The rain had stopped.

  Commander Yeong and Prince Dojun had ridden off to the capital, taking one of the horses of Mu-in’s mercenaries. The inn’s guests had dispersed.

  Mu-in looked at the two remaining horses and once again wondered if they were doing the right thing by leaving them with Hwan as bait when the road to salvation lay right in front of them. Yi Hyun would not even have to do anything: it would be enough for him to keep silent and fail to send help in time — and he would win everything. The suddenly revealed rival brothers would be killed by the councilor’s own hands, the councilor himself destroyed for treason, the king saved, friends avenged.

  Mu-in would not even have minded such an outcome, if only it did not involve Hwan. Why could his brother not simply live? Why did he always end up a pawn in someone else’s game?

  “Do you want to leave, nari?” Mu-in flinched. Lost in thought, he had not noticed Hwan approach.

  “You can address me more simply,” Mu-in reminded him.

  “I’ll try to get used to it,” the boy rocked on his heels and shrugged. “If you want to go, go. I’ll stay. I’m not much use otherwise, but I can serve as bait.”

  Mu-in turned and looked Hwan over from head to toe as if seeing him for the first time.

  “I was trying to figure out how to save you,” he explained to the fool. “When the assassins get here, they’ll surround the house, and there will be no way out.”

  “May I ask something? Why do they even think we’ll be waiting for them?” Hwan asked, puzzled. It was a fair question. Normal people would have run long ago.

  “Consider it as if I left them an invitation,” Mu-in snorted. “They’ll want to search the place and question anyone they find here.”

  “Then we should hide the innkeeper and the two servants,” Hwan frowned. “And if I dress up a bit, they won’t realise at once who I am, and we’ll gain some time.”

  “Hmm.” Mu-in did not say he did not believe in any guard at all and that time could be stretched or not, it hardly mattered. But Hwan’s words made him think about how to prepare for the inevitable clash. Even if in the end they were meant to die so the king could live, he was not going to sell their lives cheaply. “Can you take care of that? And meanwhile I’ll think about how to give our guests the warmest possible welcome.”

  Hwan nodded readily and ran off to find the innkeeper. Before leaving, Commander Yeong — another man in whose unfavorability towards himself Mu-in was certain of — had warned her that the status of both brothers far exceeded their clothing, and had backed his words with a string of coins. After that, the innkeeper turned exceptionally kind and obliging, even offering Hwan some warm water to wash with.

  If Mu-in had been alone and wanted to increase his chances of survival, he should have stocked up on arrows and holed up somewhere on the roof of a building, preferably inside a brightly lit enclosed yard. While the attackers were climbing over the walls, he would have had time to shoot down several of them. His sword would deal with the rest.

  Which meant the mercenaries, anticipating this, would come from several sides at a signal so that he would not be able to pick them off. They might try to set the house on fire from outside.

  So they would ride up, gather in a clearing nearby, receive their orders, split into groups, and surround the house. Then their leader would give the signal and they would launch the attack.

  But what if Mu-in struck first?

  The commander and his henchmen would never give the order on time if he ambushed them on the road. After a while the bored groups would send someone to see what was taking so long and find only corpses. Some time would be wasted on mutual accusations and choosing a new leader. Only then would the assassins, having lost their nerve and glancing back over their shoulders, dare to climb over the fence.

  Yes, he liked that plan much better.

  Mu-in told Hwan to set up lights in the yard and find a place to wait out a possible fire, then set off light and unburdened to scout the road from the capital. A bridge near the inn appealed to him in particular, it would be easy to set up an ambush there.

  The full moon had already passed, but the remaining crescent provided enough light to see the road. The clouds had dispersed. The thunderstorm that had rumbled all day was spent, leaving behind puddles and the smell of fresh leaves. Mu-in sat on a smooth, slippery boulder in the middle of the swollen river and waited. His dark-clad figure could not be seen from the bridge, the shadows of the trees safely hiding any human shape. He, on the other hand, had a clear view of both the road and the bank if anyone decided to ford the stream.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  Torchlight flickered among the trees after midnight, toward the end of the hour of the Rat.

  As he had expected, the bandits were moving in three groups. The leaders and their henchmen were mounted, but most of the men went on foot. Mu-in let two groups pass ahead and quietly began to pick off the one that lagged behind. The river’s splashing conveniently muffled the hiss of the arrows.

  Mu-in brought down three men before the riders in front realised something was wrong and pulled their horses up to look around. A stupid mistake cost both horsemen their lives. If they had immediately galloped into the forest’s shadow, Mu-in would have had to shoot at random, but on the bridge, in the torchlight, they were as clear as in broad day.

  At last it dawned on the survivors that the arrows were coming from only one side, and they began ducking and reaching for their bows. Without waiting for their volley, Mu-in slipped silently into the water and swam under the bridge.

