by Travis Bughi
“I’ll send someone else to Lucifan to keep looking,” she muttered, “but I won’t keep my hopes up. As for you, I have another task in mind.”
“I am your will, my lady,” Hyun said, bowing low once more.
“That you are. Now, have you heard the recent news of what’s taken place in your absence?”
Hyun nodded and said, “My condolences for Oiu. Had I been with him, he’d never have been taken. I’ll lead a force to reclaim him, if that is your wish.”
“Bah!” She waved a wrinkled hand. “Let him rot. I have six more, and they’re all worthless. Pircha couldn’t even conquer the Katsu family before they united! He wants to rule from my seat, the seat I fought to claim, and yet he can’t win a battle I didn’t plan out for him. The inept little bastard, I never should have squeezed him out.”
She might have gone on if a cough hadn’t seized her just then. Hyun, wisely, gave no reply. He averted his eyes at the sight of weakness in his mistress.
Meanwhile, Lady Xuan scolded herself for that show of anger. She was more controlled than that; she knew better. Others did onto themselves through lack of restraint, but she was different. Lady Xuan knew her strengths, her weaknesses, and when to keep herself in check.
Unlike her first husband, she never succumbed to rage and bloodlust, and unlike her second husband, she was neither afraid nor timid. She was Lady Xuan, the Old Woman of the Mountain, Juatwa’s future empress, and the world’s rightful ruler.
If she lived long enough.
“Now, the task I asked you here for,” she said. “Come closer. I think I have a way to solve our problems. My army does not lack for loyal, capable soldiers such as yourself, but I need better commanders and generals. As wretched and bloodthirsty as Jabbar was, he did one thing very well: he conquered people. I would follow in his footsteps.”
Chapter 1
“Let’s get one thing straight; I hate you, and I don’t trust you. I don’t know you half as well as I should, which is already twice as much as I wanted to in the first place. Of what I have heard, nothing has convinced me to give you a chance. You’re a rogue with a dim sense of honor who carries a history of failing those who place their faith in him. Really, it’s a wonder you’re still alive, judging by how many people you’ve managed to alienate and infuriate, me notwithstanding. We were enemies once, still are as far as I’m concerned. The only reason I’ve put up with you thus far is because the only person I hate more and trust less than you is myself.”
The presumptuous Gavin Shaw said all of this in the span of two breaths, which Takeo Karaoshi thought a moderately impressive feat, one worthy of an eyebrow raise. He granted it to the man, lifting the left one and glancing at him for a fraction of a second before turning back to view the greatness of their surroundings.
The two men stood atop one of countless yellow, grassy, rolling hills that spread as far as the eye could see. The ceaseless wind swept by them at a speed that was just a tad uncomfortable, making Takeo’s straight, shoulder length hair whip about his head and catch on his thin lips from time to time, forcing him to spit the strands out. The wind did a fantastic job of keeping the heat off his skin, though. With a big, bright sun, hardly a cloud in the sky, and no shade to be found, the Great Plains might have been a desert were it not for the wind sweeping the heat away. Takeo decided he rather liked it. To him, it represented all the good parts of Savara and Juatwa, but none of the bad. No sand or rakshasas, wars or daimyos, the Great Plains may be rough, but they were peaceful, and Takeo thought he could live here for the remainder of his life without regret.
Not that he would, though.
“One question,” Takeo said. “Are you talking to me or yourself? Whichever the answer, my response is the same: likewise.”
Takeo shifted to regard the knight again, or at least Takeo still considered him a knight. The world’s only remaining angel had said Gavin Shaw was still a knight bound to oath, promise, and honor—they specifically used those words, which always confused Takeo because he thought oath and promise to be the same thing—so Takeo believed Gavin to be a knight. However, to the Knight’s Order in Lucifan, Gavin was no such thing. He had resigned, relinquishing both title and position.
The Order was headed by a vampire, though, so what did they know? Gavin was a knight, just like Takeo was a samurai.
When one beheld this particular knight, they saw a dashing, handsome gentleman in his early twenties. His chiseled chin and light but broad smile complemented his soft, green eyes, which took the breath away from many young females. His blonde, finger-length hair, broad shoulders, respectable height, and athletic physique added to the charm. Gavin was also fond of growing stubble, never shaving hard enough to clean it all away, yet refusing to let it grow into a respectable beard. The stubble almost hid a long, thin scar on the left side of his cheek, which Takeo took more than a casual interest in, since he bore a similar scar in the same place.
Takeo’s scar had come from a rakshasa’s claw. He had yet to ascertain where Gavin’s came from.
The two shared few other similarities. Takeo was younger than Gavin by at least a year and smaller in both height and physique. His hair was black and straight, always kept meticulously cut to shoulder length, and his eyes were dark enough to rival a moonless night. He tried to remain clean-shaven as best he could, even in the absence of water. And Takeo rarely offered more than a smirk or raised brow, unlike Gavin, who waved his arms and wiggled his face with every word.
As if unsatisfied with their differences thus far, the two also dressed and armed themselves differently. While Takeo wore boiled leather given to him by vikings—something he desperately wanted to replace with a kimono—and armed himself with a dwarven-made katana, Gavin wore simple leather breeches and a white tunic and strapped a shoddy longsword to his side. The only similarity was that they both looked drab.
