Campfire Story

Campfire Story

Eerie short story, Korea 1592

"After all, I don't need to tell you about the battle against the samurai, because you were there!"

Korean Lieutenant Na De-Yong had eaten copiously and drunk water. Now, lying around a fire with two common soldiers, he was enjoying makgeolli from a bottle, which went around in turn. The Korean rice wine hardly made him drunk, but provided a relaxed atmosphere.

Only hardly hours ago, the two scattered soldiers had found him injured and brought him to the safety of the forest. But only because one of them had recognized him, because De-Yong had been disguised as a traveling herbalist.

A few days earlier, a massive army of Japanese samurai had invaded Korea. In a cruel battle, the Japanese had been victorious. Now the king had also fled and the capital had fallen.

"I was injured in the battle. Then, when I saw that we had lost, I took flight."

Sadly, he looked into the flames.

"So many good men lost their lives that day. And we couldn't do anything about it."

The two soldiers nodded in agreement, remembering the horror of the battle.

"I hoped to be safe in the forest, but a samurai caught up with me and confronted me. We fought and I lost. The last thing I remember was kneeling on the ground, badly wounded and dying, awaiting the killing blow."

He took a deep gulp and shook himself.

"Then I woke up deep in the forest, and a beautiful, naked woman was tending to my wounds!"

The men's eyes snapped open.

"A beautiful, naked woman?" inquired Cha-He. "Lieutenant, surely you were dreaming?"

De-yong shook his head.

"No, if I tell you, the most beautiful woman you can imagine! And completely naked!"

Dreaming, the men stared into the flames, trying to imagine the image.

"But she was not a human. She was a kumiho!", De-Yong blurted out in surprise.

"A kumiho?" both men exclaimed at the same time."You mean a nine-tailed fox demon?

"Yes. She had been secretly watching the fight and had seen my amulet, which I was wearing on my neck at the time. A protective amulet of my great-great-grandfather. And it had been given to him by this kumiho, of all people, in thanks for his help, a long, long time ago!"

"Oh!" was all the men could produce.

"Yes. She had killed the samurai and saved my life to pay off the debt to my ancestor."

"Lieutenant, what happened next?" demanded Cha-He impatiently.

"Well, she had taken care of my wounds, but they were still very deep. There was a great possibility that I would still die from them. That's why I asked her for a succor pact."

"You begged a demon for succor?"

The men looked at De-Yong in horror.

He nodded.

"Yes, because I was desperate. Alone, very badly injured in the forest. What would you have done?"

Slowly, the soldiers nodded in agreement.

"But what I didn't know at the time was that by doing so I would be binding myself to that demon for life!"

"So you didn't make the pact?" now Ju-Won wanted to know, who had rarely spoken before. Probably also because De-Yong had not been his officer, and he did not know him.

"Yes, I am! She gave me her pearl. That's her life force. I took it inside me, and now it's inside me."

"Pearl? You took her in, Lieutenant, how?"

"Through a kiss!"

"Ohhhhhhh!"

"So you have a pearl in your belly now?", Cha-He wanted to know more specifically.

"No. They just called it that. I can't describe it exactly. It's a fire, a power that burns inside me. It makes me stronger, faster, and also makes my wounds heal faster. Much faster. My near-fatal wound was healed the next morning!"

He could see from their faces that they didn't believe a word he said. But he continued to report.

"After our nighttime union, however, we both became concerned about whether we had made a mistake. Therefore, we decided to go to the Samshin Temple near Panyio to break the union again."

"Unification?" inquired Cha-He.

De-Yong became embarrassed.

"Well, uh, yes. Part of the kiss was that we were naked, and she was sitting on me. You know."

"Ahhhh!" The men nodded and grinned suggestively.

It might be a made-up story, but it now appealed to their tastes. Now they became even more curious.

"Lieutenant, is the Kumiho built like a normal woman? I mean, down below, you know."

Annoyed, De-yong nodded. He had better not have mentioned that.

"Yes, yes! If she's human, everything is as it should be."

"If she's human? What do you mean by that, Lieutenant?"

"She can change back to her fox demon form from one moment to the next. Especially when she gets angry. And then her eyes also glow blue. It's very frightening, I can tell you!"

The men backed away, shuddering.

