Qiu Yang settled into the smithy.
Before dawn the next morning, Old Liao was already hammering iron out front. Hearing the blows, Qiu Yang rose, washed her face, entered the shop, and crouched beside the bellows to work them.
Old Liao glanced at her but said nothing. He continued.
The fire strengthened. An iron bar in the furnace turned red. Old Liao drew it out with tongs, placed it on the anvil, and brought down his hammer in a shower of sparks.
Qiu Yang kept pumping until he laid down the hammer for water.
“You've got decent strength.” He wiped his mouth. “Zhao Jian'an wrote that you could work. He wasn't wrong.”
“When did Uncle Zhao send the letter?”
Old Liao thought. “Half a month ago. He said if something happened to him, you would come.”
Qiu Yang's hand paused on the bellows handle, then resumed. “Did he say anything else?”
“He did.” Old Liao set down the bowl. “He said you're like your mother.”
Qiu Yang did not respond. The bellows breathed, furnace light wavering over the wall. She kept her gaze lowered and pulled the handle more steadily.
That morning, she helped move a pile of iron. In the afternoon, she forged horseshoe blanks. She had practiced smithing several times in the capital and learned quickly here. Old Liao inspected the blanks, neither praising nor criticizing, and nodded.
At closing time, a man came to the shop. He was in his forties, younger than Old Liao, with broad shoulders, large hands, and a steady gait.
“Uncle, do you have enough iron today?”
“Enough.” Old Liao tipped his head toward Qiu Yang. “This is Zhao Jian'an's girl.”
The man studied her from head to toe, his gaze stopping at her hands. A day at the bellows had left red marks between her thumbs and at the roots of her fingers, but the skin had not broken.
He said only, “I'm Liao Dazhu, with the town patrol. If you need anything, come to me.”
Qiu Yang nodded. “I'm Qiu Yang.”
Liao Dazhu nodded, then turned back at the doorway. “Northern Di scouts will come tomorrow. Don't leave town.”
His footsteps soon faded along the dirt road.
Qiu Yang watched the entrance. “Do Northern Di scouts come often?”
“Every few days.” Old Liao hung his hammer on the wall. “Sometimes for grain, sometimes livestock, sometimes only to reconnoiter.”
Qiu Yang looked into the darkening sky and said nothing.
The next day, she remained in town and worked iron. In the afternoon, hoofbeats sounded to the north, dense and fast, followed by shouts and a gong.
She put down her hammer and went to the doorway. People ran through the street. Someone shouted, “Riders from the north!” Then another voice called, “They've gone!”
Qiu Yang watched the dust beyond the north side of town slowly settle, then returned to the shop.
“How close did they come?”
“They circled outside town and left.” Old Liao bent over a sickle he was sharpening. “For months they've returned every few days. They don't approach, but they don't go far either. It's as though they're watching something.”
That night, after dinner, Qiu Yang sat on a stool in the rear courtyard and wiped the old blade she had brought from the capital. Old Liao had forged it for her before, and she had kept it ever since. A thin gleam appeared along the edge, reflecting her face indistinctly.
She sheathed it and went inside.
Within several days, she had adapted to the smithy's rhythm. Each morning she pumped the bellows and forged iron. In the afternoons, she collected goods from the town entrance or helped repair farm tools. After work, she walked several circuits of the shop to loosen her limbs.
She did not practice the staff in the back courtyard. Too many eyes passed through the smithy. Only occasionally, when alone, did she swing her arms a few times.
One day, Liao Dazhu returned carrying a broken blade, which he tossed onto the workbench.
“Uncle, can this be repaired?”
Old Liao examined it. “The body has chipped. It needs reforging.”
“How long?”
“Two or three days.”
Liao Dazhu nodded, then looked at Qiu Yang. “You've trained with a blade?”
She froze. She did not know how he had noticed. She had demonstrated nothing in the shop.
Neither admitting nor denying it, she said, “A little.”
He asked no more and left.
Qiu Yang watched him go and realized that after so many years with the patrol, Liao Dazhu could tell at a glance what a person carried in their body.
That night, she did not linger in the shop. She put away her tools and returned to the courtyard, drew her old blade, studied it beneath the moon, then sheathed it beside her bed.
Two days later, Liao Dazhu came for the repaired weapon. He tested its balance, rotated his wrist, and made the edge hum softly through the air.
He lowered it and said abruptly, “Qiu Yang, come north of town with me tomorrow.”
She was sweeping iron filings and stopped. “Why?”
“Someone saw a stranger outside the north side this morning. He doesn't look like Northern Di or a local.” Liao Dazhu slid the blade into the scabbard at his waist. “I suspect the court sent him. Come see whether you recognize him.”
Still crouched with the broom in her hand, Qiu Yang waited, then said, “All right.”
Early the next morning, she followed him out of town and around the earthen wall to the north.
The open wasteland was covered in low grass and dead shrubs. Visibility was excellent. Liao Dazhu led her along the outer wall, stopped behind a low rise, and crouched.
“Look there.” He raised his chin.
In the distance, beneath a solitary dead tree, stood a figure with his back to them. He was bent over something on the ground, examining tracks or wagon ruts.
Qiu Yang narrowed her eyes and watched. When he raised his head and turned, his profile appeared.
She recognized him.
Gray clothes. Short. Thin.
The same man who had crouched at the entrance to Sweetwater Alley.
Her fingers dug into dry earth. “I know him.”
“Who is he?”
“One of Li's men,” Qiu Yang said evenly as wind crossed the slope. “I saw him in the capital.”
Liao Dazhu did not move. After a moment, he asked, “Should we seize him?”
Qiu Yang watched the distant man study the ground, straighten, and begin walking back the way he had come. Only after he was far away did she release her grip.
“There's no point. If we catch him, Li will send another.”
She stood and brushed dirt from her knees. “Let's go back.”
They returned one behind the other. The north wind swept over the wasteland and flattened the dead grass in waves.
Walking behind Liao Dazhu, Qiu Yang remembered the man crouching beneath the wall at Sweetwater Alley and bending over the tracks just now.
Li's people had reached the outskirts of Pingyuan Town. He knew she was here. He simply had not entered yet.
She quickened her pace.
That night, Qiu Yang sat on the rear threshold and cleaned her blade. The oiled cloth moved slowly from hilt to tip with a soft, even sound.
She sheathed it across her knees and sat facing north, watching darkness for a long time.