8 Childhood’s End

Jack tested out his new sling a few more times with about the same results, sighed, and started working on the slings for his two little friends.

They arrived just as he finished up the last sling.

When he showed how the sling worked the two boys couldn't keep their mouths from hanging open. Jack laughed at their expressions and gave them their slings.

"What are the rules?" asked Shen Xianshu as he tried to grasp the sling in the way Tanda showed him.

"We each get ten shots. Anyone that hits the target is out. If by the end of the ten shots someone hasn't hit the target he does a chore chosen by the ones that managed to hit the target." As he instructed them about the rules Jack pointed towards a tree with a wide trunk growing approximately 15 meters away from them and dragged a line in the grass with his foot.

"That's too close. That tree needs at least four men holding hands to encircle it." complained Shen Xianshu with a small frown "No one's gonna win if we aim for that."

Jack gave him a small smirk "Say that when you're able to hit it."

"How much is ten?" piped up Song Farong as he looked at his fingers with a frown.

Jack facepalmed and asked, "How much fingers do you have?"

Song Farong looked at him and shoved Jack his two palms with excitement "This many."

"That's ten." Jack confirmed with a sigh. Song Farong responded with an 'Oh!' expression and started picking his stones.

After two full games, Song Farong managed to hit the tree in their third round and relegated his watering and cleaning chores to Jack and Shen Xianshu.

In the next couple of weeks, the boys played their game almost every day. They improved quickly so they started shooting from further distances and at smaller targets. Jack managed to produce a couple of extra slings just in case and hid them on his escape routes.

The wedding of Jack's sister Song Fenlan and Hao Tiankai came and went. They celebrated for a whole day, and on the next morning, Hao Tiankai took Song Fenlan and half of Jack's Kui herd with him up the road to Green Wood village.

Time continued to flow like an unstoppable river. Jack turned eight years old and his face and body started to show the world a glimpse of the man that was to come. He regularly did basic exercises to keep himself in shape, but he couldn't overdo it so he wouldn't hamper his growth. He even got his friends to do it with him out of boredom.

They had long ago stopped having contests in slinging. Song Farong and Shen Xianshu refused to compete with Jack because they would end up doing all of his chores for a week. Jack only got so good because he trained the skill seriously; the others just considered it as a game and didn't practice.

But one day when Jack brought down a bird with his sling and roasted it in the meadow the two boys changed their attitude. They all started carrying a pouch on their belt where they kept their most perfect stones and their slings. When their parents asked what the pouches were for they said that they were for a game.

On one such day where Shen Xianshu brought down a plump brown bird. The boys ate their fill and went back to their homes. Jack penned the Kui and went to his house as usual.

As soon as passed the door he felt a gloomy atmosphere smack him in the face. He looked at the kitchen table and saw his father, mother, grandmother, and second sister sitting at it.

Song Fenlan had her right eye completely swollen shut, and the left one fared little better, but she could still see through it. Her swollen lips had numerous bloody cuts on them and Jack glimpsed a gap in her front teeth.

A cold rage enveloped Jack as he walked calmly to his sister and grabbed her hand "What happened to you?" he asked in a calm cold voice that should have never come out from the mouth of an eight-year-old child.

Song Fenlan trembled and drew her hand back with a reflexive "Nothing." as she averted her gaze.

"Tanda, out!" Song Fengtian yelled in his rumbling voice as he slapped the table.

Jack gave his father a glance, took a long look at his sister's face, turned on his heel, and walked out into the yard.

He took a couple of deep calming breaths, then ran to the back of the house. From there he silently clambered onto the roof and found his fourth sister, Song Yuening, doing the same thing he planned on doing. Listening in on the conversation in the kitchen through the front door.

She looked at him and brought a finger to her lips, notifying him to stay silent. Jack nodded and crept to where she lay. They looked at each other for a second and saw the same fury in the other's eyes. Jack broke the look and focused his hearing on what was happening underneath him.

"…told you something isn't right with that boy." came the croaking voice of Kong Ganrong.

"Enough!" Song Fengtian snapped "This isn't the time."

Kong Ganrong snorted but didn't say anything more.

"Continue your story, Fenlan." the soothing voice of Su Meimu said.

