“Can you hear me?”
She beamed. “Fairly well. Not like normal, but I can hear you. The ringing is gone.”
“You'll need time to fully recover. My hearing's just now turning normal. Just make sure you wear the earplugs.”
Iniru smiled shyly and drew him into a quick hug. For a moment he knew of nothing in the world but her body pressed against his. She kissed him on the cheek. The fur of her short muzzle tickled lightly. Her lips were soft and smooth.
Turesobei blushed. “You're welcome, Iniru.”
At that moment eerie howls sounded to the northwest. “There's nothing to do but press on,” Turesobei said. “I’m not going back.”
Onudaka nodded. “We're with you, lad.”
“Maybe I underestimated you,” Iniru said.
Turesobei smiled sheepishly. “I guess I do well under pressure.”
“You didn't know that before now?”
* * *
Twilight approached. In a grove of tall trees set onto a distant hill, orange lights appeared. They didn't know the source, but the tracks of the cultists headed in that direction. The howls drew closer, so they maintained a steady, jogging pace. For a second, Turesobei thought he saw one of the Bogamaru Sengi soar through the sky overhead.
Turesobei stopped and leaned against a tree. “Hold up. I have to catch my breath.”
Iniru stomped over to him. “We don't have time to stop!”
“I can't go on, and we're not going to outrun them.”
“I've got to rest as well,” Onudaka gasped. “I'm not as young as you two.”
Iniru muttered a curse and paced around. After a few minutes, she said, “Ready yet?”
“Hold on, let me check the kenja currents to see where the beasts are.” Turesobei scanned the forest with his kenja-sight. “They're trying to encircle us.”
“I was afraid of that,” Onudaka said.
Turesobei sighed and released his kenja-sight. “I guess the white-steel is making them wary. Otherwise, why not just attack us en masse?”
Iniru was looking at him strangely. “What?” he said accusingly.
“Don't get touchy,” she said. “Your eyes glaze over white when you read the currents. Did you know that?”
“Yes. What about it?”
“It's creepy and unnatural.”
“I'm glad you like it.”
“There's hope for you,” she said. “Come on, let's go.”
She ran ahead to scout the way. Turesobei said to Onudaka, “Who put her in charge anyway?”
The old zaboko shrugged. “Best we listen to her. She knows what she's doing.”
“We might as well rest and gather our strength. We're not going to escape them.”
Iniru suddenly appeared at his side. He didn't know how she could move so fast and quietly. “I'm trying to find a defensible spot, you idiot. Now get moving!”
* * *
They reached a steep cliff, and Onudaka immediately spotted a cleft that led into a hollow about thirty paces across.
“This looks like a decent place to die,” she said.
Turesobei gasped, “I'm glad…you're so happy…about it.” He bent over and placed his hands on his knees, struggling for breath.
“Spare me the sarcasm,” she said. “How close are they? Sounds like we got ahead of them.”
“I don't know how we did it,” Onudaka said. “They can move much faster than we can.”
“I don't have the strength to open my sight,” Turesobei said.
Iniru snapped at him. “Then keep your mouth closed and stand up straight. Bending over makes it harder to breathe properly.”
Iniru sat down and leaned back against the rock. She pulled the scarf from her face and the hood from her head. For the first time, she appeared tired and winded. Turesobei couldn't imagine what sort of training she'd gone through to be in this good of shape.
“I knew there would be trouble with the sengi somewhere soon,” she said. “Only I never imagined I'd be facing them.”
“What do you mean?” Onudaka asked, dropping his heavy pack to partially block the cleft.
“Didn't you hear? Someone stole the shrine statue of the Bogamaru Regiment from the capital.”
“Recently?” Turesobei asked.
“No, ten years ago, that's why I'm suddenly concerned now.”
“I thought you didn't want to hear any sarcasm.”
“I just don't want to hear it from you, baojendari. It was three months ago.”
Turesobei bit back an angry reply. “The statue could be used to bind the sengi. That would make doing so much easier. Though I still can't imagine someone powerful enough to bind something like them. I'm pretty sure my grandfather couldn't do it.”
