Ominous Omens
Before long, the riders came into view.
Tung Jugang recognized them and stared in astonishment.
"What in the world? Why are you here?"
"I'm coming with you, hyung."
Tung Judong said it flatly.
"Why?"
"Just... felt like it."
That was all Judong said before shutting his mouth entirely.
He truly was a boy who did whatever he pleased.
Sonata burst out laughing.
"Well, what can you do? The boy's made up his mind. Jugang, you're out of luck!"
Meanwhile, Tung Jugang turned to Maruchi and Arachi, the brother-and-sister pair. Before anyone could even ask, Maruchi launched into a string of excuses.
"Look, I tried to talk him out of it, but he just up and said he was going where you were going, and then out of nowhere he wants to tag along too."
"So why did you come?"
Maruchi scratched the back of his head.
"Well... couldn't exactly send him off alone."
"And I couldn't let these two blockheads go by themselves either, so I came along too."
Arachi added her piece.
Tung Jugang found himself with nothing left to say.
Hong-wi chuckled.
"Then the road ahead won't be dull. Splendid."
"Let's be off, then."
Contrary to his earlier claim that he'd been forced to come, Maruchi broke into a wide, beaming grin. It seemed he'd wanted to tag along all along.
Tung Jugang looked back at Hong-wi's party and smiled helplessly.
Sonata shouted out.
"Then let's ride! It's a long road, so let's not dawdle."
The road from Anchuunbugu to the temple where Monk Heo Jo lived was peaceful. By the time the sun had begun its slow descent toward the western horizon, the mountain that had first appeared as a faint bluish shape beyond the distant skyline now loomed large before them.
"This is the mountain?"
"That's right."
They gazed up at the mountain before them. It was by no means especially tall compared to the peaks of Jianzhou, but its aspect was breathtaking all the same. No wonder monks had chosen to dwell here and cultivate their enlightenment.
"Magnificent," Hong-wi murmured.
At those words, Ho-in answered.
"The road has been pleasant too, my lord."
"Has it?"
Ho-in's remark struck Hong-wi anew, and he looked around him.
"It's a bit worn now, but you can tell it was once a masterfully built road."
Indeed it was. The broad mountain path had been packed hard by countless feet, as though hordes of travelers had once passed this way. Edging stones even lined both sides of the road. But it had been decades — perhaps well over a century — since anyone had maintained it, and now grass and shrubs had swallowed the edges and crept halfway across its width.
"Do you happen to know how long it's been left like this?"
"No idea."
At Hong-wi's question, Tung Jugang shook his head slightly with a smile. Sonata offered an answer.
"They say it was here even before Onyan Aguta founded the Jin dynasty. Some claim it was built during the Liao era. But who really knows."
"It's remarkable that a humble hermitage would have such a fine road leading to it."
"A humble hermitage?"
Tung Jugang echoed, and Hong-wi turned to him in puzzlement.
"What — is it not a hermitage?"
"It's gone well past hermitage. It's a proper temple in its own right."
At Tung Jugang's correction, Hong-wi looked baffled.
"I thought you said Heo Jo lived there alone."
"Heo Jo lives there alone, yes, but the temple itself is large and grand. They say there was a time when dozens of monks resided there — hundreds, counting the servants and laborers. And looking at it, you can believe it."
"I see."
Hong-wi breathed out in admiration. A temple of that scale would be rare even in Joseon. Go back to the Goryeo era, when Buddhism was the state's cherished faith, and such places would have been everywhere — but not now.
"I never knew Buddhism had flourished in this land as well."
"There were believers in the Jin dynasty too, but the Khitans were said to be especially devout. Of course, there are no more faithful left now — in a way, Heo Jo may well be the last of them."
Hong-wi nodded slowly.
"From here on, the road climbs. A little farther up, you'll find the stone stairs leading to the temple gate."
Just as Tung Jugang had said, the stairs appeared. Carved from natural rock, they had weathered with the years and crumbled here and there.
