Epilogue I- The King of Hell and his Book Carrying Servant

There was a saying in the Broadsky Kingdom- The sword of the King of Hell is a venomous snake, his brush is a poison dragon. When he raises his sword, a head falls. When he lowers his brush, nine generations go to Hell. The saying started amongst the high civil servants, spread to the aristocracy, and quickly flowed down to the merchants, traveling faster than an Imperial Messenger on a post road. It was less flowery and allusive than most of the sayings of the elite. Direct to the point of crudity, in fact.

They didn’t care. It wasn’t metaphorical in the first place. While they might be petty, venal, scheming, untrustworthy, cruel and all the other things they were accurately accused of, they weren’t stupid. Not when their life was on the line.

“Guard Captain Ho, what is the meaning of this?” The merchant prince stood in front of the gate of his family compound, the mercenaries he employed arrayed behind him. He had paid for good iron helmets, fine spears, and tall tower shields. He had paid for crossbows, and in enough numbers to be effective. The guards outnumbered him, but they both knew any confrontation would be far, far too expensive for both to be worth it.

But Merchant Kang had a dreadful feeling he knew why this was all happening. From the hard look in the mercenaries eyes, so did they.

“Merchant Kang, by order of the Imperial Court, surrender yourself!”

“I need more than that, Captain.” Merchant Kang licked his lips.

“No, you don’t. Surrender, or be considered a rebel. Don’t drag your family down with you, Kang! Surrender!”

“Is this how you repay me? Is this how you repay-”

“SILENCE!” Guard Captain Ho roared. “Another word and I won’t bother taking you in alive!”

“Better a clean death, you faithless dog! Better to die on my feet!”

“You would see your whole family die with you, old fool!”

“Without me, without my money, they are dead anyway.”

The Guard Captain’s face fell flat. “I tried. Guards of the Kang family, you can lay down your weapons and walk away with your lives and whatever pay you have accumulated to date, or you can be declared rebels and suffer the same fate as the Kang Clan. You know who is in the black dragon carriage behind me. Don’t make a fatal mistake.”

An eerie laugh rang over the assembled soldiers. With light steps, an old man in brown robes leapt to the top of the compound walls, and with another light step landed on a mercenary’s shoulder, and with a third, was in front of Guard Captain Ho.

“I have long heard the famous name of the King of Hell, Hanshen. I have my own fame too. Come out, Eunuch! They won’t run so long as Seven Mercies Ren is on the field!”

There was silence for a minute. Guard Captain Ho’s fist tightened in his gauntlet. The soldiers behind him had crossbows and iron armor, long spears and heavy sabers. But you had to reach someone to use them, and the experts of the rivers and lakes were fast. Damned fast. Seven Mercies was known for his skill with heavy knives and poison. If he broke their formation, the mercenaries might actually succeed in repelling them. And if they fell… If they fell, or even took too many losses, Red Wheat Town would fall, and with it, the province.

The door of the carriage opened, and a servant boy stepped out. Immaculately groomed, dressed as a student, there was a heavy book hanging from a leather strap on his waist. He carried a treasured sword in both hands. Once out, he stepped sharply to the right side of the carriage door, bowed, and subtly presented the sword hilt first.

“Old Freak Ren, you might have lived a little while longer had you stayed away. You might have even lived to the end of your years, if you accepted the Emperor’s amnesty.” The voice coming from the darkness of the carriage was high pitched, and cold as a winter wind.

Colder, really. It never got freezing in the Broadsky Kingdom.

“Ten years of service fighting rebels, heretics and bandits, all for a mere amnesty? Pah!” The old man eloquently spat on the ground and drew his heavy knives. “You are blind, eunuch. The Emperor has lost the mandate of heaven. The immortals who once attended him have sealed the Great Mountain, disasters plague the land, monsters and evil beasts rampage through the villages, and here you are.”

A slender man, tall and pale in the moonlight, stepped out of the back carriage. His scholar’s robes were immaculate, his iron token hanging gently from his waist, his gauzy little hat perched on top of his head. He still wore the robes of a Sixth Rank Lower Division Censor, but no one thought that was his true rank. Around his waist was a python belt, clasped with a buckle of Wuyi Mountain Heavenly Water Jade. No different than a Duke.

A slim white hand grasped the sword and drew it with a bare whisper. There was a faint shimmer to it, as though the steel itself held flowing water within. “Here I am. Is it because your grandaughter died last spring? Do you feel there is nothing left tying you to the world?”

Ren recoiled as though he were slapped. “How-”

Silence gathered between the two armies. Censor Hanshen walked through the ranks of soldiers, blade loose in his hand, not a ripple crossing his eyes or heart.

“Yes, damn you. Yes! What do I care if the world burns! What family do I have to implicate? What do I care about who sits on the Dragon Throne? All I have left is my purse, my knives and my name. I will bring glory to all three this night!”

“Fame, certainly. Glory? I think not.” Hanshen murmured. “Raise those prided knives of yours, Ren, lest your head fall with my next step.”

“Hee!” Ren dashed forward, moving low, his steps erratic and his breath undetectable as a snake’s shadow. With a twist of his body, one knife stabbed down at the censor’s foot, the other thrust at his stomach. Hanshen countered with a sudden stop and a long lunge. The tip of his treasured sword pressed for the spot between Ren’s brows.

Hanshen was taller and had the longer weapon. Ren hopped to the side and rolled away, and when he came up, one hand held a chicken egg instead of a knife. He crushed the egg and flung it in one motion, a cloud of fine blue-white powder hanging like smoke under the bright moon. This time it was Hanshen who had to dodge, shifting to one side with gliding steps before pressing in again.

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Ren welcomed the clash. His blades came hacking down wildly, left-right, up-down, crossing angles. It seemed a mad chaos, the idiotic flailing of an amateur, but Guard Captain Ho and the more experienced mercenaries understood. He was sealing angles, forcing Hanshen to pick his lines of attack carefully. Increasing the chance of the censor making a fatal error and leaving himself open to poison or a sneaky thrust.

Ren overthought it. There was a contemptuous, snarled, “Old fool!” and the Censor was on Ren. Then past him. Seven Mercies Ren, an old freak who had taken more lives than some juniors had walked over bridges, saw his headless body tumble to the ground. The very last thing he saw was Hanshen stabbing his sword through his eye socket and into his brain. Never understanding what happened.

Hanshen looked over the mercenaries and Merchant Kang. The servant boy rushed up with a cloth. He knelt by the eunuch and carefully cleaned the blade, before sheathing it. A soldier rushed up with a small table and camp chair. The boy took the heavy book from his waist and laid it on the table.