The Log Bridge
"Dammit all, I've got to go find Tung Judong somewhere."
Maruchi was scratching his head. He had set off to wander about, searching for any place Judong might plausibly be. Wasn't there a saying that the desperate always find a way?
Then someone bellowed in a voice that rolled across the clearing.
"Hey! Maruchi!"
Maruchi turned, and there was a man dragging something along behind him — a black, thrashing shape that squirmed and bucked furiously. The man spat and kicked at it, grumbling under his breath.
"Why's this blasted thing wriggling so much?"
"Judong!"
Maruchi was glad to see him, and at the same time utterly dumbfounded. His mouth fell open as he stared at the shape Judong was hauling along. It was a wild boar — one that had only just outgrown its piglet stripes, the pattern faded to barely visible.
"What in the world are you doing?"
"What's it look like? You never seen a boar before?" Judong growled. "I was about to take myself a nap, and this thing came barreling into me without even recognizing a human being. It got on my nerves, so I figured I'd teach it a lesson. Damn thing's got more strength than you'd expect."
What…?
Maruchi could hardly process it. What did he say? The boar charged into HIM? Come on — a beast weighing twenty or thirty gwan, seventy-five to a hundred ten pounds at least, no less — and it had rammed into him, and he was standing there without a scratch? And what was this about teaching a boar a lesson? Even granting that Judong had a reputation for strength…
While Maruchi stood there blankly, Judong snapped at him in sudden irritation.
"Hey, what're you standing around gawking for? Give me a hand tying this thing up."
Only then did Maruchi snap out of it and move to help. They tried to bind the thrashing boar with rope, but the harder they tried, the more violently it fought. Maruchi grumbled.
"Aish, this thing's going wild. There's got to be a better way."
"Wait a moment."
Judong abruptly wrapped his forearm around the boar's nape. When Maruchi shot him an incredulous look, Judong let out a low grunt and began to squeeze.
"Nnngh—"
The boar kicked and flailed desperately to escape, but at last its eyes rolled back and it went completely limp. Even then Judong kept the pressure on a while longer before slowly relaxing his arm.
"There. Done?"
"Good lord. I've never seen such a boneheaded method in my life." Maruchi just clicked his tongue. "So how'd you even catch the thing? Doesn't look like a trap caught it, and you didn't run it through with a spear for the kill, so…"
"Would've needed to have brought all that, wouldn't I? Where was I going to get it? I just held the damn thing down until its strength gave out."
Maruchi clucked his tongue again and again, looking at Tung Judong with new eyes. Judong, the blood brother of the great Tung Jugang, would be around fourteen or fifteen? Neither he nor Tung Jugang knew his exact age, but he looked about that, and he and Maruchi were the same age. That was why the two ran around as close friends — yet they couldn't have been more different in build. Where Maruchi was small and nimble, Judong was hulking beyond his years, his skin so dark it was nearly black, with bulging eyes that made him look for all the world like a wild boar himself.
"That's enough."
With a heave, Judong hoisted the boar onto his back. The strength on display was nothing short of staggering.
Honestly, I couldn't tell who was the man and who was the beast just now.
Maruchi scratched his head again. Then Judong asked, "So what brings you here? Weren't you supposed to go off with Kakduri and Tanduri today?"
"Ah… right, that."
Only then remembering his errand, Maruchi felt a smile creep across his face. However much strength that Joseon fellow had, it wouldn't stand up to a monster like this friend of his.
"Hey, hey, I saw something incredible today."
"Incredible? Like what?" Judong asked offhandedly.
"Word is a new fellow's coming into our stockade — and they say this brat is some pretty fancy piece of work."
"A fancy fellow, you say?"
Judong's face scrunched up at once. At that, the boar slung over his shoulder seemed to come to, grunting and struggling again. With an irritated grunt, Judong readjusted his grip and pressed on.
"What's that supposed to mean? Out with it."
So Maruchi spilled the whole story from the beginning. He embellished a little here and there, admittedly, but since most of it was grounded in fact, it could hardly be called an exaggeration. When he finished, Judong was silent, unreadable.
"So that's how it is."
Maruchi was just starting to grow impatient when Judong murmured, "So even Kakduri couldn't handle him."
"Handle him or not, whatever — what do you think?"
"What do you want me to think?"
At Judong's pushback, Maruchi pressed again in a sly tone. "I mean it — what should we do about this fancy brat?"
"What's there to do? Drive him out. Where does some fancy brat get off strutting around here?"
The moment Judong said it, Maruchi cheered inwardly. Just as I thought.
"Right, exactly. But that fancy brat did come as a guest, technically… so we can't just treat him any old way."
