The Sorceress' Revolt
Author: Toriumi Jinzō
Translator: Ainikki the Archivist
Ko Biji's Story
Part Two: Salt Smugglers
Tanshi was astonished by the spectacle of the battle outside. He'd never seen so many people engaged in bloodshed at once. He stood just outside the doorway, dumbstruck with his staff in hand.
The battle was getting closer to him. Salt smugglers dismounted from their horses and engaged the governor's private army. They approached like ghouls, faces and hands and armor stained with blood. More blood splashed through the air as the salt smugglers cut down their foes.
Looking closer, Tanshi noticed that the salt smugglers had taken casualties as well. The ground underfoot was littered with corpses and injured men from both sides of the conflict. To Tanshi, it looked like they were swimming in a sea of blood.
"Hey, you! Get outta here if you value your life."
And then Tanshi was surrounded by salt smugglers. He gripped his pewter staff harder. The sun hadn't risen fully yet, and in the confusion of the fighting the salt smugglers hadn't seen that he was a monk. They'd assumed that he was a combatant--and an enemy.
The salt smugglers attacked. Tanshi used his staff to block their weapons, saying, "I don't want to fight!"
The salt smugglers looked at him as if he were a special kind of idiot. They didn't recognize him as belonging to their side, which meant that he was against them: that struck them as perfectly obvious. As they continued their attacks, Tanshi kept blocking, flailing around like a dying fish on land.
All thoughts of fleeing this place left Tanshi's mind as he repelled the attacks of the salt smugglers. He'd been naïve, thinking that there was any escape from this. He struck down salt smugglers with his staff; they rolled away from him in pain and confusion, making room for the next wave of attackers.
I have no choice: I have to do whatever I can to defend myself. This was self-defense, just like when he'd fought the itinerant monk, only now his opponents were endless--and they had edged weapons. Tanshi fought back, dazed and confused about how he'd gotten here, of all places.
It was harder to avoid killing his foes than it would have been to strike in more vital areas, but Tanshi made the effort to spare as many as he could. Amid the chaos, Tanshi gasped out, "I won't kill you. But it will hurt."
Many of the injured salt smugglers retreated to safety. Their leader noticed the disarray in this part of the battlefield and came to investigate. "Out of my way! I'll deal with this one," the leader said.
The leader carried a longsword. He raised it overhead and brought it down in a wide sweep, intending to take Tanshi's head off.
Tanshi blocked the blow with his pewter staff, but the effort sent him tumbling backward by degrees: one step, three, five. He got to his feet again, using the staff as support.
"Oh? Such strength!" the leader said as he looked Tanshi over.
Tanshi was stunned by the force of the strike he'd blocked. He wasn't certain he could block another.
"And you're a monk?" the leader asked. "Oh, I know! You're Tanshi, aren't you?"
Tanshi gaped. As far as he knew, he had no acquaintances among bandits and thieves. He took a closer look at the leader's face.
The leader, Ryū Gen, lowered his sword and laughed. "I never thought I'd see you in a place like this, Tanshi!"
The salt smugglers and the governor's hired army looked between Tanshi and Ryū Gen in surprise.
The governor and the inspectors from the capital rushed over to them, seeing that the fighting had stopped in this area.
"Listen here, you ruffians! We are messengers of the Imperial Court. Your rebellion will be punished!" one of the inspectors said.
"You people make me sick," Ryū Gen said. "You embezzle public funds in collusion with the governor, enriching yourselves and robbing the poor. If anyone's a ruffian, it's you."
"Be silent, thief!" the governor shouted.
"I really can't, Mr. Governor. You see, I brought black salt to this province and sold it cheap to those who needed it. But then your inspectors seized it and tried to resell it at a high price, and that, I just can't allow. You executed common farmers whose only crime was buying salt, and then stole that salt from them. So I'll defy you all I want and say whatever I like. I will succeed or fail here based on heaven's will, not your own."
