The Grey Pilgrim by J.M. Hayes Page B

radio. J.D. reached out, shut it off, and finished the drive in silence.

A Conqueror’s Reward
    The town lay on the bank of a lethargic river. A hard wind had blown out of the west for days and yellow dust from the Gobi covered this desolate region of Northern China and tinted the sky a pallid green.
    Most of the city was on the far bank. If they had defended or destroyed the bridges, Sasaki’s advance would have been difficult. But they didn’t. There was only token resistance in spite of the strong garrison that had been quartered there. Before his troops entered the place, its defenders streamed out into the hills beyond, followed by most of the citizenry.
    Sasaki inherited a town with its population more than halved. Only the old, the infirm, and a few women and children remained—those to whom leaving seemed a greater risk than staying.
    It was common policy for the Imperial Japanese Army to allow its soldiers a conqueror’s reward, letting them loot and plunder the places they took. Sasaki had refused to let his troops enjoy the practice. Until now. He was becoming desperate, anxious he would never encounter an enemy capable of offering meaningful resistance. Perhaps he could provoke it, incite his foe into magnificent battle. He gave his men their reward and to the Chinese who stayed behind, cause to regret their decision.
    By dusk, much of the city was in flames, mixing its sooty cloud with the sickly twilight. A shroud of smoke cloaked the place. The screams of the tortured and brutalized must have carried to the hills where those who had held the place ran. Sasaki ordered no precautions against counterattack. His invitation to the Chinese army was an open one, addressed in the agony of those they’d left behind, printed on the ruin of their homes. He did not understand how anyone could ignore it.
    The night passed and they did not come.
    It was balmy, as inappropriate to the season as the enemy’s lack of response to wanton brutality. Unable to sleep for the sounds of the dying city, confused by a people who tolerated what he allowed, Sasaki wandered the streets alone. They weren’t safe for anyone. The streets no longer belonged to humans. Beasts, rabid with blood lust, caught up in an orgy of destruction for its own sake, had claimed them. His men were as drunk on violence as on what they had plundered from the wine merchants.
    It was in the Street of Cloth Sellers that Sasaki encountered his first citizen of the place not already dead or dying. He was an old man. His robes were made of good material, but frayed and worn. Fortune had turned against him before the Japanese arrived. He sat in the remains of a ribbon stall at a corner of two avenues. His stall had been casually destroyed, torn apart without purpose. Ribbons were hardly the stuff that soldiers looted. Someone had tried to set fire to the place and some of the wares were charred. The rest had been tossed about, trampled, crumpled into the dust of the street. The merchant sat cross-legged in the center of the ruin, rocking slowly back and forth. His hands were burned, perhaps from extinguishing the flames that consumed his livelihood, but he was oblivious to their state. He picked up the soiled, wrinkled remnants, carefully wound them onto their spools, and restacked them on a broken shelf. Each spool rolled along its canted length and tumbled into the street. Several had unwound their contents as they rolled across the intersection, leaving bright fingers of ruined silk pointing out the tragedy of one man’s life.
    “Ribbons,” he called in soft Mandarin. “All colors,” he chanted. “Ribbons, most reasonable.”
    There was no truly wealthy section to the town, though it had more than its share of slums. There was less to steal than Sasaki’s men might have wished, but plenty to burn, plenty to kill. The Street of Rewarded Merits was as close to a prosperous residential avenue as the town contained. Along its length, small broken lions