Da Bao had repaired the arrows again.
He laid five of them across his knees after breakfast, turning each shaft in his thick fingers. One had new feathers, another a straightened point. The third had been cut shorter because Xu Hao had managed to bury it so deeply in a rotten stump that removing it broke the tip.
"I thought arrows were supposed to last longer than a morning," Xu Hao said.
"They do. Usually."
"That's a very pointed remark."
Da Bao looked at the arrow in his hand. "This one isn't. Not yet."
Xu Hao laughed despite himself.
His fingertips were still tender from the previous lesson, though Da Bao had wrapped the bowstring with a smoother serving. He could draw without tearing the skin now. Hitting what he aimed at was another matter.
Er Bao arrived carrying a strip of red cloth and an empty water skin.
"New lesson," he said.
Xu Hao regarded the cloth. "Am I being blindfolded?"
"No. You're going to watch it."
"Good. I think I can manage that."
"You said the same thing about the stump."
Da Bao enjoyed that considerably more than Xu Hao felt was necessary.
* * *
The clearing was sheltered on three sides by pines. Er Bao tied the cloth to a branch halfway between the firing line and the target, then carried the water skin to the stream and hung it beyond the stump.
"Tell me when the wind changes," he said.
Xu Hao stood with the bow lowered. The red strip hung loose for a while, then lifted towards his left.
"From the right."
"And near the water skin?"
The water skin hung motionless. Xu Hao waited. A moment later, leaves above it trembled in the opposite direction.
"That's inconvenient."
"Wind often is."
"Does the arrow have time to notice?"
"Not much at ten paces. More at twenty. Enough to matter when you can shoot farther."
Da Bao stood beside the firing line and watched Xu Hao set an arrow against the string.
"Don't blame the wind before you shoot," he warned.
"I haven't blamed anything."
"You have the look."
"What look?"
"The one you get before explaining why something wasn't your fault."
Xu Hao decided not to ask how his brother had become familiar with that expression.
He drew, felt his right shoulder rise, and tried to lower it before releasing. The arrow glanced off the left edge of the bark.
"Wind," he said automatically.
Da Bao folded his arms.
"My elbow," Xu Hao amended.
"Your elbow," Da Bao agreed.
Er Bao brought the arrow back and set it at Xu Hao's feet.
"Again. But don't aim at the cloth. It's there to tell you something, not to decide the shot for you."
Xu Hao made himself watch the target rather than the nearest movement in the leaves. He drew a second time and loosed.
The arrow struck the stump near its right edge.
It wasn't a particularly good shot. It was, however, where he had intended the arrow to go.
Da Bao nodded. "There. You didn't fight your own bow that time."
Xu Hao held out his hand for another shaft.
Da Bao shook his head. "Rest your fingers."
"After two arrows?"
"After the other twenty you shot yesterday."
An unfair argument, Xu Hao thought. Unfortunately, it was also accurate.
* * *
They returned to the clearing over the next three mornings.
Xu Hao liked being able to compare one day's efforts with another. At ten paces he could now strike the bark more often than not, provided he wasn't hurrying. At fifteen, the target seemed to shrink whenever he raised the bow.
Da Bao moved the stump farther away on the third morning.
"Five more paces," he announced.
"Have I offended you?"
"You said you wanted to shoot something before it reached you."
"I was hoping it would be a very slow something."
"The tiger wasn't."
That silenced him.
Da Bao was already walking back when Xu Hao called after him.
"Brother, wait. Leave it there."
His older brother turned.
"If I can only hit at ten paces, then ten paces is the distance I know. I should find out what happens beyond it."
Da Bao looked pleased, though he made an effort not to show it.
At fifteen paces, Xu Hao missed his first two shots and struck the stump with the third. The fourth arrow buried itself in a root. He kept his eyes on the spot where it disappeared, as Er Bao had taught him.
"Low," he said before anyone asked. "And left."
They found it exactly there.
Da Bao knelt to inspect the arrowhead, which had bent against the root.
"Another one for me to fix."
"You make it sound as though you aren't enjoying yourself."
"I enjoy making bows. You appear to enjoy testing how much punishment arrows can survive."
He straightened the damaged point enough to carry home, but put the shaft aside. They would have five sound arrows for the next outing only after he repaired it properly.
Xu Hao studied the bark target. One mark near the edge was his. Three arrows had missed altogether. The results were not flattering.
Er Bao stood beside him.
"Same bow?"
"Yes."
"Same archer?"
"Regrettably."
"Different distance. Don't confuse the change with losing a skill."
Xu Hao knew that. He'd given the same advice to students who grew discouraged when a more difficult translation made them feel as though they'd forgotten an entire language.
Knowing it did not make the missed shots less irritating.
He took the bow down and helped retrieve the target instead of asking for another attempt.
