The Mook Maker

Fate. 

 

It was said that the gods had woven the threads of one’s fate a long time ago.

 

Ye Kang-Dae, a former captain of the royal guard, had always thought he was going to die in the battle.

 

Yet the gods had different plans for him. Though his position wasn’t devoid of struggle or violence, he had lived in the times of unprecedented peace under the rule of the most enlightened monarch. 

 

The battle he had expected had never arrived, and the old captain had retired to the countryside in good health, to live the rest of his life in the town of Seoju, away from the capital. His liege has been most generous to the captain of the guard, gifting the man with the land and the house, along with the fund to live on. A reward that was not unheard of, but certainly unusual. 

 

Honoured he was, yet his greatest unspoken regret was that of his firstborn son, Chul-Moo, a warrior, an Adept even, exceeding his father in every way, hadn’t become the next captain of the royal guard, but such a position has been one of greatest honour and Ye Kang-Dae hadn’t had the audacity to complain. His service, and his duty to the throne, had ended, and he obeyed the last order. 

 

He had shown his liege an utmost respect and gratitude, as it was fitting to show to His Majesty the King, and then, the old captain left the capital. 

 

It has been a peaceful life, one he had never expected or planned for. 

 

Kang-Dae didn’t seek death, but he was a soldier - it was the only life he had ever known - and couldn’t imagine it would be any other way than by the sword, or arrow, or spear. He wouldn’t drink himself to death on the town’s liquor. 

 

Then, in the strange twist of fate, understood only by the gods that weaved it, he was given the chance to serve in battle once again. 

 

Everything had changed when the Jin barbarians attacked, and the war he expected happened when the ageing warrior had already retired away from any posts of power of influence.

 

Chaos, and soon panic, followed, spreading through the countryside, reaching the far corners of the kingdom, and even he couldn’t escape it. 

 

The southern provinces started to levy all of their able bodied men to fight off the invasion.  

 

There was a rumour that the capital had already fallen. 

 

Yet Kang-Dae, though old and spared of it all, decided he would go with the younger men, especially when he had heard that the fort in Seoju had to be abandoned. 

 

He was old, but he could still fight! 

 

He used to be a captain of the royal guard! 

 

If his kingdom, and his liege, and his people, were in danger, he would face the enemies on the battlefield along with his two sons. 

 

The gods, once again, hadn’t granted the old soldier the death of the battlefield. 

 

He has been turned away, alongside both of his sons. 

 

Ye Kang-Dae had never expected it would happen, considering the rumours that spread, both at the villages they had passed, and the military camp they had reported to. 

 

The situation has been dire; they said. 

 

The army might not have any use for him, an old, retired captain, but his sons? 

 

His second son was an alchemist, not a soldier, an unusual profession for the son of the captain, but he wouldn’t disgrace his father by running away!

 

And his firstborn, he was an Adept! A warrior of considerable skill and power! 

 

Yet, they were all rejected for reasons the former captain couldn’t understand, ordered to return to man the previously abandoned garrison with the five randomly selected soldiers, in order to protect it against the pirate raids. 

 

The coast hadn’t seen even a single pirate ship for years! 

 

Worse yet, if the enemy did show up, he wouldn’t be able to hold the fort with just five men, selected at random, without the regards for their abilities.

 

An Adept, especially one as talented as his first son, Ye Chul-Moo, was more than a match for the two dozen of men, let alone the ragtag group of the hungry raiders, but wouldn't a warrior of such prowess be direly needed out on the battlefield, especially if the dire situation was as dire as they were made to believe? 

 

However, the old soldier never questioned the order he had been given, even if he didn’t comprehend his purpose, and neither did his sons. 

 

The former captain taught them well. 

 

Nevertheless, even he couldn’t forget the stare of the townsfolk when he returned with both of his sons, where others gave their sons, their brothers, their husbands, while none of his family had to bear the weight of loss. 

 

For two long months he had held the fort, only with his two sons, and five more men, practically strangers, yet no enemies had come. 

 

There weren’t any pirate attacks, as it has been for years. Not even a single ship had appeared on the horizon, an occasional fisher boat notwithstanding, but the news from the other parts of the kingdom was equally sparse, if not non existing. Armies of neither the Jin, or Hanulbeol-guk, had appeared. 

 

He tried to keep someone on lookout, often taking the guard duty himself, to keep away from the icy stares of the townsfolk, but for a long time, there weren’t any scouts, any messengers, not even vagrants, or wandering peddlers. Only empty fields and woods. 

