A thick rope of sand shot forward, ready to twist around Masai’s body. Using my right hand to guide it, I countered with a rope of flame. The fire was hot enough to consume whatever sand was being shoved into it, giving Masai the second she needed to get through the breach. As I backed away to cross the opening, my left hand took control of some of the fire still chewing on the wall. Without sacrificing any of their heat and power, I condensed the flames into a smaller and smaller area. Splitting my prana in this way meant the sand rope started winning, especially with its propagator closing in, but I wanted her to get closer.
When my shrunken ball of rolling fire became no bigger than an apple, I whisked it toward the flame battling the sand, which was now in the breach. I fed the unfocused flame into the core of my apple-sized sun, purposely unbalancing my hold on it. I closed my eyes. In a flash briefly brighter than the morning, the fireball burst. The pebble filled shockwave nearly knocked me back, but more importantly, it blew apart much of the sand wall. The griffin squawked somewhere in the enlarging sand cloud. With any luck, the sand had blinded the rider.
I opened my eyes to a squint and turned to run out of the billow. There was little to discern other than sandy dust in my first half dozen strides. Fuzzy shapes on the move eventually materialized, giving me something to correct my slightly off course run. On exiting from the main body of the cloud, I saw the shadow of a griffin swooping above me and toward my indistinct companions. Shouts in the Shia language came out of him, which the coughing woman rider answered.
The male scout either did not see me or decided to ignore the man who made fire explode and take his chances on the others. He moved too fast for me to personally interfere, so I went with the next best thing. I yelled, “Throw the stones at the griffin!”
Hearing me, the Kiku-shaped outline stopped in her tracks and turned around to face down her airborne pursuer. She had to yell out the same instructions to Ujin to get him to do what I bid. Each reached into their pockets to throw several small objects at the winged beast. I reached out with my prana and set them all off. A couple were the explosive kind, so the lives of their flames lasted too short for me to grab a hold of them. My prana swept over the more enduring flames, successfully latching on to one of the larger embers.
The distance made it difficult to fan the flame, so I settled to pulling the fireball toward me. With the whiptail between me and the miniature bolide, that meant the directed path led it right to the rider and his steed. The soldier cast a ward to block the attack. Though I could not add to the flame’s power, I retained possession of it, and since a little dragon fire equaled the fury of a master pyromancer’s blazing invocation, the ordinary ward buckled and broke from the heat.
Seeing an opening, Kiku threw something else into the mix. A glint of light told me it was a dagger. The rider was taking his griffin higher after the ward fell to ephemeral pieces, so even if he saw the dagger, he had no chance to take evasive maneuvers. The dagger struck somewhere between the whiptail’s right wing and breast. Not enough to bring it down, but enough for the beast to squawk in pain and turn away.
I caught up with the rest of the fugitives at the first gathering of trees. Masai needed a few seconds to lean against a truck and catch her breath. I took the chance to evaluate the situation. Here I saw the female scout well above the settling sand cloud while her partner landed on the beach. Another flapping form appeared to be incoming, but this bluish creature was still too far out to worry about. My chief concern was escaping to the next assembly of trees.
Ready before she was, I scooped up Masai and set off again. The woman rider followed us to the increasingly dense line of trees, though she stayed at a cautious height. For a while we could see the tracker through Pukam’s canopy, which I favored over her sudden disappearance a few minutes later, as it forced me to be extra attentive to an ambush.
In any event, no ambush or the scout herself came into view when exhaustion slowed Ujin and Kiku to a plodding halt. I put Masai’s feet to the ground and sucked in and blew out a lot of air at the same time I surveyed the area, making me a tad dizzy. Putting a finger to my lips instructed everyone not to make conversation. I didn’t hear or see anything alarming, but we were going to have to operate at our sneakiest for at least the rest of the day.
