Inspired by a classic of martial arts literature, S. L. Huang’s The Water Outlaws are bandits of devastating ruthlessness, unseemly femininity, dangerous philosophies, and ungovernable gender who are ready to make history―or tear it apart.

In the jianghu, you break the law to make it your own.

Lin Chong is an expert arms instructor, training the Emperor’s soldiers in sword and truncheon, battle axe and spear, lance and crossbow. Unlike bolder friends who flirt with challenging the unequal hierarchies and values of Imperial society, she believes in keeping her head down and doing her job.

Until a powerful man with a vendetta rips that carefully-built life away.

Disgraced, tattooed as a criminal, and on the run from an Imperial Marshall who will stop at nothing to see her dead, Lin Chong is recruited by the Bandits of Liangshan. Mountain outlaws on the margins of society, the Liangshan Bandits proclaim a belief in justice―for women, for the downtrodden, for progressive thinkers a corrupt Empire would imprison or destroy. They’re also murderers, thieves, smugglers, and cutthroats.

Apart, they love like demons and fight like tigers. Together, they could bring down an empire.

From Chapter 4

The abbot at the monastery had given Lu Da the name “Zhishen,” meaning “Deep and Profound.” He had told Lu Da he hoped it was aspirational, with a little bit of pleading in his eyes as he said it. It was the same look of despairing patience he got when he happened upon Lu Da when she was drunk and cheerful with song, or when he caught her with a side of pork or a handful of duck legs tucked in the front of her robes. (How did vegetarianism help with enlightenment? Lu Da wished to eat her way deliciously toward becoming an immortal, and she couldn’t fathom any problem with that. The other immortals would tear their hair in jealousy when they saw her in their ranks chowing down on pork belly!)

Lu Da did not let it bother her overmuch that nobody had achieved immortality in hundreds of years, not even the ascetic Fa masters. She also did not hold with her erstwhile abbot’s sad aspirational sighs. Deep and Profound? She was plenty deep and profound already, thank you very much. The haojie out at Mount Liang certainly seemed to think so, and Lu Da was coming to believe she was far more suited to their ways of thinking than the monks’ anyway. What a boon that this new fellowship had opened their ranks to her and welcomed her among them! How they would all change the world together!

Lu Da did believe in the way of the Fa—well, except for the vegetarianism, and the temperance, and the celibacy, and also how was it possible one needed that much practice at one’s art to reach enlightenment? But as little actual philosophizing as she might do, her heart was the heart of a philosopher, and she would live according to the Fa (with her own adjustments) until the day she died. Or preferably didn’t die and became an immortal forever.

But the way of the Fa didn’t have to be the way of the monks, did it? What a revelation—there, was that thought not the peak of deep and profound? She had not been with the Liangshan group long, still some distance shy of a year, but she was already coming to believe they were her own type of monks . . . sort of, if she tilted her head and squinted. They were heroic and chivalrous, after all, with the most strict codes of belief. What was more monk-like than that? Chao Gai even had religious training in a monastery, though as a Transcendentalist rather than with the Fa, and for the practice of ghost hunting, which fascinated Lu Da. Ghosts! She very much wanted to meet a ghost. She thought it must be wild, like wrestling a boar or running naked with panthers. In fact, Lu Da thought she might want nothing more than to be like Chao Gai—such a powerful official and ghost hunter, with so many connections  and such genius in plans and tactics—and who chose to break from those dastardly societal hierarchies to crusade for true justice.

What a magnificent haojie, a genuine hero. And such a pure example of Lu Da’s new family at Liangshan!

Such were Lu Da’s convictions that she did not have to wonder for even an instant what Chao Gai or her other fellows at Liangshan would think of the situation with Lin Chong. A loyal patriot of the Empire, locked away on a pretense, on the whim of one of the region’s most putrid and gutless bureaucrats? A man whose innards were so rotten with corruption that even maggots would gag at them? Unacceptable! 