"Is that what happened in the process, I mean, of your union, Lieutenant? Is that why you wanted to break the union right away?" Cha-He showed obvious understanding, for De-Yong's inner conflict the next morning.

"No. Fortunately, not at any of our unions!", De-Yong blurted out in somewhat wistful thought.

"Unions?" both men shouted at the same time. "You repeated that?"

De-Yong blushed.

"Uh, yeah. It's hard to explain. That was part of the agreement with her. I had to do it three times a day with her, you know."

"Ohhhhhhhhhh!"

At the idea of having to unite with a beautiful woman three times a day, a hardly envy rose in the soldiers. Demoness or not.

Annoyed, De-Yong waved it off.

"It was just a matter of me carrying her pearl inside me. She had to be close to me to be able to tap into the power. Otherwise, she would become weak. Nothing more!"

Smiling, the soldiers nodded. They didn't believe a word of his obvious excuse.

De-Yong drank another sip, then passed the bottle again.

"Anyway. So, we set out the next morning to make a pilgrimage to the temple. Na-Ri could run incredibly fast, and then thanks to her strength in me, I could too. We ran through the forest and made fast progress until we unexpectedly ran into a Japanese patrol. There were five samurai!"

"Is that where your injuries came from, Lieutenant?" interrupted Cha-He. "Are they looking for you now? And Na-Ri is the name of the kumiho?"

Impatiently, De-Yong nodded.

"Right, that was her name. And no: those samurai aren't looking for anyone anymore. Na-Ri killed them. Within the blink of an eye!"

Frowning, the men looked at him.

"Five samurai, killed within the blink of an eye? Completely unbelievable.Not even a demon could do that, Lieutenant!"

"If you don't believe me, the weapons in my luggage are theirs. The sword belonged to the officer. And the arquebus I got from them, too."

The looks of his listeners remained skeptical.

"However, we had overlooked the fact that the group had included a sixth man. Not a warrior, but a scribe. He must have been a little off to the side at the time of the attack. Presumably he had to pee. It was only when we were going through the dead men's baggage that it struck me. By that time, though, he was long gone."

A truly fatal mistake, De-Yong now assumed. It could well be that the escaped man and the interpreter from the afternoon, were the same person. The man seemed to have recognized him.

"Well, anyway. We continued on our way. When we got to the river, we found the valley controlled by Japanese. We had to come up with something."

Now the men nodded again. They had had the same problems crossing.

"I acquired a farmer's dress for myself in a village, and a bride's dress for Na-Ri. With these we wanted to get past the Japanese inconspicuously. I had wrapped the weapons in blankets."

"What else had the kumiho worn?" now Ju-Won wanted to know.

"How, oh! Up to that time she had remained naked. Na-Ri couldn't stand clothes, she had said. Because it would hinder her."

"So you've been chasing a naked woman all this time?" laughed Cha-He. "I imagine that's pretty tough!"

De-Yong contorted his face irritably. But decided to pass over that remark.

"So we ran through the village, and promptly ran into another patrol of samurai. This time there were three men. At first I tried my made-up story that I was newly married, and now wanted to introduce my bride to my parents in the north. But because of the strange shape of my luggage, they were suspicious. Therefore, I drew the attention of the samurai to Na-Ri, who was so incredibly beautiful, and then surprisingly drew the captured samurai sword. With it, I managed to kill two samurai. Na-Ri, meanwhile, took care of the officer on horseback."

"So you killed three more Japs then? Good, very good!" said Ju-Won grimly.

De-Yong nodded.

"We then hurried across the river, and on to the temple. Then we didn't encounter any samurai until we reached Mount Panyio."

He left out the renewed argument with Na-Ri in which she had nearly killed him, and after which he had taken nearly two days to recover.

"I didn't expect any more trouble at this point, but unfortunately the mountain is inhabited by a dokkaebi named Cham, who apparently has been at odds with Na-Ri for some time."

"Did this mountain spirit refuse you entry, Lieutenant?"

"No, much worse. He captured Na-Ri, and, as punishment for something she had done to him in the past, put a curse on her that she stank terribly from then on. And I mean really, really awful. You can't imagine something like that! Then he let us go."

"Ew!" the men screwed up their faces in disgust.

"Yeah, ew. Even bathing couldn't wash off the stench. Na-Ri really tried everything. And of course, I didn't want to reunite with her after that either, as you can imagine."

