Chang the Hunter tightened his grip on the spear he held, hardly daring to breathe. The muntjac was close, but had neither smelled nor heard him, thanks to Chang’s stealth and the still air in the forest. These tiny, red and brown deer were seldom seen in the valley of the Yellow River, and Chang offered a brief silent prayer of gratitude to his ancestors and the spirits of the forest for their generosity. He had hunted all day, moving cautiously through the thickly tangled undergrowth bordering the mighty river, but without reward — not so much as a mangy squirrel — until now. His family had eaten no meat for many days, but here, at last, was a chance. The forest surrounding him was dim; the sunlight barely penetrating the interwoven, green canopy overhead, and bushes and vines grew in tight profusion between the gnarled trunks of ancient trees. The small deer, standing in a patch of dappled sunshine slanting into a narrow, natural clearing by a shallow pool of spring water, browsed contentedly on the abundant leaves and berries.
It was by no means an easy throw, but Chang dared not move from where he stood, lest he give himself away. With infinite care, he drew back his arm, aimed, then, summoning all his strength, he sent the bronze-headed lance streaking between the trees. The well-honed point sank deep into the animal’s side, and it collapsed, its legs flailing as it died in a final paroxysmal attempt to flee. Jubilant, Chang ran towards the clearing, leaping over bushes and tearing vines out of his way, and dropped to his knees beside the deer. At last he could take meat home to his wife and eight-year-old son. He spared a moment to thank the spirits for giving up this living thing to him for his sustenance, stopping just short of reminding them their largesse had been rather long delayed. Removing his spear from the carcass, he wiped the blade and examined it for possible damage.
He was proud of his bronze spear, and it had enabled him to become the finest hunter in his village. Other men used spear points of carefully flaked flint, or sometimes black obsidian traded from the mysterious hairy peoples of the cold northern regions, and Chang had made such points for himself for years. Many a patient hour had he spent chipping a lump of stone, striking off large pieces for rough shaping, before using a piece of bone or antler to detach smaller flakes, thinner and more precise, until he had a strong and sharp point or blade of the size he wanted. He then attached them to carefully made wooden handles or shafts with gum and wet leather thongs that shrank and hardened as they dried. In that way, he made arrows and spears, as well as reaping knives and other domestic tools. It was an arduous and time-consuming craft, at which he was an acknowledged master, and he still made many such weapons and implements for his fellow villagers, but he no longer made spear points for himself.
Two years before, the spirits had smiled upon Chang.
On his way home from market, he came upon a wealthy man, his wife, and children, whose cartwheel had broken. They were stranded on the open road, the six men-at-arms escorting them powerless to help for lack of skill. Chang, a gifted worker in wood as well as stone, roughly shaped new spokes from the branches of a tree and repaired the shattered wheel. The grateful man — Chang never learned his name — offered him a heavy gold pin with a garnet at its head, but such a bauble, valuable as it undoubtedly was, meant nothing to Chang; he could not bring down an animal with a gold pin, garnet or no garnet. He asked instead for one of the spears being carried by the guards, and the nobleman, happy, if a little bewildered, to have purchased his salvation so cheaply, agreed at once. So great was the value of that spear, both to Chang and his whole village, he slept with it by his side each night for fear of its being stolen.
Bronze, the alloy of copper and tin, was prized for its ability to take and retain a keen edge. Only royalty and the nobility could afford the daily use of bronze implements and utensils, but it was the priests who made greatest use of the valuable metal. They commissioned the casting of highly decorated three and four-legged vessels of all sizes, some too heavy for a man to lift unaided, which were used to hold ritual wine or boil herbs and grain for ceremonial feasts and sacrifices.
