Legends of Ogre Gate

by Jeremy Bai

  The man smiled. “On a job near the south market. He told me to give you this.” The man pulled out a bamboo scroll that had been tucked into his belt and held it out to her.

  It was a brand-new copy of Romance of the Hen-Shi Knights. Inwardly, she was shocked. A scroll like this would be very expensive, even if it weren’t new.

  She took the scroll and smiled, then nodded to the man.

  He turned and began to lead her to the south part of the city. Eventually they reached an alley just across the street from the main market. The man knocked in what was clearly a prescribed fashion, and the door slowly opened.

  “In here,” he said, ducking quickly into the doorway.

  Bao followed close behind.

  As soon as the door shut behind her, she felt something hit her in the back of the head, and everything went black.

  **

  She awoke to find herself in almost complete darkness. She was lying on a wooden cot in an iron cage. She blinked groggily, then sat up and gingerly touched the back of her head. It was painful, but there was no blood. Despite that, she felt nauseous and completely out of sorts.

  Where am I?

  As she looked around, she realized she was in a room filled with cages, at least ten of them. They were all empty except for one on the opposite side of the room from her, where a huddled figure lay sleeping on the cot.

  There were no windows, at least none that she could see.

  Groaning, she swung her feet over and sat up on the cot. That immediately led to a wave of dizziness, but after a moment it passed. She thought of her knives, but a quick check confirmed that they were gone.

  About that time, she heard indistinct voices, and a very faint light revealed a doorway in the side of the room. The light was spilling from underneath the door, which was closed.

  As the light grew stronger in the doorway, the voices grew clearer. When she realized that one of them belonged to Geng Long, her heart surged.

  He’s here to rescue me! she thought.

  Soon the voices were distinct enough to make out a few words.

  “Always busy,” Geng Long said. “Just… time for this stupid… my own plans.”

  The other voice was gravely and deep. “We have to watch out… Make some big money and we can get… if you know what I mean.” The voice chuckled.

  The crack of light beneath the door went dark. Apparently Geng Long and the other man were walking right by it.

  “What’s this girl to you?” asked the gravelly voice.

  “Oh, nothing, one of my many projects.” Geng Long chuckled. “I set her up for a whole year, believe it or not.”

  The gravelly voice laughed. “So you knew all along she was nobility?”

  The voices began to fade away.

  “Of course. Otherwise it wouldn’t have been worth it. So much money for… have enough money to get out of here… join the…”

  “Join them? Why not join us? We’re the ones… going to be…”

  And then they became too indistinct to hear clearly.

  Bao sat there on the cot, her hands gripping her trousers tightly. Her heart felt cold, empty, and sinking. Tears began to well up in her eyes. She clenched her jaw and closed her eyes, causing the tears to seep out and roll down her cheeks.

  The tears streamed down, but she refused to cry out loud.

  **

  She couldn’t sleep that night. The next morning, she realized that there was a window in the room, a very tiny one up in the far corner. Around dawn, the room began to light up, and soon thereafter a fat man with a beard opened the door and slipped a tiny bowl of millet congee into her cage, as well as the other cage in the room.

  Bao’s mind was filled with questions, but she didn’t give voice to any of them. When the fat man left, she tried to start a conversation with figure in the far cage, but whoever it was refused to speak.

  That afternoon, she finally slept, all the way until the fat man returned with dinner, a bowl of plain noodles with sesame sauce.

  That night, it took a while, but she managed to fall asleep.

  The next day, before breakfast was served, the door burst open and the fat man stalked in, joined by a tall, muscular young man with a square jaw. They walked over to the other cage, which the fat man opened. He stepped in and physically dragged out the prisoner, a young teenage boy who looked vaguely familiar to Bao.

  The fat man shoved him up against the iron bars. “This is your last chance. Tell us something that will help!”

  “I don’t know anything!”

  The fat man spat on the ground. “Wrong answer.” He turned toward the burly young man. “All right, Mao Yun. Do it.”