  “Well, did you hit him?” asked one of the bandits hunched behind the low stone railing.

  “Hard to tell from here, brother,” the second replied. “Let’s shoot again, just to be sure.”

  “We’ll turn the dog into a hedgehog,” the third chuckled.

  “Looks like the leader is still breathing,” said a voice a little farther off. Mu-in grimaced. He had hoped to kill him with the first shot, but clearly there was still work to be done.

  “Quiet, you lot. Aim for those branches,” the first bandit cut them off. It was a fairly reasonable choice of target, if not for the fact that Mu-in was no longer there.

  Arrows shot from three bows with a soft whirring. Mu-in hauled himself up with his hands, swung over the stone edge of the bridge behind the archers’ backs, and threw his knife into the back of the head of the farthest one. The closest one did not even understand what was happening before he was hanging over the railing with his throat cut. The remaining bandit had time to turn and cry out before Mu-in’s sword found him. The last one, crouched over their leader, and the leader himself were all that remained. Mu-in pinned the body with the knife in it under his foot and hurriedly pulled his weapon free. It was perfect for hunting down prey that tried to bolt.

  But the surviving bandit turned out to be surprisingly reckless and rushed at Mu-in with a guttural roar. For several long moments they circled across the bridge, dodging blows and stumbling over the scattered corpses.

  The bandit wielded a broad, curved saber capable of taking off an arm or a leg. Mu-in fought with his usual narrow, single-edged sword. Blocking a heavier weapon with it was rather inconvenient: the blade might break, and his wrist might fail under the impact. Mu-in stepped back, slid aside, flinched away from thrusts and ducked under sweeping diagonal cuts, never letting his opponent reach him.

  The throwing knife was still clenched in his left palm. Catching his moment, Mu-in flicked his hand and sent the short blade straight into the man’s chest. The bandit howled, grabbed the hilt, and tried to strike at Mu-in with his last strength.

  Mu-in took another step back.

  The bandit collapsed stretching out at his feet. Mu-in waited several breaths, turned the body over with his boot, and bent again to retrieve his stuck knife. All that remained was to finish the leader.

  The bearded stranger with an arrow in his side and a horrific scar across his face instantly brought back Auntie Mortar’s tale. So the councilor really had bribed some new band.

  “I can kill you now, or hand you over to the authorities in the morning,” Mu-in offered in a whisper. Whispering always sounded more frightening and worked well on his victims.

  “I’m not afraid of torture, you, pup,” the bearded man spat.

  “Then I’ll kill you now,” Mu-in agreed and raised his sword.

  “Hey, wait, wait!” the bandit flung out an open hand. “I merely said I’m not afraid of torture. But you can hand me over to the authorities, of course, if that’s what you want. I never asked you to kill me!”

  Mu-in snorted and kicked him in the back of the head. It was always easier to negotiate with an unconscious man. Hastily tying him up, Mu-in lashed the captive to a tree away from the road, gagged him, and hurried back to the inn. The bandits who had not received their leader’s signal were surely growing bored already.

  The hour of the Ox had come, the darkest time of night. The moon that had lit the forest earlier had sunk below the horizon, and no matter how you squinted, there was not a hint of light beyond the inn’s walls.

  Hwan had done a good job hanging lanterns in the inner yard and around the main house, but their glow only made the outside night seem blacker. From the forest came creaks, rustles, and the calls of night birds. Something snorted and sighed in the undergrowth from time to time, sending chills down the spine.

  Mu-in returned when it got completely dark. A quiet shadow leapt from the roof and landed in the circle of light, resolving into a familiar silhouette. Hwan cautiously poked his head out from behind a tall storage jar standing by the outside oven.

  “Is everything all right?” he whispered.

  Mu-in nodded and went to the well.

  “Minus seven and the leader,” he said after greedily draining two buckets of water. “About twenty left.”

  “And how many arrows?” Hwan asked in a businesslike tone.

  “Not enough,” Mu-in did not go into details. Handling twenty attackers at once, not even he could hope to do it.

  “And how soon will they—” Hwan did not finish, when a burning arrow struck the ground at his feet and quivered there.

  “Hide,” Mu-in ordered his younger brother, then grabbed his sword and quiver and ran to the previously chosen spot.

  The bandits swarmed toward the light like ants to honey. Some climbed over the rear stone wall that separated the yard from the forest, while others battered at the front doors. Mu-in settled on the stable roof, from where he could see both directions, and sent arrow after arrow. Sometimes they flew blind, into the dark.

  It was a pity there were so few arrows, even with the ones he had taken off the bodies on the bridge, and a pity there was only one archer.

  When it became clear the door would not hold much longer, Mu-in slid down and pressed his back against the wall between the door and the paper window. Inside the inn it was dark, but the yard blazed with light. The bandits rushing into it would stop and blink for a heartbeat. That was enough for him to strike first.