The Legend of the Condor Heroes Chapter 27 – Part 5

The beggars were thrown into confusion, and four more of them went flying, flung by his palm. Then a voice called from the crowd, “Brothers, stand back, and let the eight-bag disciples deal with the two young villains.” It was Elder Jian. At the order the beggars scattered on all sides, leaving only three beside Guo Jing and Huang Rong. Five more came rushing up from behind, and the eight took up positions round them.

Each of the eight carried eight hemp sacks on his back. They were second in the Beggars’ Guild only to the four great elders, and each commanded the Guild’s men on one route. The thin beggar and the fat one who had brought Yang Kang here were among them. There had been nine eight-bag disciples in all, but Li Sheng had taken his own life, and so only eight were left.

Guo Jing knew that though his opponents were fewer now, every one of them was a master. He was about to rise when Huang Rong whispered, “Stay seated. You can handle them.”

Guo Jing thought, If all eight attack at once, it will be hard to hold them off. I must take down a few first. He recognised the fat and thin beggars as the pair who had brought Yang Kang here from Niu Family Village. Snatching up in his left hand the rope of steel wire and oxhide he had untied from Huang Rong, he swept it along the ground in the move Broken Shin Coiling Strike. It came from the Golden Dragon Whip Technique that Han Baoju, the Divine Horse King, had taught him long ago. The whip method was the same, but his neili had grown so greatly that it now struck with twice the power.

Seeing the steel rope sweep towards them, the fat and thin beggars leapt into the air to dodge it. Guo Jing whirled the rope into a wall that shut off the front, the left and the rear, but left a gap on the right. The gap lay right in front of the fat and thin beggars, while the other six were held off by the whirling rope and could not break through in a hurry. Seeing their chance, the pair sprang in at once.

Elder Jian cried urgently, “Don’t!”

But it was too late. Guo Jing’s palms flashed out like the wind, smack, smack, one on each beggar’s shoulder, and the two flew helplessly through the air, hurtling into the men in black of the Iron Palm Keep.

The two beggars had taken the same force, but one was fat and one was thin, and their weights were far apart, so the heavy one flew further and the light one fell nearer. With two thuds they bowled over two of the men in black.

Qiu Qianren had been standing to one side with his hands in his sleeves, watching. When the two beggars went flying, he thought nothing of it, but at the sound of the impact he started. He thought, Our men will be killed or maimed. He rushed over and found that the fat and thin beggars had already sprung to their feet unhurt, while the two men of the Iron Palm Keep lay sprawled on the ground with broken sinews and shattered bones.

Qiu Qianren was furious. He was about to turn round when he heard a rush of wind behind him. Two more of the Guild’s eight-bag disciples were flying through the air, flung by Guo Jing’s palm.

Qiu Qianren knew that this force Guo Jing used, passed on through a body, was heavy at the far end and light at the near, so that the beggar who took it directly suffered little and whoever he struck took the full weight. With a turn of his arm he pushed one beggar off sideways towards empty ground, then brought both palms together and, with a whoosh, struck at the other beggar’s back.

This was the Iron Palm technique that had made him famous. If his palm force exceeded Guo Jing’s, it would not merely cancel the incoming power but use the surplus to cripple the beggar. Otherwise, even if he escaped injury himself, he would be knocked down or forced back.

The three elders of the Beggars’ Guild and Huang Rong knew that this double-palmed blow pitted his strength head-on against Guo Jing’s, and that much hung on the outcome. All of them watched intently. His palms struck, and the eight-bag disciple flew backwards some ten feet and landed lightly on the ground. He stood there dazed a moment, then turned and ran at Guo Jing again, without a scratch on him.

From this the three elders knew that Guo Jing and Qiu Qianren were roughly matched in neili, Guo Jing a little the weaker, but not by much.

Huang Rong was still more startled and puzzled. She thought, This old fraud’s skill is quite ordinary. How can he stand up to a palm blow from Jing gege? That was meeting force with force, real skill. No devil’s trickery could do that.

Qiu Qianren waved his right hand, signalling the Iron Palm men to fall back.

The eight-bag disciples’ martial arts were only on a par with the likes of Yin Zhiping and Yang Kang. Guo Jing had downed four of them at the very start, and though one had come back into the fight, Guo Jing was now combining the Eighteen Palms of Dragon Subduing with the Big Dipper Formation, ferocious power married to nimble change. How could these five beggars hold out against that? Had Guo Jing not been sparing them for his shifu’s sake and for Huang Rong’s, he would long since have left all five dead or maimed. After little more than ten exchanges, he sent two more beggars tumbling with his palm force.

The last three turned to run. Guo Jing’s left hand lashed out with the steel rope, which coiled round the ankles of two of them and dragged them to his side.

Huang Rong said, “Bind them!”

Guo Jing gathered up the rope and bound the two of them hand and foot, back to back.

Seeing him win so completely, Huang Rong was both startled and delighted. It was the ever-smiling Elder Peng, she reflected, who had caught her. Her shifu had once spoken of a mind-capturing art in the jianghu that could send a person suddenly to sleep, leaving him without the power to resist, to be done with as one pleased. Elder Peng, she supposed, had used just such a sorcery. She asked, “Jing gege, does the Nine Yin Manual say anything about a ‘Mind-Capturing Technique’?”

