The Roar of the Beast
“Back off, you beast!”
Muhashan, for all his bluster, had at least a measure of courage. He stepped forward, swinging his spear in wide arcs. Even the bear seemed to falter before the gleam of the blade.
Emboldened, he pressed the attack. The next instant, the bear reared up on its hind legs and let out a thunderous roar—a move to crush the enemy's spirit. Muhashan flinched for a heartbeat, but with everything now on the line, he charged, spear leveled at the beast's chest.
“Die, you monster!”
But he lacked a bit of experience in bear hunting, and it made him overlook one crucial thing: he didn't know that bears had a knack for catching a spearhead with their paws. As if the weapon were a mere annoyance, the beast caught the swinging spear in its hand and slid it aside.
“Ah—ah⋯⋯”
Muhashan had no time even to be shocked. A single blow, and his life was snuffed out clean.
Tung Jugang and Hong-wi stumbled backward, step by step. They too were armed with spears strong enough to run a wild boar through at a stroke, but compared to that monstrous beast, they might as well have been twigs.
“What do we do now?”
“We aim for the vitals, of course,” Tung Jugang panted. “Don't bother with the head. That skull is solid as a boulder.”
Even that wouldn't be easy, though. Disproportionately small for its massive body, the bear's head was a difficult target.
“Then where?”
“The chest, just below the front shoulder—aim for the heart. Or where the neck meets the shoulder.”
“Not exactly a simple shot.”
“Or you get in close and wait—it rears up on its hind legs to intimidate you, then comes swinging with its forepaws. That's when you drive the spear into its chest.”
“The fellow before us did just that, and look where it got him.”
“It's kill or be killed.”
Tung Jugang gave a hollow laugh. “Or else, when it comes charging with its jaws wide open, you shove the spear down its throat.”
“⋯⋯I think I'll just settle for the chest, thank you.”
“One thing to remember—unlike a tiger, a bear favors its left forepaw.”
“How wonderfully helpful.”
Hong-wi never took his eyes off the approaching bear. Having now killed two men, the beast seemed to have learned something about humans, and it was growing bolder by the moment.
That was not a good sign.
“Here's what we'll do.”
“You have an idea?”
“I'll drive my spear into the join of its neck and shoulder. The moment I do, you thrust into its flank without a second's delay, then fall back—and immediately follow with a thrust to its heart.”
Tung Jugang let out a short breath and shook his head. “That's a technique meant for winter, when the snow slows their movements—and even then it takes three men working as a team. But we have no choice.”
The two men locked eyes with the bear.
“We move on three.”
“Right. One⋯⋯”
The bear growled low. Even having killed two of them, the sight of Hong-wi's party standing their ground seemed to have rekindled its wariness.
“Two⋯⋯”
He hadn't realized a dry swallow could sound so loud. Hong-wi gulped down the spit in his throat.
“Three!”
Tung Jugang moved like lightning. Wolyeong and Oun-yeong watched his movements with eyes split evenly between terror and awe.
The bear's forepaws were devastating. A single misstep meant instant death.
Tung Jugang carefully took aim at the junction of the beast's neck. He raised his arm.
And then it happened.
The bear snapped its head around. For one heartbeat, the bulging eyes of beast and man collided dead-on.
I've lost⋯⋯
Fear flashed through Tung Jugang's mind, and despair on its heels. As a seasoned hunter, he knew all too well that the moment terror took root in a man before a wild beast, no amount of experience could save the fight.
Fear paralyzes the mind and turns the limbs to ice. His spear arm began to sag, strength draining from it.
Then—
“Hey, you! Eyes over here!”
Hong-wi's voice cracked like thunder. Startled, the bear turned its gaze.
Hong-wi had caught, even in that instant, the way Tung Jugang wavered, and he had grasped the situation at once.
A mere flash of a moment—but it was enough for Tung Jugang to gather his senses again. His arm swung back into motion with full force.
There was a dull thud of impact.
He'd hit it⋯⋯ no—wait. Yes, he'd hit it, but the strike had glanced off without inflicting a mortal wound.
The bear's fur was thick and shaggy, and beneath the hide lay a fat layer of formidable depth. Come winter, or early spring just as it emerged from hibernation, that might have been different—but an autumn bear was padded all the more heavily.