“Is there a simpler way?” Iniru asked. “Some way to cut corners, perhaps? Maybe they didn't bind all the sengi.”
Turesobei shrugged. “There are a lot of them after us, I know that. Based on my kenja-sight, I’d say at least a dozen. Possibly twice that.”
Onudaka scratched through his grey beard. Suddenly, his large, charcoal eyes lit up. “Their leader! If they were anything like your legends, the Bogamaru would surely follow their sergeant even into the fires of Torment. What if he was the only one bound and the others simply followed him?”
“The statue actually depicts him,” Iniru said.
“That's it!” Turesobei exclaimed. “And they may not be attacking us because they're awaiting his orders on how to deal with the sword. Iniru, tell me exactly what this statue looks like. Every detail you can remember.”
After her description, Turesobei knelt and drew a ring of power around himself by tracing his finger through the muddy turf. He envisioned what the statue must look like and chanted the spell of locating that which is hidden. Ideally, a wizard would study firsthand an object he wished to pinpoint. Otherwise, he should have little chance of success. Nevertheless, Turesobei tried and was surprised when he picked up an energy trail.
He stood and gathered his resolve to move on. “I can find it, and it’s not far away.” He unbelted his father's white-steel sword and reached it out to Iniru. “Take it. I'm too weak to fight them. And I'm going to have to keep my kenja-sight going.”
She frowned with suspicion. “Are you going to turn me in later for touching one of your sacred blades?”
“I'm not that kind of baojendari!”
Without apologizing, she took the blade. “Then let's go.”
Onudaka took Turesobei's pack for him. Turesobei led them now, frequently adjusting his course so that they followed a winding trail through the forest, away from the cultists' tracks and the glowing trees. Twilight set upon them. Perhaps this was why the sengi had held off. In the dark, they would never be able to see the sengi coming.
“Why wouldn't they keep the statue at their base?” Iniru asked, after noting their course was moving farther away from the direction the cultists had taken.
Turesobei shrugged. “Maybe they're not going home. Maybe they can't keep it there for some reason. I have no idea.”
“Are you sure your spell worked?”
“No way of knowing unless we find the statue.”
Chapter Thirty
When the first Bogamaru Sengi attacked, it moved like lightning. A large, translucent wolf erupted from the trees and crashed into Onudaka. The two rolled across the ground.
Iniru leapt toward them and stabbed the white-steel sword into the wolf-sengi's back. The tip of the sword stopped just short of Onudaka's throat.
The beast howled in its death throes. Then, with a blast of sound, it perished. The earplugs saved their ears, but the blast still knocked them to the ground. They wasted no time in getting up and running again. Two more wolves charged them, and a bear rumbled after them, gaining fast.
“I think we're close!” Turesobei shouted.
Iniru slashed at the wolves, warding them away with the white-steel sword which they now feared. Howls and the pounding of paws came from close and
far behind them.
Iniru slowed and turned toward the wolves and the bear. “You two go ahead! I'll hold them off as long as I can.”
“No, Iniru!” Turesobei said.
“Get to the statue or we're all dead!”
Onudaka tugged his arm. “She knows what she's doing.”
A giant, hazy condor swooped overhead, just above the treetops. Turesobei gritted his teeth and ran harder. Amazingly, Onudaka could keep up with him.
They raced into a clearing. In the center rose a jagged outcropping, about twenty feet high, with a flattened top. On its summit perched a statue about half Turesobei's height.
“That's it,” he said. “At the top.”
A feminine scream pierced through a host of roars and growls. Then came the death boom of another sengi.
“Iniru!” Turesobei shouted.
“Concentrate on this,” Onudaka said. “It's the only way to save her.”
“I can't climb it.”
Onudaka dropped his pack and took out his climbing claws, which he hastily wrapped onto his hands. “Hop on my back. I'll get you up there.”
