The Warriors Path

by Brian Thomas

  It was a brave move on their part which Li Chin respected, though he feared for their safety in the long term. They may resent the masters and their warriors but they provided an effective shield for the Hansee people. Without that shield the Hansee people would be vulnerable and it was for this reason Li Chin had started to teach those of the group interested the rudiments of his martial craft. He was not sure if he were doing the right thing in teaching them but most were enthusiastic to learn and only the oldest did not join in the basic exercise patterns he had been showing them.

  One or two of them, Shushan in particular, had shown some aptitude and he was certain if he had more time he could train them so they could put up a reasonable defence. What had surprised him was their willingness to take up arms in their own defence. Peasants were normally not included in the conscripts which made up the bulk of the empire’s armies. Peasants were far too valuable working the land creating wealth for their masters and over time they had become considered a poor source for soldiers.

  Xiou’s wife, Laulun, called a halt for the day and the little cavalcade turned off the road to make camp beside a tree-lined stream. It was a good site.

  Laulun had become the spokesperson for the group. Not formally its leader but often organising them, such that a decision could be made and speaking for them all on small matters. In a society dominated by men Li Chin had been surprised to see the leadership role filled to all intents and purposes by Laulun.

  He discovered Laulun had convinced many of them to leave the old village site and make a start for this new border village. In part Laulun held influence because her husband had been headman for the village but Li Chin had come to wonder how much Xiou had also been guided by his wife in his decisions. Li Chin had seen how skilful she was at not directly confronting any of the men and on occasion, especially in front of others, deferring to them. It was obvious she spoke for all the women and was liked and respected by the group.

  Li Chin shook his head slightly as he began gathering wood for the evening fire. How different this all was to life at the Temple or with the warriors he had spent much of his time with, or even Hansee society in general. If the group was under threat, it was not from internal conflict but from the external influences beyond their control.

  Li Chin had set the communal cook fire and as had become the custom started to clear a space for those who would join him in his daily performance of the patterns. Others joined him and in no time they had a space cleared and began what had become a regular routine for them. As usual Li Chin became completely absorbed in the performance of the exercises. His mind focusing on nothing as his body performed the movements out of habit born of long practise. Behind him in a thin line the group copied his movements as best they could; lacking his fluidity and perfect balance but completing the patterns in reasonable time with him and demonstrating gradual improvement with practise.

  As he finished and drew the exercises to an end Li Chin turned and bowed to his new pupils, who bowed in return before breaking off and chatting happily as they set about the tasks of setting up camp for the night.

  Shushan came over with a bowl of food and a broad smile, sitting down beside him to eat. Shushan was more a young woman than the adolescent her slight frame implied. Normally a little reticent Shushan had taken an instant liking to Li Chin and had proved an eager and apt pupil for all he might teach her before he left. She had a particular interest in learning to use a knife and the sword, which was the only aspect about her which left Li Chin saddened. Li Chin knew she had a quick mind and suspected she would have even greater influence than her mother with those around her in only a few years. He also knew she missed her father and suspected that part of her attraction to him was because she felt safer with him close by.

  As if triggered by his own thoughts Shushan asked a question without looking up from her meal. “Do you think my father still lives?”

  Li Chin stopped eating and looked across at her before replying. “I do not know. Much will depend upon how he deals with his situation when at the Sun Palace. He is a peasant and of no value to the emperor whose anger and vengeance is focused on me. If your father is able to keep the emperor’s attention on me rather than on him, then he may be forgotten and live to return. It is down to him and the Spirits who protect him.”

  Tears threatened to brim over but were kept at bay while she took another mouthful of food and asked. “You will be leaving us soon?”

  Li Chin was touched she would obviously miss him after such a short time but knew the question was on more than just Shushan’s mind. “Our paths go in different directions and by staying I will draw danger to your group. A few more days and then it would be best if we parted company.”

  Shushan looked up her face full of anger. “I hate all masters and warriors! Why can’t they leave us alone to live our lives? It is wrong we kowtow to them without trying to stand up for ourselves, allowing them to trample all over us.”

  Li Chin finished the last of the food in his bowl, which he carefully placed on the ground beside him before responding to Shushan. “Many things are wrong. It is wrong that one people should war upon another or that the strong seek to take advantage of the weak. It is wrong the strongest and most aggressive individuals always seem to rise to the positions of power, while those with compassion and wisdom are often left behind or are consumed in the struggle. It is wrong when those invested with power over their people do not use this power for the good of the people as a whole, but instead use it as a lever to keep their people suppressed and thereby underpin their own position of authority. The world we live in is not a perfect world but it is the world we have. Do not waste your life railing over what you cannot change but focus your energy on changing what you can. There are good masters who do what they believe is right for their people, just as there are honourable warriors who give their lives for the protection of their House and its people. It is wrong that all masters and warriors are not this way, as it is wrong for anyone to hate all masters and warriors for the failings of some of their kind. Whenever people gather to live their lives in a group there will always be a hierarchy with its masters and warriors in some form or other. It is the self-interested leader who bears no love for his people that we must replace and the warrior who has no honour or intent beyond his own glorification which we must vanquish.”