After a few second Jack heard the slightly muffled voice of his second sister "At first I didn't mind…" she took a deep breath "… the roughness." she let out a sob.

Almost a minute passed in silence.

"I thought… I thought I'd get used to it. I told myself that it wasn't that bad… in the beginning." Song Fenlan sobbed more and Jack could hear their mother comforting her.

A few minutes passed this time.

"In the last couple of months, he started hitting me every night… Even when I refused, even when I screamed no at him… He wouldn't stop." The last sentence came out in a voice so soft that Jack almost missed it.

"How did you get back to Raging Ox village?" asked Song Fengtian in a stony voice.

"A caravan passed through Green Wood village and took pity on me." Song Fenlan explained.

"Why didn't you come before?!" asked Song Fengtian with a slight rise in his voice.

A few seconds passed until Song Fenlan said "I didn't want you to worry... But now, I didn't have a choice. I couldn't let him kill…" her sentence ended in another sob.

"That's why I asked why you didn't return sooner! What if we just received news that you died one day? It would break your mother's heart!" Song Fengtian roared.

Right after the roar, a slap echoed and Jack heard his mother's steely voice "Enough, Fengtian! Can't you see it?"

"See what?" came Song Fengtian's confused voice.

"Oh, this changes things." said Kong Ganrong with a slight cackle in her voice.

"What?" Song Fengtian asked once more.

"You're going to have another grandchild, Song Fengtian." said the malicious voice of Kong Ganrong.

Jack froze, as did his sister next to him. They looked at each other and she mouthed 'NO' at him.

After a long silence from the home beneath them came Song Fengtian's deflated voice "That does change things."

"We can't let him take it." said Su Meimu in a slightly raised voice.

"He is the father, and the child is his by law. We can't do anything to keep it." said Song Fengtian, his voice conveying his age for the first time Jack had ever heard.

"You better let him take it, you don't want all of the villages to shun our family for not respecting ancient laws." croaked Kong Ganrong.

"No!" sobbed Song Fenlan, the heartbreak in her voice shaking Jack's whole being.

Su Meimu once more comforted her daughter until she calmed down enough to speak.

"We will wait for him to show up. Yasin is keeping watch on the road and will inform us as soon as he sees him. For now, Meimu take her to our room and let her rest. I will deal with this." Song Fengtian said in an authoritative voice and the people in the kitchen started moving around the house.

Jack lay on the roof in a daze. He kept repeating 'These savages, how can they allow this?!' over and over in his head.

Only when his sister shook his shoulder did he snap out of it and looked at her.

She whispered "What do we do now?" in a frightened little voice.

Jack looked at her for a long second, trying to burn her disheveled image into his retinas. "You go down and help Fenlan, I'll be right behind you." he whispered back.

Song Yuening hesitated for a moment as if she could see something in Jack's eyes, but in the end, she nodded her head a fraction and climbed down the roof.

Jack crawled to the back portion of the roof and looked at the path that leads to the village center. He took out his sling and a round stone out of his waist pouch, and waited.

As the Sun started to set Jack saw his third brother, Song Yasin, running down the path to their house. Jack squished his little body down on the roof in anticipation.

He could hear his brother yelling "He's coming!" to the people in the house as Jack saw a silhouette of a man walking down the road, in no hurry at all.

The house exploded into a clamor and Jack heard his father's voice yell "Keep her in the room! Let me talk to him."

Jack tuned out the noises from the house and stood up. He placed the smooth round stone in the sling's pouch and let it hang. He waited until he could see the handsome face of Hao Tiankai in full. Then he started to spin his sling.

One swing, two, and he let the knotted end loose at the third swing. The stone flew like it had eyes and in a split second reached Hao Tiankai.

Hao Tiankai grabbed his genitals with both of his hands as he fell to his knees in the middle of the dirt path. A second stone slammed right into his nose and with a crunching sound Hao Tiankai fell on his side in a twisted mess. The third stone took out his teeth. The fourth one his consciousness.

Jack was in the middle of loading his seventh stone when a heartbreaking shriek broke his concentration. He blinked and looked down at the ground beneath him.

There he saw his second sister, Song Fenlan, jump out of their parents' shabby bedroom window and run at full speed towards the broken Hao Tiankai.