Guo Jing said, “No…”

Huang Rong was deeply disappointed. She whispered, “Watch out for that smiling fiend. Don’t meet his gaze.”

Guo Jing nodded. “I’m going to give that fellow a sound thrashing to pay him back!” He supported Huang Rong’s back, and they both rose to their feet.

Guo Jing glared at Yang Kang and strode towards him.

Yang Kang had been uneasy while Guo Jing displayed his might against the beggars, hoping the Guild would overwhelm him by numbers. But the beggars had been beaten back one after another, and now Guo Jing was bearing down on him. Once the man was upon him, what hope would he have of living? In desperation he shouted, “Elders, all four of you, we have countless heroes and brave men here. Are we to let this young thief run wild?” His feet were as quick as his tongue, and he scuttled behind Elder Jian.

Elder Jian looked back and whispered, “Rest easy, Guild Chief. We’ll send in wave after wave and wear the young villain down.” Then he raised his voice and called, “Eight-bag disciples, form the Solid Wall Array!”

One of the eight-bag leaders answered the call and stepped out, and at his lead a dozen or more of the Guild’s men formed up in two ranks, front and back, each with his arms linked through his neighbours’, sixteen or seventeen of them making one solid human wall. With a shout, they all lowered their heads and charged at Guo Jing and Huang Rong.

Huang Rong cried, “Oh no!” and leapt away to the left. Guo Jing slipped round to the right. From east and west, two more ranks of beggars came charging in.

Seeing how strange the beggars’ tactics were, Guo Jing did not give way as the wall bore down on him, but struck out with both palms at the beggar in its centre. Strong as his palm was, the Solid Wall Array carried the weight of a dozen and more men, and the speed of their charge besides. How could he shove it aside?

The centre of the wall absorbed the force and paused for an instant. The wings swept in to envelop him. Guo Jing staggered and was almost knocked flat by the sheer weight of it. He leapt up and shot clean over the top of the human wall, but before he had even landed he could only groan, for another wall of beggars was charging straight at him. He drew a quick breath, pushed off with his right foot, and leapt over their heads again.

But the human walls came one after another, seemingly without end. As soon as the front rank had passed, it turned and became the rear, rolling on and on like a great wheel grinding towards him. However fine Guo Jing’s martial arts, he was one against many, and by now he could do little but wait to be taken.

Huang Rong was nimble, and a better leaper even than Guo Jing. But as time passed, the shifting walls multiplied. Dodging and darting, she began to feel her heart pounding and her breath coming short. After a while of ducking this way and that, she found herself alongside Guo Jing again, and the two of them were slowly driven towards one corner of the summit.

An idea came to Huang Rong, and she called out, “Jing gege, fall back to the cliff edge.”

Guo Jing did not at first see why, but he did as she said and fell back towards the precipice. When only five or six feet of ground remained between him and the edge, the beggars’ wall stopped short.

Guo Jing understood at last. He thought, Ah, there’s a deep ravine below. If they charged on, they couldn’t stop. They’d fall to their deaths. He glanced at Huang Rong, about to praise her cleverness, but saw her face suddenly cloud with worry. Another human wall, thicker and wider than the rest, was advancing slowly. This time there was no headlong charge. They meant to push the two of them slowly over into the ravine, and a hundred or more men had formed up in over ten ranks, front to back, so that there would be no leaping over them now.

When Guo Jing had been in Mongolia, he and Ma Yu had climbed up and down a cliff every night, and the cliffs of Mount Jun were nothing like as high or as sheer as the one in the desert. Seeing the human wall drawing closer, he said, “Rong-er, get on my back. We’ll go down.”

Huang Rong sighed. “It’s no good. They’ll throw big rocks down at us, and that will be the end of us.”

Guo Jing was at his wits’ end. In this moment, with their lives hanging by a thread, a passage from the upper volume of the Nine Yin Manual suddenly came back to him. He said, “Rong-er, there’s a section in the Manual called the Greater Soul Transfer Technique. It may be similar to that Mind-capturing art you mentioned… Very well. We’ll fight them to the death. If we fall, we fall together.”

Huang Rong sighed. “These are all good brothers who served under shifu. What good would it do us to kill more beggars?”

Guo Jing suddenly stretched out both arms, lifted her in his embrace, and whispered, “Run!” He kissed her on the cheek, then summoned every ounce of his strength and hurled her towards the Xuanyuan Terrace.

Huang Rong felt as though she were riding the clouds and mist as she flew over the heads of several hundred men. She knew Guo Jing meant to face the beggars alone and give her a chance to escape. She bent her knees slightly and landed lightly on the platform. Her heart ached with grief and bitterness. Then she saw Yang Kang standing at a corner of the platform, preening himself, pointing and gesturing and shouting orders to drive on the fight. How could she let such a chance pass? Before her feet had even steadied, she lunged forward, and the fingers of her left hand were already on the head of the green bamboo staff.

