The Weight of the Plow - The Shot Against the Sky

22. THE SHOT AGAINST THE SKY Pride in a dying house does not wear a cloak of dignity; it wears a grin, sharp, mad, and entirely devoid of fear. King Wuyi was not built for quiet halls or the slow, rhythmic scratch of a scribe’s reed-pen. He was a broad, square-jawed bull of a man whose neck was thick as a cedar post, his knuckles calloused from pulling five-hundred-pound horn bows that ordinary men couldn’t even string. He hated the old priests. He hated the dry, sweetish smell of burning turtle-carapaces in the ancestral temple, and most of all, he hated the way the Grand Scribes looked at him when he spat on the marble flagstones—those pale, watery eyes that seemed to say: The Sun-Order is watching you, boy.“The Canopy has no teeth,” Wuyi would scream into his wine-cup, his voice bouncing off the high, dark rafters of the hall at Bo. “My grandfather Wuding built a wall with a slave-chancellor, and the scribes call it a miracle! Where is this sky-god? Show me his face! Let him come down and pull a string against me!”His court was not full of scholars or ditch-diggers. It was crowded with young, drunken nobles from the central provinces, men who wore gilded leather armor, oiled their hair with bear-grease, and spent their afternoons betting on fighting-cocks or chasing river-girls through the high millet.In the midsummer of his fourth year, the King’s madness found its shape.He did not build an underground palace like Calix, nor did he drain the treasury for a wine-lake. He wanted something simpler, something loud.”Make me a god,” Wuyi ordered his master carpenter one hot afternoon, sitting on the edge of the royal dais with a jug of unrefined barley-mash between his thighs. “Not a stone idol that sits in a corner and rots. A man. Make him out of hard ash-wood. Give him arms that move with ropes, and dress him in silk.”The carpenter worked for three weeks in terror.The doll was six feet tall, carved from a single trunk of seasoned ash, its face painted white with lye, its mouth twisted into a wide, toothy sneer. Its eyes were two polished pieces of black obsidian that reflected the torchlight like dead water. Inside its hollow chest, the carpenter had built a system of iron gears, copper wires, and hemp strings that ran down through a hole in its bench to a pit beneath the floorboards.A eunuch sat in the pit, pulling the strings.When Wuyi sat down across from the wooden god to play Bo —the ancient game of divine chance played with ivory dice and black-and-white stone counters—the court gathered around the dais in a silent, terrified circle. “Your move, Sky-Father!” Wuyi laughed, tossing a handful of ivory dice onto the polished ebony board. They clattered with a sharp, dry click-click-click , stopping on three sixes.Beneath the floorboards, the eunuch yanked a hemp cord.The wooden god’s right arm jerked upward with a stiff, unnatural CLACK . Its painted hand, holding an ivory counter, hovered over the board, then dropped the stone into the wrong square—a losing move, clumsy and helpless.“You lose again!” Wuyi roared, slamming his fist onto the table until the dice leaped into the air. “The Lord of Heaven doesn’t know how to play the flanks! A child from the river-towns could out-think you!”He stood up, snatched a heavy wooden bowl of sour rice-dregs from a servant’s tray, and dumped the foul, cold sludge straight over the wooden god’s head.The grey porridge ran down the painted white face, clogging the obsidian eyes, dripping off the silk mantle onto the ebony board. The eunuch in the pit below, terrified for his life, pulled a string, making the doll’s wooden head tilt sideways as if it were weeping.The young nobles in the hall erupted into a wild, hysterical chorus of laughter, beating their bronze daggers against their wine-flagons.”Look at him!” Wuyi shrieked, his face red, his breath reeking of raw mash. “The Great Sky-Father is crying! He wants a napkin! He wants his mother!”A week later, the insult was not enough.”A god that loses at dice is just a puppet,” Wuyi spat to his chief marshal, a sleek, thick-necked sycophant named Feng. “I want to see him bleed. If he has a soul up there in the clouds, let him show me the color of his guts.”He ordered the royal leather-workers to sew a massive vessel.It was not a leather bag; it was a giant, double-cured ox-hide sphere, three paces across, stitched with heavy sinew and