Guardian of Heaven and Earth
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Kanbal
Part 2 - Disturbances in Nayugu
Chapter 2 - A Soldier's Life
Tanda bent double with his back aching as he kept digging. When he wiped his forehead, mud and sweat caked his sleeve. The sight before his eyes was cruel and inescapable.
Farmers and villagers took up their hoes to destroy their rice fields and build deep, muddy trenches in their place. The trenches nearest to the ocean were unstable without scaffolding, so people ran back and forth carrying bamboo poles to shore them up.
The work of digging trenches had gone on for days without a break. I wonder if the farmers will be able to regain this land and use it to grow rice after the war, Tanda thought. The year’s harvest from this field had been destroyed: trampled down by workers over the past few days.
Tanda felt a sudden pang of misery. It was likely that he’d never see rice growing in a peaceful field ever again. He wiped his forehead again and blinked to clear sweat out of his eyes, then started shoring up the trenches again. Someone screamed nearby. Tanda glanced at the man next to him; he’d also heard the scream. It was coming from the direction of the river.
There was probably a village nearby. More screams and cries followed the first; Tanda was able to make out some words. It seemed that riders from the cavalry unit had gone to the village to burn their boats. The screams belonged to people who were begging the soldiers not to burn the source of their livelihoods.
The riders paid no heed to the villagers’ screams. They had been ordered to burn the boats so that the enemy wouldn’t be able to steal and make use of them.
It seems like such a waste, Tanda thought. What could the enemy even accomplish with a couple of stolen fishing boats?
“There must be a way for us to make use of them. Destroying them doesn’t make any sense.”
The commander of Tanda’s unit let out a call on horseback. The commander wasn’t even twenty years old yet, but the men in Tanda’s unit had no other authority to rely on.
“What are you muttering there?” the commander asked.
“Nothing, sir,” Tanda said quietly. “I was just wondering if we might make use of the boats instead of burning them.”
The commander’s face brightened. He was used to scolding Tanda and the other men to keep them from slacking off, but this duty was a boring one at the best of times. He jumped on the opportunity to have an actual conversation.
“We are making use of the boats,” the commander said. “If we sink enough of them, the enemy won’t be able to sail any of their vessels along the river. Our wreckage will block their way. It’s a well-known military strategy described in the book One Hundred War Strategies.”
“We’re making it easier for the enemy to move over land by getting rid of the rice fields and building trenches,” Tanda said. “Why would they try to travel via the river when it’s just as easy to move over land with their horses?”
“That’s a shallow way of thinking,” the commander said. “It’s obvious that you haven’t been a soldier long. We’re doing this to the rice fields so that it’s easier to mobilize and protect our own forces. But Sangal could try to send up their smaller boats as scouts, or to sneak forces past our patrols. That’s why it’s a good idea to sink so many boats in the river. It will impede the enemy’s progress.”
Tanda shook his head. “All rivers flow downstream to the ocean from here. Any enemy spies would have to row against the current. That’s a slow and difficult way to travel. I doubt our enemies would choose to travel that way if there was any other option. Trying to row against a strong current would be loud, too--we’d hear them.
The commander smirked at him. “Perhaps you’re right, but you’re forgetting one very important thing.”
“What’s that, sir?” Tanda asked. He regretted asking almost as soon as he opened his mouth. He’d already said too much; he should probably let this subject be.
“The current in the rivers depends on the tide,” the commander said. “The people in the the village know all about it. At certain times of day, the current in the rivers flows differently--sometimes in the completely opposite direction that it does normally. This is recorded in One Hundred War Strategies, too.”
Tanda had never seen the young commander so much in his element before. He seemed to like talking to Tanda about strategy and warfare--and he also seemed to have gotten all of his information from books.
“Have you told the other commanders and generals about that?” Tanda asked. “That might be the useful information for shipping our own men and supplies up and down the river.”
The commander’s bright-faced enthusiasm soured. “They don’t listen to me,” he said. “I have little experience and my social status isn’t usually high enough to get me a hearing.”
“Why not seek out the lieutenant?” Tanda asked. “He seems like a man who would listen.”
The commander nodded, but then shook his head in denial. “You’re right. He would listen, but I have orders not to take anything superfluous to our mission here to him. So I can’t really tell this to him, either.” The young commander sighed.
The commander realized that he’d been talking to Tanda for quite a while. He stood up straight and barked, “Back to work! No rest until you’ve completed shoring up this area.”
Tanda and the other men digging were finally given a break at sunset, when it was so dark that they could no longer see their hands as they worked. Tanda’s unit went down to the banks of the Blue Bow river to wash off sweat and grime from the day’s hard labor. It was only three days before the new year, so the river water was bitterly cold, but the men endured it.
