Team Twelve didn't march like a hero squad.
They shuffled out of the sect gate in a loose line, boots scraping stone, shoulders hunched under cheap packs. Sun Jiao walked at the front with his saber still sheathed, not because he was kind, but because drawing early made men brave.
Brave men died fast.
The mountain path narrowed as soon as the sect walls disappeared. Pines grew thicker. The air turned colder and wetter. Mist sat between trunks like old breath.
Lin Wuchen stayed near the middle of the group, not at the back where stragglers were taken, and not at the front where the first arrow always landed. He listened to footfalls and watched the way the older outer disciples kept glancing sideways, measuring one another.
The shaved-head man with the chipped tooth walked behind Sun Jiao. He had a prison fighter's shoulders and a laborer's hands. His name, Wuchen had learned at the gate, was Tu Shun.
Tu Shun spat into the dirt and said, "This is where they feed us."
Sun Jiao didn't deny it. "Then chew fast," he replied.
A younger boy near Wuchen—thin, freckled, with bandaged knuckles—whispered, "How far until beasts?"
One of the scarred older disciples, a narrow-eyed man called Ma Qiao, snorted. "You think beasts wait at a distance?" he said. "They're already here. They just haven't decided to eat."
Wuchen kept his gaze lowered, but he noted Ma Qiao's hands. Callused in a way that came from rope and spear, not from training yard stances. Ma Qiao was a survivor. Survivors were dangerous because they didn't panic. They chose.
By late morning they reached the ridge line that overlooked Blackridge Ravine.
From above, the ravine looked like a wound cut into the mountain, dark and narrow. A stream ran through it, silver in places where the sun reached. Most places it was hidden under shadow and rock.
Sun Jiao held up a fist. The team stopped.
He crouched and pressed his palm to the ground. Not mystic nonsense. He was feeling vibration and warmth.
"Smell that," Sun Jiao said.
Wuchen breathed in.
It wasn't blood. Not yet.
It was musk. Sour and thick.
Boar.
Tu Shun's mouth twisted. "Horned boar," he muttered.
Ma Qiao's eyes narrowed. "Not one," he said quietly.
Sun Jiao nodded once. "A small sounder," he agreed. "If we go down there, they'll charge."
The freckled boy swallowed. "Do we… hunt them?"
Sun Jiao looked at him like he'd asked if they should swallow fire. "We hunt what we can carry," he said. "We don't hunt what hunts back."
Tu Shun chuckled. "Then why are we here?"
Sun Jiao's eyes flicked to him. "Because herbs don't pick themselves," he said. "And because beasts guard the good ones."
He pointed toward a slope to the right where pale flowers grew in clusters among rocks. "Bitter moon grass," he said. "Worth copper. Maybe more if the apothecary is desperate."
The freckled boy's eyes brightened. "I can climb—"
Sun Jiao grabbed his collar and yanked him back. "You climb and you die," he said flatly. "You don't see the cliff bees? The black dots near the flowers?"
Wuchen squinted. He saw them now—tiny swarms that moved in a tight pattern. Sting beasts. Not strong, but they swarmed until men suffocated or ran off cliffs.
Ma Qiao muttered, "Everything here has teeth."
Sun Jiao nodded. "So we take the lower patch," he said. "Less worth. Less death."
They began moving along the ridge, keeping away from the ravine edge.
Wuchen watched the ground for prints. He saw hoof marks, old and new, and something else—three-toed tracks with claw tips that dug deeper than a bird. A small predator. Maybe a ridge fox. Maybe worse.
He kept his mouth shut.
At noon they stopped near a cluster of rocks that formed a natural shelter from wind. Sun Jiao let them drink, but only a few mouthfuls each. Water meant weight. Weight meant slower running.
Tu Shun sat on a stone and said, "If beasts come, I'll use you boys as bait."
The freckled boy turned pale.
Wuchen didn't react. He only looked at Tu Shun's hands again. Knuckles scarred, nails split. A man like that would do it.
Sun Jiao said calmly, "If you try, I cut you first."
Tu Shun laughed. "Try."
Sun Jiao's eyes stayed cold. "Try is boring," he said.
The phrase hung, familiar.