  The burly young man named Mao Yun grimaced. “I don’t feel—”

  “Shut it!” the fat man said. “You know your place here. Be a coward on your own time. Do it.”

  With that, the fat man grabbed the prisoner’s forearm and slammed his hand up against the bars.

  Mao Yun’s jaw clenched, and he stepped forward. A long, sharp knife appeared in his hand.

  “What are you doing?” the prisoner shrieked. Then he began to babble. “I’m telling you, I don’t know anything. My uncle! My uncle has gold hidden… in his bed! Hidden in the bed or in the— No! STOP!”

  Mao Yun’s meaty hand grabbed the prisoner’s pinky finger and cut it off. Then he dropped it in disgust.

  Blood spurted, and the prisoner screamed in pain. The fat man threw him back into the cage, tossed a rag in his direction, then picked up the finger and walked out of the room.

  Mao Yun followed, and as he passed the cage, he looked over at Bao. Their eyes made contact for a brief moment before he was gone.

  Later, Bao realized why her fellow prisoner looked familiar. He was from another of the noble clans, someone she had seen earlier that year on some formal occasion.

  The following day, three men came to take him away, and he never returned.

  More days went by in a blur.

  One day, the fat man opened the door, yet again joined by Mao Yun.

  After unlocking Bao’s cage, the fat man said, “Come with us.”

  Clenching her jaw, she stood up from the cot and followed as he led her out of the room. Mao Yun followed a few paces behind her.

  She was led down a few corridors to a meeting hall filled with numerous unsavory characters. As soon as Bao laid eyes on these people, she knew who they were. Ruffians. Thieves. Criminals.

  There were at least twenty of them, one of them the man who had led her to this place that night. Geng Long was nowhere to be seen. The man in the seat of honor was obviously their leader. He wore fine silks and furs and sat on a raised platform that put him above everyone else in the room. At his right sat a swarthy man with a perpetual sneer, and to the left was a beautiful woman.

  Other than the beautiful woman, everyone else in the room was male. There were tall ones, short ones, young and old, all sorts. But Bao could tell that they were rough, violent people.

  The fat man led her to a position a few meters in front of the leader, then said, “This is her, Chief.”

  The chief looked her over for a moment, then spoke, his voice smooth like oil. “Why won’t your clan pay the ransom for you?”

  As soon as she heard the words, Bao’s suspicions were confirmed. She had been kidnapped for ransom. She couldn’t help but laugh out loud. “Ransom? I’m nothing to my clan. You might as well have kidnapped a tree from the garden.”

  The chief frowned and tapped his fingers on his knees. “You’d better come up with something to get them to pay. Otherwise we’ll start cutting off fingers. Why do you say you aren’t worth anything?”

  Anger sparked in Bao’s heart, and she looked away.

  The chief snorted. “What do you think, Underchief Wang?”

  The swarthy man standing next to him chuckled. “Maybe she got taken to the Demon Emperor’s bed one too many times.”

  That provoked laughter from the others in the room.
r />   Bao’s face flushed with anger, but she refused to reply.

  A moment passed, and the chief said, “Take her back. We’ll try one more time before sending a finger.”

  The fat man and Mao Yun led her back to the iron cages. After the cage door clicked shut, the fat man walked out. Mao Yun also turned to leave, then paused for a moment and looked over his shoulder at her.

  “Try to think of something,” he said. “Otherwise… you know.” His jaw clenched, and he shook his head. Then he closed the door and was gone.

  Chapter 8: Hail of Arrows

  The following day, nothing happened. Sometimes Bao lay down on the cot, sometimes she sat, sometimes she stood, sometimes she paced. She thought about many things, and she thought about nothing. She tried to make plans of how to escape, but everything she thought of seemed silly after only a few minutes.

  Despite her show of fearlessness in front of all the criminals, icy terror was beginning to worm its way into her heart.

  I’m just a girl. I can’t fight. I have no magic. What can I do?

  What she had said about her clan’s attitude was true, although now she wished she hadn’t spoken the words out loud.