The next instant, the beast howled and swung a forepaw as though swatting away an irritating fly.
Wolyeong's scream seemed to echo from far away.
“Brother!”
Tung Jugang narrowly dodged the enraged blow, but his spear snapped in two. He glanced fleetingly at Hong-wi.
It's up to you⋯⋯ Temusi-i.
Hong-wi crouched low, leveled his spear, and raced toward the bear. For an instant, the beast's flank was exposed below its raised shoulder—the very spot that connected straight to its heart. One heartbeat more and the spearhead would have buried itself there.
But the beast wheeled around. Startlingly fast.
Just as it brought its forepaw down to crush him, a groan escaped Hong-wi's lips.
“No⋯⋯”
The creature hammered down on his spear shaft without mercy. With a sharp crack, the shaft splintered.
Hong-wi barely slipped clear of its claws.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah⋯⋯ you?”
Tung Jugang tried to grin, but pain twisted his face into a grimace instead. “I think a rib or two is cracked.”
“Could have been far worse.”
Keeping his eyes on the bear, Hong-wi backed away in silence.
“Things have gotten ugly.”
“That they have,” Tung Jugang agreed.
The beast was still bleeding from its neck, but the wound only seemed to drive it into a deeper frenzy. On their side, meanwhile, only one man remained fit to fight—and he had just lost his weapon.
Tung Jugang coughed and spat out a wad of bloody phlegm. “You go on. Run.”
“By myself?”
Hong-wi's reply dripped with disbelief. “I'll draw its attention. You take Wolyeong and get out of here.”
Hong-wi shook his head at that.
Wolyeong cried out too. “Brother! How can you say such a thing⋯⋯”
“I've no wish to be eaten by a bear myself, but⋯⋯”
“Spare me the nonsense.”
“Is there any way at all?”
Without answering, Hong-wi let his hand drift to the hilt of his sword. Tung Jugang shook his head as if to say it was useless.
It was true that a warrior of exceptional strength and skill could, on occasion, bring down even a tiger with a single blade. The method was this: when forced into close quarters with a great beast, the creature would inevitably rear up on its hind legs to intimidate its opponent—and at that moment, the hunter would lock his arms around its waist, cling on, and drive the blade into a vital point.
A daring hunting technique, to say the least.
But against that thing, here and now⋯⋯
Brave, yes—but it would accomplish nothing. Shallow cuts were worthless against a hide armored in thick fur and fat. There was only one way: bury the blade deep in a single stroke, and give the maddened beast no opening to strike back.
Just then, Wolyeong shouted.
“Catch this!”
Tung Jugang looked up to see a spear in her hand. She hurled it toward Hong-wi, the blade flashing in the sunlight.
Hong-wi flung himself sideways and snatched it out of the air with feline grace.
“Well thrown, Wolyeong!”
Weapon in hand once more, Hong-wi turned to face the bear. It was astonishingly close now—a mere fifty paces away.
-KUOOOOOH!
The beast stopped dead in its tracks, reared up on its hind legs, and roared to the heavens.
It was a fearsome sight. A monster weighing hundreds of pounds, maw gaping wide in a shrieking howl—enough to send even a demon fleeing for its life. Few men could turn their backs and run from such a thing.
But Hong-wi, though he had never faced a bear, had stood before a tiger. Through every clash he had lived through, he had come to understand, at least in part, how beasts of prey behaved. Whether it would serve him this time, he couldn't say—but this was do or die.
“Stay still, you beast!”
With that booming shout, Hong-wi's spear arm shot forward like a lightning bolt.
The bear had never imagined that a creature who neither cowered nor fled from its terrifying roar would instead come charging straight at it, bellowing defiance.
It was a fatal miscalculation.
Before the beast could react as it had before, Hong-wi drove the spearhead deep into its chest.
The sensation of thick hide parting, the jolt as the blade struck rib, the grinding feel of steel scraping past bone and burrowing inward—all of it traveled up his arms, raw and unfiltered.
With a shriek of agony, the bear wrenched itself sideways—and Hong-wi's body went flying through the air.
“No—no⋯⋯”
Tung Jugang stopped breathing. He had no way of knowing how grave a wound Hong-wi's strike had dealt the beast, but hurled through the air like that, even Hong-wi could hardly escape unscathed.
And of all places, the bear had flung him toward the boulder.
