I stepped out of the woods, the fine silk of my robes billowing dramatically just a little in the breeze of the gorge. My five followers followed. My jiàn slid from its scabbard and I gave it a theatrical flourish, the polished blade catching the afternoon sun in a brilliant flash.

  “CHARGE!” I roared, my voice a thunderclap echoing from the cliffs, a sound that did not belong to a humble scholar but to a warlord.

  Fueled by my command and by their own adrenaline, my small band let out a collective, ragged battle cry and crashed on the remaining bandits like an avalanche.

  The five bandits below heard our cry too late. They spun away from the wagon, their triumphant grins dissolving into confusion and alarm.

  Old Man Wei, his gnarled farmer's hands surprisingly steady, raised the shortbow I had given him. He drew the string to his cheek, sighted for a bare second, and let the arrow fly. It hissed through the air and took one of the bandits square in the throat. The man gave a wet, gurgling cry and collapsed into the dust, clutching at the feathered shaft protruding from his neck.

  Gao and Wang Er, fought with the desperate courage of a man serving a wrathful god. He screamed an incoherent prayer and engaged a terrified bandit, his wild swings keeping the man off-balance.

  The brothers, Jin and Ju, roaring with the pent-up fury of weeks of humiliation, were a force of nature. They fought with a surprising finesse, and I suspected they'd had some degree of training. Their heavy axes rose and fell, and they smashed into one of the other bandits, overwhelming the surprised and exhausted opponents with a whirlwind of bone-shattering blows. They then turned to who I assume was Ping, and I stopped tracking their progress

  I had eyes for only one man.

  I weaved through the chaos, my gaze locked on One-Eyed Xiong. He turned to face me, his initial confusion. Then his gaze flicked past me to my followers, and as he understood anger began to overtake him.

  “Traitors!” he bellowed, the word thick with disbelief and fury. “You dare?!” I turned his attention to me by jabbing towards him with a thrust. He was wounded and tired, but his rage gave him a final, terrible surge of strength.

  With a roar that shook the rocks, he charged, swinging his massive dāo in a great, cleaving arc meant to split me in two. I was not the captain of the guard; I could never meet such a blow head-on. I threw myself back, the wind from the passing steel stirring my hair as the heavy blade bit deep into the earth where I had just been standing. The impact sent a tremor through the ground.

  He yanked the blade free. The deep gash on his arm, a gift from the dead captain, wept blood, and his breathing was a ragged bellows. He brought the dāo around for a horizontal sweep, but it was slower this time, his form compromised by fatigue. I saw the opening. I stepped inside and under the clumsy swing, my own jiàn, a silver serpent darting forward. I wasn't aiming to kill, but to wound, to test. The tip of my blade scored a deep line across his thigh.

  He howled, more in frustration than pain, and stumbled back a step. Even now he was still overpoweringly strong, and shockingly nimble. Under his pressure I took a step back, cognizant that this was the last fight still going on and that my followers were watching intently. Still, I found myself keeping my distance and his blows often falling only a hair short.

  I had an epiphany: "One-Eye" Xiong. I started moving slightly laterally until the cart was at my back. Thinking he cornered me, Xiong went for an overhand chop. I pivoted on my heel, and lowered my body for a thrust. There was a crunch of wood as One-Eyed Xiong's poor depth perception meant the tip of his blade bit slightly into the cart, enough to slow it for a fatal movement.

  My jiàn found its home, plunging deep into his torso.

  One-Eyed Xiong stopped, a look of shocked incomprehension on his face. The heavy dāo left his numb fingers, still lodged in the cart. He looked down at the hilt of the sword protruding from his chest, then up at me. He opened his mouth to speak, but only a bloody cough escaped, spraying my face with a warm mist. Then, life finally left him, and he collapsed into the dust, dead. I froze and it dawned on me that I'd killed someone for the very first time.

