Chapter 89 — The Sword Sweeps Away the Demons
The Herdsman of the Wasteland · Page 2 of 3
"Om Mani Padme Hum!
" The great Buddha pressed its palms together, and the Buddha light burst out in rings on every side; countless severed limbs flew in all directions, and a hurricane swept the horde-fiends away to nothing.
The Buddha light dimmed, and before Shen Mu the great Buddha's phantom grew dimmer too, until at last it vanished.
That was the phantom Buddha Lord Huo had left between his brows; it burst forth only when he faced certain death, and once used, it dispersed. Shen Mu breathed out, and at the same time felt a faint start: "Why did that gale suddenly rise and scatter the grey mist?
Had it not blown, those horde-fiends would never have found me.
" Then he noticed where the gale had come from: the Po Boat.
That vast thing had slowly stood up -- and because the boat was so immense, vaster than Crimson Dragon City itself, its rising stirred a gale and swept the grey mist apart. "The Dawn Boat needs Sun Wardens to master it before it can move.
Could there be Moon Wardens aboard this Po Boat as well?
And if Moon Wardens still keep watch here, then perhaps there are those of my own people aboard. .
.
" Shen Mu's spirit lifted; then he saw that in the temple of the city nearest the Po Boat, black smoke rose like a pillar -- plainly some dreadful being had sensed the commotion here. Without a moment's pondering Shen Mu dashed out through the gate of Fengdu, his feet finding their power, and ran straight for the far side of the mountain.
The Lame Elder's God-Grazing Divine Legs worked in him to the fullest, skimming light and shadow -- swift beyond words!
The Po Boat's stirring meant there was someone aboard to command it, but the peril of this place was too great to allow him to go and look. He raced over several ridges, and a sea of mist opened before him.
He was about to plunge straight through when a sudden suction rose from below and drew the wind from beneath his feet; Shen Mu fell from the sky!
Boom. Dust billowed.
Shen Mu smashed a great crater in the ground, and the boy rose slowly from the pit and saw that he had landed in the very village he had come upon when first he came ashore. Now the villagers set down their work one by one and rose to their feet, watching him with strange looks.
The thing that had made the wind vanish from beneath his feet was a bellows in the hands of a man dressed as a blacksmith: human skin stretched over great pincers to form an air-bag, with a spring within that could be compressed and then spring open to draw breath, and at the front a nozzle made from a human head to blow the air.
The smith gripped the bellows' two handles; it was he who had just now drawn in with it, sucking the air from beneath Shen Mu's feet and making him fall willy-nilly. On the other side, before a thatched hut, the fat woman who had been chopping dumpling filling rose to her feet, two cleavers in her hand, blood still dripping from the blades.
Behind Shen Mu, the man who had been hulling rice set aside his work and drew out his pestle -- beneath it hung a hammer head the size of a clay jar, dripping blood with a soft patter, and in the stone mortar lay a human head.
Behind the village the tailor was cutting cloth, and the cloth was sheets of human skin; the tailor rose, scissors in one hand and measuring rule in the other. In the dye house the apprentice had been hanging out dyed cloth, sheets of human skin fished from great vats of blood; seeing Shen Mu fall, the apprentice laid down the skin he held and wiped his bloodstained hands across his chest.