For a moment Jack thought she was going to finish the job he started, but then she collapsed right next to Hao Tiankai's body and cradled him in her arms while sobbing.

By this time the rest of the family ran around the house and stared in shock at the fallen Hao Tiankai. After a few seconds of stunned silence, they started running towards him.

Jack watched all of this play out as if in a dream. He looked at his second sister, at the same time she noticed him standing on the roof of the house, and the stone in his left hand. At that moment all of the fear and sorrow in her eyes turned into pure hatred as she pointed at Jack and screamed "He did it!"

Everyone turned to follow Song Fenlan's pointing finger and stared in shock at the standing boy.

Jack sighed, placed the rock and the sling back into his pouch, looked at his family one last time, turned around, and sprinted to the other side of the roof. There he jumped down to the ground with a roll, picked himself up, and ran with all that he had towards the forest in the distance.

The last thing he heard was the screeching voice of his grandmother yelling "I told you!"

As Jack ran over the fields towards the woods he suddenly heard a shouting child's voice from behind him calling his name. He turned around, cursed, waited for Song Farong to catch up, and said "Farong, go home. I don't have time to play right now."

Song Farong ignored his tone as he caught up with Jack while panting with a smile on his face. "Hey, uncle Yasin came to my house and told something to mom and dad. They left the house after that in a fuss. I sneaked outside to play just now and saw you running. Did you find something interesting? Show me!" he said with glee.

Jack threw a glance over Song Farong's shoulder, looked up at the darkening sky, and sighed "Fine, you can come, but stay quiet. If you can't keep up I'll leave you behind,"

Jack knew that when Song Farong had an idea in his mind it would take the whole village to convince him otherwise, so he had to take a risk.

Song Farong agreed with a happy "No problem!" and started running after Jack.

They ran into the forest as Jack looked for a tree he marked with a check mark. Soon enough he found it, fell on his knees in front of it, and started digging with his hands.

Song Farong laughed "I knew you hid something. You're always hiding things." he said as he sat on the ground next to Jack and helped him out with the digging.

After a few minutes they dug out a sack Jack hid there for emergencies. In it, he had food, water, an extra sling and some rocks, some clothes, a few rags, and a flint to make a fire. He usually resupplied his hidden stashes every week or two so everything inside was good to use.

He grabbed the sack and tied it to his back with a few strings of rope that he attached to it. Jack looked at Song Farong and thought 'I'll lead him to the river; he can find his way back home from there.' The river ran near their village so he was sure that Song Farong wouldn't get lost.

Jack looked at Song Farong, said "Let's go.", and started running deeper into the woods.

Song Farong hesitated a little, but he had great trust in his friend and uncle Tanda so he followed after a second.

After over 10 minutes of running Song Farong gasped "Tanda, stop. Stop! I can't go on."

Jack looked at the gasping Song Farong and said with a labored breath "Just a little further, you won't believe what I've found." He leaned on a tree, looked up at the sky to get his bearings, and froze.

Song Farong gasped a few more times, then said as he started walking in the direction they ran towards previously "Fine, I'll go, just slow down a litt…"

Before Song Farong could finish his sentence an arm snaked around his neck and placed him in a chokehold. His eyes bulged out as he instinctively tried to break the hold. But after a short time, he passed out.

Jack moved with practiced precision and tied Song Farong's hands and feet before he could wake up. Jack stuffed his mouth with a cloth rag from his sack so he wouldn't get interrupted.

When Song Farong regained consciousness, he looked at the black-clad feet of Song Tanda.

The look Song Farong gave Jack was half confusion and half betrayal. Jack let it wash over him, leaned Song Farong's back on a tree, threw his sack next to Song Farong's feet, and started talking "Listen up. You won't get out of those ropes for at least a few hours. I'm going to go back to the village to check something out; if I don't come back before you free yourself take the sack and keep going down the path we were following. Once you reach the river go right, remember, go right, don't go left. Once you see the road go down it until you meet people. When you do it's up to your luck what happens next."

Song Farong looked at Jack with wide open eyes, confusion swirling in their depths.

Jack looked at him one last time, told him "Do as I say.", and ran back in the direction of the Raging Ox village.