Prologue
"Press in! He's already spent!"
An officer in gaudy epaulettes leveled his sword at Hyeong Jin. Dozens of spearpoints turned as one upon him.
Hyeong Jin drew his ragged breath in slow. His ink-dark armor was split in a dozen places, broken arrows buried in his belly and shoulder, and the blood that had run down to his feet had already gathered into a small pool. His body had struck its limit long ago. The hand closed on his sword still had strength in it.
"General. Surrender now. Even the Grand General has already..."
The officer's voice shook.
Hyeong Jin lifted his head.
"The Grand General?"
The officer's mouth shut. His eyes swept the corpses strewn over the ground — the soldiers who had charged in ahead of the rest. Those still standing could not bring themselves to come closer. Hands trembled on the spear shafts, and the sound of dry throats swallowing carried all the way to where Hyeong Jin stood.
He flicked the blood from his blade.
"Speak."
No answer came.
"Not coming?"
Hyeong Jin took one step forward.
"Then I'll come to you."
The officer spun around.
"S-stop him! I'll call for reinforcements!"
"How are we supposed to stop that!"
"Stop him however you can!"
The soldiers forced their spears up. Hyeong Jin threw himself into the gaps between them, and sword-light flashed once. Blood leapt a beat later, and the men who had barred the way went down in a line. The fleeing officer wrenched a look over his shoulder. Hyeong Jin hurled his sword. It punched through the man's back and burst out through his belly.
"So it really is... the Ghost of the North."
The officer's body folded.
Hyeong Jin walked toward him without hurry. Squelch. Squelch. The sound of boots wading a pool of blood rang across the silent field.
"General."
The officer dragged his gaze up, every inch of it an effort.
"Why did you do it?"
"Commandant Han."
Hyeong Jin stopped in front of him.
"Do I seem like a man who would?"
A bitter smile caught at the corner of Han's mouth.
"I knew you weren't... But it was an imperial decree."
He coughed up blood the color of old iron.
"And the Grand General?"
"In the tent..."
Nothing followed.
Hyeong Jin drew his sword from the body and looked down for a moment at Commandant Han's eyes, still open.
Twang.
A crossbow string snapped loose. Hyeong Jin swung on reflex, and the bolts struck his blade in a spray of sparks and scattered wide.
A commander with a red plume fixed in his helm came walking out, clapping as he came. Behind him, elite troops in full armor formed their ranks.
"The Ghost of the North indeed. The name was no empty boast."
"The imperial army."
"A waste, killing a man of your caliber in a place like this."
A short, scornful breath left Hyeong Jin.
"Spare me the nonsense and come."
The commander's face flushed.
"Arrogant traitor. Take his head!"
The elites drew their circle tight.
Then the arrows came down.
Not on Hyeong Jin. On the heads of the imperial troops.
The crossbowmen dropped without even a scream. The red-plumed commander knocked aside the shaft flying at him with his sword.
"Ambush!"
Soldiers in black armor crashed into the imperial rear.
Armor he knew.
The Northern Army.
And at their head, a great saber resting across his shoulder, was Bihyeong.
"The Northern Army rangers? What you're doing is treason!"
The red-plumed commander shouted it. Bihyeong snorted.
"Aigo, but this one does love to talk."
"A wretched common soldier dares—!"
"Gentlemen who slept easy in the capital think a high rank makes even swords step aside, do they?"
Hyeong Jin shook his head.
"Bihyeong. Go back."
Bihyeong grinned, bright as anything.
"General, you have any idea how many lives we owe you?"
The Northern Army at his back drew their swords without a word.
Shring.
Dozens of blades leaving their sheaths overlapped into a single sound.
"There. You see?"
Bihyeong shrugged. The red-plumed commander ground his teeth.
"Kill every last one of them!"
The imperial army surged.
"Aigo, would you look at that armor shine."
"Let's see if the skill shines half as bright."
The Northern Army met them laughing, and the two forces tangled in an instant.
Bihyeong drove the imperial troops back with his great saber and shouted to Hyeong Jin.
"General, go on! We'll take it from here!"
The red-plumed commander moved to cut off Hyeong Jin's path. Bihyeong's saber got there first, shearing in at his neck.
"Your fight's with me."
"A common soldier, and you dare—"
"While you lot were sleeping soft in the capital, we were staking our lives in the north."
