The Squad Leader's Gift

Deep night in Cheongguk. The mountains were swallowed in pitch black, though a bright moon reached down through the dense canopy, light enough for a horse to walk by.

Ah, shit. What a pain. Should I just kill them all?

Mui, seated on his horse, swept a glance around him and, for the briefest moment, actually considered it. Some thirty bandits ringed him, but the way they held their weapons and moved their bodies marked them as nothing but street trash. He could have tossed the lot of them to the King of Hell in less than a quarter-hour. He had to hold back, though. The only spare clothes in his bundle were martial robes.

If he meant to move through Cheongguk without drawing eyes, he had to look like a man of a merchant caravan, which was why he had bought, back in Seohanseong, the sort of clothes a caravan master might wear. He could not drench this outfit in blood. The job had to be finished within ten days so he could return to the imperial palace of the Han Empire, and stirring up trouble would buy him nothing. Mui clenched his jaw and spoke.

"How much is this toll of yours?"

The middle-aged man who seemed to be their leader tapped the earth with a great sword, loose and swaggering.

"Leave the horse and everything you've got and walk out. I'm a generous man. I'll let you buy your life cheap."

"Hahaha."

His men laughed with him. But Mui had already lost a quarter-hour in this place, and a killing edge had come into his eyes.

"We finish it with one gold coin."

At the words gold coin, the bandits went still. Mui watched their eyes skitter, bright with greed, and went on as if none of it mattered.

"Don't do anything stupid. Move."

Weapons already lifted, they were no longer hearing him. A man who named gold for a toll—whatever sat in the bundle on his back had to be worth more than the coin. Mui reached for the sword lashed at his horse's flank, let out a sigh, and drew a spear instead.

Sword, spear, bow—there was no weapon he could not use. But if he meant to keep blood off these clothes, the spear was the better choice. He did not even unwind the cloth wrapped around the blade.

"Eyes open. You're dead. All of you."

"Don't kill the horse! Just kill that bastard!"

At their leader's shout, the bandits—gold-mad—came on in a rush.

The cloth-bound spearhead took one of them in the neck. He tumbled across the ground and died with his neck bent at an ugly angle, and the rest did not care. A dead man's share was theirs to take. Loyalty was a waste.

Mui's spear swept at once for the leader's head on the far side. The man twisted his thick waist clear and hacked a great sword at Mui's thigh, but the horse turned its body in the same breath and the blow found nothing. Mui was not even holding the reins. He moved as one flesh with the horse and swung the long spear again, a heartbeat from smashing the back of the leader's neck.

A wet rip. The leader's head came away, and red blood burst across Mui's blue clothes.

"Hey, this son of a bitch was pretty good. He dodged our captain's spear!"

The one who had taken the leader's head said it, delighted.

"You lunatic. If he was pretty good, you let him live. Why'd you kill him?"

Another of them, having just opened the throat of the bandit beside the leader, sounded genuinely put out.

"Aaaagh!"

Six men had appeared with no warning at all and begun taking their comrades' heads. Terror broke the bandits. They screamed and ran.

"Shut your mouth, you bastard! Your friend's dead, so you die with him. Where do you think you're running off to alone? No loyalty—you die!"

"Hahaha. You lunatic. What is this, a joint burial? Why die together?"

"Joint burial? That some new bean paste? Any good? Why's this bastard falling over and thrashing? You hit the ground after your head comes off!"

"Ignorant bastard! You think the smart one would start yapping about bean paste while he's cutting heads? Hey, look at this one! Hasn't even taken a blade and he's dropping to play dead! Hahaha."

The one who cut the throat of the bandit playing dead laughed.

In a blink the six had taken every head, and they came up to Mui grumbling. He sat his horse and looked steadily down at them, his face fit to kill, and they seemed not to notice.

"Captain, get some sleep once in a while! I nearly died of drowsiness chasing you!"

"Getting old, are you? Why offer gold to trash like this?"

"Captain, you a eunuch now? You've got gold and you didn't even stop at the famous courtesan house in Seohanseong—nothing but soup and rice the whole way! We passed through the city and didn't so much as lay eyes on a courtesan!"

"Captain, did you leave your head back in the Han Empire? If you're hiding your presence, that spear should've been the first thing you ditched! You can see it from a mile off."

"No—if you hid who you were well enough to sneak into Cheongguk, then when bandit bastards demand a toll for it, you kill the lot of them. Why leave them breathing? They saw your face!"

"You moron, how do you read a man's identity off his face alone? By that logic our captain looks like a slick swindler—does that make him somebody's kept man?"

"Hey, why suck up to the captain for nothing! The man's standing right here. If you can't say it straight, you're no man! Rip your dick off!"

