The Mongoliad: Book One

 

When Kim had first met him, the man who now fought as Zugaikotsu no Yama had been hanging around the docks of Byeokrando, scraping barnacles and unloading ships for whatever coins the skippers would throw at him. Local opinion had been divided as to whether he was insane or merely an imbecile, but he was definitely Nipponese. In those days, he gave a different answer whenever asked his name, and Kim—who had picked up a few words of Nihongo by talking to traders and fishermen—had figured out that he would merely glance around and say the words for whatever object first presented itself. So on successive days he might be known as “Barnacle,” “Stray Cat,” “Cresting Wave,” or “Bucket of Fish.”

 

Kim—who had been chased down to Byeokrando after the Last Stand of the Flower Knights—had found employment as a sort of constable, maintaining order along the waterfront. Even at that age, he had been tall, broad of face and shoulder, heavily bearded, and serious looking. These qualities, which intimidated most of the rough characters who hung around the docks, had only provoked the many-named Nipponese vagrant. They had had many fights. Some of these Kim had won. Kim considered this to be the normal and expected outcome, given that he was, as far as he knew, the last living embodiment of a martial tradition reaching back for over a thousand years. But it always seemed to astonish the man who would later be known as “Zug.” When Kim did lose, which was extremely remarkable as far as Kim was concerned, this outcome seemed to confirm to Zug that all was as it should be.

 

It would be too much to say that Kim and the Nipponese man had become friends, but they had established a relationship of wary respect. Enough so that Kim had once insisted that the other tell him his real name. He had responded, “Shisha,” which Kim suspected, and later confirmed, meant “Dead Man” in Nihongo.

 

Exasperated, Kim had looked out the window of the tavern in which they were having the conversation, saw a pair of dogs copulating in the street, and dubbed the man “Two Dogs Fucking,” later shortened to “Two Dogs.”

 

In due time the Mongols had extended their control over the entire Korean peninsula. The royal court had taken ship at the docks of Byeokrando and sailed to exile on the nearby island of Ganghwa, visible only a short distance offshore, from which they meant to organize a military resistance. The Mongols had been hot on their heels, and so it had been deemed necessary to fight a delaying action to prevent the docks from being overwhelmed before the king and his court could get away. In this manner, Kim and Two Dogs had found employment in the capacity for which they were best suited: dying in a hopeless, valiant struggle against vastly superior numbers.

 

Fighting back-to-back, they had killed an inordinate number of Mongols and thereby drew the attention of the young Onghwe Khan, who had ordered his men to down their arms. Through an interpreter, he had called out to the two exhausted fighters, asking them their names. “Kim Alcheon, last of the Flower Knights,” Kim had answered, which was the truth. Two Dogs, who had been quite busy with his naginata, had taken a quick look around and answered, “Zugaikotsu no Yama,” which meant “Mountain of Skulls.” The name stuck.

 

Rather than having them killed on the spot, Onghwe had inducted them into his Circus of Swords, to fight in what had been their occupation ever since.

 

All of which helped to explain why when Kim was made aware that Zug was going through histrionic death throes in a locked iron cage, he only rolled his eyes. It served the idiot right for having gone crazy and beheading all of those Mongols after his defeat at the hands of the Frankish knight.

 

When the “death throes” extended into their third day, Kim went to visit the cage and insisted to the horrified guards that the door be unlocked and that he be allowed to venture inside.

 

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