Hong-wi marveled once more. Constructing a road and stairway of this caliber must have cost immense labor. Even granting Tung Jugang's claim of hundreds of workers, it would have taken a very long time indeed.
Hong-wi was glancing around when his brow creased.
"Do you hear something from up there?"
"I do. Something's carrying down."
Tung Jugang agreed with Hong-wi's words. Sonata, sharp-eared as ever, answered quickly.
"...Sounds like fighting."
"Fighting?"
Hong-wi and Ho-in looked at Tung Jugang with wide eyes. His face betrayed no great alarm, but he narrowed his eyes and gazed up toward the top of the stairs.
"There's a path around the other way that horses can climb, but let's go up on foot from here. Judong, Maruchi, Arachi — you three guard the horses. From this point, only the four of us go up."
"I want to go too."
It was Judong again. Tung Jugang shook his head firmly.
"Guard the horses. I don't know who the fools are that would dare raid the temple where Heo Jo lives, but there could be more of them lurking nearby. We can't afford to lose the horses, and there's no one else I trust with them."
"...Fine."
At that, Judong gave a grudging nod.
Tung Jugang turned to the Maruchi siblings.
"If anything happens, blow the horn."
"Yes, Elder!"
Maruchi swallowed hard and looked around. Arachi wore a worried expression as well.
While the three children hid the horses in a suitable spot, Tung Jugang and Sonata hurried up the stairs. Hong-wi and Ho-in followed close behind.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
While Hong-wi's party went off to meet Heo Jo, Bushuku's former underlings Giahuchuyi and Baduri were passing the time in Anchuunbugu. They had originally been assigned as Hong-wi's escorts, but when Hong-wi left them behind and departed with only Ho-in, they'd been left with nothing to do. They had no intention of trailing after a man who had told them not to follow, so they were whiling away their hours lazily in Anchuunbugu.
Far from being bored, they were actually quite content. The villagers knew they worked under Hong-wi and treated them with the warmest hospitality. Not a single soul ever reminded them that they had once joined a bandit in his wicked deeds — and for their part, Giahuchuyi and Baduri never stirred up old dust.
They spent their days hunting alongside the villagers, and their nights enjoying the company of village maidens whose eyes had met theirs just right.
"Where else would you find times like these?"
Baduri said to Giahuchuyi on their return from the hunt. Today they had bagged an uncommonly large roe deer. If the time spent riding with Bushuku had taught them anything of use, it was the chance to hone their hunting skills.
Banditry, to those on the receiving end, meant losing their goods and sometimes their lives — but following the incompetent and stubbornly pig-headed Bushuku on his raids, the failures outnumbered the successes. Hunting hadn't been a pastime for them. It had been a necessity of survival.
Either way, it was true. The pay was handsome now, and compared to the endless misery of cleaning up after that savage, capricious Bushuku, this was far, far better.
"Good times never last, and where there's good fortune, bad follows."
Giahuchuyi replied quietly.
"What's got into you all of a sudden?"
Baduri grumbled at him.
"Good times are here — let's enjoy them, Giahuchuyi! What's the problem? That young lord Temushiyi may be Joseon born, but he knows how to treat his men right. He pours out wine and meat generously, and the wages are rich."
"I'm not speaking ill of Lord Temushiyi. But it's true that bad luck tends to follow on the heels of good."
"Oh, give it a rest."
Giahuchuyi fell into these gloomy moods from time to time. For all his bulk, he was superstitious and believed in omens. Baduri supposed he must have read some ill portent again today.
"So what sign did you read this time?"
"Oh, I read one all right. An ill one."
"What did it say?"
"I think these good days won't last long."
"Then... if these good times don't last, what, we go back to living as no-good bandits like before?"
Baduri spat on the ground.
"I've no intention of that."
