ANJING


"Hmmm, there’s something down there. Could this be it? A tiny dead baby bird?"
It was really small but he chewed it to mush before spitting out the legs and feet. His nose pushed around for more, but it was mostly plastic bags with nothing in the corners to lick at.

Most of the rubbish was inorganic, just damp and dull, but there was definitely something down there, something deep down in the heap. Something worth digging for.

The other dogs had already left; moved on to fresher refuse, but he was moved by something stronger, like an olfactoric magnet closing the missing links between an endless chain in his mind and another one-ended chain somewhere else.

The filthy flies danced around his face and backside, landing whenever they could. It was slim pickings though. There was hardly enough scavenging for an even detuned dog, let alone enough to make his ulcers really suppurate. He was a sorry sight. The mange had taken almost all his hair and the continual scratching meant that his skin was stretched and hanging over the stump of his tail. One back leg was being carried aloft and the best part of both ears had been ripped apart just last year.

In short; A mess! A skulking reviled cur. A snakelike backbone draped with a ragged scabby hide exposing a cancerous rectum at one end and two frightened marble eyes at the other. Still, there was no-one kicking at him!

That aroma arose again to his warty, scaly nose, mmmmm, “such a peculiar smell that it penetrates the miasma above it.”

He went deeper until his head was being shoved right down into the snuffle hole that just left his good ear out in the air. The last thing he needed was a kicked butt! “Oo-oomm! I’m getting closer.” And he sure was.

Though still overwhelmed by the dominant stench of grunge he was focusing on the one tiny emission which scratched his head. It was difficult to ignore, like a plume of smoke rising in an early morning camp.

His horse faltered, and then regained its footing as he returned to the mountains to find the greybeard from his dream who kept his secrets to himself but was the true master of metal. Who brewed the magic in his blades by the sheer physics of fire and meteoric matter, tempering it with the patience and purity of his heart from many years of devotion, isolation, meditation, and sheer hard work.

The heating, the hammering; the shock of icy water! Five times the laminated blade was filed to dust, fed through different birds and reworked as ever more pure metal. After four months it was almost ready, in its final firing, buried to the hilt in burning coals, glowing with the eyes of a maddened dragon. Brought to life by her master!

Gandring heard hoof-beats and knew it was Sang come to collect the weapon. Sang greeted the old sword-maker warmly, backslapping and chest rubbing until becoming agitated when told that he must still wait for three more days; “For one more dipping in the blood of eagles.”

Too long! The greed for power subsumed Sang’s soul as his gloved hand grasped the red hot hilt and drew the glowing blade from the coals. Mesmerised by the spitting sparks he fiercely said, “You tell me this blade is ready for blood! So am I! And your blood will suffice to quench our thirst!”

Plunging the sputtering blade into the chest of its maker, Sang laughed the twisted laugh of demons, then raising the sizzling blade with a straight arm above his head to shower himself in the evil of his action and the warm dark drops of blood from the old man who fell back clutching his chest. His grey hair scattered and his eyes like fiery opals.

Sang stood transfixed, hypnotized, and enchanted. Drunk with fermenting power and insane in his ambition to be the absolute ruler of the entire world he danced and spun to the loveless tune, until there! That’s it!

Ah! mazing! A scrap of K F C!”