"Even so, you'd just leave him be?"
"Listen, I've got an idea. So — you want to hear it or not?"
"Out with it, then."
At Judong's urging, Maruchi grinned. "We humiliate him nice and proper — make it so he hasn't got the face to walk into the stockade at all."
"Humiliate him?"
"Exactly. From what I hear, this fancy brat went and beat Kakduri, and now he's strutting around so smug it makes your eyes hurt."
"Mm. So that's how it is."
"If somebody were to step up and give that brat a proper taste of humility, who knows what might happen."
Maruchi tossed it out as if in passing, and Judong fell silent, chewing it over for a long while.
"Then there's nothing more to weigh. Where is this fancy brat now?"
"Why, what are you going to do?"
"Go give him what's coming to him."
Maruchi panicked. "Wait — we're going right now?"
"Then when?"
"Didn't you burn through a ton of strength just before?"
"Ah, that's nothing. Where do I go to meet this brat?"
Maruchi still wasn't so sure. Even if it was Judong, the man had just wrestled a wild boar… But then, wasn't this the fellow who had knocked that same boar cold with nothing but the strength of one forearm? Maruchi never doubted Judong's raw power for a second.
"Follow me. I'll lead the way."
And so Judong lumbered off with the boar still slung over his shoulder. Before long they came to a log bridge laid across a stream, a fairly swift current churning and rushing beneath it. Maruchi pointed at it.
"To get to the stockade, you have to cross that bridge, so let's wait here. You hang back a bit, Judong, and come out around the time we step out with that fancy fellow. That's when you show him what's what."
"Hah."
Judong rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Waiting doesn't suit my temper."
"I'll fetch him quick as lightning. Don't go anywhere — just wait here."
Judong gave no answer, simply flinging the limp boar down onto the ground. Lest he change his mind, Maruchi bolted across the log bridge like a shot.
Just then he spotted the Kakduri brothers lumbering toward him, and he grinned. "Everything go well?"
"Nicely, thanks to you."
Maruchi glanced back at Hong-wi and his party trailing behind. "Once you show him what's what, that fool's nose will be so thoroughly broken he'll have no face at all to walk into the stockade."
"True enough."
Kakduri and Tanduri both smiled. Around then Hong-wi's party drew near, and Kakduri pointed across the stream.
"Cross that bridge there and you'll come to the stockade."
Hong-wi gazed past the stream. A scrubby forest of mixed trees stood right on the far bank, a narrow footpath threading into it.
"Is there only one way across?"
"That's right. If it comes to it, we fight them at the log bridge — or if that fails, we roll the logs away and fall back."
Hong-wi nodded. The stream wasn't terribly wide, but it was deceptively fast. It was only because this was late autumn, when the water ran low, that it looked so tame; come spring snowmelt or the summer rains, the current would turn ferocious.
A fine natural wall.
"Has that ever actually happened?"
"Not yet, no." Kakduri smiled slyly. "Shall we go?"
Hong-wi studied him for a moment. Maybe it was his imagination, but Kakduri, his brother Tanduri, and Maruchi all seemed to be smirking at something. Hong-wi merely shrugged and started toward the log bridge.
Then, from between the shadows of the trees on the far side, someone emerged. Tanduri murmured, "There he is now."
Tung Judong came lumbering up to the far end of the log bridge, the boar from before slung over his shoulder all over again. Hong-wi watched him steadily from the opposite end.
The two men stood facing each other across the bridge, silent, measuring one another with their eyes. Judong planted his right foot up on the log and bellowed in the Jurchen tongue.
"Who goes there?"
His voice was astonishingly deep for his age, booming across the water. Hong-wi answered lazily in the same tongue.
"As you can see — I've come to cross the bridge."
"Is that so?" Judong wrinkled his nose and shouted. "You've got a fair insolent tongue on you. Where do you hail from?"
"Why? Does it matter?"
"It does! You've got to declare yourself. This bridge isn't for just anyone to cross!" Judong barked rudely.
Behind him, Ho-in shot a quick glance at Kakduri's band. The situation was anything but ordinary, yet far from startled or flustered, they were barely concealing their delight — like spectators settling in for a good show. Ho-in ground his teeth.
These devils planned this all along. I knew it!
Hong-wi had anticipated this sort of territorial hazing as well — and at the same time, he knew perfectly well that he would have to break through it to earn their acceptance. He stepped calmly onto the log bridge and squared off.
"Won't you at least tell me your name?"
"This elder's name isn't given out to just anybody," Judong shot back.
Maruchi burst out laughing. An elder? He's younger than any of us! But the man was so colossal that calling him an elder somehow didn't sound absurd at all. Maruchi was quietly getting his hopes up. Nothing in the world beat watching a good fight.