  The gorge finally fell silent. The only sounds were the ragged panting of my followers, the low moans of the dying. It was over.

  Forcing my internal turmoil to the back of my head, and cognizant of the five killers at my back. I swallowed, then swung my sword in a dramatic arc, shedding the blood of Xiong from its blade.

  “Victory!” I raised the sword in celebration.

  My voice rang with an authority that echoed through the suddenly silent gorge. My followers, splattered with gore and panting with a mixture of exhaustion and exhilaration, raised their own crude weapons and let out a ragged, triumphant roar. They were victors and now at last I was their undisputed leader.

  "Hold your celebrations," I commanded after allowing it to continue for a few moments. "The work is not finished."

  Their ragged cheers died down, replaced by a tense, waiting silence. My primary concern was not the silver, not yet. It was the narrative. I needed witnesses.

  “Check for survivors amongst the magistrate's party and tend to their wounds.”

  I strode past the bodies of the bandits and moved to the black-armored soldier amongst the magistrate's men. I knelt, my hands moving with a grim efficiency. His pulse was fairly steady against my fingertips. He was alive, not yet conscious. His wound bled slowly, without the bright arterial spurts, an excellent sign.

  "Wang Er, bring me wine. Gao, start a fire." I used my sword to cut long strips of silk from my robes. "We must boil the wine and clean our hands and silk with it."

  Where was Gao? I looked around only to see him gasping on the ground, his arms clenched un-naturally. His skull was caved in by a bloody cudgel.

  I took two faltering steps towards him. The world spun and I dropped to one knee, bile rising to my throat. Gao was a real person, flesh and blood, and though I didn’t really know him, some part of me had assumed he’d still be around.

  Trembling, I reached out a hand to feel for Gao’s pulse, but I could already tell there was nothing I could do, nothing anyone could do.

  I wanted to throw up, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to cry. Nobody else spoke for a long time.

  What should I have expected? That everyone would just live happily ever after? How many endings were there really for a bandit anyways? Wasn’t this the expected outcome? If I had never led him to mutiny… would it have ended this way?

  Maybe he deserved it, he probably killed others before we’d met. But I never really knew that to be true.

  My very first follower, and this was how it ended for him. I heard a nervous cough behind me. It was Wang Er clearing his throat and glancing in my direction hesitantly.

  Every person deserved better.

  I rose to my feet. I motioned for them to gather around me. Thinking quickly I came up with a plan.

  “If we were to take all of this silver,” I began, my voice unsteady, “the government would not see us as heroes. They would see us as thieves who stole the Emperor's tax revenue. They would send an army to hunt us down, and we would spend the rest of our short lives as hunted dogs.”

  Their faces sobered further into a fearful realization. I sensed my authority weakening so I took a breath and forced confidence back into my voice. I gestured towards the unconscious guard.

  “This man,” I declared, “is the key. We saved his life. We take what is due to us for our service, and then we escort him and the rest of the silver to the next town. We will be the brave travelers who stumbled upon this ambush and saved the government's silver from the notorious ‘Bandits of Black Wind Ridge.'”

  I let the idea sink in before continuing, my voice dropping as I laid out the masterstroke. “Now, we are both rich and heroes. We earn the government's gratitude, not its wrath. Without him,” I pointed to the guard again, “how do we prove this story is true? We would just be more bandits found at the scene of a crime.”

  I looked at each of them in turn, letting them trace the undeniable logic.

  “This way, Chang'an gets its tax money, and they have no reason to punish the poor people of ShanZhou further. We,” I allowed a small, knowing smile to touch my lips, “get both wealth and a clean name. And the world,” I motioned to the sprawled bodies of One-Eyed Xiong and Magistrate Wu, “is now rid of two monsters.”

  A wave of understanding, followed by sheer awe, washed over their faces. Jin, the fiercer of the two brothers, slammed his axe haft on the ground in emphatic agreement. “He's right! If we just took the silver, we'd be hunted for the rest of our lives. This way… this way we have a future.”