He earned nods of understanding.

"The whole visit to the temple was really a reach into the latrine. The only thing we learned was that the bond between me and Na-Ri will last until I'm dead. And that for some reason, Na-Ri is not allowed to kill me himself."

"Ah, then you must have been quick to flee, Lieutenant? I mean, who wants to be bound for life to a ghastly smelling demon woman?"

Cha-He could empathize well with his lieutenant.

However, De-Yong shook his head.

"We agreed that she should always keep 20 paces away from me at first. Then the monk equipped us with my current disguise as a traveling merchant, and we set off again. I wanted to go back to the south urgently. I was still expected at the fleet. I did not know that our king had fled and that the war was lost.

Again he accepted the bottle handed to him and moistened his mouth, which was dry from talking.

"Ah. Well I thought the demoness would now just want to wait for me to be killed, and therefore willingly moved with me. But the day before yesterday we came across six soldiers. Our men. Na-Ri had kept away from me as agreed, and so I was alone. The men were hungry and saw in me an easy prey. When they discovered my weapons in my luggage, they thought I was an enemy spy and wanted to kill me. A fight ensued. And although I killed one of them and seriously injured two, they managed to knock me down. Then Na-Ri intervened and killed two more of you. The survivors fled."

The soldiers looked shocked. That could have been them, too, if Cha-He hadn't recognized his lieutenant.

"Well, this morning I had finally recovered sufficiently from my bashed-in skull for us to move on. But around noon, we ran right into a Japanese squad. Not a normal patrol. There were nine samurai, an interpreter and a litter carried by four bearers. At first I managed to fool them with my disguise. They asked me only about the way, and whether I had seen a fugitive couple on whom a high bounty was placed. I denied that, and they moved on for the time being."

"A large bounty?" inquired Ju-won. "Who were they looking for? Members of the royal family?"

"No, me and Na-Ri!" replied De-Yong bitterly.

The men widened their eyes again in disbelief, then Cha-He frowned.

"You, lieutenant? Why? I mean, why did they chase you into enemy territory with a palanquin?"

Cha-He was obviously no fool.

De-Yong shook his head.

"I can't answer that question. But they obviously knew that Na-Ri was a kumiho. I suppose they were just after her."

Bitterness threatened to overwhelm De-Yong, so he drank the last of it from the bottle. Angrily, he threw it into the woods.

"Then for some reason, just when I thought I was safe, they recognized me. Four of the samurai were sent to capture me. The others must have been expecting Na-Ri's attack."

"How did you escape, lieutenant?"

"I killed the four samurai. But in the process, I myself was critically wounded. Then the bang of an arquebus sounded. I don't know what happened, but when the smoke cleared, all I saw was Na-Ri lying naked on the ground, and the squad officer cutting off her head. Because they paid no attention to me at that moment, I managed to mount a horse and escape. At some point I fell off the horse from exhaustion. Then you found me."

Silence spread.

At last Cha-He broke the silence, interrupted only by the crackling of the fire.

"That was a really good story lieutenant! But, now say: why were you really lying injured on the road earlier, beside a Japanese horse?"

De-Yong rose and walked slowly, as if to relieve himself, to the edge of the clearing. With his gaze, he appraised the boulder in front of him, which he had been eyeing for some time. He must have weighed as much as a man. In a flash, he crouched down, grabbed the boulder and lifted it.

It took a few moments for the men, who were a bit dizzy from the alcohol, to realize what they were seeing. Then their eyes snapped open in surprise.

With rocks heaving over his head, De-Yong turned to face them. He went down on his knees slightly, then threw his load across the entire clearing, where, on the edge, it burst a small tree with a loud crack.

Startled, the soldiers jumped up and stared stunned at the destroyed tree, then at De-Yong.

The latter unwound the silk cloth soaked in blood, which had covered his deep abdominal wound that was still there in the afternoon.

A freshly healed scar now revealed itself under the bandage.

"Every word of my story was true!" he said quietly, and with deep sadness in his voice.

"I am Lieutenant Na De-Yong. Doomed to carry the power of a slain demoness within me until my death, and then to reunite with her in hell! And in order to receive the power of the demoness in me, I must kill you now unfortunately, and drink your blood! Please forgive me, my saviors!"