* * *
Grey was walking normally again, though Er Bao still examined her foreleg each evening. During the afternoons, while Xu Hao's fingers recovered, they practised calling the dogs back from the edge of the clearing.
Little One had developed an unfortunate interest in fetching arrows.
The first time she brought Xu Hao a shaft, Da Bao praised her so enthusiastically that she spent the rest of the afternoon searching the ground for more.
"She's helping," he said.
"She's chewing the feathers."
"She'll learn."
"She'll learn they're delicious, at this rate."
They agreed that no dog would enter the practice ground until the bow was unstrung and every arrow accounted for. Little One disliked this arrangement. Grey accepted it without complaint. Sia waited beside Xu Hao, occasionally leaning against him with enough force to move his feet.
On the last afternoon, Da Bao called Little One away from a stick he'd thrown. She stopped halfway across the clearing, stared at the stick, then came back without it.
He crouched to praise her. The great husky nearly knocked him over in her enthusiasm.
"Good girl," Xu Hao said.
Da Bao looked up. "You're praising her too?"
"I'm praising you. You didn't shout."
"I can be quiet."
Er Bao, passing behind them with a bundle of firewood, said, "We have witnesses to the contrary."
Da Bao muttered about disloyal family members while Little One attempted to fit her head under his arm.
* * *
The next morning, Da Bao proposed a short hunt.
"Small game," he said. "We'll stay near the lower stream."
Xu Hao looked up from inspecting the bowstring.
"How small?"
"Rabbits. Deer, perhaps."
"Not another tiger?"
"Little brother, a tiger is not small game."
"The last one was apparently a child. I would appreciate a more precise scale."
Er Bao put down his breakfast bowl.
"We're not going deep into the forest. We inspect the lower stream and return before midday. If there are no safe targets, we bring nothing home."
Da Bao looked as though this was an unnecessarily gloomy way to describe a hunt, but he agreed.
Xu Hao counted the arrows, checked the wrapping around the points and put the bow across his shoulder. Five arrows. Not enough for careless shooting, and certainly not enough to make him useful against anything as dangerous as the striped beast that had nearly killed them.
The dogs came too. Grey stayed close to Er Bao, Little One walked with Da Bao, and Sia kept finding reasons to sniff Xu Hao's pocket, where he'd hidden a piece of dried meat.
It was a pleasant morning, which made him suspicious of it. Sunlight fell through the trees in broad patches. The stream could be heard before they reached it, and a bird with a bright yellow breast hopped from one low branch to another without showing the slightest concern for three men and their dogs.
Near the water, Er Bao raised his hand.
Xu Hao stopped.
Fresh tracks crossed a muddy strip of bank. Deer, by the look of them. There were several, heading down to drink, then turning towards the thicker ferns upstream.
Da Bao pointed to a narrow opening between the bushes.
"Good place to wait," he whispered.
Xu Hao examined the ground before stepping into it.
One mark cut across the deer tracks at an angle.
It was a paw print.
He crouched, careful not to place his knee in the mud. The pad was broad, with four rounded toes and deep impressions where claws had pressed into the soft bank. He laid his open hand beside it.
Too wide.
He brought the other hand alongside the first. The print was broader than both palms together.
Xu Hao took his hands away.
There was a temptation to begin explaining it. Perhaps soft mud had spread the edges. Perhaps the animal had been running and struck the ground unusually hard. He had spent years looking at impressions in clay, stone and plaster; he knew how easily a mark could mislead the person who wanted it to mean something.
He examined the next print, a pace farther on. It was just as large.
"Brother Er Bao," he said quietly.
The giant came over. Da Bao followed when he saw Er Bao's face.
Neither spoke for a moment.
"A tiger?" Xu Hao asked.
"Possibly," Er Bao said.
"Larger than the one we killed?"
"Much larger."
The words settled over the bank.
Xu Hao looked upstream. Several reeds lay crushed between the muddy edge and the pines. He couldn't tell whether the beast had gone that way an hour ago or yesterday. He had no desire to learn by following.
Sia stood at his shoulder with her nose lifted. Grey had moved beside Er Bao. Little One, unusually, made no attempt to investigate the tracks.
Da Bao lowered his club from his shoulder and rested its heavy end against the ground.
"We can move farther downstream," he said, though without much enthusiasm.
Xu Hao glanced at the narrow opening where they had intended to wait. Deer would come there to drink. So, perhaps, would whatever had left these prints.
He looked at his bow. Fifteen paces had seemed a considerable distance from a piece of bark. Here, with the stream running at his feet, it looked much too short.
"No," he said.
Da Bao turned towards him.
"I came because I wanted to help on a hunt. I can't help if we walk into something none of us expected."
He took hold of Sia's collar and moved away from the prints without turning his back to the trees.
"We're not hunting today."
Er Bao nodded once. "No. We're going home."