The governor was apoplectic. "Matters of legality little concern a common bandit like you. Everything was done with the permission of the governor of the province, not only myself." He faced Tanshi, who'd witnessed this exchange in mortified silence. "You, there. That's a salt smuggler in front of you. Kill him."
Tanshi slowly walked towards Ryū Gen, holding his staff. Soldiers formed up behind him, using this pause in the battle to regroup.
The situation had turned again, and now it was the salt smugglers that were at a disadvantage. There were around a hundred of the governor's soldiers left standing. There were only half as many salt smugglers in good enough shape to fight.
Ryū Gen kept smiling, fearless, unconcerned. He hadn't dismounted; he towered over his enemies with his longsword clasped in one hand.
Enemies and allies alike focused their attention on Ryū Gen and Tanshi. Ryū Gen was right: he would succeed or fail here based on heaven's will, which was pretty much the same thing as relying on luck. Without their leader, the salt smugglers couldn't possibly win this fight.
The governor's side was betting everything on Tanshi's capabilities as a fighter.
Tanshi approached Ryū Gen, then turned and faced the governor's soldiers, staff in hand. "I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to switch sides," Tanshi said. "You should retreat. I won't just hurt you this time."
The governor's soldiers were horrified; they'd already witnessed Tanshi's strength during the battle.
Really, there was no need for Tanshi to apologize for switching sides; he wasn't formally allied with the governor and he hadn't accepted his offer the previous night. Tanshi apologized out of politeness and habit, and because he was genuinely angry and wanted to hit the source of his anger. To think that the governor had executed innocent people--poor farmers! That was unforgivable.
There was only one way out for Tanshi now, and that was to defeat the governor's soldiers. He didn't think that he was going to die--his quest was for eternal youth and longevity, and he'd only just gotten started. The hubris of youth prevented him from fearing death, but his intelligence made him pause. He'd fought the itinerant monk one-on-one. He was now fighting with allies, perhaps, but those allies were outnumbered. Tanshi was outnumbered--and outnumbered by actual fighters. These men knew how to fight.
"If I knew he'd ditch us at the first opportunity, I would have charged him with murder," the governor fumed. "Cut him down!"
The governor's soldiers pointed their spears at Tanshi, approaching from the front and fanning out.
More soldiers marched through the doors of the estate and into the courtyard like Li Keyong's army of Black Crows. They were armed with longswords and coming fast.
Ryū Gen gave Tanshi a disapproving look: he'd delayed too long and lost his chance to make the first move.
Tanshi was in quite the predicament, and in the initial shock it was difficult to force himself to move. This is a life or death situation, he thought. Doing nothing was still a choice. A terrible choice. He had to act.
More than anything, Tanshi wanted the knowledge of the Way of Shattering Earth. If only he possessed that knowledge, this battle would be like nothing to him: of that, he was certain.
But it was no good wishing for knowledge he didn't have. He would succeed now because he had to live in order to attain that knowledge. If he died now, his long journey would be for nothing.
Tanshi calmed his thoughts. Madness kills reason; even in the greatest storm of chaos, there is an eye of calm.
Tanshi's years of reading and training led to battle-wisdom now, in his time of need. He held his staff horizontally, supported by both hands, and bent his knees. His breathing was even and steady, and his eyes were half-closed. He'd entered a state of mental strength cultivated by years of meditation practice.
The soldiers were moving fast, but to Tanshi they looked like slow-moving shadows. Their every action gave him time and space for reaction. When he felt a blow aimed at him, he stepped to the side and swung his pewter staff. The rings attached to the top rang out like bells as he moved, graceful like a dance. The pewter staff felt like an extension of his own arm as he struck down his foes.
When he came out of his battle trance, the soldiers lay in heaps on the ground. Some others that had been ordered to attack were hesitating; eventually, they retreated to the estate wall.
Tanshi took a deep breath. What he'd accomplished was remarkable, but it would have been better if he'd known that he was capable of it to start with. All of his monk's training over the past seven years had combined seamlessly to support him in defending his life.
With Tanshi out of immediate danger, Ryū Gen approached on horseback. He jumped down from his mount, smiling. "Excellent! That was amazing, Tanshi!"
