Sparrow's grandma hobbled back into her shack. She bent her aching back and pushed a lump of coal and yak dung further into her smoking firepit, then crawled over to her bed.

The mattress was a ramshackle contraption, falling apart at the seams, with bits of bent wood and straw packed together beneath scraps of cloth. Underneath it sat a small wooden chest coated in dust. Her fingers clicked as they closed around it. The weight of the box threatened her with little stabs of pain down her spine.

She put the chest on her bed, twisted the middle latch, and opened the lid.

A golden glow lit the space around her eyes as they curled into twin smiles. Sitting in the middle of the chest, glowing in that dull space was a single golden turnip.

***

A week later the black clad men arrived. What was twenty men had become sixty. As more villages had come under the black banner, money had gone to better arms, more men and they were stocked to the teeth with arrows and bows and crossbows and swords.

Down at the village not a soul moved. The run-down shacks the villagers lived in were boarded up, stones were piled in the windows and only one chimney smoked.

Shin, the black shirt's leader smiled, the smoking shack belonged to the old crone. If the others had left his men would hunt them down. But today he’d knock the teeth from her groaning mouth.

The other villages had been easy, hardly put up a fight. Those that did found half the population decimated. Shin’s men had all they could ask for – women, wealth, wine and food, but Shin craved more.

When this village fell they’d continue their expansion towards the west, taking land and men from the Dragon River Emperor.

Shin enclosed his eyes, mumbled, a tiny prayer asking for strength, opened his eyes, and gave a nod. To the thirty bowmen who’d fanned out to surround the village, trampling turnips and notching arrows. A mixture of crossbowmen and swordsmen entered the village. The swordsmen pushed through the goatskin entrances of each hut while the crossbowmen covered them.

The first hut was empty, as was the second, as they moved further and further into the village, the men didn’t bother to lift their swords - every house was abandoned. Swept of any valuables. Or even furniture.

‘Burn them.’ Shin said to his second in command. Torches were held to the thatched hut rooves. Wood, timber and reeds emitted a thick black smoke that blurred Shin’s view.

If nothing else, it'll be a warning to the other villages, Shin thought

Speaking of burning... he turned to face the hut at the center of the village - the old woman's shack. He pulled out his sword, intending to march straight up to it and plunge his sword through her heart. But no, that was what his men were for, doing the dirty work.

He pointed to a group of ten hovering beside a flaming hut.

‘You go into that hut, see if the crone’s there, bring her to me.’

The men marched up to the door. One peered through a gap in the wood and let out a laugh. The door splintered under his boot and he entered, gesturing for another solider to follow him.

There was the sound of muted talking, then silence. Shin scuffed his foot on the ground.

‘Come on. Come on...’ he whispered; he was ready to stick his sword through her heart.

He pointed to another two men.

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‘You, you, give them to hurry up.’

Two men holding crossbows marched over to the hut. They entered. Shin waited, checking the sharpness of his blade, he wished he hadn't sharpened it so much. He wanted it dull, he wanted this to hurt.

And the men didn't reappear. There was no sound from the hut, so he gave a sigh and signaled six more men who’d been waiting for his order.

‘If she won't come out, burn it.’

The men wandered over with caution in their step. They'd watched their four fellows go inside. Two crossbowmen went first, weapons held at eye level. Fingers on triggers. They entered the hut and another man took up a guard position in the doorway for about two seconds before he started to run as fast as he could away from the hut. One of the crossbowmen was thrown like an arrow headfirst out of the hut. He smashed into the fleeing soldier while his buddy crossbowman was thrown straight through the roof sending a firework of shards of broken wood into the air.

Shin gripped the handle of his sword and ordered his men to him. They came with torches blazing and swords raised. But in his heart of hearts Shin knew they’d been tricked – the cultivator was in the hut. They were doomed. A figure hobbled from the doorway, bent over and clutching a stick.

'Send a fire arrow onto the building.’ Shin called.

A volley of flaming arrows lept from the men in front of him and the old woman watched with sadness as smoke and flames curled around her roof. It took a moment for the roof to burn through, but when it had and no cultivator came out Shin’s shoulders relaxed and a cruel grin returned to his cheeks.

‘Let's finish this old bat.’

One of the bowmen, a young, nervous former merchant, let an arrow loose at the woman without his command. The arrow sailed towards Grandma, heading directly for her guts. Her eyes blinked with an old weary sadness right up until the arrow was a foot from her when her eyes opened wide and one hand gripped the arrow while it was still in motion and brought it in a quick arc back towards the group of men. The arrow’s momentum sent it hurling straight back into the gut of the young merchant who had fired on her, the man dropped, and made an ugly groaning sound as blood poured from his side.

Shin dropped to his knees, It can't be!

Dust and ash, blew up in a cloud behind the woman as she ran towards them. A soldier stood shaking in front of her. Her old, wrinkled fingers popped his eyes out, and then used his eye sockets as levers to swing the rest of his body around so his boots clobbered a fellow soldier in the head.

She kicked off another’s head, squishing it into jam as she advanced on to the next soldier, pulled his jaw from his face and hurled it into the chest of another soldier, impaling him.

Her quick and vicious attack left the remaining men unable to handle their weapons, they dropped them and fled, running for the hills in all directions, leaving Shin facing the woman alone.

As he held out his sword, he studied her. Her back was bent, obviously crippled, her knees stuck out at angles that seemed unable to bear her weight without shuffling. Her ribs were thin, like a starved goat. And yet she was advancing on him with the footsteps of a giant. One hand picked up a boulder twice the size of her.

He moved forward, swinging his sword. It clashed against the boulder, dulling the blade, he side-stepped, came around the other side, attempting to get between her and the rock, swinging with all his might for her back. The rock came around again and blocked his sword. Shards of metal dropped from his sword and the shock of the boulder jarred the weapon loose from his hands.

The old woman dropped the rock. She picked up his sword and inspected it. It had lost all of its edge.

She spat between his feet, ‘This is going to hurt.’

Even with all of her supernatural strength it took three tries to push the blunt sword through his ribcage. He gasped as it pierced through.

‘Mercy!’ he called, ‘please, mercy!’

‘What do you mean, mercy?’ she spat. ‘You were to kill us, burn our village, tax us to starvation.’

He shook his head. ‘I would have done all that and more.’ blood dribbled down his sword hilt, ‘But there are others that will come for you and I can't wait to watch you burn from the afterlife.’

Sparrow’s grandma laughed. ‘I'm old, far older than you'll ever be. There is no afterlife. There is only pain.’

She rammed the heel of her hand into his sword, driving it upward through his heart. The man collapsed backward, stone dead.

Sparrow’s grandma wandered up to the caves. She got rid of her stick. Her knees felt new and invigorated. She wished she hadn't waited so long before trying the golden turnip, how long would its effects last? she wondered, but she supposed that was a question for another day.

The children were there hugging her. Warm, soft little hands and eyes that had been gone red from crying, then the women, rubbing her back, giving her sweet thanks, and then the men rather awkwardly thanking her - even the bravest of them couldn't hide their red eyes. And as she accepted their thanks and reminded the kids not to waste their food her mind wandered back to the place it always went to: Where is Sparrow?