  The ex-bandits bowed deeply to me. "Master, your wisdom is as deep as the mountains. We are yours to command. What is our first task?" Jin asked.

  I sheathed my sword with a final, decisive flourish. “First,” I commanded, “tend to the wounded, always use boiled wine to wash your hands and anything that touches open wounds. Replace this man's bandages as soon as the wine is ready, and use silk where possible. Next, bury the dead. The officials respectfully, in marked graves. The rest, in a common pit. Take One-Eye's head”

  The men nodded grimly and sprang to action.

  “The rest of this,” I said, indicating the silver cart, “you will protect with your lives. You will take the wounded guard, travel to the next official post, and report everything. The guard will be your witness. The head will be your proof.”

  I paused, and then it came to me.

  "After you have received the government's thanks, and likely a handsome reward, you will return here. You will set up a company in these mountains. The Black Wind Cliff Escorts. A Biāojú. From now on, you will no longer rob travelers; you will protect them for pay. This ridge will become the safest road in the province, not the most dangerous."

  They were speechless. I was giving them a new life, an honest trade, a chance at dignity.

  “Be polite,” I commanded sternly. “Do not force yourselves upon others. Build a reputation for honor. And you may use my name… with respect.” I looked at each of them. They still had no idea who I was, and I intended to keep it that way. “If you ever receive orders, you will know they are from me if the messenger speaks the code: ‘Black Wind Flows.' Commit it to memory.”

  I glare in my best commanding glare “If you deviate from the righteous path and sully my name. I will surely know.” I left what I'd do with that information ambiguous, but I think they got the message.

  Wang Er dropped to one knee, an example the others immediately followed. “Great Master,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “We understand. We will not fail you. The Black Wind Cliff Escorts will be a name of honor. We swear it.”

  My work here was done. I gave them a final, sharp nod, then turned and walked away, melting back into the woods from which I first emerged. I returned to the hidden copse where Xiao Qi waited with our cart, his reaction to the blood on my robes, a reflexive opening of his mouth and a tremble. Without a word, I stripped off the fine silk robes, now spattered with blood and grime, and bundled them away. I washed the gore from my face and hands in a nearby stream before changing into my spare set of humble, coarse linen clothes, the simple robe of a commoner. My boots went back on my feet. I was once again an anonymous traveler.

  We guided the mule and cart back onto the main road. As we passed the gorge, my men, who had never seen my unmasked face, paid us no mind. They were hard at work. Two were digging a deep pit while the others respectfully wrapped the officials' bodies in spare cloth. The scene was one of grim, ordered labor.

  The surviving guard was awake. He sat propped against the wagon, his head bandaged, a cup of water in his trembling hands. Wang Er was kneeling beside him, speaking in an earnest tone. As our cart rolled slowly past, their voices carried on the breeze.

  “...You were lucky,” Wang Er was saying. “The bandits of Black Wind Ridge had you all. My brothers and we, the Black Wind Cliff Escorts, were hunting nearby when we heard the commotion. We drove them off.”

  The guard looked at Wang Er, his eyes filled with dazed confusion and a dawning gratitude. “My captain… the magistrate… my brother?”

  “They fought bravely, but they were overwhelmed before we could get here. We are sorry for your loss. But we saved the Emperor's silver. And your life.”

  Jin, his axe now clean and resting on his shoulder, stepped forward. “Our Master has commanded that we escort you safely to the next town. You will be our witness to this day's events.”

  The guard nodded slowly, the story solidifying in his mind. He looked at the hard-faced men around him, men who had saved him, and seemed to accept the reality he was being offered. “Thank you,” he murmured. “Thank you.”

  A short delay on the main road was over. The city of Yingchuan, my original destination, was now only a few days away. The mission given to me by Lord Feng was finally at hand.

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  And that's the end of Act 1! What do you like the most about the story?