Ryū Gen's sword technique was self-taught and rough-edged; it was more appropriate to say that he smashed rather than slashed with his weapon. But when another soldier rushed at Tanshi, Ryū Gen's smashing skills proved more than good enough.
Ryū Gen swung his longsword in a wide arc, slamming the soldier through and tearing him apart from his hip to his throat. "Die!" Blood spurted like a fountain.
No other soldiers attacked Tanshi after that.
Ryū Gen was smiling--an unsettling and very strange smile. He put up his bloody sword, and that served as a signal for the salt smugglers to resume their attack.
One of the inspectors snatched a spear from one of the governor's soldiers and lunged at Ryū Gen.
Ryū Gen quickly dodged the spear and counterattacked.
The inspector's face split vertically down the middle; he went to hell without a word.
"Don't retreat! Kill them!" the governor yelled from behind.
Two men with longswords hemmed Tanshi in, seeking to isolate him from his allies. Tanshi still had no desire to kill, but he looked at the murderous gleam in the men's eyes and knew that they didn't share that sentiment.
The man on the right swung first.
Wind howled in Tanshi's ears as he ducked, dodging left--directly into the other swordsman's strike. The swordsman let out a warlike howl as he struck down.
Tanshi thought that he was dead for certain, but his pewter staff saved him. His weapon blocked the sword, but split in two. Even the most formidable weapon had its limits.
Tanshi rolled out of range of the swordsmen. A good weapon, he thought, already lamenting the loss of his pewter staff. He stood up and took up a fighting stance, cold sweat dripping down his spine. He felt like he'd been splashed with ice-cold water.
I can't die. I must live and understand the Dao in my own way.
The swordsmen were moving in again. Just as the man on the right was about to attack again, Ryū Gen swooped in and stabbed him through the throat with a messy blow. The swordsman's blade fell from his hand and traveled a few feet across the ground as he collapsed.
The swordsman to the left leveled his sword at Tanshi.
Tanshi took a step back and lost his footing just in time to avoid the swordsman's high slash. The slash bit nothing but air. When Tanshi looked up, one piece of the broken pewter staff was protruding from the swordsman's side. The man had a few teeth missing; blood gushed from his mouth.
Ryū Gen was helping him now. That should make Tanshi feel better, but when he saw the dying man, all he could think to do was pray.
Defeating these two swordsmen was a fluke, and Tanshi knew it. If he'd stepped wrong even once, and if Ryū Gen hadn't aided him, he would be dead now. His pewter staff was broken--the weapon that had been his strength all throughout the battle and his previous journey.
"I suppose that is all a traitor is capable of," the governor said as he readied an arrow. Bow in hand, he moved closer to Tanshi.
Tanshi retrieved the broken pieces of his pewter staff, then stood up. He walked slowly toward the governor. He'd never tried throwing a weapon before, but he was out of other options.
The governor aimed his arrow. The arrow flew at Tanshi's chest. Tanshi was frozen for a split second, but the pewter staff was equal to this task. Held over Tanshi's heart, the broken pieces deflected the arrow. Tanshi leaped at the governor before he could ready another one.
As Tanshi slammed the pieces of his staff into the governor's skull, he reflected that this was murder. He was attacking with the intent to kill.
"Gyaaah!" With a single cry, the governor fell forward and hit the dirt.
All of the survivors fled. Dozens of corpses swam motionless in the sea of blood. Heads, arms, and legs lay strewn across the courtyard like some god's idea of grisly decoration.
This world was hell.
Tanshi put his palms together and chanted the Nembutsu.
***
"I committed murder and prayed to the Buddha. I have become like that itinerant monk, Seki. How horrible." Tanshi felt a mixture of guilt and transience, as if his sin had no meaning because its effects wouldn't last.
Ryū Gen waved to him. "Hey! We're opening up the storehouse and taking back the salt."
The salt smugglers loaded sacks of salt from the storehouse onto horse-drawn wagons. They didn't touch anything else. No salt smuggler set foot inside the estate.
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