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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