entire time.

She had dressed in a spare set of clothing she had kept in her spatial pouch - then dumped the pouch, after transferring all the other items in her spare pouch; tracking formations could not work through a spatial container and running water would disrupt anything that might have been added on her body without her notice.

She was getting desperate though; in theory if anyone had managed to secrete a method of tracking on her possessions or her person since the last time she left the Guan Compound, it would have to be a minor fixed formation or talisman of some sort.

The specialised defensive formations her mother left on Third House had routinely destroyed any foreign formations that crossed into its boundaries, something she desperately wished she had access to now.

Dàilán had even taken the step of running all her weapons and clothes - the main as well as spare sets - and the spatial pouches in the running water of the stream. Any normal tracking methods, even scent, should now all be broken and yet the dog plasters were back again - for the fourth time.

She - had - worked out a few things; Whatever method they were using was general. They did not know her specific location - just an approximate area and bearing - which they were using to estimate her route to intercept.

The tracking technique was also blocked if she ran the Veil Technique as hard as she could. Unfortunately, she could not manage to do that constantly; she could not regenerate Essence fast enough with it to recover even if she stopped and cultivated, so she had to drop the Veil as soon as she no longer sensed her pursuers to give her Essence levels time to recover.

But as soon as she did that, the four dogshits would reappear either waiting in ambush in her path, chasing behind or coming at her from some other direction within a shi, even if she changed directions.

The young teen heiress' only saving grace was that the Essence Sensing Pulse technique she had constantly been adjusting, practicing and improving - through the Cultivation Method she had developed from the theories and examples in that old bamboo book - was much farther ranging and precise than whatever method they were using, especially if she used it without the Veil. So, with constant uses of the Essence pulse, after that first near miss, she had been able to spot their ambushes or their direct pursuit before they were close enough for them to detect her exact location, raise the Veil technique and change direction to leave the area without alerting them.

"Tch. I tire of this game," Dàilán spat, glancing at the shadows that pointed ahead of her in the early dusk light as the Golden Crow headed for its nest in the west, "Fine - they want to ambush me? We will see who ambushes who."

Circling around in a quick spiral that drew her inward to their ambush spot she kept the Veil Technique up, frowning at her depleted Essence levels. Even with her periods without the technique, she had not been able to recover her Essence anywhere near full; two steps forward and one step back had left her Essence levels nearly empty despite running in a light meditation as well as every other trick she had used.

This had to give her some breathing room or she would not succeed.

Again it was their voices she heard first - agitated and arguing. Despite her irritation and tiredness she smirked. Clearly they had given up on ambushing her.

"Your talisman is useless Cǎo Cǎo," mocked the same lazy voice as before, "obviously she has some way to evade it."

"Maybe it is your loud prattling that warns her away," Cǎo Jiàn gritted out, "she is here - somewhere."

"There is a reason no one uses those old methods anymore," interjected one of the others in a reasonable tone, "too imprecise - clearly she can see us coming before we can detect her. This is a waste of time."

"Why are we even out on this shǎquē's errand?" the last of the voices she had heard that morning spat out angrily, "it is only one girl. There are at least fifty female cultivators in that camp. We should be raiding them for Cultivation vessels instead of running around in the wilderness like a bunch of wandering Jianghu."

"Because that was working so well before," answered that lazy drawl again, with a definite sarcastic undertone, "it will work even better now that we have a tenth of the forces," the voice pointed out with an obvious false brightness.

"Neh, fifth brother says he can not find the camp anyway," snorted the second voice, "they are no longer headed for the knife páifāng. And the genius here was never tracking the camp, just the jiàn nǚ rén."

"Please tell me we are not out here because Cǎo-Èr bǎi wǔ here has somehow managed to lose track of fifty Cultivation Vessels," snarled the angry voice.

"How hard is it to find a camp full of refugees?" Cǎo Jiàn retorted, "even if they have changed their direction, just look for the tracks. Fifth is just being a stupid egg again."

"So you are blaming your failures on others again," needled the lazy drawl, "Third is right. This is pointless. I am going back to camp - get some food and a bath." There was a rattle of weapons and rustle of cloth as if the unseen speaker was suiting actions to words, "You three can stay out here hunting for one girl in the Wilderness of Fusou - at night. I am for a massage and wine."

Cǎo Jiàn's voice was iron, "I lead here. The others do not matter. We capture the Heiress to the Knife Sect and the Sect will reward us greatly."

"You mean, they might forgive your recent string of failures," snorted the angry voice with extreme sarcasm, "you can stay out here and try to pāi mǎ pì your way out of your own mess, 'Leader' - I am out of here before the Earth level Essence Beasts come out - if we cannot catch your obsession in the day we will certainly fail at night."

There was a rustling and the sounds of movement and despite the veil technique, Dàilán drew back tighter behind the tree she was crouched behind, listening with increasing fascination. A moment later, she risked sending out the slightest Essence Pulse; revealing one agitated Essence signature ahead of her and three rapidly departing signatures.

Cǎo Jiàn's cursing and imprecations were further evidence that he had been abandoned. Dàilán hesitated, looking towards the sounds, down at her drawn dagger and then back at her almost depleted Essence levels in frustration, realising that the chances of her successfully killing the traitor with a single strike was negligible.

"Evil has its own retribution," she murmured, "but the heavens stay my knife tonight."

Taking one last regretful glance at the now visible traitor who was still throwing a tantrum, Dàilán turned to flee in a different direction from both groups for as long as she could afford to hold the Veil technique - hoping it would be long enough to get out of range of whatever talisman Cǎo Jiàn was using. She would have to find a place to rest the night and set up a concealment formation before her Essence ran out.

'Tomorrow,' she promised wordlessly as she ran into the night, 'come after me alone if you dare, dog - and we will see who ambushes who'.