 

The orders to defend the small fort in Seoju appeared more nonsensical than ever. 

 

Then some of the town's men had returned. 

 

Hungry and dirty, they brought news of the terrible defeat up north. 

 

The war was lost; they said. 

 

The barbarians were coming; they said. 

 

Now, there were about a hundred men in the town’s small fort, some locals, others scared and confused boys from the other provinces that couldn’t or didn’t find their way back home after they routed after the one chaotic melee. 

 

Some were disloyal, tried their luck on the road, but others stayed, and would fight, protect the town. The garrison - despite its laughable size - was likely safer than anywhere else, after all no further supplies and food had been taken away since they left. 

 

Ye Kang-Dae, a former captain of the royal guard, did the best to prepare them, but it seemed futile. 

 

He couldn’t fight the war with a mere hundred of men, especially ones which had already deserted their army once, but the old captain needed to prove to both the town, and himself, he wasn’t the coward. 

 

There was but one trick in his sleeve. 

 

He still had the plan to terrify and scatter the Jin cavalry with the fire medicine, Ye Suk, his second son, could make, and spend two long months preparing for the inevitable clash with the Jin. 

 

The rice fields didn’t open much space for cavalry charge or manoeuvre, and the town's fort, albeit small, could provide some miniscule amount of protection.

 

The Jin barbarians they expected never showed up. 

 

Instead, a few days ago, a lone priestess had stumbled from into the town. Ye Kang-Dae didn’t recognize her personally, but she ought to be from the one of the surrounding villagers with a shrine of their own. 

 

However, she didn’t bring the news he had expected. 

 

The Jin didn’t sack the nearby village, as they had thought. 

 

The horrors of the ancient world had awakened, she said, rambling on and on about the terrifying visions and nightmares that plagued all night and day. A prophecy of the town’s impending demise didn’t improve the mood in the slightest. 

 

However, it wasn’t up to the old captain to question the voice of the divine, and left the raving priestess under the care of the local shrine. He had paid his respects here, too, and left. 

 

Back in that moment, the old captain still thought the Jin army was coming. 

 

That the mortal men would fight other mortal men, that perhaps it would come to some duel between his talented son and Jin’s adept, or perhaps, perhaps the barbarians would focus on the larger city down in the gulf. 

 

He failed to convince the townsfolk to dig the trenches, which would be useful in breaking the cavalry manoeuvres among the paddies, roads and cliffs, as he thought he would. 

 

Next day, the entire town talked about the bad omens, while the new, perhaps slightly mad priestess preached about the unspeakable evil that awakened from the deepest slumber, about the betrayal among gods, about the end times. It was said that the gods weaved the fate of each man before he had been born, but the captain never met the fabled seer capable of peering into the future. He ignored it. 

 

The townsfolk listened, and the sacrifices burned in the local shrine for the night. 

 

The captain, however, expected a more mundane enemy, against which the pikes, bows, and fire medicine had to work. 

 

Ye Kang-Dae, mindful of the customs, did wander to the shine, offering respects to Iron Khagan, a great warrior god, and the Red King, the patron of humanity, more than the sign of struggle within the community than expecting the calamity foretold by the mad priestess. 

 

He didn’t understand back then what was coming. 

 

Yesterday, the Red King descended from the Heavens. 

 

Witnessing the celestial dragon god convinced even the most doubtful of the townsfolk that the unspeakable terror was indeed approaching, and the old captain - one didn’t question his superiors, and Ye Kang-Dae wouldn’t dare to question the god. No one did. 

 

They were all called to the Red King’s service.

 

A handful of Evil Spirits to be sealed away before their presence corrupts the mortal realm. It was what was expected of them. His priestesses would conduct the ritual, bestow the blessing in the heavenly dragon’s name, consecrate the grounds, and perform the sealing.

 

They would have to just keep them safe. Guarding the four priestesses, two of them mere apprentices, was easier than fighting an army, he thought, and it was a work which carried the blessing of the Heavens. 

 

How could he refuse such an order? 

 

The captain, still recalling the accusatory glares of the women that lost their sons and husbands to the dreaded draft, saw it as the moment of his redemption for both him and his two sons. He would earn forgiveness through his actions, Ye Kang-Dae swore. 

 

The Evil Spirits were coming, and everyone was going to face them. A few creatures, nothing more: they were nothing like the regiment of Jin’s heavy cavalry. 