To aid in our clandestine escape, I led us around clearings rather than through them and stayed under the shadiest trees. Besides the forest’s terrain and leafy obstacles, our running speed was limited by shrinking energy reserves and athletic ability. Ujin and Kiku did relatively fine on their own, but Masai still needed to be carried over rough or steep topography every so often. To top it off, the sea breeze and shade curbed what would have otherwise been a refreshing warmth wafting over our wet clothes and skin.
For the first few hours, the prospect of being chased acted as a good motivator to abstain from long rest periods. It wasn’t until the early afternoon did the complete absence of scouts finally motivate us to take our first real break. That’s when the realization of just how tired we really were hit us like a hard belly flop on the water. I actually regretted stopping so abruptly. For the next hour I felt my weight doubling with every step. The others were not doing much better. Our whirlwind run had turned into a cumbersome, fast amble.
The only good thing that came out of our endless effort was recognizing that my legs had not crossed so much land at once in all my life. And one of the numerous bad things that came out of this day was the odd stink and sensation of my salty sweat mixing with the sea salt that adhered itself to most of my crevices after a minute on Akachii. A tub or pool of warm freshwater had now become my main reason to find civilization again.
Since we planned to use Akachii again, we headed back to the coastline in the evening hours. Between the edges of the forest and the sea lied a transitional slope of white, brown, and gray rock. While much of it looked too steep and wet to safely descend on, gentler paths made themselves known now and again. Of course, Kiku was in no shape to summon her gitra at the moment. So as the sun frittered away its final daylight, the four of us finally settled for longer than ten minutes.
Allowing everyone to converse at regular tones, Kiku and Masai started talking to one another in the Jegeru tongue. It sounded cordial enough at first, but at some point Masai’s tone changed into a quarreling inflection. Then her words fought through tears.
“Do you understand the Jegeru speech?” I asked Ujin.
“Uh, I’ve picked up a little from Jegeru traders when I was growing up. If you want to know what they’re talking about, all I can say for sure is that Masai keeps mentioning the word ‘brother.’ Going by other random phrases, I can guess she wants to get back to him, but that’s impossible at this point, of course. It doesn’t help that we’re getting closer to the kingdom she escaped from. She’s just one scared girl.”
“We’ll have to keep an eye on her. I don’t want her running off after all the trouble we’ve gone through.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. I’m sure she’s just airing out all her feelings. What else can she do?”
“Nevertheless. Let her and Kiku rest up first. You’ll go next a little while afterward. When it’s my turn I’ll trust you to keep an eye on Masai while Kiku watches out for scouts, got it?”
“Aye, aye, captain. By the way, I know you don’t want to hear it, but my legs and lungs regret joining you. Not my toes, though. They’re fine. Did I tell you that I only have nine? The baby one on my left foot had to be amputated after a dog bit it.”
“That explains why you run funny.”
“Really? Can you tell?”
“Uhh, sure. It’s all part of a dragon knight’s mystical powers.”
The waves crashing against the rocks made listening out for flapping wings and stamping hooves difficult, but that was the compromise if I wanted to see the western horizon. In spite of my ass sitting on a bumpy rock, I caught my head drooping a few times. If I had given my back some support, I would have certa
inly fallen asleep on my watch. At night’s end, however, no scout appeared to either me or the others. Kiku said she might have seen a large bird sweeping over the water where sea met horizon, but it never came close enough for her to bother waking me up.
At dawn, Kiku summoned Akachii and we departed to the north, doing well to swim just outside of the turbulent meeting point between the unstoppable sea and immovable landmass. The Raquldir worshiper assured Masai that we were not going to cross into Jegeru. The idea was to use Pukam’s coastline as a marker and a place to rest before we had to rely on islands and perhaps a ship or two to get to Daidu-Lu. I presumed the emperor would not allow a foreign princess to associate with the Warriors Guild for long, so I figured I should first check Daidu-Lu for the princess’ presence.
