Xuelei, Tears of Blood

Chapter 28 - Too Late

Jin waited and waited. This twenty-four hours seemed longer than the usual twenty-four hours ... and he had waited many twenty-four hours before in his profession.

He wondered what Xuelei would discover. Should he hope that it was his family? If it was, then Xuelei would have a name, a real name, his real name.

At the same time although he felt ashamed for being selfish, Jin did not want it to have anything to do with Xuelei. He did not want to lose his brother.

Jin paced his small make shift camp. Time was almost up. Finally he couldn't take it any longer. He had to go after Xuelei, going back alone and waiting for Xuelei to catch up was out of the question.

It was not that he didn't trust his brother, Jin knew he could handle himself. He had completed many missions alone successfully, but the growing uneasiness was too much to bear. Jin knew to never ignore his instincts and right now they were practically screaming at him.

That did it. He broke camp.

It wouldn't hurt Xuelei if he didn't know he was being trailed, right?

Jin went into town and headed out the North gates. Information was easy to get. The locals were friendly and proved very helpful when a few coins changed hands. They remembered a noblewoman and a young fighter leaving town yesterday. They had met at the Northern Inn, spoken awhile before leaving together for the ghost town in the mountains.

In a short while, Jin had reached the ghost town. It was totally abandoned. He went in, alert for any signs of danger. There was no life here, not even a stray dog or cat. He easily found their trail, freshly turned dirt by horses' hooves were hard to miss.

He hesitated before entering the Zhen mansion. Passing through the once grand gates, he felt something was wrong. It was quiet, too quiet. Something had disturbed the place and had scared off all the animals. He moved in deeper, easily following the trail of churned dirt and trampled weeds.

A carcass. Xuelei's horse!

Jin nudged his own mount closer to the dead horse. The poor animal had bled to death. Several arrows protruded from the dead animal. Xuelei! Where was he? Jin swallowed and looked around.

He spied bodies. Human bodies.

Human bodies were sprawled everywhere. Jin counted thirteen. No Xuelei, thank God. He let out a breath of relief. He dismounted and walked slowly analysing the scene. With his experience, he could almost re-enact the fight. Judging by the fallen bodies' position and splattered blood, Xuelei had held his own until being overwhelmed.

Jin came to a large dark spot. Blood. Lots of it. Damn! Seventh brother was badly wounded.

He frowned as he crouched down to get a better look. The edges of the blood spot had half dried turning an ugly shade of brown. The centre was however still dark red and damp. There was a small hole right in the middle of the blood soaked earth. A small deep straight line about five centimetres wide, Jin inhaled sharply. It was the width of Xuelei's saber. They had impaled him with his own weapon.

How dare they!

Jin's hands shook in anger and curled into tight fists, knuckles white. Whoever had done this was going to pay a thousand fold!

Where was his body? Had Xuelei gotten away? Jin frowned, unlikely judging by the amount of blood he had lost, he would be too weak. There were also no trails of him crawling away. Maybe they were not done with Xuelei and had taken him captive for questioning. That seemed more likely.

Just to be sure, Jin did a quick check of the surrounding buildings. Nothing. The ruins were empty.

Jin stood staring at the darkening blood spot. He had to get back and report. He blinked several times, his heart felt like lead.