  She mattered little to her clan. Her only value would be as a wife to marry off to some other clan to strengthen ties or form an alliance. However, there were many other young women who could do the same thing. Although the clan leaders wouldn’t blithely abandon her to be killed, she worried that they wouldn’t provide the type of ransom these criminals were after.

  She stewed in her thoughts the whole day before finally managing to fall asleep.

  Late in the night, she awoke with a start.

  Candlelight poured down onto her face, causing her to squint slightly. The candle was being held by none other than the swarthy man who had stood next to the leader of the criminal gang. Bao remembered him being called Underchief Wang.

  He was staring at her, a slight grin on his face as he leaned up against the iron bars.

  She quickly scrambled into a sitting position, folding her arms around her knees. Apparently he was waiting for her to speak first, so she resolved to deny him of that and said nothing.

  After a long moment passed, his lips twisted into a sneer, and he said, “Things aren’t looking good for you, girl.”

  Again, she said nothing in response, even looking away from him into the darkness that was the far corner of the room.

  He snorted. “Play tough all you want. If your clan won’t pay up, bad things are going to happen to you.” He chuckled. “Maybe more than just a missing finger.”

  When it became clear that she was not going to speak, he began to slowly tap the metal bars of the cage with an iron cudgel that he had been holding behind his back with his free hand.

  “So tell me, what’s the Demon Emperor like?” he asked. “How is he with, you know… the ladies?”

  Bao slowly turned to look Underchief Wang in the eyes, then spat on the floor of the cage.

  He laughed. “Oh, come on. Everyone knows the nobility is in bed with the Demon Emperor. Both figuratively and literally. Girls like you jump at the chance to spread your legs for him at night. How many times have you let His Majesty stick his—”

  “Shut the hell up!” Bao spat. “I’d kill myself before I let the Demon Emperor touch me.”

  “Oh, really? I heard he has a different noble girl every night, except the ones he likes, who he calls back for second helpings.”

  “That’s a lie, and you know it.”

  Underchief Wang chuckled again, then pointed the iron cudgel at her through the bars. “I say you’re the Demon Emperor’s whore, which is a good thing for me.” He chuckled. “You’ll be all loosened up and ready when I—”

  Bao jumped off the cot and lunged for the iron cudgel, but she was too slow. Laughing, Underchief Wang jumped back.

  Bao gripped the cage bars so tight her knuckles creaked. “I hate the Demon Emperor!” she said, her voice quavering. “You hear me? I hate him! I wish I could rip his arms and legs off and beat him to death with them!”

  “Feisty!” Underchief Wang said, licking his lips. “I might just have to tie you down when the time comes.”

  “If you lay a hand on me, you’re dead!” Bao said, her voice rising to a shout.

  “You know, I used to work in Xuanlu, and I ran into a girl a lot like you. At first she fought back, but eventually she was asking for it. I bet you’ll be just the same.”

  “I take it back,” Bao said, her voice now cold. “If you lay a hand on me, I’ll cut it off! I’ll rip your intestines out and strangle you with them, you bastard! I’ll dig your eyes out with your own fingernails! You’re just as bad as the Demon Emperor. Fuck you! Fuck you and the Demon Emperor. Fuck you!”

  Almost the exact moment that Bao shrieked the curse words at the top of her lungs, the ground vibrated, and a muffled boom followed. It sounded almost as if something had exploded nearby.

  Underchief Wang immediately strode over to the door and walked out, not even bothering to shut it behind him.

  Bao stood with her hands clenching the iron bars, breath coming in ragged pants. Finally, she gritted her teeth, turned, and kicked the cot as hard as she could, although nothing much happened to the sturdy cot.

  She had never lost control in that way, nor had she ever uttered such filthy words. However, no one had ever spoken so vilely to her in her life, either. She sat down on the cot and put her head in her hands.