Hyeong Jin looked at Bihyeong for a moment.
The order to turn back scattered in his throat.
"Don't die."
"Same goes for you, General."
Hyeong Jin turned.
Far off, the Grand General's banner was snapping in the wind.
The ground before the Grand General's tent was quiet in a way that felt wrong. Hyeong Jin pushed the ill feeling down and lifted the flap.
Familiar faces lay sprawled on the ground. The guards who had protected the Grand General. Every one of them dead with eyes still wide and staring.
Hyeong Jin closed the eyes of the nearest man. Then he looked deeper into the tent.
The Grand General had fallen in a pool of blood.
Something snapped in his mind.
His gaze went to the young man standing opposite. The man was wiping a sword stained with the Grand General's blood on a cloth. Two guards stood in attendance behind him.
"Tsk, tsk. You fall short of what I expected."
The face was young. The voice had something strangely old soaked through it.
The man turned to look at Hyeong Jin.
"So you're Hyeong Jin? The one they call the Ghost of the North."
Hyeong Jin did not answer.
He extended his sword.
Clang!
The two blades met and threw sparks.
"Oh?"
A new light woke in the man's languid eyes.
"That is no army sword."
Hyeong Jin set his teeth and drove the attack in. The man did not yield a single step. At his ease he blocked, let the edge slide off, and opened the distance.
"Amusing. Truly amusing."
"What's so amusing."
Hyeong Jin's bloodshot eyes fixed on him.
"My grandson begged so hard that I came to have a look. I can see why."
Grandson?
The question rose, and did not matter.
Hyeong Jin's gaze touched the fallen Grand General.
I kill this man. Even if my life ends here.
He flung the scabbard aside and took a high guard. The moment he hauled up every scrap of inner force he had left, blood burst from his damaged meridians.
The guards behind the man set their hands to their swords.
"Hmph. Do not interfere."
The man released his energy. The air inside the tent sank, heavy, and the two guards went still.
That very instant, Hyeong Jin kicked off the ground.
The final form of the Cheongung Sword.
Hou Yi cast down the suns that rode the heavens. Now his descendant would shatter the stars once more.
That name — Heavenly Bow, Falling Star.
The inner force he had drawn gathered at the point of the sword. Not a wisp of it leaked. Sword qi compressed to the limit blazed, dazzling as a star in the night sky.
The sword of Jeomchang shot forth in a straight line.
Light flooded the tent.
For the first time, the smile left the young man's mouth. He set his sword at a slant. Demonic qi black as pitch gathered along the blade.
Wherever the blade passed, light died, and a jet-black sword qi fell as if the night sky itself had come down to swallow the stars.
White sword qi and pitch-black sword qi crashed head-on.
The blast tore the tent to ribbons and split the ground like a spider's web.
"Ghk—!"
Hyeong Jin coughed blood. The recoil of the clash rode up the sword and slammed into him. Damaged meridians burst all through his body, and the bones of his sword arm screamed.
Still he did not give ground.
"Hraaaah!"
He wrung out what strength remained, and his sword qi shoved the black demonic qi back. The young man's hem tore. His foot was driven one step to the rear.
But that was all.
The man took a step forward again. Cracks raced through Hyeong Jin's sword qi.
Crrrack.
The brilliant light shattered. Through the broken sword qi, the man drove in.
A cold blade pierced Hyeong Jin's dantian.
"Ah. I wondered whose sword that was. Jeomchang."
The sword pulled free, and Hyeong Jin vomited blood and dropped to his knees.
"To make me give a step. The name Ghost of the North is not wasted on you."
Jeomchang.
The moment that name reached him, Hyeong Jin's fingers scraped the floor.
The man was no longer looking at him.
"Leave him his life. With my grandson's temper, send him home empty-handed and he'll sulk."
His gaze turned to the Grand General's corpse.
"See that the Grand General's body is properly gathered. The Ghost of the North should be warning enough for those who remain."
A man in black came forward then.
"I told you not to do that. It's excessive."
The young man waved him off.
"Cult Lord, the cleanup is finished."
"Then we go."
The Cult Lord of the Heavenly Demon Cult.
The instant Hyeong Jin understood, a blunt impact drove into the back of his skull.
His consciousness cut out.
Cold water slapped him across the face.