To see her drop out of the sky like a flying general gave Yang Kang a violent start. He raised the staff to strike, but Huang Rong’s right hand shot out, index and middle fingers darting for his eyes. At the same instant her left foot flipped up and pinned the bamboo staff down.

Yang Kang’s martial arts were no match for Huang Rong’s at the best of times. And this move was a supreme one from the Dog-Beating Staff Technique that Hong Qigong had taught her, Snatch the Staff from the Hound’s Jaws. If ever a skilled enemy seized the bamboo staff, this move would win it back at once. It never failed. Even a foe whose skill exceeded Yang Kang’s by several levels could not keep hold of the staff against this move.

Huang Rong’s primary aim was the staff, and the eye-strike was secondary. But her movements were so swift that her fingers actually poked Yang Kang’s eyeballs painfully. For a moment everything went dark before his eyes. To save his sight, he had no choice but to release the bamboo staff and leap down from the platform.

Huang Rong held the bamboo staff high above her head, summoned her neili, and called out in a ringing voice, “Guild Chief Hong has not gone to Heaven. It is all lies put about by a traitor. All brothers of the Beggars’ Guild, cease fighting at once!”

The beggars were all stunned. It was too sudden to credit. But people are glad to hear good news and loath to hear bad, as human nature goes, and every one of them turned to look back at the high platform.

Huang Rong summoned her neili again and shouted, “Come over here, brothers. Guild Chief Hong is safe and well, eating and drinking his fill, three beggar’s chickens a day!”

Yang Kang’s eyes still hurt, but he heard every word, and from below the platform he shouted too, “I am the Guild Chief. Brothers, obey my orders. Push the man over the cliff, then come back and seize this lying she-thief.”

The men of the Beggars’ Guild revered their Guild Chief as a god, and whatever the matter, however grave, they would never dare disobey his orders. At Yang Kang’s command they raised a shout and marched forward. Yet it was no lie that old Guild Chief Hong loved beggar’s chicken, and though three a day did seem rather a lot, in the confusion they were three parts inclined to believe it.

Huang Rong cried, “Look closely, everyone. The Guild Chief’s Dog-Beating Staff is in my hands, and I am Guild Chief of the Beggars’ Guild.”

The beggars were taken aback. That a Guild Chief’s Dog-Beating Staff should be snatched from him was a thing unheard of, and as they wavered, they halted once more.

Huang Rong called out, “Our Beggars’ Guild strides the world unchallenged. Yet today we are bullied at our own doorstep. Li Sheng and Yu Zhaoxing were driven to their deaths. Elder Lu is gravely injured. And why?”

The beggars were stirred to righteous anger, and fully half of them turned back to listen.

Huang Rong went on, “Only because this villain surnamed Yang is hand in glove with the Iron Palm Keep and put about the lie that Guild Chief Hong is dead. Do you know who this man Yang really is?”

The beggars shouted, “Who is he? Tell us, tell us.” But others cried, “Don’t listen to the she-thief, she’ll only muddle your minds.” Everyone talked at once, and no one could agree.

Huang Rong called out, “This man’s surname is not Yang. His surname is Wanyan. He is the son of Prince Zhao of the Great Jin. He came here meaning to destroy our Great Song.”

The beggars were stunned, but none would believe it.

Huang Rong thought, They won’t believe this all at once. I’ll fight poison with poison and plant some loot on him. She put a hand inside her robe and felt her things. Luckily nothing had been taken when they searched her. At once she took out the Iron Palm Token that Zhu Cong had stolen from Qiu Qianren that day, and held it high.

She cried, “I snatched this from the hand of the traitor Wanyan just now. Look, everyone. What is it?”

The beggars were too far from the Xuanyuan Terrace to make it out in the moonlight, and their curiosity got the better of them, so that they came crowding to the edge of the platform. Someone cried out, “Why, that’s the Iron Palm Token of the Iron Palm Keep. How did he come to have it?”

Huang Rong said loudly, “Exactly. He’s a spy for the Iron Palm Keep, so of course he carries their token. The Beggars’ Guild has upheld chivalry and justice in the north for hundreds of years. Why did this man Yang take it on himself to agree to withdraw to Jiangnan?”

Yang Kang, listening below the platform, went pale as death. His right hand flicked, and two steel darts shot straight at Huang Rong’s chest. He was close and quick, and two streaks of silver flashed at her.

Huang Rong paid them no heed, but a dozen or more of the beggars shouted together, “Watch out, hidden weapons, take care!” “Ah, no!” The two steel darts struck the Soft Hedgehog Armour, clink, clink, and dropped onto the platform.

Huang Rong shouted, “Wanyan Kang, if you had nothing on your conscience, why would you attack me with hidden weapons?”

The beggars saw that the hidden weapons could not harm her, and their astonishment grew still greater. They muttered among themselves, “Who is right and who is wrong?” “Is Guild Chief Hong truly alive?” Every face showed confusion. They all looked to the four great elders to decide.

The solid wall the beggars had formed had long since fallen apart. Guo Jing strode through the crowd to the platform’s edge, and no one paid him any mind.