Onudaka jumped up and caught onto a crevice with one hand. Turesobei leapt onto his back. They dangled for a moment, and then Onudaka jammed the claws of the other hand into the crevice. He lifted them up, eyed the rock ahead, picked another spot, and up they went.
Iniru rushed into the clearing with a tiger-sengi swatting at her back. She spun and slashed with Sumada. She scored the tiger across the nose and it backed off. She was bleeding. The left arm of her uniform was ripped open. Her facemask and half of her hood had been torn off. There was blood on her scalp, too.
As she put her back to the outcrop, over a dozen wolves, two tigers, and three bears entered the clearing. They were shimmering and barely visible in the twilight. If they charged all at once, some would surely die against Iniru, but not all of them. They would overwhelm her. Turesobei wanted to drop down and help, but he kept his resolve.
Onudaka slipped. For a moment they slid downward, but then he caught to something and they held on. Turesobei gripped Onudaka tighter and wished him onward. A bear-sengi tested Iniru's defenses. She held but only just.
A screeching cry echoed from above and the beasts began to advance in unison. Turesobei glanced up. A giant condor-sengi swept across Avida, the bright moon.
As soon as Onudaka gripped the top of the outcrop, Turesobei scrambled up his back and onto the outcrop’s summit.
“Look out, lad!”
Turesobei dove toward the statue. The condor swooped by. Its razor-sharp talons slashed across Turesobei's right leg but weren’t able to latch on. The expansive wings beat against the air as the beast cried with irritation at having missed its prey.
Iniru screamed below. Metal clanged against stone.
Turesobei leapt to his feet and grasped the head of the statue: a stern and honest-looking zaboko soldier in wicker armor, armed with a spear and a shield. A condor was emblazoned on the shield. The binding on the statue was powerful but faulty. It had been cast with dangerous blood magic, yet poorly drawn. Mistakes littered the blood runes drawn onto the stone. Whoever had bound this Bogamaru Sengi had tremendous talent, but not much more skill than Turesobei did. And this person was certainly more careless. There was already a weak spot in the binding on the statue. A normal zhurakami would have exploited such a chink to gain its freedom in a matter of days. But no doubt the Bogamaru thought differently than demons, having once lived as normal men.
Turesobei drew the spell-strip from his pouch and chanted the command, focusing on this vulnerability. The counter-spell erupted to life with a blaze of blue-white sparks. The spell was tearing and unraveling, faster than most bindings of this type, but not fast enough.
The condor wheeled about in the air and plunged downward.
Turesobei had to do something, and fast. With sweaty palms he streaked his hand across the statue, smudging the blood runes.
The condor pulled up from its dive, flashed across the outcrop, and flew off into the forest.
Turesobei looked about. Where was Onudaka? Why wasn’t he up here with him? What about Iniru? He didn't hear any sounds from down below, from the sengi or his companions.
Turesobei rushed to the edge of the outcrop. “Iniru! Onudaka!”
“We’re here,” the zaboko medic called out.
Below him, the qengai girl was lying motionless at the base of the outcrop. Onudaka was standing guard over her. Seven of the Bogamaru Sengi were warily backing away from them.
“Is she…”
“Alive?” said Onudaka. “Yes. And I think her injuries are relatively mild.”
“What about you? Are you okay?”
“Just some scrapes and bruises. I’ll manage.”
Leaves rustled and wings flapped. The translucent condor reemerged from the forest, flew to the outcrop, and landed beside Turesobei.
“We are not your enemies,” Turesobei stated swiftly.
“Yes, I know,” the condor said in a distant voice. “You freed me, and by extension, my companions. For my fate is theirs.” The accent was thick, the language ancient and difficult for Turesobei to understand. “We hadn’t known we were bound, though I remember when it happened, almost a month ago.”
“Who bound you?”
“A pale-skin sorcerer like you. I don't know his name. He sent us here to defend the approach to a citadel further up into the mountains. We followed blindly.” The condor's eyes narrowed. “I shall have my revenge upon him.”
