- A Beast’s Karma
i.
You are a swordsman and there is a demon in the woods.
You are in the wrong story. You are not the kind of swordsman who can leap through trees and summon water to surround their blade with their breath alone. You do not know the exorcists’ chants, nor do you carry their seals. You had trained to hack enemies down in battle whilst riding on a horse, to slide your blade through unarmoured peasants given cheap swords and pikes and were then called a soldier.
In other words, you are now the demon’s fodder.
Your horse is long gone. Your legs are fire. The demon is so close you can feel its breath against your neck.
You see red eyes up close, and then you see nothing.
ii.
You are a swordsman and there is a demon in the woods.
It has been a strange hunt. Sometimes it is as though he is fleeing you, while other times you feel as though you are the one being tracked. Hours after, as the sky lightens with dawn, you are still circling each other’s tracks.
Then you find him - not as a slavering beast, or a red-eyed demon, or a silk-wrapped woman. He wears the form of a swordsman like you. Like you, his breathing is ragged, his clothes so tattered and dirty it is no longer possible to see his lord’s crest on his clothes.
It does not matter. You ready your blade and prepare to lunge.
You are a swordsman and there is a demon in the woods.
iii.
“Stop,” the demon says from behind you. He leaps away from the slash of your blade. “Please stop.”
The demon has taken the form of a merchant and you had believed him for human. His robes are finely woven, his face angled and handsome in the moonlight. His soft and uncalloused hands are raised to shield himself from your sword. It is almost impossible to imagine blood on them.
He had lured you, just like the stories of demons and men. You had thought that they were all beautiful women with moon-pale skin and hawthorn red lips.
“I hurt no one living in this forest,” the demon says. “I am only here to learn the ways of the Buddha.” He attempts to smile, and you see how unnaturally sharp and whole his white teeth are.
“You are a demon,” you say with all the fervour you have been raised with. “That path is closed to you.”
You bring your blade down, and watch the blood run down his face.
iv.
You are a swordsman and there is a demon in the woods.
You are prepared. You have a gourd of dog’s urine to reveal its form. You have blessed paper seals in your sleeves. You hold a peachwood sword in your hand and have another sword, this one of steel, strapped to your hip. Your belly is still full of the wine the nearby village had poured into you as they told you about the troubles they face with the demon in the woods - enough to warm you on this cold night, but not enough to dull your movements.
It steals our chickens at night, they said. It howls and scares the children. It is only a matter of time before it comes for us all too.
You expect a cave full of bones. Instead, it is a hermit’s hut you find, with a little radish patch and a chicken coop. The demon shuffles out of the hut and stares at you with his red eyes.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” he asks, all politeness, as though he was just an ordinary man, living quietly in a forest.
You no longer feel the heat from the wine, as it rushes away as you stare at the solidness of the demon’s human form. You see the hard muscle of his tanned arms from outdoor work, the scar down one side of his face.
“I suppose you are here to get rid of me,” he says as you remain silent, still clutching your sword. You wonder how long he has been here, shudder as you feel the centuries of power roiling under his skin.
“It is my job,” you say, but not without regret. “I have taken on a vow to rid the world of demons.”
He sighs. “Very well,” he says, and his eyes glow like the last embers of a flame.
v.
You are a swordsman and there is a demon in the woods.
He raises his sword high. It is an old thing, you had noticed it from the beginning of the fight, the pommel and length much like the ones your grandfathers had stored away, but still well-polished and sharp.
Yours, he had snapped in two as though it were a twig.
“Please,” you say.
“I do not wish to do this,” he says. His face is tired and lined. There is a scar that runs down the side of his cheek - something his kind could heal in a moment, but he seems to keep. Perhaps to better pass as a human. Perhaps as a memento. “But if I let you go, you will only return to hunt me down.”
“I swear on my family’s honour that I will not,” you say.
He laughs and it is a broken bitter sound. “That is what he said too.”
vi.
You are a swordsman who has long lost his sword.
You have also lost your horse, your armour, and yourself in the forest to avoid your former army. You cannot go to the villages nearby either - who knows what they will do with a traitor like you in these starved times. You find a hut deep in the forest - so deep you are sure that your generals will never find your cowardly body.
There is a man there, tending to his crops. Millet, you realise, and tea. His robes are worn but carefully mended. When he looks at you, you see that he has blazing red eyes.
“Please,” you say to the demon. “Do not hurt me.”
“You are a deserter,” he says. “You are a dead man anyway.”
“Please,” you beg.
He hesitates, and you brace yourself for the killing blow.
It never comes. Instead, he asks “Would you like a cup of tea?”