Hyeong Jin dragged in a ragged breath and opened his eyes. The first thing to stab his nose was the stink of blood. Screams and groans came from every side.
The great hall of the imperial palace. Where the ministers of the court had once debated the affairs of the realm, the place had been turned into a chamber of interrogation. Blood-soaked ministers were bound to every pillar. Heated irons and blood-smeared tools of torture lay scattered across the floor.
"I don't know! I truly know nothing!"
A heated iron met a minister's skin.
"Gyaaaah!"
The smell of burning flesh spread.
Hyeong Jin tried to throw off the men of the Embroidered Uniform Guard who held both his arms. His dantian was ruined. There was no strength in his limbs. One of them kicked his knee out.
Thud.
His knees struck the cold floor.
"Hyeong Jin..."
"Even the Senior General..."
The ministers enduring the torture recognized him and groaned.
The emperor sat the throne. Behind him sat the Empress Dowager.
"The First Imperial Prince was in perfect health, and then he dropped dead."
One blood-soaked minister glared up at the throne.
"The late emperor followed not long after. You call us traitors, but the true traitor is someone else entirely!"
"An interesting claim."
The emperor rose, hands braced on the armrests.
"Say it again."
Everyone in the great hall prostrated as one.
The Empress Dowager rose slowly and stroked the emperor's shoulder.
"Your Majesty, why let a lawless traitor's words disturb the imperial heart?"
"Don't worry, Mother. I'll see to it."
"This mother worries too much."
Hyeong Jin watched the two of them, cold.
The order to subjugate the Northern Army. The Grand General's death. The Cult Lord of the Heavenly Demon Cult. All of it had been prepared from the start.
The emperor turned his gaze on Hyeong Jin.
"Raised as high as Senior General by the late emperor's mercy, and still you harbored treason."
A thin, unpleasant smile caught at his mouth.
"Ministers. Speak. What punishment befits this traitor?"
The ministers only searched one another's faces.
At the end of the silence, the Vice Minister of War opened his mouth with care.
"Traitor though he is, in light of the merits he has earned, might Your Majesty grant him death by poisoned wine?"
The emperor's expression twisted.
"Defending a traitor. So you too harbor treason."
He pointed at the Vice Minister of War.
"Drag that one off and investigate him."
"Your Majesty! That was not my meaning. Your Majesty!"
The Embroidered Uniform Guard beat the Vice Minister down and hauled him out, scraping across the floor.
The ministers who remained scrambled to speak.
"He should be torn apart by horses."
"Death by a thousand cuts is what he deserves."
"His three clans must be exterminated."
Words vomited up for the sake of staying alive filled the great hall.
Hyeong Jin watched, and a hollow laugh left him.
"What is so amusing?"
The emperor asked. Hyeong Jin raised his head and looked straight at him.
"Are you not a petty wretch who cannot rest until every man who opposes you is dead?"
"What did you say?"
"Enough of the merciful act."
The great hall froze.
The emperor's face flushed red.
"The Northern Army's treason runs all the way to the root!"
Hyeong Jin gave no more answer.
The Empress Dowager moved one finger, lightly.
The guard standing at her side drew his sword.
Shring.
A chill blade touched Hyeong Jin's neck.
He had lost Jeomchang and fled to the north. He had given his whole life to defending that north. And in the end he had protected none of it. Not Jeomchang. Not the Grand General. Not the Northern Army that had followed him.
Is this as far as I go?
The sword cut through his neck and passed on.
Hyeong Jin's mind sank into the dark.
Hyeong Jin opened his eyes.
The cold of a blade passing through his neck was still vivid. On reflex he groped at his own throat.
There was no wound.
No blood.
"The afterlife?"
"What kind of talk is that, Hyeong Jin?"
A voice he could never forget.
Hyeong Jin turned his head.
Hyeong Un was looking at him as if something were wrong. His senior brother, dead for years, stood before his eyes with a face far younger than memory.
"Are you hurt? What's with the strange talk."
Tears spilled from Hyeong Jin's eyes.
He pulled Hyeong Un into a sudden, crushing embrace.
"Uh— what?"
Hyeong Un went rigid.
"Did you have a bad dream?"
After a moment's hesitation, Hyeong Un slowly patted his back.
The vision that comes before death? Too vivid for that.
Hyeong Jin clutched a fistful of Hyeong Un's robe. Warmth came through his palm.
It was warm.