Even the lionhearted Tung Jugang clenched his eyes shut against his will. He thought he could hear Wolyeong's terror-stricken scream in the distance.
He braced himself for the sickening, flesh-splitting crack of a skull shattering against stone.
But long moments passed, and no such sound came. Tung Jugang cracked one eye open—then the next instant, he was rubbing both of them, hardly able to believe what he saw.
Hong-wi stood atop the boulder, perfectly whole.
“What—”
Tung Jugang cried out in astonishment. “How are you untouched?”
Hong-wi flashed a grin—though his legs, too, were trembling. Thank the heavens I learned those somersaults from Cha Gyeong-yeon⋯⋯
He looked down at the rock. He had come within a hair of landing headfirst on it, and had he done so, his skull would have burst like an egg. Only his instinctive, catlike twist in midair—a full somersault before landing—had saved him.
It was a trick any street performer could do, and a skill Cha Gyeong-yeon had drilled into him.
“More to the point—what about the beast?”
Only then did Tung Jugang turn his gaze to the bear. It was flailing its forepaws, but the spear was buried far too deep in its chest to be shaken loose. Its strength was draining away by the second.
“It's over now.”
“You felled it in a single blow.”
“So it seems.”
There was no small amount of exhaustion in both their voices. Only now was the truth sinking in: they had faced a savage beast of the wild and come out alive.
“How in the world are we supposed to haul that thing back?”
“What?”
The thought had never once crossed Hong-wi's mind. With life and death hanging in the balance, there had been no room for such concerns. Only now did he remember that the creature might weigh hundreds of pounds—and that they had come a very long way indeed.
“We've no horse, either. And Wolyeong has turned her ankle.”
“Couldn't someone come looking for us?”
Tung Jugang shook his head. “The horn broke when we took down that boar.”
Only then did it come back to Hong-wi.
“Ah.”
Tung Jugang gave him a look that plainly asked what on earth he was on about. Hong-wi reached into his clothes and pulled out the horn trumpet he had been wearing around his neck all along—the one Cha Gyeong-yeon had pressed into his hands with the words blow it if anything happens, and which he had entirely forgotten in the chaos.
Tung Jugang stared at it for a long moment with an expression of utter incredulity.
Then they burst out laughing. Truly, madly, helplessly laughing.
“You—you great idiot! What a fool I am!”
Tung Jugang wheezed the words out one at a time between giggles. His cracked ribs ached with every laugh, but it hardly mattered anymore.
“You had it on you the whole time, from the very start!”
“I did. I certainly did,” Hong-wi snickered between replies. His chest hurt from laughing.
“Even when that dung-heap of a monster knocked me flat!”
“That's right. Even then.”
Hong-wi swayed like a drunkard, every ounce of tension draining from him at once, his legs gone weak as water. He staggered toward Tung Jugang, one step at a time.
Tung Jugang laid a hand on his chest and managed, “We might have been that thing's dinner!”
“Maybe so—but it's dead, and we're alive!”
“That's right⋯⋯ we're alive!”
Tung Jugang seized Hong-wi's outstretched hand, and the two of them gripped each other's arms, swaying, holding each other upright. At long, long last, they draped their arms over each other's shoulders.
Wolyeong could hardly believe her eyes. Had those two finally lost their minds?
The next moment, she noticed that Oun-yeong, too, had gone slack-jawed and was laughing out loud.
What in the world—Oun-yeong, you've gone mad too?
And in the very same breath, she realized that she herself was laughing.
They drew together.
“By the way—what do we do about that fellow?”
It was Tung Jugang, finally catching his breath, who asked. Hong-wi turned to look at Lee Go-nap-hap, who sat slumped on the ground, face drained bone-white.
“He seems to have lost half his senses.”
“So it would seem⋯⋯ though—what is that smell?”
A revolting odor drifted over on the breeze. Terror had loosened Lee Go-nap-hap's bowels and bladder where he sat.
All four of them pinched their noses shut, none faster than the others.
“We'll have to drag him back too, but I can't say I relish the prospect.”
“Neither can I. Still, we'd best bring him around first.”
Hong-wi pinched his nose with his left hand and raised his right.
Slap. Slap. Slap.⋯⋯
Only after a good several blows to the face did Lee Go-nap-hap finally seem to come to his senses.
“Back with us yet?”