sealed along the seams with thick, black pine-pitch. Into this dark, bloated bladder, the butchers poured fifty gallons of fresh, steaming blood—collected from slaughter-houses, from wild boars, from sacrificed bulls, and from three condemned criminals whose throats were cut over the iron funnel.They hoisted the heavy, reeking sphere into the air.It hung fifty feet above the Great Parade Ground, suspended between two massive cedar masts by thick hemp cables. The summer heat beat down upon the dark ox-hide, making the blood inside ferment and expand until the sphere bulged, tight as a drum, swaying gently in the hot, stagnant breeze.A brown, foul-smelling liquid seeped through the pitch-sealed seams, dripping onto the white limestone flags below with a steady, sickening plip… plip… plip…King Wuyi stood in the center of the parade ground.He wore no silk, no crown. He stood in a leather archery-skirt, his massive, hairy torso bare, glistening with sweat. In his hands he held his monster horn bow—a double-curved frame of black buffalo-horn and sinew that required the strength of three ordinary men to string.Around the edge of the square, three thousand citizens of Bo stood in absolute, horrified silence. The Grand Scribes, led by old Master Bi, knelt in the dust fifty paces back, their faces pale as ashes, their parchment scrolls clutched to their chests.”Your Grace!” Bi cried out, his old voice cracking into a high, desperate screech. “Desist! The Canopy is patient, but it is not blind! You are shooting at the blood of the world!”Wuyi didn’t even turn his head. He spat onto the flags, notched a heavy, three-foot war-arrow tipped with a wide, triangular blade of forged iron, and raised the bow.“I call this She Tian !” Wuyi shouted toward the sky, his voice booming off the surrounding granite walls. “The Shot Against Heaven! If there is a god up there, let him catch my iron!”He drew the string back to his right ear.The heavy horn limbs of the bow groaned in protest, the sinew wrapping creaking under the terrifying, unnatural tension of his arms. His broad chest expanded; the veins on his neck stood out like knotted blue cords.TWANG.The string struck his leather bracer with a sound like an iron door slamming shut in a vault.The heavy arrow did not merely fly; it disappeared into the shimmering heat-haze.CRACK-SPLASH.The iron blade struck the center of the bloated ox-hide sphere.The leather burst. Fifty gallons of thick, fermenting, dark crimson blood erupted from the hanging bladder in a roaring, sickening waterfall. It showered down over the white limestone flags, over the cedar masts, over King Wuyi himself.The King stood directly beneath the hanging sphere, his arms spread wide, his face thrown back toward the sky.The warm, reeking blood drenched his hair, filled his eyes, ran in thick, black streams down his bare chest and legs, pooling around his bare feet on the stone flags. He wiped his face with his bloody forearm, threw his head back, and let out a long, wild, mad howl of triumph that sounded like an animal in a slaughter-house.”I shot the Sky!” Wuyi screamed, his red-stained teeth flashing in the blinding sun. “I made Heaven bleed! Look at it! Look at the blood of the god!”The crowd did not cheer.Women covered their children’s eyes. Old men dropped to their knees, burying their faces in the red dust, weeping silently, waiting for the earth to open and swallow the city whole. But no lightning struck. No thunder rolled. The sun beat down, hot, bright, and utterly indifferent, baking the wet blood on the flags into a black, cracking crust.Wuyi looked around at his silent, terrified people, and he laughed—a dry, booming, terrible laugh that echoed off the empty stone walls.”You see?” Wuyi spat, wiping a thick smear of dark blood from his chin. “Your god is empty. He’s just a sack of red water.”Three years passed, and the King’s madness became a quiet, accepted routine.He no longer shot at leather bags; he spent his days hunting in the wild, sunless ravines between the Luo and Wei rivers—a dark, rugged country of limestone cliffs, thick oak brakes, and swift, treacherous currents where the mountain floods came down without warning.In the autumn of his seventh year, the sky over the Wei Valley turned strange.It was not a rain-storm. The air was dry, hot, and heavy with a static that made the horses’ manes stand on end and the iron rings on the quivers hum with a faint, blue