It had become so dark by now that the brightly lit entrance was easy to see. Attackers from the thicket, on the other hand, were all the less visible. He and Qing Lai exchanged a glance and nodded in silent agreement. Then they charged forward.
Zhi Cheng managed to kill four of the six guards with his throwing knives and secretly praised himself for having found such a nice new hobby. Maybe he would have some made for himself when time allowed.
The knife stuck in the back of the fifth, but did not kill him immediately.
Qing Lai reached the entrance first, patting the man on the back as he went by and sinking the knife between his shoulder blades so deeply that he collapsed without a word.
Everything happened so fast that the last one just collapsed with wide, glassy eyes as Qing Lai knocked him out with one or two well-aimed blows.
Zhi Cheng stepped over his lifeless body as he entered the cave. Qing Lai's style was, as expected, much gentler.
The passageways stank terribly; sporadically carved torches in the wall illuminated the corridors in front of them and branched off again and again. Qing Lai stopped after a while and wiped the dirt from his face.
"Brother Zhi, I think this cave labyrinth is so extensive that we won't find anything even if we search until tomorrow," he said, peering around a corner.
They had already come across several dead ends and found larger and smaller caves and nooks, along with various loot. But nothing among all the odds and ends hinted at something valuable enough to slaughter a whole caravan for.
Zhi Cheng leaned forward as well, but he heard and sensed more than a mortal. In his mind, he scanned the many branches and followed the foul smell and booming laughter further ahead. He pointed to a section further ahead.
"Let's take the wide passage, Brother Qing, some of the barbarians are so huge that they can't get through the narrow paths," he said carelessly and led the way.
With determined steps, he made his way through the branches and corridors until Qing Lai pricked up his ears.
They were still a good half hour away from their camp, Zhi Cheng estimated, but Qing Lai's senses were sharpened and stretched to the limit.
As they rounded the next corner, two men came towards them. They had been discussing their prey and how much fun it was to violate women when the grin dropped from their faces.
Zhi Cheng felt his robes but found no more darts; with a sullen click of his tongue, he wrenched a torch from the wall and plunged the blunt end through the barbarian's throat.
The second barbarian opened his mouth to sound the alarm, and then Qing Lai was at Zhi Cheng's side. His arm shot out, and only a thin clot of blood from a tiny wound on his forehead was witness to the fact that he had touched him.
"That was close," Qing Lai remarked. A fight in the narrow corridors was not advantageous for either side, but the barbarians knew the paths and knew where they were wide enough to draw a weapon and swing a saber.
"We're on the right track, and more of them will probably show up the closer we get to their actual camp," Zhi Cheng warned, picking up one of the sabers the thieves had dropped. It was heavy and bulky in his hand and definitely not a weapon for him. But it would serve its purpose for now.
"We should split up. If one of us gets caught, the other can still act," Qing Lai suggested.
Zhi Cheng cocked his head. An unpleasant, queasy feeling spread through him.
"You expect me to trust you with my life?" he asked skeptically. Qing Lai looked at him, and Zhi Cheng would have liked to have turned his face away. If eyes could dazzle, then surely these could.
"As soon as I trust you with mine!" he replied.
Zhi Cheng gritted his teeth to keep from grinning stupidly. He suppressed the urge to rip out his heart and hand it to Qing Lai, who would just do whatever he wanted with it anyway.
Maybe this incorrigible do-gooder could heal it with one of his countless vials and powders.
Finally, he just nodded and they split up at the next junction. When Zhi Cheng was sure to be out of Qing Lai's reach, he stopped.
He put a hand against the rough rock and with closed eyes, he was able to make a rough outline of the cave system. Qing Lai would meet three men again in a few meters.
Zhi Cheng sent a surge of black magic through the stone. One of the men, who had leaned against the wall, hesitated briefly. He reached for his colleague and both went down, retching blood.
The third man didn't know what was happening to him; one moment everything was fine, the next his friends collapsed and when he looked up, he saw only something like a golden flash, then everything was dark.
Qing Lai examined the wall more closely, but before he could touch it, Zhi Cheng retreated. He gasped and choked up a load of the coagulated, thickened blood.
When he had regained his strength and put his hand on the rock, he saw Qing Lai creeping on. Zhi Cheng cursed, as long as there were still remnants of the nightshade in his system, he could only use black magic sparingly and at a high price.
But a direct confrontation, in which he knew of no other way than to cruelly slaughter his enemies, would only arouse Qing Lai's suspicions.
For the first time in his life, he regretted not having learned a fighting style. Qing Lai could tranquilize, paralyze, and torture his opponents with mere, fleeting touches. Zhi Cheng, on the other hand, seemed somehow clumsy and awkward.
He wiped the blood that was running from his nose. He was a black magician, long-range attacks were his specialty. He put his hand back on the rock, which was now quite warm, and let his energy flow through him into him.
It made its way through the veins of the rock until it had found the large main cave. And raced across the floor, walls and ceiling at an incredible speed, without the fifty or so men inside noticing anything.
It was only when the magic broke its way out of the stone and a fine spider web spanned the height that the men realized something was wrong. But by then they were already immobilized, prisoners of its ghostly threads.
They penetrated their skin and flesh and wrapped themselves around their muscles and embedded themselves in their blood vessels. One after the other, they slumped to the ground, and when Qing Lai discovered the large cave, he was amazed to see all the highwaymen kneeling uniformly in front of him.
Zhi Cheng groaned as he supported himself and hurried to catch up with Qing Lai. When he reached the cave, Qing Lai gave him a concerned look but didn't comment on his condition.
Why he looked like he was about to collapse again, of all times. The fifty or so men were kneeling on the ground, grumbling angrily and snapping all at once.
"You cowardly pigs, this was an ambush!" one of them shouted.
"When I'm done with you, not even your mother will recognize you, you son of a bitch!" another one shouted.
"Oh, I'm afraid she wouldn't recognize me anyway!" Qing Lai remarked casually, rubbing his temple.
"What the fuck do you motherfuckers want?" barked another, deeper voice. Qing Lai looked up and made his way to a huge, two-meter-tall giant.
"You're the leader?" he asked as businesslike as if he were asking for directions. Zhi Cheng sat down on a rock ledge and fanned air to himself.
The feeling when the airways narrowed and the blood stopped was painful. He closed his eyes as his field of vision narrowed and concentrated on listening.
"Who wants to know, you jerks? Why are you attacking us in our home?" the man shouted angrily. Zhi Cheng opened his eyes in surprise when he heard a sharp, slamming sound. Qing Lai had broken the jaw of one of the men, right next to the leader, with a single blow. The lower half hung uselessly and the man began to scream wildly in pain.