Seemingly less moveable than a continent were our lips and jaws during the first leg of the journey, even after I stated that we no longer needed to keep so quiet. Much of that came from the awkward aura shared by Kiku and Masai. Regardless, it was still Kiku that Masai held on to as Akachii swam through the lumpier parts of the sea.
The end of the day had me believing we were officially out of the reach of Shia authorities. Unless we killed royalty, no commander would order so many resources to be spent on chasing down strangers hiding in an impossibly tangled forest, a forest now adjacent a growing threat to the north. Keen on just getting to my original companions, I insisted we walk for a few hours after dismounting the gitra. I realized that it covered ground that Akachii could swim across in less than half an hour, but my twitching muscles and fitful mind made sitting around for too long unbearable.
It was during this late evening walk that Masai’s mood shifted from awkward and sad to curious and more talkative. Since much of her curious glances were directed toward me, I could guess that Kiku told her who I was, or who hoped to be, at any rate.
That same night, as I carved a dragon rune on a stone I found along the coastline before me, the distant sound of a snapping branch alerted me to a mobile presence somewhere in the forest. While crouching, I ran to inform my sleeping acquaintances of the disturbance. They slept under the skinny branches of a tree with a thick, bending trunk. For some reason, about half of its leaves sported bright purple dots.
I threw a pebble at Shifa’s face to wake her from her short slumber. Her startled stirring inevitably awoke her partner as well. I merely squatted in silence, waiting for Shifa to hear. Sure enough, the rustling of leaves and jumbled voices drifted into our ears. Whoever they were, they were not doing their best to stay clandestine. Shifa had no problem scampering toward the source.
After a quick meander past a few trees, I saw the weak glow of a lantern or simmering torch moving through the trees. The narrow beams of moonlight did a better job of illuminating the dozen or so people traversing the forest floor than the cinder of light being carried by the group’s leader. At any other situation it would have struck me as suspicious to see people wandering the middle of a dense forest at night, but it took no great genius to surmise that this group was striving to find a sanctuary as fast and far as their legs could take them.
Ujin and Kiku caught up to me and Shifa a moment later.
“Jegeru survivors?” Ujin wondered aloud.
“Looks like it,” replied Kiku. “They’re moving south and speaking the Jegeru tongue. Shall we check up on them? They could be in dire straits, hm?”
“Or maybe we can hand over Masai to them.”
“No,” I said. “She’ll want to get back to her brother, and that’s when the soldiers will find her. Whether or not she likes it, she’ll be better off with us for now. In fact, is she still asleep?”
“As deeply as a sheep in a shark.”
“Then don’t even tell her we saw some of her people here. Let them pass. They’re going the right way and it’s not like we have much of anything to give them. And unless we actually bump into people who are in immediate danger, that will go for anyone else we see out here.”
Kiku shrugged and Ujin put a fleeting hand on my shoulder before they walked back to their tree. Therefore, in a decision that would have irked some of the people I was trying to reunite with, I let the exiles continue on their way undisturbed.
Naturally, anyone traveling through Pukam might end up being disturbed by the innumerable hazards lurking in, around, or below the trees. Bandit hideouts, prowling tigers, poisonous plants, and even the occasional vampire clan would normally spell doom to the typical human, but assuming there were hundreds if not thousands of individuals migrating through the forest, I anticipated that the sheer number of people would act as a deterrent to many of these problems. Really, it was probably the availability of food and fresh water that would determine how many people made it to Shia and Yong-Yin.
The rest of the night brought no other groups of survivors near our vicinity. Shia woke me up to warn me about an intruder, but that stalker turned out to be a spiky yellow caterpillar longer than my hand climbing down the tree. Kiku recognized it as a species poisonous to the touch, so I moved to a different tree while Shifa sniffed the bug from a safe distance.
Expecting that lingering in the forest would eventually draw us into a refugee’s time-consuming predicament, I slept only a little and got us up and moving again before the darkness surrendered to the light. And when it came time to rest again, I told Kiku to lead Akachii to a small island of bare rock half a mile from the shore to separate us from the refugee possibility. Not the most comfortable of places, but it worked.
