Chapter 42: I Will Exact the Price in Full
The girl ran for the village.
Even now, it isn't too late. If they evacuate at once...
There would still be time before the barbarians arrived. If she could do something, anything, before then.
A thin whinny drifted through the air, and her body locked rigid.
A horse?
There were no horses in the village. She dropped at once and pressed her ear to the ground, communing with the earth, hunting for the cry.
A snort.
"This is the right way, isn't it?"
"Y-yes, sir... I know it. I know it well..."
That voice?!
One voice carried authority. The other was cowed. She did not know the first, but she knew the second. He was a merchant who came and went from the village often.
"A village of those abandoned by Heaven. The Khan will be pleased if we bring them in."
"Y-yes, th-that's right..."
Tsk. So he betrayed us.
No. He had no choice but to betray them. He was nothing but a powerless commoner. If the barbarians threatened him, there was nothing he could do.
"We have to get people out, even a few!"
The hoofbeats and voices already within earshot numbered more than several dozen. If that host swept in, the village would be torn to ruin.
"The scout's back."
An ill-omened voice reached the girl's ears.
"———."
"———."
An unknowable tongue, and then, the instant it faded:
"We don't need you anymore."
"S-spare me..."
Something fell with a soft, final thud.
A roar swallowed the forest whole.
"No!"
Too late. Far too late.
Despair flooded the girl's eyes. For the barbarians to come this fast was wrong. They were people too. They should have needed time to prepare. Why, then?
"Even one of them. Quickly!"
She ran, desperate to change even a little of this despair.
The sun went down. The glow of sunset died, and a pale moon rose. The moon looked down, as it always did. It was full.
The village was already in chaos.
"Where have you been, coming back only now!"
Yongnyeo scolded her, worry written all over her face.
"The raccoon. I went to the raccoon."
"Auntie? Auntie?!"
Yongnyeo's eyes flew wide, as if she had only just remembered.
"Where is Auntie?!"
"The raccoon has already given up..."
At those words, Yongnyeo's face twisted.
"Why? Why would she...?"
Sorrow closed over her eyes.
"That isn't what matters now."
An old man came up beside Yongnyeo, leaning on his staff.
"Auntie will do what Auntie must."
"Grandfather! We can't just leave Auntie alone like this!"
The old man shook his head.
"You take the children and run. We don't have time to stand here arguing."
At his hard words, Yongnyeo bit her lip.
"But..."
A cry that seemed to shake heaven and earth cut her short.
"Hurry!"
The old man drove them on.
"This way. Don't you dare let go of this hand!"
"N-no...!"
Yongnyeo's strength dragged the girl helplessly along. Before she was pulled out of reach, she pointed at the old man, and at that gesture he spoke straight into her mind.
The face falling away behind her held both the terror of death and the resolve to meet it.
The voice was bitter.
The girl answered him the same way he had spoken to her.
The old man was gone from sight.
A horse screamed.
And with that, disaster fell upon the village.
"Ah..."
The sound that left her was barely a breath.
She had prided herself on having seen every cruelty there was. In the days she lived as a shrine maiden, she had watched a baby cooked the moment it was born, and the neck of the mother who bore it cut away to serve as a stand. When famine left nothing to eat, she had seen a madman offer himself up as food of his own will. What she had witnessed was hell, and she had believed there could be no hell beyond it.
But now.
"Guhk!"
"Kyaaah!"
Lives went out. They died without resistance before a calamity that gave no warning. She could not see it, but she could feel it. Nature whispered that everything she knew was dying.
"Don't listen!"
Yongnyeo clapped her hands over the girl's ears. Tears poured from her eyes without pause.
"I'll kill them. I'll kill every last one of them...!"
Her teeth ground together. She clutched a vengeance with no promise it would ever be kept. And what, exactly, was she going to do? The enemy moved as one body. It was an easy, practiced motion, repeated dozens of times, hundreds. They were experts. Experts in massacre.
"Let go."
The girl tore herself out of Yongnyeo's arms.
"You! Where are you going!"
"You run. At least you."
She looked at Yongnyeo, and under that gaze Yongnyeo could not speak.
"I'll do it."
"D-do what!"
"Survive."
She left her with nothing but that, and moved the earth. Ground stirred by her will carried her back toward the village. Yongnyeo sprang after her, but a few strides opened a distance no one could close.
"If you are watching, please help me."
The girl looked up at the sky.
"The way you drew me out of hell. This time, too."
She knew she should not. The last judgment had asked no price of her. This time, she could not know. The raccoon had said it herself. If this was fate, then to beg was to set herself against Heaven.
Even so, she prayed. As she had been saved from yet another hell. Just once more. One last time.
"I offer myself."
The price did not matter. If there was a lamp to light the way ahead, she would not begrudge this single life.
"Ura-ra-ra-ra!"
A rider came charging out of the dark ahead. He swung a blade at a woman with a long neck.
"Rise."
