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Jiang stopped before another painting. It depicted a row of monks lined up on a wall, frozen in identical stances.
Rin was amazed. “That’s—”
“Seejin’s first form. Yeah.” Jiang nodded in approval. “Bodhidharma warned the monks that martial arts was about the refinement of the individual. Martial arts used well would produce a wise commander, a man who could see clearly through fog and understand the will of the gods. The martial arts in their conception were not meant solely as military tools.”
Rin struggled to envision the techniques Jun had taught their class as purely health exercises. “But there had to be an evolution in the arts.”
“Correct.” Jiang waited for her to ask the question he wanted to hear.
She obliged. “When did the arts become adapted for mass military use?”
Jiang bobbed his head, pleased. “Shortly before the days of the Red Emperor, the Empire was invaded by the horsemen from the Hinterlands to the north. The occupation force introduced a number of repressive measures to control the indigenous population, which included forbidding the Nikara to carry weapons.”
Jiang stopped again before a painting depicting a horde of Hinterlander hunters riding upon massive steeds. Their faces were twisted into wild, barbaric scowls. They held bows that were longer than their torsos. At the bottom of the painting, Nikara monks were shown cowering in fear or strewn about in various states of dismemberment.
“The temples that were once havens of nonviolence became instead a sanctuary for anti-Northerner rebels and a center for revolutionary planning and training. Soldiers and sympathizers would don monks’ robes and shave their heads, but train for war within the temple grounds. In sacred spaces like these, they plotted the overthrow of their oppressors.”
“And health exercises would hardly have helped them,” Rin said. “The martial techniques had to be adapted.”
Jiang nodded again. “Exactly. The arts then taught in the temple required the progressive mastery of hundreds of long, intricate forms. These could take decades to master. The leaders of the rebellion, thankfully, realized that this approach was unsuitable to the rapid development of a fighting force.”
Jiang turned around to face her. They had reached the top of the pagoda. “And so modern martial arts were developed: a system based on human biomechanics rather than the movements of animals. The enormous variety of techniques, some of which were only marginally useful to a soldier, were distilled into an essential core of forms that could be taught to a soldier in five years rather than fifty. This is the basis of what you are taught at Sinegard. This is the common core that is taught to the Imperial Militia. This is what your classmates are learning.” He grinned. “I am showing you how to beat it.”
Jiang was an effective if unconventional combat instructor. He made her hold her kicks up in the air for long minutes until her leg trembled. He made her duck as he hurled projectiles at her off the weapons rack. He made her do the same exercise blindfolded, and then admitted later that he just thought it would be funny.
“You’re a real asshole,” she said. “You know that, right?”
Once Jiang was pleased with her fundamentals, they began to spar. They sparred every day, for hours at a time. They sparred bare-fisted and with weapons; sometimes she was bare-fisted while he bore a weapon.
“Your state of mind is just as important as the state of your body,” Jiang lectured. “In the confusion of a fight, your mind must be still and steady as a rock. You must be grounded in your center, able to see and control everything. Each of the five elements must be in balance. Too much fire, and you’ll lash out recklessly. Too much air and you’ll fight skittishly, always on the defensive. Too much earth, and—are you even listening?”
She was not. It was hard to concentrate while Jiang jabbed an unguarded halberd at her, forcing her to dance around to avoid sudden impalement.
By and large, Jiang’s metaphors meant little to her, but she learned quickly to avoid injury. And perhaps that was his point. She developed muscle memory. She learned that there were only so many permutations to the way a human body could move, only so many attack combinations that worked, that she could reasonably expect from her opponent. She learned to react automatically to these. She learned to predict Jiang’s moves seconds in advance, to read from the tilt of his torso and the flicker of his eyes what he was about to do next.
He pushed her relentlessly. He fought the hardest when she was exhausted. When she fell, he attacked her as soon as she’d gotten back on her feet. She learned to stay constantly on guard, to react to the slightest movements in her peripheral vision.
The day came when she angled her hip against his just so, forced his weight to the side and jammed all her force at an angle that hurled him over her right shoulder.
Jiang skidded across the stone floor and bumped against the garden wall, which shook the shelves so that a potted cactus came perilously close to shattering on the ground.
Jiang lay there for a moment, dazed. Then he looked up, met her eyes, and grinned.
Rin’s last day with Sunzi was the hardest.
Sunzi was no longer an adorable piglet but an absurdly fat monster that smelled heinously bad. It wasn’t remotely cute. Any affection Rin had felt for those trusting brown eyes was negated by the animal’s massive girth.
Carrying Sunzi up the mountain was torture. Sunzi no longer fit in any sort of sling or basket. Rin had to drape it over her shoulders, grasping it by its two front legs.
She could hardly move as fast as she had when Sunzi could still be cradled in her arms, but she had to, unless she wanted to go without breakfast—or worse, miss class. She rose earlier. She ran faster. She staggered up the mountain, gasping for air with every step. Sunzi lay against her back with its snout resting over one of her shoulders, basking in the morning sun while Rin’s muscles screamed with resentment. When she reached Sunzi’s drinking area, she let the pig drop to the ground and collapsed.
“Drink, you glutton,” she grumbled as Sunzi frolicked in the stream. “I can’t wait until the day they carve you up and eat you.”
On her way down the mountain, the sun began to beat down in earnest, eliciting rivulets of sweat all over Rin’s body despite the winter cold. She limped through the meatpacking district to the Widow Maung’s cottage and deposited Sunzi gracelessly on the floor.
It rolled over, squealed loudly and ran in a circle, chasing its own tail.
The Widow Maung came out to the front carrying a bucket of slops.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Rin panted.
The Widow Maung shook her head. “There won’t be a tomorrow. Not for this one, anyway.” She rubbed Sunzi’s snout. “This one’s going to the butcher tonight.”
Rin blinked. “What? So soon?”
“Sunzi’s already reached his peak weight.” The Widow Maung slapped Sunzi’s sides. “Look at that girth. None of my pigs have ever grown so heavy. Perhaps your crazy teacher was right about the mountain water. Maybe I should send all my pigs up there.”
Rin rather hoped that she didn’t. Chest still heaving, she bowed low to the widow. “Thank you for letting me carry your pig.”
The Widow Maung harrumphed. “Academy freaks,” she muttered under her breath, and began to lead Sunzi back to the sty. “Come on, you. Let’s get you ready for the butcher.”
