The Demonic Cult Took the Wrong Disciple novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: The Tribunal

They gave Si-hyeon a dry robe and a sword that wasn't his.

The Red Lantern Hall had turned into an arena.

The elders sat on the dais in a row of black chairs.

The Left Protector stood in front of them with his hands folded into his sleeves.

"The prisoner is a spy," he said. "He sleeps in our Lord's chamber and handles our Lord's seals. The Moon Rite is in three days, and the rite requires a sacrifice from the Alliance."

Si-hyeon stood in the middle of the floor with his ankle chain off and his hair tied up.

His thighs felt wonderful and awful.

He had not slept.

"The Alliance has refused to ransom him," the Left Protector went on. "His own master called him worthless. Let him be useful."

"I'm very useful," Si-hyeon said. "I'm excellent with tea."

Someone choked.

The Heavenly Demon lounged on his throne with his chin on his fist.

"He's a swordsman," he said. "Let him earn his keep with a sword."

The Left Protector smiled thinly.

"A trial, then. Our champion against the prisoner. If he lives, he is the Lord's property. If he dies, he serves the rite."

Si-hyeon looked at the champion.

She was a woman of about forty with a polearm and shoulders, and she was smiling at him with real pleasure.

He looked at the sword in his hand.

It was a decent blade, but two fingers too heavy, and balanced for someone with a longer reach.

His own iron sword still lay at the bottom of the Azure Cloud gate stairs.

"Begin," said the Left Protector.

The champion came at him.

Si-hyeon did what ten years of teaching a boy had taught him, and watched her feet.

He let the first strike pass and felt the wind of it lift his hair.

He let the second pass, slid inside the third, and tapped her wrist with the flat of the blade.

She grunted in surprise.

She came again, harder, and he moved around her.

It was the old Cloud Parting Form, the one the whole Azure Cloud Sect trained every dawn.

He had never done it before an audience that wasn't a bored child.

Out of habit, he glanced up at the throne.

He wanted to know whether the Demon was bored.

The Demon wasn't.

His lips were moving.

He was silently shaping words with his eyes on Si-hyeon's blade.

Si-hyeon could have sworn he saw the shape of the next move, a moment before he made it.

Low guard.

Si-hyeon dropped into low guard.

The champion's polearm whistled over his head.

He rose up under her arms, and his blade stopped a finger's width from her throat.

The hall went completely silent.

"Yield," Si-hyeon said.

She stared at him.

Then she laughed, short and astonished, and grounded her polearm and bowed.

Si-hyeon stood in the arena, breathing hard, with a torn sleeve where he hadn't dodged the last cut.

Three hundred cult members were looking at him.

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