"This bastard's got a point. Our captain isn't a slick swindler. His eyes just look like that. Stare at the courtesans with those beast eyes and they start panting and fling their skirts off on their own. No need to threaten anybody!"

Mui looked the Crazy Bastards over one by one, as if checking them off a list, and with that murderous face he unwound the cloth from the spear. The bared blade flashed in the first light of dawn. All six shut their mouths.

"Finished your last words in this life?"

The moment that ominous question ended, Il-ho shoved Sa-ho, standing beside him, hard in the back. Forced a step forward, Sa-ho dragged his other foot in, came to attention, and looked up at Mui.

"We came on the Squad Leader's orders. She told us to bring you back with us, Captain!"

Mui's face hardened.

"What? Yu-shin sent you? You didn't chase me down because you felt like pulling some insane shit?"

"Yes. We came on the Squad Leader's orders, to be your hands and feet!"

"Hands and feet? Quit spewing bullshit and go back!"

The six, who had been cursing and grumbling a moment before, changed on the spot. They stood at attention with the same resolute faces they wore before Squad Leader Park Yu-shin.

"We can't do that! The Squad Leader ordered us to kill anything that would do you harm. In her place, we have to see you safely back to the Han Empire!"

"Shut up and go."

Sick of wasting time on a pointless argument, Mui turned his horse. He was about to ride when Sa-ho asked, perfectly indifferent.

"His Highness the Crown Prince will come after you. You fine with that?"

At the absurdity of it Mui whipped his head around and glared.

"What? Why would the Imperial Crown Prince chase me?"

"If the Squad Leader bolts from the imperial palace without getting married, His Highness will be furious and come after you. Or His Majesty might lead the way himself, seeing as you wrecked the marriage of the son he's been waiting on."

"Have you lost your mind? Why the hell wouldn't she get married!"

Mui roared it as if Yu-shin were standing in front of him.

"The Squad Leader said that if you tell us to go back, we're to deliver this. 'If you don't take the brats with you, wedding or not, I'll throw the whole thing out, and even if I have to burn all of Cheongguk to the ground I'll find my master and make him play nursemaid!' She also means to tell General Park that you tried to cut off the Squad Leader's wrist, failed, and ran for Cheongguk."

A cold sweat slid down Mui's spine. He had already been beaten within an inch of his life for scattering Yu-shin's portraits all over the capital. If General Park learned he had tried to cripple her wrists and ankles, Mui did not even dare imagine what the man would do.

"Damn—! What—! Shit—! Fuck!"

Caught between the blade and the block, rage boiled through his skull until he could not force a proper word out.

Park Yu-shin, you rotten little bastard. Sending every legendary lunatic alive straight to me! What the hell am I supposed to get done with these madmen in tow?

Send the Crazy Bastards back, and it might not stop at Yu-shin and General Park. The Imperial Crown Prince, furious at a wrecked wedding, might show up with an army behind him. But take these lunatics along...

"I'm losing my mind!"

Mui looked up at the sky and lamented.

"Eheh. Captain, what's got you so happily out of your mind this time?"

"Hey, lunatic. Read the damn room! The captain's moved. He just got a gift from the Squad Leader!"

"Hahaha. We're a bit much to write off with a little word like gift."

"Much, my ass. Think about the meat you've stuffed your face with, you lunatic! Half the money the Squad Leader gave us is already gone."

"Hey, Cheongguk's seafood ought to be good, yeah? Huh? Ah, shit. I just remembered shitting blood after I ate those clams!"

Yuk-ho, who had been toeing a headless bandit corpse out of his way and glancing all around, suddenly dropped into a crouch and rifled through the man's clothes. The pouch was heavy enough. Silver coins, and jewelry besides. Both of Yuk-ho's eyes lit up.

"Hey, hey, look at this! Silver! These bastards had a decent stash. Enough to cover some meat."

In an instant the six Crazy Bastards scattered in every direction. Their hands were fast and precise as they searched the headless bodies.

Mui ground his teeth and seized the reins.

"A gift? You sons of bitches! Anything that falls out of that hole in your face counts as words now?"

He snarled it at the six-piece assorted gift set that was about to turn his guts inside out.

Seven horses plodded through the dark, picking their way by moonlight. They followed Mui at the front in pairs. Poisonous herbs grew thick on every side, so they could not risk a run.

Suddenly Mui halted. His sharp gaze raked a place where trees had been lashed together into a rough barrier. Someone had passed through, and not long ago.

Yuk-ho, directly behind him, spoke low.

"The bandits' footprints keep going in there. Could be their hideout, couldn't it?"

Mui cracked his neck to one side, then the other. The thinking ran deep. The choice came fast.

"You two, with me. The rest of you wait."