The Road Home

Yan watched from the gate, and when Ning slung the bundle over his shoulder, the swordsman nodded to him once, in the old, hard way. Go, he said. The thing is dead, but the road is long, and a ghost is only as safe as the person who carries her. I will see you to the edge of the village, and then we go our separate ways.

They walked together through the morning, Yan with his sword across his back, Ning with his bundle light against his chest. At the village edge, Yan stopped and held out his hand, and the two men, who had known each other less than two days, clasped hands the way old soldiers do.

She is good, Yan said. Do not make her regret the one kind thing she ever did. Ning promised, and Yan turned and went back down the road, and was gone among the trees. Ning walked on, carrying a dead girl's bones, and the road was no longer the thing he had feared.