The journey to Skull Mountain was a pilgrimage through a graveyard of ambition. Saturu traveled light, his few supplies a stark contrast to the weight of Kayon's warning and the dull, throbbing ache in his newly-set fingers. The elven sorcerer had been true to his word—the path was watched. Not by the Northblades in their stark grey armor, but by subtler, more venomous sentinels.
They found him on the third day, in the jagged foothills known as the Stone Teeth. Three of them, clad in the muted greens and browns of the Plum Blossom clan's forest trackers. They moved without sound, emerging from the shadows of the rocks like ghosts. Their leader, a man with a face like weathered leather, gave a thin, humorless smile.
"The young master should not wander so far from home," the tracker said, his voice a low rasp. "The woods are full of dangers. Your father worries for your safety."
Saturu stood still, his hand not going to the simple traveler's knife at his belt, but resting at his side. He had no sword. The broken Blossom Sword was days behind him, and the weapon he sought was still a mountain away. "My father," Saturu replied, his tone flat, "worries only that his poison did not take full effect."
The tracker's smile vanished. "We are here to ensure it does."
They attacked as one, a coordinated blur of motion. They were not swordsmen seeking a duel; they were hunters executing a kill. Throwing knives whistled through the air, aimed at his throat and legs. Saturu moved, not with the flowing grace of the Plum Blossom style, but with the brutal, efficient economy of a soldier on a battlefield five centuries dead. He twisted, the knives embedding themselves in the earth where he had stood. He closed the distance to the first tracker in two strides.
The man drew a short, curved blade. Saturu didn't. As the blade swept toward him, he used the man's own momentum against him, grabbing the wrist, twisting, and using a sharp, precise strike to the elbow with the heel of his palm. The sound of the joint dislocating was a sharp pop. The tracker cried out, his blade falling. Saturu drove his knee into the man's gut, then slammed his head against a nearby rock. He crumpled.
The second tracker was on him, two daggers flashing. Saturu weaved under the strikes, the memory of Kayon's broken fingers a fresh brand in his mind. Control. He could not unleash the Divine Authority; the backlash without a proper conduit could shatter him as easily as it had the Blossom Sword. He had to be the weapon.
He parried a dagger thrust with his own hardened forearm, the impact sending a jolt up to his injured fingers. Gritting his teeth against the flare of pain, he trapped the arm, spun inside the tracker's guard, and drove his elbow into the man's throat. The tracker gagged, stumbling back, and Saturu finished him with a powerful kick to the knee that bent it sideways with a sickening crunch.
The third tracker, the leader, hung back, his eyes wide. He saw not a boy, but a specter of calculated violence. He threw a final, desperate knife. Saturu didn't dodge. He caught it. The blade sliced his palm, but his grip was iron. He stared at the tracker, his expression devoid of anger, of hatred, of anything at all. It was the most terrifying thing the man had ever seen.
Saturu threw the knife back. It wasn't a skilled throw, not like the trackers. It was pure, unadulterated force. The knife wasn't a finesse weapon in his hand; it was a piece of sharpened metal he willed toward a target. It took the tracker in the shoulder, punching through his leather armor and spinning him to the ground with a grunt of shock and pain.
Saturu walked over to him. The man looked up, fear finally etching his features.
"A message," Saturu said, his voice low and devoid of warmth. "For my father. Tell him his hunters are not welcome on my road. The next ones he sends will not return at all."
He didn't wait for a response. He turned and continued his climb, leaving the broken men among the broken stones. His hand bled freely, mingling with the dust of the path. The pain was another lesson, another reminder. He was shedding the skin of Rael, of the disappointing son, of the clan member. With every step toward Skull Mountain, he was reforging himself into something else entirely. He was becoming Saturu again, and the world of the Plum Blossom clan was shrinking to a distant, insignificant speck below.
---
The days blurred into a harsh rhythm of travel and vigilance. His broken fingers, bound in a rough splint, were a constant, gnawing reminder of his limits. He ate sparingly, drank from cold mountain streams, and slept in short, fitful bursts, always one ear open for the sound of pursuit. It never came. His message, it seemed, had been received.
The landscape grew more severe, the air thinner and sharper. The green of the lower forests gave way to grey stone and stunted, wind-twisted trees. He began to find the first signs that he was on the right path—a broken hilt protruding from a crevice, a rusted blade half-buried in scree, the skeletal remains of a long-dead traveler still clutching a notched sword. This was the outer boundary of Skull Mountain's domain.
On the seventh day, he reached the Pass of Regret, a narrow defile littered with the bones of those who had turned back. Here, he found his second test. It was not his father's hunters, nor the Northblades. It was a solitary figure, seated on a boulder as if waiting for him. The man was old, his face a web of deep lines, and he held a simple, worn sword across his knees. His eyes, however, were clear and sharp, holding a deep, abiding sorrow.
"You are young to seek the mountain," the old man said, his voice like the wind through the pass.
"I have need of what it offers," Saturu replied, stopping a respectful distance away.
"The mountain does not give. It only takes, and sometimes, it leaves something behind in the emptiness." The old man stood. "I turned back once, decades ago. The regret has eaten at me ever since. I have guarded this pass since, turning back those unworthy, so they may not share my fate. Show me you are worthy of proceeding. Show me your resolve."
He fell into a basic, unadorned stance. There was no flourish, no named technique. It was the stance of a man who had spent a lifetime with a sword in his hand.
Saturu understood. This was not a fight to the death. It was a test of spirit. He had no sword to draw. Instead, he raised his hands, one whole, one bound, and settled into the foundational stance Kayon had drilled into him—the beginning of the unarmed martial art that channeled force.
The old man's eyes showed a flicker of surprise, then respect. He attacked. His sword moved with a lifetime's precision, a series of controlled, measured strikes meant to test Saturu's defense, his footwork, his calm under pressure.
Saturu did not meet the blade directly. He flowed around it, his movements economical. He used parries and deflections, his bound fingers a liability he worked around. He was not trying to win; he was trying to prove he belonged on the path. For several minutes, they moved in a deadly dance, the old man's steel whistling through the air, Saturu a hair's breadth from its edge.
Finally, the old man stepped back, sheathing his sword. "You carry a great weight, boy. And a greater purpose. Your path is not one of turning back." He gestured up the pass. "Continue. The true mountain lies ahead. May you find what you seek, and may it not destroy you."
Saturu gave a curt nod of thanks and moved past him. As he left the Pass of Regret behind, the air grew colder, and the first true sight of Skull Mountain's peak came into view—a jagged fang of black stone piercing the sky, surrounded by a swirling, perpetual storm. He was close now. The final trial was ahead.