The earth opened its mouth, sharper than any beast.
"Wh-what?"
It crunched shut and swallowed him whole. The rider vanished without so much as a last word.
"Run. Hurry!"
"A-and what about you!"
They must have seen their comrade die in a heartbeat. A few soldiers who had been snickering went hard in the face and drove in.
"Don't worry about me!"
She tore a deep pit open across their path.
"Huh!?"
"Aaaah!"
Some were buried. Others, with skill that bordered on the uncanny, slipped the pit entirely. The girl bit her lip.
"Hup!"
From the timbers of a house, a tree burst into growth. In the space of a blink it speared the soldiers who remained.
"What are you standing there—"
She turned her head. The woman who had been there a moment ago was gone. Only a corpse remained, an arrow buried in that long neck.
"What...?"
When?
Something hissed past.
"Kkh?!"
An arrow cut the air beside her head.
"Don't rush. Hit her from a distance."
A man who looked to be their commander ordered the soldiers. Around him, neatly ranked men set arrows to string. The girl's eyes flew wide. Behind the troops she saw fallen bodies, and villagers already taken.
"Loose."
Arrows drowned her sight.
"Kkh!"
Earth surged up at once and sealed off everything in front of her. Shafts thudded into it in a stuttering rain.
"Troublesome. Charge her from every side."
"Yes, sir!"
"Don't kill her. A face that fine will do well enough as tribute for the Khan."
Hoofbeats closed in. One mistake and she would be surrounded.
"Uwooooh!!!"
Someone burst from an alley with a bellow. A man with the body of a pig, like Zhu Bajie from Journey to the West. Donpal.
"Hah! You barbarian bastards! Who do you think you're laying hands on!"
A fish knife in one fist, he rampaged without rhyme or order. His presence was so fierce that the soldiers just closing on the girl hauled their mounts around and gave ground.
"Donpal?!"
"Hah! Hah! What are you doing, standing there instead of running!"
Blood ran from his head and his belly as he glared at her.
"This is no place for a child!"
"B-but!"
An arrow punched into Donpal's stomach before the word was finished.
"Guhk!"
"And what is that thing?"
The commander's voice was pure disbelief.
"That's not a person. It's just a monster, isn't it?"
"Freaks of every kind, sir."
The commander answered them in their own tongue.
"The brat who breathes fire, and that native too. This is no joke."
The girl followed his gaze. Yeomsu and Seokche had been taken.
"Well. Fine, then."
The commander's face went dull.
A drumming shook the earth.
"Reinforcements are here."
His eyes lit.
"Now we can run wild."
The corner of his mouth drew out long and thin. He looked around at his men. Expectation sat on every face.
"Play! Plunder! Rape!"
"Yes, sir!"
The soldiers scattered. In that moment they became true barbarians.
"A reward to any man who brings me something worth having!"
"Kraaah!"
"Now that's a commander who understands!"
The barbarians howled and broke in every direction. The girl and Donpal stood right in front of them, and they did not spare either a glance.
"You bastards... guhk!"
Donpal tried to move. An arrow from somewhere punched through his head, and he died.
"Ah..."
The girl folded to her knees.
"Uncle!!!"
The scream tore out of her.
"That's one, anyway."
"Ah! I was going to take that one."
The barbarians who had stayed behind laughed.
"Nngh!"
Their eyes turned her way. It was not the look men had given her. It was not the look the fanatics had given her. They neither revered the girl nor feared her.
Please! Heaven! Help me!
She prayed, and it was not the salvation she had asked for at first. Not pious and solemn. Not grim, not weighed in silence. Not resolve. A howl begging to be spared. She did not know the difference. However much she had matured, she was only a child. She could steel herself for death, and still that resolve went thin the moment death stood in front of her. It could not compare to the heart she had carried when she was sunk in hell and suffering.
But Heaven answered her wish all the same. She was an immortal, after all. A wretched little plea to be spared was hardly something it could not grant.
Thunder rolled.
Only, it would exact the price in full. And punish, while it was at it, the folly of defying fate.
He shook his head. The corpse clamped in his jaws went sailing far off into the dark.
"Grr!"
How many had he killed? He did not know. Nothing lay along the road behind him but corpses.
He was tired. However strong he was, in the end he was a tiger. By an immortal's grace he was stronger than any ordinary tiger, and that was all.
Thunder.
"...!?"
An ominous sound. He looked up. Storm clouds were gathering, as they had that other time. But this was different. Different from then.
"Kuheheheng!"
No!
What have you done!
He ran. He whipped legs that would not answer. He had to stop it now. That was not judgment. It was punishment sent down by Heaven. He did not know what shape the punishment would take. But he could say this, and say it for certain. A punishment dealt in Heaven's wrath would be more despairing than anything else in the world.
"Kuheheheng!"
His desperation meant nothing. The punishment had already begun.
The sky broke open.
Heaven is impartial. Even if one is an immortal, there are no exceptions.