"Then shall I give my name first?"
"Why? Do I look like I need to hear it?"
Judong was being deliberately obstinate. He had no intention of holding a civil conversation in the first place. He flung the boar he'd been carrying down onto the ground once more and set his other foot up onto the log bridge.
"In any case — you're not crossing this bridge."
Hong-wi stepped up onto it as well. "Then I suppose I'll have to cross by force."
"Force?"
Judong's eyes went round — and the next instant he snorted with disbelief. Maruchi could barely contain his laughter either. Good heavens. He means to push through Judong, a monster among men, by sheer force? Kakduri and Tanduri crossed their arms, smiles tugging at the corners of their mouths.
"Force, you say? Fine then — let's see what you've got."
Judong cracked his knuckles with a loud pop. He looked ready to roll Hong-wi off the bridge and into the rapids below at any moment. Hong-wi, too, advanced slowly across the bridge. The log was old, wet, and slick. Carefully, step by step, they worked their way to the very center of the span, until at last they stood face to face.
To Kakduri's band, watching them, the outcome looked self-evident. Ho-in clenched his fists. In sheer bulk, Judong was far the larger; Hong-wi was a solidly built man in his own right, but standing across from Judong was like standing before a bear.
And then it happened.
Hong-wi raised his right hand to the height of his chest. What's he doing? As the crowd looked on, Hong-wi turned his palm toward himself and beckoned lazily.
"Come at me first."
"Hah!"
Judong snorted, stepped in with a single stride, and swung his fist with brutal force. It was a blow that would have caved in a stone wall had it landed flush. A year ago, Hong-wi would have been knocked flying in one hit, his head driven straight down into the rushing water. But Hong-wi had spent the past months learning hand-to-hand combat from Cha Gyeong-yeon. He eased his upper body back, just barely, and let Tung Judong's fist slide past.
Caught off balance by the whiff, Judong wobbled for an instant — then planted his stance and steadied himself. Hong-wi folded his hands behind his back and said, quite calmly, "Your fist has some real bite to it."
"You brat!"
Judong lunged forward again, hammering out one punch after another. It was a speed that would have made it difficult for most men even to dodge cleanly. Ho-in swallowed hard.
But Hong-wi was no pushover himself. Hands still clasped behind his back, he twisted his torso this way and that, ducking and sidestepping, slipping every punch Judong threw. Even Kakduri's band watched the man's movements in spellbound silence.
Judong clenched his jaw and growled, "Th-this little…!"
Come what may, Hong-wi kept his attention fixed on the placement of Judong's feet. After a few punches fizzled into nothing, irritation began to boil up in Judong. Now he was charging in blindly, heedless of everything. And Hong-wi knew perfectly well that the log bridge, weathered by long years over the stream, was damp with water and slick with patches of moss.
"HRAAH!"
This time Judong swung with a tremendous, finish-it-all windup. Hong-wi bent his upper body forward to slip under the blow, then darted in like a swallow and hooked Judong's leg with his own. Unable to overcome his own momentum, Judong staggered.
"Ah—ah…!"
"There!"
Maruchi's jaw dropped too. The bear-sized Judong windmilled both arms, scrambling for his balance — but it was a doomed effort. The next moment, Judong toppled straight off the bridge and into the stream.
SPLOOSH! The splash rang out clean across the water.
Startled, Kakduri's band came sprinting to the bank, and Hong-wi — who had already eased himself back out of reach — looked down at Judong floundering in the water.
"Hm?"
Hong-wi frowned. For some reason, Judong seemed completely unable to find his footing. The current was fast, sure, but surely not that fast… Judong's head bobbed up above the surface for a moment, sank under again, bobbed and sank several more times — and then, somehow, he began to go limp.
Only then did Hong-wi realize.
"Wait — he can't swim, can he?"
Alarmed, Hong-wi wheeled around to Kakduri's band — and found them hopping in place, stamping their feet in helplessness.
"None of you can swim either?"
Their faces drained to a shade of pale blue as they nodded.
Hong-wi clicked his tongue. Just then Maruchi was stamping the ground, shouting in blind panic. "Please, for the love of heaven, save that boy's life! He's the great elder's own blood brother, and he's the only friend I've got! If anything happens to him, I'll never be able to face the great elder again!"
"What—?"
There was no time left for asking how or why. Without a moment's hesitation, Hong-wi tore off his clothes and flung them aside, and in the next breath hurled himself into the stream.
The splash sounded once more, and Ho-in and Kakduri's band, at a complete loss, went scrambling down along the current toward the lower reaches.