25 Blood on the Sand

~SHAN JIANG~

Jiang looked for a way out of the unenviable position between an anvil and three hammers. His guts screamed against indulging Thirty Claws' sons.

"My lady! My lords!" he bowed generously to all of them. "The ballad was written by a drunken sell-out interested only in filling his pockets with silver! I have been to Zha Yao's camp and witnessed that the traitor lives with a vixen called Du. His lowly lusts do not deserve to be immortalized in songs. I will not insult my craft by repeating the lies!"

"We have a real treasure here, the honest storyteller!" Jung Hwa said. "Tell me the truth then. Where is Tien Lyn if she is not consorting with Zha Yao?"

Jiang realized squirmed, somehow sure that the Salt Bitch knew the answer already. "She is in hiding. Some rumours say she is in Sutao, some say she fled to Quantong. I know nothing more, m'lady, please believe me!"

He swallowed his bile.

Jung Hwa furrowed her brow.

He had no choice but to stagger on, "It is... it is her mother, Lady Chen Guang who accompanies Zha Yao. Along with the old war mage Zhu Zhao by name. Some minor nobles. But not Tien Lyn herself."

"I have heard enough," Jung Hwa bit off her words. "Shan Jiang the Honest Storyteller, you may stay with us."

He made to go to his knees in relief, but remembered that the Chieftain did not like it, besides, Jung Hwa already took her eyes off him, turning to her men, "From this day on, I want Mother Xho to be brought out as soon as any ship is sighted. If she senses the Contagion, burn it before it drops the anchor. No exceptions."

He had never been happier to lose a woman's attention.

"Hard times will be upon us if we cut ourselves from the Empire's bounty," Jung Hwa continued. "We will have to return to living off the demons like we have done before Thirty Claws made the deal with Wo Jia."

"As is our way," the same son interrupted her. "Since the beginning of times."

Jiang inwardly tsk'd at the young man, but with a bit of envy too. He would have never dared to--- To his horror, Jung Hwa turned back to him, not her formidable offspring.

"As was our way," she repeated after her son, but still stared at him for some unfathomable reason. The look in her eyes was not cordial.

He braced himself, wishing that the pirates just sort it out between themselves, like in the comic puppet shows when everyone killed everybody, to leave a clueless passerby with their loot. He could be that fool, and he could tell the tale afterwards.

"Everyone has to earn his living, and storytelling won't be enough," Jung Hwa said.

"I... I can sing as well." He'd dance with veils and fans if it could appease her.

"Wonderful. But let's see if you are fit to fight the demons with us."

"What?" Jiang croaked.

"Mother!" the challenger tried to argue, but the crowd grew lively with cheers and laughter drowning him out.

Someone pinched Jiang's bicep, while another newfound friend mockingly offered him a sword. Though he did not take it, they started clapping in rhythm to some barbaric but catchy tune.

He used to live for applauds, but the smirks told him that his audience did not expect him to triumph. He was the entertainment again, but not as a master that presided over their imagination, No, he was a victim, about to provide the basest of all spectacles, the slaughter. His sight and hearing started to go, as if he were at a great distance from what was unfolding. He did not even try to fight the hands that dragged him inland.

The crowd set him down by a shallow pit cut through the lacey limestone bedrock of the island down to black, hard rock. It was maybe twice his height, but the walls were polished smooth. They thrust a long curved knife into his hand and shoved him in.

Years of performing deaths of tragic heroes taught him how to fall without hurting himself too much. He did hit his shoulder when he landed, but it was not that bad. And, he narrowly avoided impaling himself on his own weapon. At least this drew the cheers from the gathered, not booing.

He straightened slowly, checking that the shoulder was his only problem. Then he forgot all about his old bones. A living demon stared into his eyes.

The creature was locked behind a metal grate in a shallow cavern cut into the pit-wall. Space would have been too small to stand up straight even for a human, let alone for the taller fay, so he looked a dull white, despite their hides being universally praised for their rich hues and lustre. He must have spent futile days in clawing the limestone walls of the cell and dusting himself in the process. No, not 'he', 'it'!

Between the dust and the emaciation, the demon didn't look all that different from the mummified carcasses of its brethren on display in the faery Temples. It had the same protruding and way too long facial features, clawed hands, and powerful legs. The mane that might have been brushed and braided for the faery's displays had turned to dreadlocks on the prisoner, but it still cloaked the demon's neck and shoulders.

Only the eyes were different from those of the stuffed demons. The glass or carved jewels set in the leathery sockets by the taxidermists failed to convey the real thing. The living demon's eyes burned through him, but it did not move, did not even blink. No, not 'it', 'he'! And he is barely alive.

Under any other circumstances, Jiang might have felt pity. Instead, he felt hope. He stood a chance against the creature this pathetic.

Above him, someone used a winch, and the gate moved up, releasing the demon. Before he had a chance to stretch to his full height or restore any flexibility to his limbs, Jiang lunged, knife leading.

The demon barely evaded the amateur strike and reached for him timidly.

Jiang cursed his aim and swung the knife at the claws, but an invisible force rammed into his core. It rooted itself in his chest and started coiling around him, tighter and tighter, like a chain.

The world broke like a porcelain cup. He could no longer breathe. The darkness crept up from the periphery of his vision, closing in. The knife tumbled out of his grasp.

The demon changed. The desiccated tissues filled out under his skin. He shook the dust out of his hair, flexed his shoulders and screamed with joy. White dust rose in a cloud as his skin stretched over the quickly growing muscles. He now had rich maroon colouring, free of sores and wounds, and even ran his clawed hand through his dark-red hair to brush out a few clumps of dirt.