vibration.Wuyi was on his war-chariot, four miles ahead of his main hunting party, chasing a black mountain-stag through a narrow, boulder-strewn canyon. With him were only two men: his driver, a terrified young noble named Ji, and a groom who held the spare quivers.”My lord!” Ji shouted, reining in the four-horse team as the canyon narrowed into a dark, steep-walled gorge. “Look at the ridge! The air is green!”Wuyi didn’t look at the ridge. He stood on the bronze platform, his horn bow half-drawn, his small, bloodshot eyes locked on the black stag that was scrambling up a shale slope fifty paces ahead.”Drive, you coward!” Wuyi screamed, kicking the driver in the small of his back. “It’s a twelve-pointer! Drive!”Above them, the narrow strip of sky between the red limestone cliffs turned from blue to a dark, bruised violet.There was no wind. Not a leaf moved on the stunted oaks that clung to the rock-faces. But the air smelled suddenly—overwhelmingly—of ozone, scorched stone, and the sharp, chemical tang of hot copper.A sound began.It didn’t come from the sky. It came from the rock beneath their wheels—a deep, subsonic hum that vibrated through the bronze platform of the chariot, through Wuyi’s leather boots, straight into his teeth.The four horses stopped. They didn’t rear. They froze, their legs locking into the gravel, their eyes rolling back until only the whites showed, their nostrils flaring as a fine, white foam bubbled from their mouths.”My lord…” Ji whimpered, dropping the leather reins, his hands shaking so violently he couldn’t hold the whip. “The iron… the iron is hot.”Wuyi looked down at his bow.The iron-tipped arrow notched on his string was glowing. Not with fire, but with a pale, cold, blue light that hummed like a trapped hornet. The bronze studs on his leather jerkin were singing—a high, reedy tone that grew louder with every second.Wuyi’s jaw set into its old, stubborn, arrogant line. He didn’t drop the bow. He raised his face toward the dark violet sky between the cliffs, his eyes wide, his lips curling into his familiar, defiant sneer.”Is that you, Sky-Father?” Wuyi shouted into the unnatural hush. “Did you come down to get your dice back?”He drew the string to his ear.He never loosed the arrow.The strike did not come down as a bolt; it was a column of solid, blinding white light thirty feet wide that filled the canyon from wall to wall.There was no sound at first—only a light so intense it turned the red limestone cliffs, the chariot, and the horses into transparent, glowing bone.Then came the impact.BOOM-CRACK.It was a sound so immense it flattened the oak trees on the ridge two miles away, shattering the rock-faces of the gorge into a hail of red gravel.The lightning did not merely strike the King; it dwelt upon him. For three long seconds, the white column of celestial fire held the chariot in its fist, boiling the bronze wheels into liquid pools, vaporizing the four horses into clouds of black ash, and melting Wuyi’s iron-studded jerkin directly into his flesh.When the light finally snapped off, the canyon fell into an absolute, terrifying silence.No rain fell. The violet haze in the sky vanished, leaving a clear, cold autumn sun shining down on the narrow gorge.In the center of the trail lay a pile of black, smoking slag.The four horses were gone—only four white, ash-drawn silhouettes remained on the red shale where they had stood. The war-chariot was a pool of twisted, green-glowing bronze that hissed softly as it cooled in the autumn air.And in the center of the melted metal lay King Wuyi.He was not a man anymore. He was a black, charred log of carbon, six feet long, his arms locked in the shape of a drawn bow, his skull fused with the melted bronze of his helmet. His mouth was wide open, frozen in his final, arrogant shout, his teeth turned to tiny, crumbling specks of white lime.Three hours later, when the main hunting party finally reached the gorge, they did not scream. They did not weep.Old Master Bi, the Grand Scribe, stepped out from his litter, walked slowly over to the smoking heap of bronze and char, and looked down at the remains of the King who had shot the sky.He did not draw a scroll. He did not write a lament.He reached down, picked up a handful of the cold, white horse-ash from the shale, and let it blow away on the mountain wind.”The Canopy is patient,” the old scribe whispered to the empty canyon. “But the debt is always paid in iron.”