Now, having satisfied himself the point was undamaged, Chang tied the deer’s legs together and slung the carcass across his back. Picking up his weapon, he walked out of the forest towards Liushu Village where he and his family lived in the summer. The declining sun warmed him as he trudged along the narrow forest path. To his right and left the trees grew thick, casting long shadows across the ground. Chang, tall and muscular, did not find the deer particularly heavy — he wished it had been larger — but the meat would be welcome, however much or little there was. He would try to save something to share with his neighbors, as was the custom, but he knew all too soon it would be gone. The rains had been sparse in recent months, the millet and vegetable crops had suffered, so after payment of tribute to the king and rent to the landlord, there was precious little left. Although Chang and his fellow villagers were inured to an uncertain existence that was never bountiful, this year was uncommonly lean.
As it always did, this thought set his heart smoldering with anger. The nobleman who owned the land on which the village stood did so simply because of who he was. The land was his birthright, and Chang often wondered how that had come to be. At least he was known to the peasants, for he came each year to collect his rent and survey his property, but the king was a different matter. Neither Chang, nor anyone he knew, had ever set eyes on Jie, seventeenth king of Xia, ensconced as he was in his fortified city far away, yet tribute was paid to him. Worse still, his soldiers marauded throughout the countryside pillaging and enslaving at will as they collected the bags of grain the king demanded.
Can that be right and just, Chang asked himself. The gods and spirits had placed the king on his throne, and he was a divine being, that was understood by all, and yet should a divine being act with such ruthless barbarity? Did he not have a duty towards his people, his subjects? The priests declared the king had obligations to no one, and counselled fortitude and forbearance, but Chang could not suppress the questions in his heart. Were the gods so malignant as to visit hardship and fear on simple folk who were powerless to resist? Had the divine ones no compassion? Or, he wondered as he walked, were the scarcity of game and the summer’s drought signals that the gods were no longer content to see Jie on his throne? Could it be that heaven itself was turning against this tyrannous monster? It was said by some that the gods sometimes manifested their displeasure through the manipulation of natural disasters; so was this such a time, then? How were mere mortal men to know?
As he neared home, Chang began to smell smoke, but thought little of it. It was late afternoon by now, and the cooking fires would be burning. His anger cooled somewhat as he pictured the rejoicing that would ensue as he entered the village with his prize. The people of his village kept pigs and chickens, but all that could be killed and eaten had long ago been consumed. Those that remained had to be kept alive to replenish the stock for next year.
Rounding a bend, the broadening pathway emerged from the forest at the extreme edge of a wide expense of fields surrounding Liushu, and forgetting the ache growing in his shoulder, he quickened his pace. Once amongst the fields he was able to see the village clearly, and he stopped, paralyzed, staring in horror at what he beheld.
His village was ablaze. The houses, built afresh each summer of bamboo and thatch, burned fiercely, and far to his right he saw horsemen, perhaps as many as a hundred, galloping into the distance, leaving a churning cloud of yellow dust behind them. He saw no other living souls.
Dropping his burden, Chang ran towards the burning houses, his heart hammering in his chest as though to crack his very ribs. As he drew closer to the fires, he heard the crackle of the devouring flames and glowing embers drifted on the light breeze. Gasping for breath, he reached the devastated village, seeing bodies strewn on the ground, some decapitated, others bearing the fearful wounds inflicted by swords and clubs. Approaching the smoldering ruins of his own hut, Chang shrieked in anguish and sank to his knees as he recognized the bodies of his wife and son, their skulls split like melons. Raising his arms skyward and throwing back his head, he cried out to heaven, pleading with the gods that he, himself, might die, for he had no further wish to live.
* * *
Seven women and three men had managed to escape the carnage, but all the rest had either been killed or carried off as slaves. As night fell, the survivors crept out of the forest’s protective depths, and Chang, numb with shock and despair, somehow contrived to organize the men to help him build a crude shelter of bamboo and rough thatch. A man was sent to retrieve the dead deer, but he returned empty-handed, the carcass evidently dragged off and eaten by forest scavengers. The remnant of the village huddled together all that interminable night. No one slept, and the silence was disturbed only by muffled weeping and the occasional crackling of the dying fires. Trying to extinguish them would have been a pointless waste of effort and water; nothing remained to save.