For Tanda, bathing was usually the most pleasant activity of the day. He worked all day with the others, was fed meager rations and slept short hours, but he always bathed at the end of each day.
After his bath, he lined up with the others in his unit in the tall grass and waited for his helping of rice and vegetable stew. Everyone in the army ate mostly the same thing from day to day. By good luck, the southern part of the country had an excellent harvest this year, and the year before as well, so there’d been no trouble keeping the army fed yet. Tanda did wonder if there was enough to feed the army as well as all the common people and farmers in the villages. No one ever told him how things were faring back home.
Kocha sat next to Tanda. He was shivering. The people from his own village continued to bully him and beat him up, so he stuck close to Tanda whenever he could. The weather was usually unseasonably warm during the day, but the nights were cold; Kocha’s shivering grew worse as Tanda ate.
“Kocha, have you eaten?” Tanda asked.
“Yeah, I did before,” Kocha said. He leaned forward and extended his hands over the cooking fire in front of him. He still didn’t stop shivering.
Tanda frowned. Kocha was young, and he looked frail. How much longer would he be expected to shoulder the same burdens and perform the same physical work as strong and healthy adults? The rations they received weren’t enough for a growing boy.
“Want half of mine?” Tanda asked.
Kocha’s eyes lit up. “Are you sure?”
Tanda nodded, then passed his bowl to Kocha. He ate greedily, savoring the stew, which was still hot.
Tanda’s stomach growled, but he ignored it. He could be hungry for a day. This part of the army was heading into the mountains soon, so he’d be able to catch birds and game to eat there. He could also replenish his supply of medicinal herbs. Many men were already sick with exhaustion from their long labor; some had sustained injuries. There wasn’t much he could do for them with his current supplies, but he hoped to change that soon.
Kocha returned Tanda’s bowl to him after he finished eating. There was still a bit left in the bowl. Tanda smiled and ate it.
“Are you still having bad dreams?” Tanda asked.
Kocha shook his head. “No. I fall asleep as soon as work is done at the end of the day. I haven’t had any dreams at all.”
Kocha was like Asra: he could see what was going on in Nayugu at will. He’d tried to warn the men of the army about a terrible landslide; he’d seen the signs of it in Nayugu before it happened. But his warning hadn’t been heeded. Many men had had died in the landslide.
Tanda had met Kocha on the night of the landslide. Some of the men from his village had beaten him for telling them to run away. Kocha had told Tanda about his nightmares then. Tanda had been worried about him ever since. He could do nothing for Asra here, but he felt the need to protect and support Kocha as much as he could. He believed that Kocha would be able to warn the army of other dangers. The Yakoo called people like Kocha an o chal--a canary in a coal mine, or an early warning system before a disaster.
“Kocha,” Tanda said, “how often do you usually have dreams?”
“When I was still in my village, I had them every night,” Kocha said. “When we were climbing the mountains outside the capital, I didn’t have any dreams at all. I started having the dreams again when we got close to the river. When I passed by the capital itself, I got goosebumps all over and couldn’t stop shivering.”
“Where is your home village?” Tanda asked.
“Okka,” Kocha said.
“Okka...that’s near the Misty Blue Mountains, right? I think it’s close to Kanbal.”
Kocha nodded.
Tanda frowned. Okka was primarily a Yakoo village, and most Yakoo villages in New Yogo were poor. He could imagine the desperation that Kocha’s father must have felt when he’d given his son to the army.
He didn’t understand the pattern behind Kocha’s dreams. Asra had been incredibly frightened when she’d passed by the capital, though. That was why she and Chikisa had visited him in his hut.
Do the dreams have something to do with the Blue Bow river?
But Kocha wasn’t having dreams now, and they were camped right next to the river.
Tanda remembered what he’d seen while investigating strange disturbances in Nayugu for his master, Torogai. He’d seen water everywhere, but it all seemed to fall off a cliff when it reached the Misty Blue Mountains. The farther north he’d gone, the less water in Nayugu he’d seen.
Tanda broke out into a cold sweat. If Kocha, Asra and I are correct in what we’re seeing...there could be a flood. A terrible flood that engulfs the entire country.
He had to get a message to Torogai. They had to warn as many people as they could. He decided to project his soul to his master at the earliest opportunity.
Projecting his soul over such a far distance would be incredibly difficult: there were many souls between his and Torogai’s. He would have to fly past them all and search for Torogai’s. It might take a long time to find her.
Still, he had to try.
He was exhausted. The strength of his soul projection depended partially on the strength of his body, which had been weakened by weeks of hard marching, difficult labor, and short rations.
Kocha fell asleep with his head on Tanda’s shoulder.
Can I project my soul now? Or will it kill me?
He wasn’t sure.
Tanda listened to Koucha breathe and closed his eyes.
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