Chao Gai would say so; their leader Wang Lun would say so; and Lu Da certainly said so.

She would have even before meeting the other haojie. After all, had she not brought pulverizing justice to the skull of that predatory butcher? And had the brand to prove it, thank you very much!

Her righteous rage did not keep her from devouring a plate of steamed pork buns, however. Or two sacks of salted duck egg yolks. Or several platters of fried tofu. Or five bowls of wine. Lu Junyi had left her with a generous meal stipend while she waited . . . how rude it would be, Lu Da reasoned, if she did not make fullest use  of it? Lu Junyi had seemed to think she could make headway at the prefectural yamen with words rather than fists, and she’d declined Lu Da’s offer of accompaniment.

Lu Da didn’t mind, especially when Lu Junyi asked if she would wait at a very well-stocked inn.

With exuberant cynicism, Lu Da privately did not expect the foray to have any effect. Everyone knew the ways of the bureaucratic courts these days. She kept her staff leaning up against the table, determined to stay fully prepared. As capable and fancy as Lu Junyi seemed, Lu Da thought it very unlikely she could talk the master arms instructor’s execution out of happening. It would be as easy to convince a fish to marry a dog. And when the effort crashed in failure, then it would be down to trusty staff and sword to make things right.

At least Lu Junyi could also fight—skillfully, too. Her martial talent was only a little surprising. After all, many of these rich folk learned the martial arts alongside music and calligraphy from the time they were pushed out from between their mothers’ bloody legs. Learned from private tutors, too, not scraping to find a master like Lu Da . . . only a little jealousy gnawed at that thought.

A little more unusual that Lu Junyi had kept on with her study, though. Lu Da was willing to bet most society women retained only the most basic forms and then went on to pop out well-educated broods of their own—at least, she didn’t think most rich people practiced eye gouges for amusement, though to be fair she’d never known enough rich people to be sure, so maybe they did. Maybe they gouged out the eyes of all their servants on the regular! Though in that case, Lu Da probably would have met a few more eyeless people than she had, so probably not. The point was, Lu Junyi’s skill was satisfactory enough to have a person’s back, which made for better odds when busting up a prison together.

Hypothetically.

Lu Da was just finishing a plate of pork-fried noodles and a twelfth bowl of wine when the curtain at the door pushed aside and Lu Junyi slipped inside the inn. The setting sun slanted in briefly behind her before the curtain fell closed again. She came over to Lu Da’s table to join her, sinking to the bench and raising exhausted hands to her face.

“How did it go? Does Master Instructor Lin still live? Are we burning down the jail to get her out?” Lu Da slurped the grease from her fingers and tightened a hand around her staff. It sure would be glorious to break apart the jail. Likely even she and Lu Junyi together did not stand a quarter of a chance, but if they failed it would be an excellent death.

“She’s alive.” Lu Junyi inhaled sharply and tried to straighten the fatigue out of her posture, without success. “Prefect Teng agreed to keep her from the headsman’s sword. Oh!”

She appeared gripped with such emotion that Lu Da felt profound sympathy. Lu Da did not have any similarly lifelong friend, but already she knew she would die for her Liangshan martial fellows, and if one of them fell to such injustice . . . well, she would rend limbs from bodies to make it right, until the ground was knee-deep with arms and legs and heads. All of them would.

When she’d met Lu Junyi only days ago, Lu Da had been quietly and a little huffily intimidated—what with Lu Junyi’s rich clothes and delicate table manners and porcelain-white hands. Even the fact that her fingers were streaked with ink pointed to a far more erudite life than Lu Da had ever known. Not to mention that the skin beneath the streaks was the kind of pale that wealthy women lusted after and Lu Da privately thought looked sickly, as if some creature had sucked the blood from the woman’s body. Lu Da’s own skin was the bronze of her hometown to the south, darkened and cracked further by the sun and thickened into calluses by swords and fistfights and a day-to-day life that had never known servants . . . but seeing Lu Junyi’s despair over her friend somehow made her feel much more like a sister. Even more than discovering a mutual interest in the fighting arts.