Chang himself, seeking solitude, sat outside under a sky emblazoned with an infinitude of glittering stars. The air he breathed remained heavy with the stench of smoke and burnt flesh. He stared at the bodies of his wife and son where they lay next to him and vowed before all the gods and the spirits of his ancestors, he would one day avenge their deaths. His indescribable grief, a pain deeper than any he had ever known, slowly transformed into an anger so bitter and monumental as to consume his very soul.
* * *
At daybreak, one of the women was sent to Hongshan, the neighboring village, to tell the news. She returned in the late afternoon with a shaman, a woman of about fifty with black hair hanging past her waist and dressed in a gray robe, who began at once to prepare for the funeral rites. She had brought herbs and leaves to be burned and two chickens for sacrifice, and she busied herself laying the fire in the prescribed manner and trussing the chickens so their throats could later be cut. Chang and the three surviving men of Liushu spent the day digging graves, twenty-three in all, and as they worked, Chang heard the story of the previous day’s horror.
“They rode in just after midday,” said one, as he wielded his wooden spade, “and after collecting the tribute grain for the king they asked for food and water. We gave them what we had, but they demanded meat. When we told them there was none, they slaughtered all the pigs and chickens, and then threatened to kill us as well. We begged for mercy. Their leader, I think his name was Fu, said they had come to collect the king’s tribute, and when Bau Ling told them we had just paid it, he demanded we pay it again. When Bau Ling said we could not, Fu seized his daughter and, before us all, he raped and killed her.”
“And you did nothing!” Chang snapped, flinging aside a spade-full of earth, too overwrought to realize the stupidity and injustice of the accusation. Anguish and fury robbed him of reason.
“What would you expect us to do, in the name of heaven?” the men retorted, heaving a large stone up and out of the grave he was digging. “We are not soldiers. They wore armor and carried swords and lances of bronze. We were powerless.”
“So, you did not even try to resist? You just waited for the slaughter like a flock of frightened ducks.”
“I told you,” said the man, indignantly, “there was nothing we could do.”
“There must have been something,” Chang muttered, his grief still mastering his common sense, and the man turned on him in outright rage.
“You were not here, Chang. If you had seen what we saw, seen what they did… It is easy for you to blame us for not trying to save ourselves, but they were many and we were few. We are farmers; they were warriors. And mark this,” the man went on, his finger raised, “We shall bury my wife and my two daughters this day, as we shall bury your wife and son. Do not tell me what I should or should not have done, for there is no need. I will ask myself those questions from now until the day I die.”
Chang thrust his spade savagely into the ground, saying nothing, as he tried to smother his shame.
I will avenge them all, he told himself. Hear this, my revered ancestors, and remember well what I say. Every soul that cries out from the earth of this place shall be redeemed. King Jie will fall. The scales of heaven shall be balanced, I swear it.
Chang worked on in grim silence, anger still showing in his dark eyes and compressed lips.
“They raped many of the women and girls, young and old,” said another of the men, “then set fire to the houses. My family and I ran for the forest, but a soldier rode after us and cut down my wife and children. I reached the trees, where he could not follow. I know not how the others escaped. I watched as they bound the women’s hands and put them on the horses behind the soldiers. The children they put across their saddles. They rode away, leaving the dead and dying where they lay.”
Chang listened, his fury surpassing any he had ever known. If nothing was done yesterday, he thought, then something will be done tomorrow. King Jie and his henchmen will pay for this.