On this night I insisted that Kiku be the one to rest the most. Akachii was going to have to cross the open sea from this point onward, so I needed his summoner to be ready to push her summoning spell beyond her comfort level more than once. Unless some hazard compelled Akachii swim astray, Daidu-Lu should enter our visual range in three days’ time. Consequently, if I permitted myself to envision a hopeful future, that meant I could be reclaiming the power of a true Veknu Milaris in less time than it took to forge the average sword.
Hmm, I wonder what kind of sword a master blacksmith could forge for a true dragon knight? Something I would need to look into someday.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Odet
Taxa Babaya and Klurit Uesato were the names of the possible conspirators. Master Babaya was the younger of the two, having not quite reached his thirtieth year of life. He had not yet inherited his father’s connections and business contracts, but as his father remained in a constant state of sickness the last several years, it was he who fulfilled most of his commitments. Meanwhile, Klurit Uesato was a true lord of his household, though the household’s influence was not as great as Master Babaya’s future estate.
Each one of these men lost people to Wregor aggression years before. Lord Ren definitively heard that a cousin of Master Babaya’s died in a battlefield while Lord Uesato’s younger sister suffered the same fate. Considering the scale of war and the size of their homeland, both families must have also experienced the loss of friends from other noble families that believed in resisting Wregor. On top of the human toll, Wregor seized assets of the families that participated in the war, reducing the overall prestige of the families at the time. These men had been put in a mindset primed for Advent recruitment.
Exposing either one of them came down to Satiko’s ball, which normally occurred as biweekly events. The suspects would arrive days before the social gathering, but without a way to roam freely, I had to wait until they came to the palace for us to share the same space. The next dilemma was figuring out how to avoid being recognized as anything other than our true identities. If the Advent supporter learned who we were, then blackmailing them wouldn’t work. Luckily, the arrangement of the ball itself provided an answer.
The revelry would start as an informal affair in the gardens, where the invited would get to be the ones to introduce themselves at their own pace. There was always the possibility that someone pointed us out before either Gerard or I got close, but since it was improbable that m
en from Tho Blye would have befriended any Wregor noble without more clout, it was hoped that we would come across them before that happened. And really, if our main plan failed, getting less subtle would not be the worst thing in the world.
Procuring Ikumi’s contribution added another layer of precaution. Nothing too involved. I just wanted her to be the one to find our targets and possibly keep one of the suspects distracted while we interrogated the other. I kept her in the dark about Lord Ren’s involvement with the mission. Not that I didn’t trust her, but the less information that was out there, the better. In any case, once she saw Master Ojitaka, she would be able to guess on her own his part in this.
On the day of the ball, Ikumi gave me a green and dark blue dress to wear, colors that would help me blend in with the garden a little more. And going against the trend of styling one’s hair high and intricately, I kept my hair low and in a braid, merely adding two loops that framed my face. Clarissa was of a similar mindset. Speaking of which, she and the scholar would keep themselves from mingling all that much in the ball, for her known vampiric nature and Ghevont’s red hair had them sticking out too much.
The garden party started two hours before the dinner hour. Once the feast was ready, that would prompt the start of the formal ball. It’s there where the more esteemed guests got to be ceremoniously introduced, including a certain foreign valkrean princess. In the meantime, Gerard, Tuktu, and I waited for Ikumi inside a section of hallway that transitioned from a cloistered chamber to an open-air garden by way of walls and a roof that cleverly lost their primary function through increasingly intricate, perforated carvings.
For more than an hour we stayed in our spots, doing little more than shuffling our feet and wondering how likely it was that both suspects would not show up to a prominent affair. Tuktu heard that they appeared in the meetings, so was it possible that one or both men were too nervous to attend the ball? Did that in itself further implicate them as traitors?
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