  Shushan was still hot from her anger when she replied. “It is easy for you to justify why masters are needed when you share their privileged lifestyle and why warriors are needed when the only threat is from other warriors. Our village never needed a master and the only threat that ever visited us was from our own master’s warriors!”

  Li Chin let her anger cool a little before he replied calmly. “Was not your father like a master to his people, the noble sort who placed the protection of his people before his own safety? Did your village not use metal tools to cultivate the fields, the product of our civilisation’s own collective intellect? Have not the emperor’s armies prevented the invasion of our nation by our barbarian neighbours? It is not the hierarchy which is at fault but the people who have risen to power within it. If there is a failure of the hierarchy it is that self-seeking individuals rise to positions of power, at the expense of the morally more worthy.”

  Shushan stirred the soil in front of her with a toe as she replied. “I mean no disrespect to you Li Chin but it seems to me masters and their warriors bring nothing but misery to everyone else,” her eyes glanced at him full of accusation, “and you could just as easily have killed my father as you did Zu Wah.”

  “What you say is truer than you will ever know. Some things we can change. We can choose to do differently; others we cannot. Do not waste your time fighting against the things you cannot change. Focus on what you can change to make your life better.”

  Shushan looked up to Li Chin as she responded with conviction. “I cannot change that masters will take advantage of the poor and defenceless, just as I cannot prevent warriors slay
ing us at will. What I would change is the passive nature in which we all accept this treatment. I will not meekly succumb to domination by anyone. If I am to be slaughtered, raped or my goods pillaged I would rather die knowing I fought to resist such treatment. I have learnt from what you have taught us and I will learn more still, until I and others can defend ourselves and fight back.”

  Li Chin watched Shushan carefully as she spoke. Her words could so easily be taken as bombast, especially in one so young, but there was a strength within Shushan that lent her words an authority beyond her age and inexperience, or even her sex. Once again the shy young girl emerged as she asked. “You will still teach us, while you are with us?” Li Chin nodded not breaking their eye contact as he did so. “I feared you would laugh at me, a woman with such ideas or be angry and refuse to teach us anymore.”

  Li Chin did not know whether to be pleased at this young woman’s courageous determination to stand against tyranny, or to be saddened a woman asked to be taught how to kill so she might defend herself. In truth he felt both and while the traditional part of him was reluctant to teach a woman how to fight the recently liberated part of him, for that is how he now thought of himself, was enthusiastic to help any who were willing to take up the fight to free themselves. “There is a warrior soul within you Shushan. You have the pride and courage to become what you wish, if you work hard to become it and live long enough to succeed. Be certain it is the path you want to take. It can be a bitter one where many fail early and few live long enough to succeed.”

  Shushan gave a small smile and was confident in her reply. “I would be the honourable warrior who protects her people. If I die young trying to win some freedom it would be preferable to living a little longer in a life of misery and pain with no hope of it ever becoming better.”

  “Then I wish you well, Shushan, but take care what you wish for and that you do not become that which you loathe most. Good intentions do not necessarily result in good outcomes.”

  Chapter 14

  T’ze stepped on to the pier, exchanging the calm of the barge which had nestled comfortably in the slowly moving current of the vast Yellow River for the frenetic activity of the busy wharfs. The docks provided the main access for river trade in and out of Sun City, the empire’s capital and residence for the emperor’s dynasty. After leaving the Temple and waiting for the first barge heading downstream a heavy fog had fallen over the river. In his weakened state and suffering from loss of blood T’ze had succumbed to a fever.

  The young acolyte who had accompanied T’ze had cared for him while he had been delirious, his life balancing on a knife edge between this and the next world. T’ze was grateful but he wished the young priest had secured passage on a barge for them both and cared for him while they journeyed, rather than remaining at the river staging point. But the young priest had held no appetite to venture to the Sun Palace with its uncertain welcome, especially with the prospect of T’ze dying on the journey and leaving him with the responsibility of reporting to the emperor in T’ze’s stead. Meanwhile T’ze had chaffed at the delay, which had made his task with the emperor more difficult as a consequence.

  On his recovery both he and the priest had been relieved at the parting, able at last to go their separate ways. T’ze had lost ten days while he shook off the fever sufficiently to travel and another day before he was able to secure a passage downstream to the Sun Palace. Even after a further month travelling on the barge he was still weak and experienced some dizziness as he became accustomed to dry land.