When the woman returned with the shaman, she was accompanied as well by a small group of men and women. The men helped dig the last few graves, while the women set out the food they had brought. The two villages shared many kinsfolk through intermarriage, but today there were no happy greetings, no cheerful talk and chatter, as there would normally have been. There were only murmured words of sorrow, while people’s faces wore somber expressions of bleak resignation. As the sun set, the burial ceremonies were completed under the direction of the shaman who delivered the souls of the dead to the afterlife amongst their ancestors through prayers, ritual burning, and sacrifices to the spirits of the trees, the mountains, the sky, the sun, moon, and stars, promising them as she did so the everlasting reverence and obedience of those left behind.
Chang wept openly as the savaged bodies of his wife and son were covered in cold, dry earth. He was the last of his family now. He had no living relatives. Without a son, his name would disappear and there would be no grandchildren to revere his spirit when he joined his ancestors.
“You must marry again,” said the shaman, her efforts at consolation being somewhat misplaced, “and have another son. Such a thing would be pleasing to the gods and spirits.”
“And what about the demons?” Chang asked. “What pleases the demons? The deaths of innocent children such as took place here?”
“We fight the demons through the power of good,” answered the shaman, placing a hand on Chang’s shoulder. “Heaven must prevail in the end if we do the best we can and do all that is right.”
“Heaven did not prevail against the demons who did this,” snapped Chang, gesturing towards the earth heaped up over the new graves, “and the demons responsible were made of flesh and blood. The demon soldiers of King Jie, the foulest demon of them all.”
“You mourn, and you are angry, young sir,” said the shaman, in a gentle voice. “That is easily understood. But in time, anger and sorrow fade, and the world is made anew for the sufferer. The sovereign lords of heaven who created all things make this possible.”
Chang stared at the old woman, finding nothing to say. He had heard such mystical words for as long as he could remember, but their familiarity held no solace for him today.
“There are only a few weeks of summer remaining,” the shaman said to Chang and the small group of survivors an hour later, “We shall send men here to harvest what they can when the time comes. Your grain and vegetables will not be wasted. After that you can move to your winter village, if you wish, although I fear now there is nothing for you there, either. It is my honor, therefore, to invite you to stay with us and join our people.”
Following the harvest, all the farmers in the river valley left their summer fields and villages — taking food supplies and livestock with them — and moved to their winter settlements close outside the walled cities. There, the houses were built of mud brick, rather than flimsy bamboo, affording protection from howling storms and deadly cold during the months when no farming could be done.
“You are generous,” answered Chang, taking it upon himself to speak for the group of survivors of Liushu. “We shall come, and we shall revere you and your kinsmen for your kindness.”
“Not so,” said one of the three other surviving men. “I, and these other two, do not choose to go with you. We ask only that the women be taken into your families and cared for.”
“I swear it shall be done,” said the shaman, bowing, “but what of you?”
“We shall go our own way,” the man said, “and find new lives for ourselves elsewhere.”
All attempts at persuasion proved fruitless. Taking up the small bundles of food made ready for them, they bowed in thanks once again before walking down the track into the distance and eventually out of sight.
“They will die,” said Chang, soberly, as he watched them go. “They were my friends and neighbors, but they will die.”
“Perhaps that is what they want,” answered the shaman, waving a frond of sacred bamboo after them in a final blessing. “Great sorrow can sometimes cause men to lose sight even of their own lives. It is as though they exist, but do not live.”
“The king has taken our lives from us, although we still live,” Chang said, as he turned away, “but it shall not be forgotten.”
And so it was, that Chang and the seven women turned their backs on the still-smoldering remnants of Liushu, and in grief, departed. Chang, carrying his only possession, his bronze-bladed spear, went with them. Casting a final backward glance at the grave-mounds of his wife and son close by the blackened shards of the hut he had built for them to live in, he trudged out of the devastated village. In his tumultuous thoughts, the tiny seed of a plan was germinating and beginning to grow. Sorrow and rage clamored within his very soul, and he vowed yet again he would kill King Jie with his own hand. If the gods and spirits of heaven and earth were moved to help him, so much the better. If not, however, he would do it without them or die in the attempt. At that moment, he had never felt so utterly and monstrously alone.