“We want beef stew!” Screamed the woman that had hit the barrier with a cleaver.

“We want human stew!” Screamed the Wuzhiqi back.

“I want you all to shut up!” Screamed Nikola, hands gripping his hair. This has been going for hours. The Wuzhiqi and their beasts had remained near the barrier, screaming their demands. Meanwhile the people of Pangong had begun to make cooking fires in the streets and to chop vegetables. Music could be heard from the market as people danced in the street and proclaimed that the days of their hunger were over.

Nikola stared at the beasts who were eyeing the humans. There had to be a way to get rid of them. He stomped on the earth and a pit appeared underneath the hooves of a herd of Aoyin and Gudiao. They plunged down and were pierced by the sharp spikes that waited for them at the bottom. The Wuzhiqi began screaming and they herded their beasts away from the barrier. Nikola made another pit. More beasts died and yet many more backed away. Until they were out of Nikola’s reach. But he had a moat around the village now, of sorts. It lacked water, but if the pits fill in then the spikes would no longer be effective.

“Give us the meat!” Demanded the woman with the cleaver. Nikola broke the barrier and people rushed towards the nearest pit. Getting ladders down and tying the now dead Aoyin to some rope so that they could pull it up. Children cheered with each pull, women cried openly, men yelled encouragements. The action was repeated for the other three Aoyins and the five Gudiao as well as their Wuzhiqi riders. All dead, their blood staining the spikes.

People were already butchering the animals when the cleaver lady ushered people to go and retrieve more corpses. All the while Nikola kept the barrier down in this area. Using the humans as bait for the beasts. They never charged though. More and more Wuzhiqi came from different areas of Pangong to cluster around the area without a barrier.

The main Wuzhiqi switched his Aoyin mount for a Gudiao. Nikola sat down and took out his sword. The Gudiao jumped over the first pit, one too big for an Aoyin to jump over. The Wuzhiqi that were riding Gudiao followed after the first one. Nikola stabbed his sword in the earth. That seemed to make the first Wuzhiqi pause, but the rest were pushing it forward. Some, despite the agility of their mounts fell down in the pits. Their screams lost in the bloodlust of their brethren.

But not the first Wuzhiqi. It braved the pits, forcing his Gudiao to move closer to Nikola. And then finally amid the chaos their eyes met. Brown stared into twinkling green. Nikola gripped his sword. The Wuzhiqi turned back, yelling a warning to those that came after it. It was too late.

Roots shoot out of the earth and began to drag the beasts into the pits. More spikes, this time made of roots shoot up. A tree began to grow. Wide, as if it had stood for centuries. Reaching for the skies as it feasted on living beings. A new Dryad. Born with a blood sacrifice, as all Dryads were. Soon it will reveal it’s true form. Soon it will stand on human-like legs and it will control the tree from which it was created. Or it would have done these things, if the first Wuzhiqi didn’t find it’s core and bit it’s still forming heart out.

The barrier rose back up as the baby Dryad shrieked it’s last. The first Wuzhiqi survived the poisonous sap of the heart somehow and it lead it’s brethren through the pits. Many still died, but not enough. Nikola stared at the first Wuzhiqi. It had bested him, even if there were no casualties on Nikola’s side. It deserved a name.

“Victor!” Yelled Nikola at the Wuzhiqi as he pointed at the barrier. “Leave here and never return.”

“Human!” Screamed back Victor. “I will make a necklace from your eyes!” He promised and then he gave a call and the beasts moved into the surrounding forest, away from Nikola’s reach. Nikola stood up and looked at the people behind him. They were looking at the now full pits with greed in their eyes. Nikola extended the barrier so that his moat can be inside of it.

“Go and bring the meat in.” Said Nikola. The people rushed and their foolish celebration continued. All the while Nikola stared at the spot where he had last seen Victor, the Dryad killer. If he could bend his will somehow then all the Wuzhiqi will become servants, rather than pests. The whole valley seemed to be infested with these water demons. Or at least the Yangtze was. It was high time he brews a luck potion.

The day passed with the people getting dead beasts from the pits and carving them up. The magistrate of the village had come and had tried to claim all the meat for himself but the woman with the cleaver, who was in the process of butchering a Gudiao at the time, had waved her cleaver at him and then pointed it towards a pot. The magistrate then said that whoever killed the beasts owned the meat. Perhaps in hopes that the newfound owner would give him a bigger cut of the meat.

Nikola had stepped forwards and had allowed the villagers to keep the food, on the condition that they gave it to everyone. There was much celebration because of that and Nikola had gone back to his family, plus the drivers and Han Wukong, to see them with bowls of steaming stew in their hands. Nikola soon received his own bowl and sat down to eat. The barrier had taken a little bit of his magic, he used the life energy of the villagers to power it up. And the pits had been child’s play as well. But the Dryad had nearly sucked him dry.