  She didn’t have much time to think about the matter, however, as the sounds of a commotion drifted into her ears. Based on what she remembered of the layout of the facility she was being held in, the commotion seemed to be coming from the direction of the reception hall where she had briefly met the gang’s chief, which would also likely be near the main entrance.

  Soon Bao realized what the commotion sounded like: battle. She could hear the clanging and clashing of metal hitting metal. People were shouting and screaming, and soon the aroma of smoke hit her nose. Bao stood back up and walked forward, trying to get a better view of the corridor outside.

  The sounds of fighting grew more intense, but then they suddenly stopped. Next she could hear people running. First one figure, then two, then three, scrambled past the door. She recognized at least one of them from when she’d gone out into the main hall. They appeared to be fleeing, running for their lives.

  Has the clan come to rescue me? she thought. It seemed unlikely.

  Another figure ran past, a burly young man who she recognized as Mao Yun. Almost as soon as he ran past the door, she heard him stop and turn back. A moment later, his face appeared in the doorway, and he was looking right at her.

  He glanced back the way he had come and finally hurried over to her cage. Wasting no time, he unhooked the bronze axe he kept at his waist and began to batter at the cage lock.

  It took him several blows, but the lock finally broke, and he swung the cage door open.

  “I suggest you follow me,” he said.

  “Why should I?”

  “The people out there… it’s not your clan, and they’re not here to rescue you. It’s the Bone General himself, and his Bone Slicers.”

  The blood drained from Bao’s face. “The Bone General?”

  “They’re torturing the chief right now, and when they’re done, they’ll torch this place. The chief dabbled in matters he shouldn’t have. Come on, there’s no time to talk now. Let’s go.” Not waiting for her to respond, Mao Yun turned and headed toward the door.

  Bao didn’t even need to consider the matter; she immediately followed.

  The Bone General was one of several ogre generals, devoted servants of the Demon Emperor. Everyone in cities occupied by the Demon Emperor knew that they weren’t even human but rather monsters that people said were summoned from the underworld of Emo-Cheng. Considering that there were five of them, some people even claimed that they were incarnations of the Five Ghosts who ruled the underworld.

  Each of t
he ogre generals served the Demon Emperor in a different way. As for the Bone General, he was used like a hammer to crush threats, which he always did in an efficient and barbaric fashion. The Bone Slicers were his most elite fighters. According to some stories, they got their name from the way they would cut slices of bone out of living victims, then use those slices to torture them further.

  Bao knew that to be true. She had seen such horrors during the purge of Yu Zhing, an event in which the Bone General played an important role.

  As a bloodcurdling scream echoed down the hall from the main audience chamber, Bao hurried out the door and followed Mao Yun.

  The first thing she noticed was a table next to the door, upon which rested her knives and leather sheaths. She quickly grabbed them and hurried after Mao Yun, strapping the sheaths to her wrists as she went.

  After hurrying through several corridors, she and Mao Yun ended up in relatively large chamber with a large barred door at the end. A group of about twenty or thirty rough-looking individuals were congregated there. Standing between the larger group and the door was the man named Underchief Wang, as well as another young man. The two of them appeared to be arguing.

  “What’s going on, Third Zhou?” Mao Yun said in a booming voice.

  The young man turned. “Big Bro Mao, Underchief Wang won’t open the door!”

  Mao Yun strode up to face off with Underchief Wang. “What’s the meaning of this? You’re going to get us all killed!”

  “Either that or save our lives!” Underchief Wang replied. “They’ve surely blocked off the exits. We’ll likely open this door to find a hail of arrows punching holes in our hides!”

  “The Bone General is right behind us, Underchief. If we don’t get out of here, we’ll be pierced by more than arrows!”

  As the two men argued back and forth, Bao looked nervously over her shoulder at the corridor they had just walked out of, her mind filled with horrific scenes of brutality from years past involving the Bone General and his Bone Slicers.

  Time ticked by, and the argument between Underchief Wang and Mao Yun grew more heated. Neither party seemed willing to back down.

  Bao began to chew her lip, tapping her foot on the ground. Finally, she had had enough.