Sword Dance Old Han sucked in his breath. The boy was perfect.

He had never witnessed such perfection performed in the Sword Dance by any one before. His every stroke fluid and graceful, every precise move executed with deadly accuracy. He was a marvel to behold. Old Han felt his chest swell with pride. He is my nephew, he thought. And only 16 summers! Soon he can compete in the Winter Festival, and win it too by the gods! Chuckling to himself, the old woodcutter stepped into the glade. The boy's twin sabres whirled to a stop. "Very pretty Sung, very pretty. But pretty sword work won't stop a Mongol raider, will it?" said Han, arms folded across his chest. "Uncle Han! You've been spying on me! No one's supposed to see my new routine. I want to surprise the Festival judges. Hopefully then I can beat Jian," Grinning widely Sung clasped arms with Han. "Oh I have no doubt you will win, nephew. I have never seen a better sworddancer in my whole life, and I've lived a long one." Sung was beaming with pride. Uncle Han was a man of few words, and fewer praises. In one swift movement, Sung sheathed his blades. Wiping perspiration off his body, he noticed the old woodcutter's brows were furrowed in thought. "What's wrong Uncle? You look troubled. Come with me back to the village. Besides..." he glanced at his feet shyly, "tomorrow I will wed Yun." Turning in barely concealed excitement Sung gushed, "There will be wine, song and dance tonight! I will not let you miss it!" Old Han had to grin at his nephew's excitement. He could see the love and joy shining from Sung's eyes as he talked on about his beloved Yun. He had

watched them grow up together, from childhood playmates to shy lovers, the bond between them growing from friendship to love and to something even more. Old Han could not describe it, but it seemed that when Sung and Yun were together they formed an inseparable whole. He recalled an incident when Yun was still a young girl, and had gone to look for herbs in the forest. She had twisted her ankle and had fallen down a ravine. Somehow Sung had known, and had led a rescue party unerringly to the spot where she had fallen. If there ever was a match made in heaven, Old Han thought, then he has had the pleasure of witnessing one. Ah! To be young and in love again. Then his thoughts darkened. "I have seen signs of Mongol raiders in the lower hill valleys. It does not bode well. I do not like the thought of those barbarians sniffing around our mountains." Old Han confided. "The last trader that came to our village reported them attacking the plains villages and towns past the Northern Wall, where the pillage is rich... why would they come to our mountains? All we have are goats!" Sung laughed. "Because these barbarians are never satisfied. They always want more blood. After they have overrun the plains provinces, then who will be next?" said Old Han. "We must take precautions." "Put such dreary thoughts aside Uncle, and come enjoy a jug of wine with" Suddenly Sung clasped his stomach and doubled over in pain. "What...???!!" Old Han stopped and looked up into the sky. Smoke, great pillars of black smoke were rising into the air ahead of them. "The village!" he shouted, "it's on fire!" "Noooo... Yun! She's hurt!" gasped Sung. He struggled to his feet and started sprinting towards the village. "Wait!" cried the old man, and ran after the boy. As

they neared the village, he could hear screams of pain and sounds of battle coming from the village. The crackling fires cast an eerie glow in the dusk that was settling around them and he could make out leather-armoured barbarians milling around the entrance of the village. With a superhuman effort, Old Han managed to lunge and tackle Sung to the ground, and pulled him into the thick bushes outside the village palisades. "Shhhhh! Sung! Those are Mongol warriors!" hissed Old Han as he tried to keep the boy down. "Yun..." groaned Sung. "She ... she's in there!" "I know boy! We have to warn the other villages! We..." Sung had gone still. Old Han looked down into the eyes of the boy and shivered. The pain was gone, so was that spark of youth and life he had so admired just now. It was replaced by ... death. It was not fury or vengeance. It was the look of someone who had lost his reason to live. It was then that Old Han knew he would never see his beloved nephew again. "You go Uncle. I have to find Yun." And Sung stood up. Quietly he drew his blades and started walking, slowly, towards the village. "Sung!" cried Old Han, and he wept. Sung walked serenely up to the village gates. An Mongol raider left to guard the gates looked up in surprise and died with its throat slashed. Another died before his sword had even cleared his scabbard. He entered the village. The smell of blood and charred corpses was everywhere. Ahead of him, in the middle of the village-square, he saw a huge pile of dead. The raiders were still heaping corpses onto it, preparing a macabre pyre. No one seemed to notice him as he started towards the mound. Then someone somewhere around him let out a bellow of surprise, and suddenly there were Mongol warriors all around him with

their axes and blades out. So Sung started to dance. Like a whirlwind, he tore through the barbarians, his blades slashing, parrying and stabbing relentlessly. In his mind he danced for Yun, a smile on his face as raiders died all around him, unable to penetrate his spinning blades. But for each he killed two took the raiders place. Sung did not care. They were just obstacles in his path towards Yun. He did not feel pain as their swords slashed his body, nor did he weaken as blood started flowing down his face from a scalp wound and a dozen other places. He just kept on dancing his beautiful dance of death. A huge, muscular warrior stood between him and the mound, wielding a huge axe as if it was a toy. Grinning at Sung through his mouthful of yellowed teeth, he charged, swinging its axe like a scythe. Sung blocked the axe with his left blade, and felt rather than saw it break in half. Any sane man would have dropped the broken sabre and dived away. Sung let the momentum carry him forward as the axe smashed into his right shoulder, then stabbed the broken sabre into the man's throat. He died drowning in his own blood, with a puzzled look on his bestial face. Sung was finally at the mound. He dropped to his knees and started digging through the pile of dead. A Mongol warrior stepped up behind him, sword raised to finish the job, but stopped as a voice rang out in the press of warriors behind him. "Leave him be." The crowd parted to admit a tall, richly attired Mongol, wearing the mantle of a Khan. "Leave him be!" He repeated in a guttural voice. He and his warriors watched in silence as the youth dug furiously through the corpses. Sung was oblivious to everything around him. "Yun" he kept mouthing her name. Then he found her, near the bottom of the pile, her beautiful eyes wide open in death, and her hand still clutching the small knife he had made for her last summer. She had died from a spear wound through her stomach, but she

had died fighting. Cradling her body, Sung threw back his head in a cry of pain and anguish that echoed in the still mountain air. The blood from his scalp wound dripped onto his beloved's face as he closed her eyes, forming tears that ran down her fair cheek. Slowly he laid her body down, then stood up. He turned, gripping his blades, even the broken one. "Come," he smiled. "Let's dance." The boy killed ten more seasoned warriors in single combat before finally dying. The leader of the Mongol war-band, before he left, ordered a shrine built, dedicated to the memory of the sword-dancer and his love. Here the Mongols buried the couple, and Sungs blades with him. The raiders left the mountain tribes and villages alone after that incident. They felt that if one boy could kill twenty-two veteran warriors in defense of a dead loved one, the price of invading the rest of the tribes would be too costly to justify. They turned instead towards the soft lowland cities. And the fall of the Sung Empire began.