 

The rituals were performed, sacrifices made, the magical wards made in preparation. 

 

The former captain decided to not rely on the holy powers of the priestesses alone. 

 

He convinced his men to prepare as many fire arrows as they could. 

 

It was a tactic that ought to work. 

 

The fire medicine, a miraculous powder that exploded with the fire and smoke, would certainly terrify the Evil Spirits as much as the divine powers bestowed upon the priestesses, and Suk, his second son, would finally be useful! 

 

He has been making the powder for two months now! 

 

The glorious battle approached, and the tension rose within every heartbeat. 

 

As the small group of Evil Spirits fell to dust, felled by the holy powers, he started to see the signs that this wasn’t going to be a fight he had been called upon by the Red King. 

 

The armour of the Evil Spirits left behind moved, crawled, and bled, on its own, even after its wearers turned into the dust! The horses they rode weren’t normal animals, but unspeakable abominations with many eyes that didn’t fear the pike aimed at them, but ran forward without the concern for their life, or safety, to be impaled during their insane dash to reach the town.

 

It didn’t end here, in blood and pain. More were coming. 

 

The shifting air of pure malice that made lesser man's cry birthed more Evil Spirits, rushing his men, as one priestess danced to finish the ritual to ward off the area from the malicious magical influence, and others tried to seal away the rampaging beasts. 

 

His first son, Chul-Moo, brave and mighty, had killed many spirits, the inexhaustible flow of bodies scattering into the wind, blood and all, but there was always more. 

 

The other priestess screamed something about the cats that could slide in the holes in the world, but he was far too busy to keep the order among his pikemen, all of them slowly retreating back as the Adept handled all the fighting. 

 

The Evil Spirits did try to flank them, but so would try the hungry wolves the spirits resembled, mockery in the woman’s shape. 

 

The former captain managed to fight off the black wolf-thing dressed in a defaced army cuirass that jumped him from nowhere, but more still appeared, rushing the formation around the priestess from all sides. 

 

It occurred to him, in a moment of brilliance, that fire medicine would disperse the shifting air that bred more spirits. The priestess would consecrate the ground, and this would be over here, and now. 

 

He didn’t know if the fire medicine tied to arrows, originally made to terrify the horses of the Jin, would be any help against the malicious magic, but did. His archers, barely coherent and confused, on the verge of panic, managed. The lit fire arrows released into the cursed mirage disappeared without a trace, without the thunderous booms, without the fire and smoke, but the endless tide of the beast spirits faltered. 

 

Did it work? 

 

The priestess finished with her ritual, and evil was held at bay. The monster disappeared, and silence fell on the land. 

 

For the moment, he thought they had won, but soon he realised they merely fought off the first of many waves of attacks, one they weren’t advised off. 

 

Then came invisible monsters, ones only priestesses could see, lurking at the edge of the barrier, and she ran after them. 

 

At first, he thought it was the battle exhaustion on the woman that made her chase shadows. Only after her magic sealed them away did he find out they were, indeed, there. 

 

His unseen enemy was something the captain struggled to come to terms with. 

 

Only the blessed, capable of seeing the world beyond the mortal limits, could see the shadow creatures. Ye Kang-Dae found out only after the unseen spectres reduced to the same red dust as others, leaving behind the defaced armour of Hanulbeol-guk almost as they wanted to taunt the old captain. 

 

However, before he could act, or drown in the memories of the old days when he was the trusted sword of the royal throne, the spirits had launched yet another attack. 

 

The fires had erupted on the other side of the town, swallowing the outlying fields and houses alike in the massive conflagration, and their attempt to put down the spreading flames had only encouraged the very same happening at the other, more remote locations. 

 

His men ran back, no time to move in the orderly fashion, but fires spread too quickly and too violently. He wasn’t told this would happen. 

 

The magical wards held, preventing the spirits from wandering too close in seems, and his men, still filled with zeal, tried to face the attackers, but the flashes of new fires set further away spoke of the trouble. 

 

A ball of fire thrown at them was deflected by Chul-Moo, but even the best Adept couldn’t be everywhere and anywhere at once. The defenders were being spread too thin, and the Evil Spirits were everywhere. 

 

“Fall back to the fort!” He ordered, trying to stop the men charging the figures lurking at the edge of the forest, lobbing the balls of magical fire into the fields of crops and grass, as well as any unfortunate soul to come close. The priestess refused to listen. 