An idea struck Turesobei. “Would you help me rescue my father? I believe he is being kept in the citadel, which belongs to a group known as the Storm Cult. Have you heard of them before? The wizard who did this is apparently one of them.”
“I have not heard of this cult,” said the condor, “but I think any object related to Naruwakiru should be left alone.”
“I agree, but reason couldn’t stop my father from seeking it any more than it could stop the Storm Cult.”
“We will help you,” the condor said. “But we cannot help for long. We have other responsibilities. Before Zhura Dark Moon is born anew in four days, we must return to our home high in the mountains. Long have we guarded a fragile breeding ground for condors. Their revenant enemies rise with each new Zhura, and if we are not there, the condors will perish.”
“We shall move fast, then.”
“Also, you must vow that if we do not reach him, you will avenge us upon this wizard. He dared much to mislead and bind us.”
“I understand,” said Turesobei. “And I swear that I shall avenge the wrong done to you, sir…”
“Condor. That is the name I go by now.”
“Chonda Turesobei,” he replied, holding out his hand.
Condor bent his head and touched his beak to Turesobei's hand. “The vow is accepted, Chonda Turesobei.”
Turesobei glanced down the outcrop. “Sorry, but I must go down and make sure my friends are okay.”
“We are sorry,” Condor said. “We did not mean to harm any of you.”
A lump of guilt caught in Turesobei's throat. “And I am sorry that we…killed…some of you.”
Condor shook his head. “Do not be sorry. I was a fool to be tricked and bound in this manner. Besides, oblivion is not so bad. It is a welcome release from this half-life we've been punished with.”
“I-I could give all of you that release,” Turesobei said, quaking in dread from his own words.
“Thank you, my new friend. It is a kind and honorable offer. But it would not be acceptable. We have sworn to guard Amasan's children in the mountains. That is our punishment for taking vengeance beyond what was our right to give. We will continue that mission as promised, until the end of forever or until the goddess returns and releases us.”
* * *
While the sengi kept guard on the outskirts of the clearing, Turesobei helped Onudaka tend to Iniru, who woke for just long enough to drink an herbal potion and some water. He coul
dn't cast another healing on her yet. A second one within twenty-four hours never helped and sometimes made matters worse.
Onudaka and Turesobei tended each others' wounds then made camp beneath the outcrop. They slept without a watch, allowing the Bogamaru Sengi to guard them.
When Turesobei awoke several hours after dawn, he cast healing spells onto Onudaka and Iniru. She was now half recovered, and Onudaka was nearly well. Iniru was grateful to Turesobei for half a day before she started snapping and complaining at him. He sighed and endured it all patiently. In a way it was almost like being at home.
“How far is it to the citadel?” Turesobei asked Condor.
“A full day’s walk for you.”
Turesobei wanted to march off immediately. He trembled as he restrained himself from declaring that he would set out on his own. It felt like he was giving up, but he had to do this right. It wouldn’t help his father for him to rush in and botch a rescue attempt.
“In that case, we should rest another night before pressing on,” Turesobei said in a shaky, unsure murmur. “We are in no condition to fight at the moment. Is that all right?”
“Yes.”
“Promise you won’t attack the citadel without us.”
“You have my word,” Condor said, and then he returned to the skies, where he circled overhead most of the day and night, watching for enemies.
Onudaka and Iniru ate and went to sleep early, curled up near the small fire they’d built at the base of the outcrop. Turesobei didn’t join them. Though dismayed and anxious to try to rescue his dad, he was going to take this opportunity to at last check up on poor Lu Bei, though he feared the little fetch, like his dad, was probably lost forever.
Chapter Thirty-One
Sixty paces, a boulder, and a stand of trees separated Turesobei from the others, but he was still within the area guarded by the Bogamaru Sengi. He took the diary from his satchel. The runes still didn’t glimmer under his touch. It felt lifeless and his kenja-sight showed only faint traces of energy. He thumbed through the diary carefully. The hole ripped through the middle was unchanged, and spots of blue mildew had begun to stain the pages.
Storm Phase Series: Books 1-3 Page 15