“We can’t stay here for long. Han Shanyuan has to make it to Chang’an before the final day of the competition.” Said Wei Caihong. He had finished his stew and a woman saw that, pouring more into his bowl. Wei Caihong thanked her and brought the bowl to his lips again.

“Victor is intelligent. He knew to kill the Dryad before it was fully born.” Said Nikola. A rice cake was pushed into his hands by a passing child. People kept giving him little gifts for the food he had given them.

“Who is Victor?” Asked Wei Zhaohui. Was there another person trapped in a curse as prince Han Wukong out there?

“The Wuzhiqi that leads them.” Said Nikola, he received a glare from Penemue at those words.

“Why name a mindless beast, my Emerald? In the end it will end up as stew.” Nikola gulped down the last of his stew and was given more. He was beginning to overeat, but then again so was everyone else.

“He won today. He will make a fine servant. I tried to create a super predator to kill off the Wuzhiqi, but Marek proofed to be a failure. Perhaps I have been going at this all wrong. Perhaps diplomacy is the way.”

He received strange looks at that.

“It won’t work.” Said Wei Caihong.

“Are you feeling alright?” Asked Penemue.

“Can’t you cause an avalanche to bury them all under instead?” Asked Han Wukong, pointing at a snow capped mountain peak.

Nikola stared at the peak. If the snow from it fell, then it would bury the village. And if he had realized this, then so has Victor.

“The Wuzhiqi can’t be allowed to reach that peak.” Said Nikola as he stood up.

“You are not going alone.” Said Penemue, also standing up.

“You are pregnant; you are not coming.” Said Nikola but Penemue leveled him with a look.

“I am as strong magically as you are, if not stronger. And being pregnant doesn’t equal being an invalid!”

“I won’t have it!” Snapped Nikola and then he heard a roar. He stared around wildly only to see he was too late; the snow was already rushing down the mountainside.

“Everyone move to me!” Screamed Nikola and the people rushed to do just that. But some had gone home with their food. Nikola couldn’t do anything for those people. He gritted his teeth and made strong roots to shot up from the earth and to encircle the whole of the village’s market. He heard people knocking at the outside of the shelter frantically. Then the snow came and he was met with silence, the darkness of this man-made cave enveloping him. Victor has won again, Nikola realized. But he was going to pay for it.

At least the survivors of Pangong had food. They huddled around the cook fires for warmth, eating from the stew in the pots. There were some corpses of beasts with them in the cavern. Enough to last them a week, even with them eating as much as they did now. And Nikola, when careful, could let slip some snow to quench the people’s thirst.

Nikola was sitting down, meditating and listening to the groans of the roots, already starting to freeze and to become weak. They wouldn’t last as much as the food. And he could hear the Wuzhiqi and their minions outside of the shelter. He could smell boiling pork in the air and knew that if there had been any survivors after the avalanche then they were surely eaten by now.

He heard something smashing itself on the side of the shelter. A root snapped and snow spilled in. People screamed and Nikola calmly repaired the wall. He saw a Wuzhiqi trying to enter from a deep crack. He forced roots to wrap themselves around the monkey demon and it used the snow to freeze the roots around it.

“You all don’t need to die.” Said the Wuzhiqi. Ah, it must be Victor. “Give me the man with the emerald eyes. Give me his wives. Give me his children and servants. And we will leave. He is the one who started this war.”

“I did no such thing.” Said Nikola as he went to the wall crack, sword at the ready.

“You burned one of our many homes.” Accused Victor, he was holding a dagger and he was hitting the roots around him with it. “You created the great tiger, Marek! You wish to see us all dead.”

“Not quite.” Said Nikola as he created a simple illusion around his sword. A trick of light to conceal it. “If you are open to negotiations then we can put this madness behind us, Victor.” The sword was raised and close to Victor’s neck. Nikola only needed to lean in.

“You keep calling me that. Why? Do you think you can gain my mercy with such a small gesture after the villagers feasted on my friends? You have some nerve! You…”

Nikola lunged forward and the sword found it’s mark, piercing and slicing through Victor’s neck. As the monkey gurgled it’s last Nikola spoke to it.

“Victor, I admired that you braved the front lines and your wish to avenge your friends. But against a stronger foe you must know that such things are meaningless. The only struggle someone as weak as you against someone like me is allowed to do is the struggle of running away.” Nikola pulled the monkey into the shelter just as an Aoyin threw itself against the roots. Nikola carved out Victor’s heart and threw it in an empty pot. Then he filled the pot with snow.

Victor had been a fine enemy. He will be an even finer ally. A Wuzhiqi out of snow climbed out of the pot and it changed. Snow turned to flesh and Victor was alive again. This time the Wuzhiqi bowed to Nikola.

“Go outside and get everyone back in the canyon where Marek can kill you all off.” Commanded Nikola. Victor tried to resist, echoes from his past life showing him he was a great leader. That he still could be. But he was a snow puppet and his puppeteer was the greatest one of all.