 

The mission placed upon them by the Heavens was seemingly the only thing the holy woman had on her mind, and tried to seal away the rampaging creatures the moment they revealed themselves, but it only sparked the attacks at other places. 

 

Every field, every rice paddy, every patch of grass, every building, not warded by magic, was to be set ablaze. The spreading fires advanced on the town. People attempted to put them down, but it only created more chaos. 

 

The Evil Spirits didn’t fight like the Jin.

 

They did not fight as the mindless animals either.

 

They harassed his men like the skirmishers would, armed with the terrible magic instead of bows and arrows, ran from cover to cover, lobbing the balls of fire into the fray once the opportunity presented itself, only to retreat to cover once again. 

 

Burn and retreat, and return to burn again. And laugh. They kept giggling with their otherworldly voices, with each fire, with each spark, with each death they caused. 

 

The outlying huts and houses were razed, inhabitants burned to death if they didn’t flee to safety fast enough, while the forest itself changed before his very eyes. A canopy of leaves was changed to protect against arrows, while the cruel fire spirits laughed and laughed with each victim they set ablaze.

 

Some of the townsfolk did try to flee, against all odds, against all reason, but he refused to think what would await those who made it into the now cursed forest. 

 

Disgusting insects, as large as hunting hounds, swarmed his men, heedless of the priestess’ spells. They need to be stopped by muscle and steel. 

A doubt about all the sacrifices, all the rituals, all the holy wards, crept in: were they useless? 

 

His men cut and impaled the bugs, yet it didn’t end the battle. 

 

“Hold!” He screamed, as his panting men stopped one attack, only for another to present itself. 

 

The spirits were relentless. 

 

The air was smoke and fire, blood and hate.

 

Some of the townsfolk tried to flee, desperate and scared, towards the forest, to their doom. 

 

He saw the fire spirits catch a woman and burn her in front of others. The laughter of malevolent creatures echoed over the screams of the wounded.

 

His soldiers, most of them still relatively fresh recruits, rushed in to help, to avenge the dying.

 

“No!” he screamed, trying to stop them, but it was too late

 

His words “It is a trap!” died among the screams. 

 

The spirits now used arrows and fired both.

 

The captain then did what he forbade his own men to do, and tried to rescue a few of the fallen, attempting to drag away a whimpering soldier with the crossbow bolt lodged in his leg. Save one soul among this slaughter. 

 

The barely adult boy would live, the old captain convinced himself as he strained his ageing body to carry the man away. Yet Kang-Dae doesn’t fear death, but he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, let everyone meet the same fate. 

 

The wounded boy died before he could be brought back to safety, mouth foamed, bleeding from eyes and ears, the skin pale, the veins blackened, the body harmed beyond what the single blow could make. 

 

Poison, but not one Kang-Dae had seen ever before. 

 

Another wave of the hound sized insects came, and he could only remind the exhausted men to stay. They would scatter, help with combating the fires, or even flee, but they have to make a stand before the Evil Spirits gather for the charge. Now the old captain was certain there would be a next wave. 

 

“Keep formation!” 

 

The other spirits, however, did not come out, satisfied to lurk within the cursed greenery. 

 

He glimpsed one of those accursed red and yellow furred red ones, turning into the same blood-red mist as the others, yet no arrow, no blade, had struck them. 

 

When another furry monster threw their ball of fire, and ran away before the archer could hit him, the captain finally realised. 

 

They couldn’t enter the consecrated areas! The wards indeed worked, exactly as they were told they would, preventing the Evil Spirits from entering. Only the terrifying, skittering bugs could, and they were the weakest, easily fought away once they fell behind the fort’s palisade.  

 

There was still hope. 

 

Another man strayed away and met his untimely end, burning, falling into the paddy that was also set on fire. 

 

“Stay back!” He yelled. “They can’t get close! They can’t harm you here.” 

 

Kang-Dae caught the glimpse of the priestess running towards the woods. Foolish or suicidal, he didn’t care. She screamed something he couldn’t quite discern among the chaos of the battle and its roar, but perhaps she saw something he could not. 

 

She couldn’t fight that something alone! 

 

If the priestess' blessing could drive the Spirits away, what would happen if she died? 

 

“Bring her back!” He ordered his son, then turned towards his men. The Adept would make it, after all. If there was something out there, in the woods, they would have to figure the way to kill later. 