I will make sure she does not have to suffer the loss of this friendship, Lu Da swore to herself. It’s only right.

Lu Junyi managed to compose herself. “She’s to be taken to the work camp at Canghu. It’s at least ten days’ hard journey. I need . . . she asked me to go to her rooms, her things . . .”

“How can I help?” Lu Da had to admit she felt a prick of disappointment that they were not to break Lin Chong out of prison. Maybe she could take this to Liangshan once Lin Chong was in Canghu, though. The haojie would never tolerate hearing such a story, standing for justice above all as they did. Chao Gai would come up with a plan to bust Lin Chong from the work camp in three whisks of a rat’s tail. Lin Chong  was an honorable woman, so it should be done whether or not her own friend thought it was the right move, shouldn’t it?

Lu Da knew her grasp of politics was tenuous and often taken over by more hotheaded goals, but she could consult with Chao Gai and the others. They would know what to do.

“If I can ask . . .” Lu Junyi pressed her hands to the table. “You have no obligation to us, but as a charitable monk, perhaps you would be willing . . . ? The guards are to take her tomorrow. The journey will be treacherous; she is already very weak, and I—I do not think I would have the endurance to follow. But I think you are stronger than I—if you are willing, I would give you gold and silver for the journey, of course . . .”

“Say no more,” Lu Da declared. “I will see that they deliver her safely to the prison camp. Such a contradiction, though, isn’t it? A prison camp isn’t very safe.”

“No. It isn’t. But I have sent a courier to the supervisor, and I’ve given Lin Chong gold for him—I’ve done this for others before; enough gold will see her a soft assignment. Sweeping out one of the temples, or keeping watch . . .”

Hrrmph, Lu Da thought. Lu Junyi’s way of solutions was to fling ingots of gold and silver at the matter, like flinging meat to quiet a yapping cur. Not an option that had ever been available to Lu Da, and less noble in her eyes than bashing a few heads together, freeing Lin Chong, and taking her to Liangshan. But she could also see how Lu Junyi’s hands knitted against each other, how worry and grief bit over the skin of her face. I will dance your dance for now.

It would do no harm to watch over Lin Chong. Make sure she was protected on the road.

“I’ve paid the guards already also,” Lu Junyi continued. “With a promise of more upon their return, so they will be motivated not to mistreat her. But I hear increasing reports of bandits roving to the northeast of here, and I fear the abuse of her punishment will make her take ill on the journey. If you would—forgive me; it is all so much to ask.”

Bandits, thought Lu Da, with a private chuckle. Yes indeed, that’s what they call us! But she did not mention the Liangshan haojie. She’d decided she liked Lu Junyi, but a woman who could walk into a yamen and demand an audience with the prefect—and obtain it!—was one she would wait to trust with the truth about the honorable “bandits” of Mount Liang.

Less honorable bandits also roamed the roads to the northeast, of course, ones who would slash innocent travelers in the back rather than carefully target those they stole from. Lu Da had full confidence she could protect Lin Chong from them. And if she ran into any of her Liangshan family, so much the better. Too bad she didn’t have  time to get back and speak to them now.

“You have no need for more worry about Master Instructor Lin,” she told Lu Junyi. “I’ll see her to Canghu alive and intact—I swear on my life.”

Lu Junyi bowed her head. “I don’t know how I can thank you. I will owe you a great debt.”

“No debt,” Lu Da replied carelessly. “As you said, I am a monk of the Fa! Protecting those in need is what we do.” And I am a bandit of Liangshan, and protecting those in need is also what we do.

The people of Bianliang would know the name of the Liangshan bandits soon enough. And Lu Da would help carve out those stories on the lawless roads, beginning with the protection of one Honorable Master Arms Instructor Lin Chong.

The Water Outlaws is due for release on 17th August from Solaris. You can pre-order your copy on Bookshop.org