Wuchen felt a faint tightening in his chest. Gu Yan's voice. Deacon Han's voice. Even in the mountain, sect language followed.
They moved again.
By midafternoon they reached a shallow basin where a stream widened and the ground grew damp. Herbs grew thick there, low and broad-leafed. The kind outer yard boys could gather without climbing cliffs.
Sun Jiao gestured. "Hands," he said. "Fast. Quiet."
They spread out in a tight cluster, never more than five paces apart. Wuchen crouched and began pulling herbs by the root, shaking dirt off quickly. He kept his ears open while his hands worked.
A snapped twig echoed from upstream.
Wuchen froze for half a breath, then kept working, making his stillness look like a pause to wipe dirt from roots.
Ma Qiao's head lifted slightly. His eyes narrowed.
Tu Shun's posture shifted, weight rising like he was ready to spring.
Sun Jiao didn't move, but his fingers rested on his saber hilt.
Another sound.
A wet snort.
Boar, close.
Wuchen's skin tightened.
A horned boar burst from the brush upstream, bristles raised, tusks pale, eyes small and furious. Not as large as the one Wuchen had killed before, but large enough to gore a man and keep running.
Behind it, two smaller boars followed, and behind them, a fourth—this one with a fresh scar across its snout, horn chipped like it had fought recently.
The sounder had been pushed.
Sun Jiao hissed, "Back. Slow."
The freckled boy panicked and stood too fast.
The lead boar's head snapped toward him.
It charged.
The boy screamed and stumbled backward, tripping over a stone. He fell hard, herbs scattering from his hands.
Wuchen's mind went cold.
If the boy died, the boar would keep charging into the cluster. Panic would spread. Someone would run. Someone would be gored. That someone could be Wuchen.
Sun Jiao lunged forward, saber half drawn, but he was two steps too far.
Tu Shun moved faster.
Not to save the boy.
To use him.
Tu Shun kicked the boy's leg, pushing him more squarely into the boar's path, like placing meat on a plate. The boy screamed, eyes wide in betrayal.
Wuchen saw it.
He didn't think about justice. He thought about the next ten breaths.
If Tu Shun was willing to throw bait, he was willing to throw anyone.
So Wuchen acted.
He grabbed a fistful of wet mud from the stream edge and flung it low, not at the boar's eyes, but at its hooves.
Mud slapped onto its front legs and slicked the stone beneath.
The boar's charge didn't stop.
But its front hooves slipped.
Its shoulder slammed into the basin rock with a dull crack, momentum wasted.
Sun Jiao seized the opening and drew his saber fully, chopping down at the boar's neck with a clean, practiced strike.
Blood sprayed.
The boar squealed and thrashed.
Ma Qiao and the other older disciple, a woman called Qin Sui with hair tied tight and a short spear in hand, rushed in to pin the boar's legs, stabbing in quick, ugly motions.
The smaller boars hesitated for a heartbeat, confused by the sudden halt.
That heartbeat saved them.
Tu Shun surged forward toward the fallen freckled boy's scattered herb bundle, snatching it with one hand even as he kept his other hand ready to grab someone else if needed.
Wuchen's eyes narrowed.
So that was Tu Shun.
Not a fighter. A plunderer.
The lead boar finally went still under Sun Jiao's saber.
The other boars backed into the brush, snorting, then vanished into the trees.
The basin fell silent except for harsh breathing.
The freckled boy sat on the ground shaking, eyes wet, staring at Tu Shun like he wanted to bite.
Sun Jiao wiped his saber on the boar's bristle and looked at the team.
"Everyone alive?" he asked.
Ma Qiao nodded. Qin Sui grunted. Tu Shun smiled.
The freckled boy whispered, "He kicked me…"
Sun Jiao's gaze slid to Tu Shun.
Tu Shun shrugged. "I saved the group," he said. "If he ran, the boar would've charged all of us."
Sun Jiao stared at him for a long moment, then said, "We'll talk later."
Tu Shun's smile stayed.
Wuchen lowered his gaze and kept gathering herbs, hands moving fast again.
He didn't look at the freckled boy.
He didn't look at Tu Shun.
He looked at the boar carcass.
Because carcasses meant value.
And value meant the next fight wouldn't be with beasts.
It would be with people.