 

“Archers form the line here. They can’t reach us here.” He repeated, resisting to cough from all the fire and smoke. No commander had to explain the orders on the battlefield, but here - here nothing he had learned no longer made any sense!  

 

He couldn’t be sure if his words were heard, his voice hoarse with yelling and all the smoke, and his age started to show as well.

 

Then he noticed there was a movement in the distance, where more of the forest fell under the curse. The enemies gathered for another charge! More of those disgusting bugs came, making a beeline for the archers. 

 

“Every second, light the fire arrow. Draw and fire, then retreat!” 

 

Too late, he noticed his son, Chul-Moo, was heading in the direction where the captain assumed most of the spirits were assembling in order to catch up to the erratic priestess, and the rain of arrows almost hit him. 

 

They hit a few of those bugs, too, but he was also concerned with the possibility of something hidden among the charging bugs. 

 

The Adept wouldn’t be hit so easily, regardless of which archer released the arrow. 

 

Yet he couldn’t risk the archers hitting his son, even by accident, no matter how capable of dodging the shots he was. 

 

“Hold.” 

 

His men barely fought off another wave of the dog-sized insects. 

 

It was just a few bugs, but some of his men had been bitten… 

 

There was no time to check whether the bugs were venomous.

 

Blast! 

 

The portion of the forest where the priestess disappeared, along with the Adept, caught fire in the most massive conflagration yet, with brilliant blue fire, burning with the power of other realms, but the destruction didn’t end with a mere scorching there. 

 

Death followed. 

 

The forest was dying in front of their very eyes, the previously green, vibrant leaves rotted in the eye blink and faded away, leaving nothing but the blackened husks behind. Then there was only dust. A few figures stood there. One of them was cursing the forest. Death and decay spread from her like the plague. 

 

Then the forest sprouted around again, in a new sickly glow. Things that couldn’t be even called trees sprang to life, covering the Spirits once more in the foliage. 

 

Someone tried to shoot an arrow in that direction, without his order, but it didn’t pass through. The greenery closed over protectively. 

 

The priestess was gone. 

 

The captain’s son was not. 

 

 Chul-Moo was fleeing the destruction, but instead of retreating to their position, he headed down the road, away from them, towards the danger. This was beyond reckless. 

 

What got into him? 

 

“Chul-Moo! Chul-Moo, come back!” 

 

Ye Kang-Dae shouted, but his son couldn’t hear him. Or wouldn’t. 

 

Painfully aware this has been a trick, to lure them away from the protective wards, he refused to let his son die. 

 

The captain lifted his sword to the air and shouted, 

 

“Men, with me” 

 

He didn’t look back to check whether his soldiers followed the order, conflicting with his previous ones to keep within the safe, protected ideas, but he still pressed forward, among all the smoke and vapour, momentarily unsure whether the figure he followed was indeed Chul-Moo.

 

The dark robe his son wore flew, and his two swords gleamed… 

 

It was him. 

 

When Kang-Dae closed the distance, the old captain and the ordinary men he commanded were slower than the Adept at the height of his strength - he was already too late. 

 

He saw his son fighting with two hulking figures, both dressed from head to toe in steel plates, unimpeded by the blows that would break or puncture a normal suit of armour, while more beast of a similar ilk headed for the scene of the fight. The Evil Spirits would not face him in honourable single combat. 

 

A scream pierced the air. There weren’t merely a handful of monsters, there were hundreds of them gathering for a charge! 

 

His son was surrounded and…

 

When his son fell, and with him, the old captain’s heart had fallen too. More spirits were coming. Much, much more. 

 

“No!” 

 

He has been deceived! 

 

He wasn’t fighting all of the Evil Spirits plaguing this land, but merely skirmishers of their entire army! What he saw wasn't a “handful” of them. 

 

The captain took a step back. 

 

“Archers! Archers, prepare all the fire arrows….” he shouted, for a brief moment thinking he was left alone in the field, but few of the men did follow him, against all reason, and against all odds, only to witness the gathering horde. 

 

Some of them ran. Others, however, tried with shaking hands, reaching for the torch to set alight the cords of the fire arrows. 

 

A mere two dozen bowmen. 

 

Their eyes betrayed their terror. Yet they stood.

 

With the trails of fire and smoke, the first volley of fire arrows flew towards the enemy. 