Jiang could not manage a peep, him, a singer!

The demon advanced towards him, with a strangely sad smile.

Just before Jiang closed his eyes forever, a dark, solid shape came between him and his tormentor, Jung Hwa's argumentative son.

The young man clasped hands in front of his chest, then pushed down and outward in a powerful gesture.

The ethereal chain that held Jiang in thrall broke, and he collapsed, gasping for breath. From his unenviable position on the pit's floor, he watched his saviour. The muscular frame, thick neck, lustrous hair falling from under the headscarf to the shoulders, the strong features, the glowing eyes... in short - the demon's match!

The demon came to the same conclusion evidently and growled at the new assailant before charging in. The two rolled across the floor briefly, right next to Jiang. The man came on top and squeezed the demon's windpipe in his huge hands.

The claws ripped long, red welts down his back, but he would not let go until the creature went limp under him.

"This is also not our way, Mother, feeding a man, even a Weeping Man, to a demon!" the young man said as evenly as if he were sitting on a silk cushion, not on a carcass of a demon he'd just strangled with his bare hands.

Jiang wished that he'd played that song for him, any song, including the one about Lady Tien Lyn and the ignominious death of his father. The young man was cut out of the lord's cloth, and needed what every challenger needs: the rallying cry and the hero's halo weaved from the words and dreams. Jiang was happy to provide.

"Huo," the Chieftain said in a warning tone.

His no longer anonymous savior, Huo, boosted Jiang up the pit's wall.

While the storyteller laboriously pulled himself over the edge and stayed prone on his belly out of caution, his grazed, burnt and scarfless his neck exposed to merciless sun, Huo ran up the side of the pit then leaped up, to land in a graceful fighting stance.

"Will you command us to do Wo Jia's bidding once again, after the Contagion is over, Mother?" he asked. "Will you make us serve the Empire forever?"

"I will honour your Father's sworn oath to Wo Jia."

"Father betrayed our ways. That's why he died, Mother."

The Chieftain turned her back on him. Huo gained on her and grabbed her by the shoulder. "I will not let you bring us to ruin! This is where we turn back, once and for all!"

There were cheers in the crowd.

The Chieftain span round, breaking his grip on her shoulder and faced him off. She spat on the sand at her son's feet. "I will honour your Father's sworn oath to Wo Jia."

"You are blinded by your grief, Mother. You cannot lead us. Surrender to me and call for the Chieftain moot. I will honour you as my mother, and I will take care of you till your dying day. I promise."

"You won't have it the easy way, Huo. Challenge me if you have the fire in your gut. Or shut your mouth."

Huo pulled a long curved knife, similar to the one bestowed on Jiang by a stranger, the one he'd abandoned on the bottom of the pit.

Jung Hwa smiled in a decidedly non-motherly way. No 'oh, look how my boy has grown!' here, no love lost.

She unsheathed her own copy of the weapon.

He son flexed his knees and circled her.

The crowd stepped back giving the combatants some room.

Jiang crawled to one side and prepared to watch the spectacle.

Huo charged like a tidal wave at the unyielding cliff of the woman. With the combatants this close together, Jiang appreciated anew just how unwomanly thick Jung Hwa was. She was also fast and precise, staying her son's charge somehow, with a grip on his wrist.

She led Huo past her to drop to his knees. Shan Jiang did not notice just when the knife had grown out of the base of the young man's neck, but there it was. Jung Hwa kicked it in even deeper with her toes, then let go of Huo and ripped it out.

Huo grabbed at the gash, but blood found its way out between his fingers. He slowly toppled to the sand. That's it?! This could not be it?!

But it was.

The crowd broke out in cheers under Jung Hwa's heavy gaze. Jiang cheered along, but quietly. He had mistaken a martyr for a lord, and he would not be the first singer to do so.

"I will honour Thirty Claw's sworn oath to Wo Jia," Jung Hwa repeated menacingly. "Once Mother Xho tells us that the Contagion left the Weeping Men's lands, we will sail for Sutao to destroy vile Zha Yao. Anyone who brings me his head shall have Graceful Lady Tien Lyn as their reward!"

The cheering was deafening now.

"You! Shan Jiang the Honest."

Shan Jiang bowed his head in supplication, hoping that Jung Hwa was fresh out of captive demons, because she certainly was out of heroic sons.

"My son was a fool to give his life for yours. Nobody else will kill demons for you, Weeping Man."

Your son was the best of you, he wanted to say but did not. "I am yours to command."

"You will look after Mother Xho, so her current caretaker would be free to fight. You will make sure she is warm, bathed and fed."

Jiang almost cried with relief, but somehow refrained from it. The young woman next to Mother Xho did that instead, and way louder than he would have dared. She also shook her own curved knife up in the air. Peculiarly, the girl was built similar to Jung Hwa, though she bore no other resemblance to the Chieftain.

It's a small island, he thought.

***

The crowd dispersed as they always do even after the best shows.

He settled with Mother Xho to watch the horizon for arriving ships, hear mutter seaweed potion recipes, and sing nonsensical verses. The old witch was barking mad, but she was a better company than the demons. A verse about Huo started coming together in his head, unbidden. "I won't sing it for a while, but I will sing it yet," he promised to the old witch, "I swear."

Mother Xho cackled in response, then dozed off.

The sun was westering, and no longer vicious. Jiang stretched out on the warm sand near the hag to watch the seagulls circling overhead. A job well done, don't you agree, Mage?