  He had taken no more than a dozen uncertain steps from the dock when T’ze became aware he was being shadowed by soldiers closing in on him from all sides. Scanning the men he quickly identified the commander and stopping looked straight at him. The commander was nervous but had a determined look to him as he and his men continued to close in. The officer was undecided whether he should draw his weapon in anticipation of T’ze’s adverse reaction to the escort but rightly concerned at the offence and reaction it could cause.

  The commander’s indecision and anxiety was quickly picked up by his men, making them in turn edgy. Silently T’ze cursed the young acolyte for not placing him on the first downstream barge and causing his delay in reaching the emperor, preventing him from being first with the news of his nephew. Now he may not even get to see the emperor before he was executed. “You have been ordered to escort me to the palace?” T’ze enquired calmly of the young officer as he drew near.

  Looking slightly surprised at being addressed the commander replied. “If you arrive at the palace the squad which sees you first is to immediately take you to the emperor’s private audience chamber, Guardian.”

  Perhaps there was room for some optimism then, thought T’ze, but first he would have to reassure the commander and his men to prevent any precipitous action on their part. It was important when addressing the emperor he spoke from a position of strength and authority, not as some disarmed and dishonoured criminal who had been dragged reluctantly before him. “Good. I have vital news affecting the safety of the emperor and I must see him without delay. I carry a fresh wound and do not have the strength to force a passage through the masses to the palace. Have one of your men secure a litter and the others clear the route without delay.”

  The officer looked at T’ze in surprise. The idea of a Temple priest requiring support, especially a litter, was so at odds with his experience of them he wondered if had heard correctly. T’ze decided it was time for a little push in the right direction. “Your duty is to protect the emperor. If I die before I am able to warn him of the danger he will remain vulnerable to the threat. What little strength I have left, Commander, will not last forever.”

  The officer blinked at T’ze lulled by the quiet and matter-of-fact tone he used. He noticed the gaunt and pale complexion of the guardian and could see the fine lines of fresh sword wounds, one on his neck which disappeared below the collar of his gown and another on the back of his right hand that disappeared into his sleeve. Indeed, as the guardian stood before him totally relaxed but obviously convalescing he seemed to offer no threat.

  More comfortable following the commands of those in authority, especially the Temple priests who were held in reverence by the populace, the officer gave a brief bow to T’ze. He ordered his men to secure the nearest litter, which involved throwing out its current and voluble occupant. He then began clearing a passage in the throng on the way to the palace. In the familiar role of following direct orders and providing escort the officer and his men relaxed and became focussed on the task of getting T’ze and his urgent message to the emperor as quickly as possible.

  T’ze sat back in the chair as they made quick progress through the city outside the palace and eventually into the palace grounds. The litter and his claim to weakness had been a ruse but as he was bounced around by the chair and its trotting porters T’ze felt nauseous waves of dizziness genuinely robbing him of his strength. Positioning his sword over one shoulder so it would hang behind his back when he stood from the chair and remain largely masked from those he faced, T’ze hoped to avoid any attempt by the commander to take it from him.

  When they arrived outside the palace entrance he called the commander over and sought his assistance to stand from the chair, primarily to emphasise his weakness and lack of threat. Though, as he stood T’ze was shocked to feel sweat break out across his brow and the genuine weakness of his limbs.

  The commander’s original concern had now been entirely replaced by his anxiety that T’ze would not live long enough to deliver his warning to the emperor. After a brief moment the nausea passed and T’ze felt some strength return to his limbs. He nodded to the commander he was ready to go, though at a slower pace dictated by T’ze. The escort had made a subtle change during their progress through the palace, from a defensive guard detail to a protective cordon harbouring a valued asset and anxious to protect it from further harm before it was delivered safely.

  T’ze suppressed a grim s
mile. If only his meeting with the emperor could be manipulated so easily. There was an even chance this same guard so careful of his wellbeing now would be escorting him out to execute him in the next few minutes.

  T’ze and his escort entered the audience chamber and made their slow way towards the empty throne. Word had been sent ahead. As they marched between the emperor’s life guards drawn up in twin columns before his throne courtiers began entering from side doors. To keep the guards and his escort at ease T’ze stopped well away from the throne. As they waited for the emperor his escort could easily be taken as an honour guard rather than an armed escort.

  T’ze barely had time to register there were far more soldiers in evidence than usual, even along the route to the palace, before the emperor entered. Wang sat solemnly on the throne surrounded by lavishly attired advisors and courtiers. Everyone in the chamber, with the exception of the twin columns of life guards and the attending advisors who had entered with the emperor, kowtowed to the greatest power in the land. As he dropped in to his own kowtow T’ze sensed a movement behind a lattice panel in a wall to the side and slightly behind the emperor’s throne. The panel completely obscured anyone behind it but T’ze was convinced he had seen some movement. He gritted his teeth at the realisation the Empress Butterfly must have joined the meeting whilst remaining concealed behind the panel. Not for the first time T’ze thought “Praying Mantis” would be a more appropriate name for the emperor’s Machiavellian official first wife.