 

When his gaze wandered back, the battlefield was swept by the thick crimson fog, like the blood of the fallen, and from that fog, more spirits appeared. Not hundreds, but thousands, rushed forward, the loud boom of the fire medicine dying in the roar of the incoming horde.

 

“Shoot and run back!” 

 

Twenty fire arrows, barely lit in time, made no change in the oncoming tide. 

 

However, then a lot of charging monsters turned to dust, and they once again started to flee as the priestess swung her staff in wide motions, screaming hoarse the ritual chant. 

 

For the briefest moment  hope gleamed, the old captain thought the enemy had routed, and he snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, but then he realised the monsters were merely regrouping. 

 

Hundreds of winged creatures took flight, their piercing shrieks tore the air, as the forest around began to heave almost as if all the plants were placed under some evil curse at once. 

 

More hideous creatures charged forward. Gargantuan, a hulking beast larger than anything he had ever seen. Larger than his house!

 

The twisted, gargantuan crab-like abomination, large as a merchant’s warehouse, covered with spikes, advanced forward, while smaller creatures scuttled around it. 

 

A few humanoids, bloated mockeries of humanity, shambled forward, then pointed their arms at them, releasing a shower of spikes against Kang-Dae’s tiny force. 

 

The confused pikemen nearby stumbled, a gruesome bone-spike lodged in his eye, while the priestess collapsed down with a projectile stuck in shoulder. 

 

The captain grabbed the priestess, dragging her away, and yelled with all the voice he had left:

 

“Retreat!” 

 

He ran. Shrieks followed, and some men fell.

 

Most of his soldiers were huddled around the fort’s gate by the time he reached it.

 

Those who disobeyed his order to follow his most foolish charge and chase after his fallen son survived, but the number of defenders dwindled in merely a moment, and those who were left behind considered fleeing, as they did in the battle that brought them here a few months ago. They watched Kang-Dae with wide eyes. 

 

The old captain couldn’t blame them.  

 

They had been deceived - there wasn’t a small group of spirits polluting the land with their presence, but a veritable horde, an army of them, and the town had no chance standing up against such a force. Perhaps a human conqueror would have mercy, but would the creatures beyond the ken of men act similarly? 

 

They were never told the scale of the enemy. 

 

By the time they reached the fort, the group of the twelve gargantuan crabs had spread, advancing slowly towards the fortress. Those weren’t small, pathetic, tiny things that scuttled in the sand, but living battering rams whose pointed legs dug thick holes in the ground like fence-posts, while their heavy carapace shrug away the rain of arrows, heedless of the dying embers of the conflagration the fire spirits released earlier. 

 

Three even carried siege crossbows, a bolt of which just hit the palisade. 

 

More disgusting things advanced in their wake.

 

Everything was wrong!

 

They swore to the heavenly dragon they would seal away the lingering evil, not to stop the endless tide, knowledge of whose existence was kept from them.

 

The prophecy of the end of times felt suddenly much more accurate than anything else. 

 

A loud explosion shook the fort as he left the wounded, bleeding priestess in the courtyard. 

 

The captain rushed to ascend the watchtower. 

 

The alchemist workshop was on fire, and the part of the town with it. The winged things circled above, as the fire spirits threw the balls of fire from the cliff to feed the spreading inferno. One side of the town was wide open! 

 

But the wards! The consecration!

 

But, they couldn’t enter just moments ago! 

 

The town grounds were warded against the Evil Spirits until suddenly.

 

Then the realisation hit him - the power would fail without the medium.

 

He leaned over the railing towards the wooden fort’s courtyard, where two of his recruits tried to stop the bleeding of the wounded priestess. The woman had already lost consciousness, and the men didn’t know what to do. 

 

“Don’t let the priestess die!” 

 

The captain commanded, but it was quite pointless. He didn’t have a proper surgeon to tend to the wounded priestess. She still clung to life, the captain hoped. 

 

“Go and bring one of her apprentices!” 

 

Then his eyes wandered towards the huge lumbering creatures, still trying to find their way through the burning grass and rice paddies. 

 

Kang-Dae then sheathed the sword and ran down the guard tower, grabbing the bundle of the fire arrows that remained, as much as he could carry, along with the torch, then, with all of his waning strength, ran outside, and charged the largest of the advancing abominations. 

 

The fire arrows caught fire, and he prepared to toss it inside the abominable “crab’s” large maw, and as the fire medicine detonated, a thought shot through the old warrior’s mind.

 

Perhaps he was fated to die in battle, after all.