That much was certain. Working under a greedy wretch like Bushuku, who stripped his own men of everything they earned — anything was better than that. If they did well, they might be promoted to caravan captain just like Utai-hyeong. Baduri nursed his own desire to be a captain someday too.
"I've no intention of that either."
Giahuchuyi said quietly.
"But even if we wish to cut the ties to our past, do you think we can escape what was sown back then?"
"What are you on about? What's there we can't do?"
Baduri's irritation was slowly rising.
"You can want to leave the past behind — but the shadow of it never leaves you."
Giahuchuyi answered glumly.
"Take Kunuma, for instance."
Kunuma—!
Baduri shuddered in spite of himself. Kunuma, Bushuku's elder brother. They had laid eyes on him once themselves, and it was an experience they never wanted to repeat. The eerie chill radiating from his one good eye had felt like something piercing straight through the heart and tearing it open.
"Damn it, why do you have to bring up Kunuma? You'll curse the whole conversation."
Baduri grumbled. But his voice was low as well — a fact he'd dwelled on in secret all this while, yet had been too afraid to say aloud.
The truth was, Baduri had also been certain all along that Kunuma would come hunting for them someday, and now and then he lost whole nights of sleep to nightmares about it.
"You know it as well as I do."
Giahuchuyi's voice was uncannily calm and composed.
"Bushuku was his brother, and Kunuma will never, ever forget that. And neither will we forgive it. Bushuku lost his life — do you think he'll just let those of us who walked away live in peace?"
"Hnngh!"
Reluctant as he was, Baduri had to admit Giahuchuyi was right.
"We can't escape the past. I found it while cleaning the roe deer we caught today. Baduri — there's no getting out of this for us."
Giahuchuyi went on in a tone of quiet pessimism.
"Hah..."
Baduri had no answer. Come to think of it, this friend of his had always been a man of few words, but he'd been even more so since the hunt. So that was the omen — he'd been reading the entrails.
Diviners often read the innards of birds and beasts to foretell the future. Whatever his background, Giahuchuyi had that talent. Baduri prayed, just this once, that the omen would prove wrong.
"We're safe here. This is Anchuunbugu."
They were inside Anchuunbugu's walls — even that monstrous Kunuma wouldn't dare slip in here. Wasn't it precisely for that reason that Bushuku had never done more than scratch at the fortress's perimeters?
Giahuchuyi answered quietly.
"We can't stay inside these walls for a thousand years."
Baduri had no reply to that.
"Then what am I supposed to do? What good is reading omens if you just sit there?"
Giahuchuyi only shrugged.
"I don't know. But I'm giving up on the hope that a day like today lasts forever."
Giahuchuyi turned away. Baduri, his mood soured, spat.
"At least it's not now, so breathe easy. Let tomorrow's troubles wait for tomorrow."
Baduri snapped his answer and started walking toward the village entrance.
Giahuchuyi called after him.
"Where are you going?"
"To get some air."
Baduri answered curtly. Giahuchuyi did not follow.
"Hoo... damn it all."
Baduri spat a curse. The possibility that Giahuchuyi might be right — no, the fact that he couldn't deny it — irritated him all the more.
But a corner of his own heart had always nagged at him too. Kunuma had been unnaturally quiet. His brother was dead, and he just sat still? Impossible.
In his memory, Kunuma had never once shown how dearly he cherished his younger brother. Even so, Kunuma was a Jurchen to the marrow, and the death of his nearest kin was not something a man like that would simply forget.
Still, I'm not without a plan.
Baduri steeled himself with that thought. He wasn't simply drifting along without contingencies. If things turned sour, he meant to flee — north to the Haeshi Guard or far to Moryeonwi — and for just such a moment, he had been hoarding his wealth the way a squirrel gathers acorns, piece by piece.
And in his judgment, there was no safer place to hide that hoard than Anchuunbugu itself.
Well then, let's see if it's still where I left it.
With that thought, Baduri turned his steps toward the deep of the mountains.