Yet here they were, together on the Great Plains just outside the southern end of the Forest of Angor, watching a group of behemoths muddle about in the distance and arguing about what they were going to do with their miserable, hated lives.
“So we’re in agreement, then,” Gavin said, sighing and taking a seat in the tall grass beside Takeo. “We’re sticking together?”
“I suppose it’s for the best,” Takeo replied. “It’s either that, or we’re stuck with ourselves.”
“No thanks. Like I said, I hate that guy.”
“Me, too.”
A long moment of silence passed between them, one both welcome and expected. They’d once gone a whole month traveling together without speaking a word to one another. All good things came to an end, though.
“So then,” Gavin clapped his hands loudly, “some fourteen years from now, we’ll return to this forest and see if little baby Cyrus wants to make something of himself. Is that the plan?”
“I think so,” Takeo said. “Well, that might be the plan. I mean, for all we know, Cyrus could die between now and then. The Forest of Angor is a dangerous place, judging from my shallow understanding of it. Being a werewolf, he might run off on his own or get into who knows what kind of trouble. Actually, come to think of it, either one or both of us could die between now and then, too. I say we put it out of our minds for at least a decade and revisit the subject then.”
“I’ll have some difficulty with that. We gave Cyrus’ mother our word we’d return. My word is not given lightly.”
“Oh please,” Takeo sighed. “Look at us, Gavin. You’re an ex-knight who stinks of rum and shame. I’m a masterless samurai, a ronin, which makes me an honorless sellsword hardly worth his weight in piss. I think Cyrus’ mother will find it easy to dismiss us if we don’t show up a decade and a half from now. Actually, she might even be glad. And as for Cyrus, I guarantee he’s already forgotten we existed at all. He’s a child.”
Takeo’s words carried only a small measure of contempt and sarcasm, and Gavin voiced no disagreement. A gust of wind rushed by as they took in the sight of the behemot
hs.
There were a good twenty of the beasts a fair distance ahead. These huge, lumbering giants of the Great Plains grew to the size of a small barn, but at this distance, they could be covered from sight with an extended hand. They walked on four short, stubby legs that barely kept their stomachs off the ground and had greenish-brown leathery skin that was impenetrable by all human-made weapons. Only their eyes and stomachs were vulnerable, and those eyes sat on large heads that swung back and forth as the creatures walked. In order to see behind them, behemoths had to turn around. To add, the males had a single, huge horn, bigger than most humans, sprouting from their noses.
Takeo was glad the beasts were so docile. To him, they looked like karkadann, beasts used for riding and pulling burdens in Savara, but enormous. Something that size could be a real terror if it chose to be.
The herd was traveling east across the plains. It would be their mating time soon, and also Emily Stout’s birth season. She would be nineteen this year, Takeo thought as a lump swelled in his throat. She would be nineteen, beautiful, and so full of life.
“So, you would embrace the worst in us?” Gavin asked.
Takeo blinked, the words jarring him from the depths of sorrow he so frequently visited. It took him a second to adjust back into the world of the living, but once he did, he met Gavin’s eyes to stay grounded in the conversation.
“No,” the samurai said. “I would just prefer that we stay honest with ourselves. If we’re ever to amount to anything, we must first understand where we’re at. How can you stop from drowning if you don’t know you’re in the water at all? As of now, we’re skilled swordsmen with no goals and no restraints. The only laws we follow are the ones we’ve set for ourselves. To some, that makes us dangerous, to others useful, but to ourselves? I don’t know. I’ve been struggling with who I am ever since the angels’ aura touched me.”
Gavin flinched and turned back to the migrating behemoths. The angels were a sore subject for him, Takeo knew, but it was unavoidable. Of the five angels that had once existed, only one, Ephron, remained, and Takeo had played a part in bringing down the other four.
It was an action he would forever regret, a sin he could never wash clean.
Gavin sighed and scratched the back of his neck. “Yes, well, you are only half right. I know damned well who I am, and my restraints stay firmly intact. I may have resigned from the Knights’ Order, but Ephron is right. He made me a knight, and only he can free me of the oath, promise, and honor I’ve sworn to uphold. The only thing I lack is a proper goal, something to attach myself to.”
His eyes flicked sidelong at Takeo, quick enough to be unintentional but lingering enough to make the samurai skeptical of his message. Takeo narrowed one eye back and then turned to look at the behemoths.
“Have you sensed that I have a task in mind?” he said.
“That was my thought,” Gavin admitted. “Am I wrong?”
“No, you are not. It seems I am your opposite again. You say you know yourself? Well, I wish to know myself, too. Things were simpler when I was with my older brother. Before he died, I went where he went and killed who he killed. His words—few as they were—were my guiding star in a night so black with death that I never knew it was a nightmare until I awoke. The angels brought the day, but it was Emily who became my sun. Now that she is gone, my night has returned, and I see no more stars. I question why I ever followed one at all.”
“You speak poetry now or something? And so we’re talking about Emily now, too?”
“Why not? You said it yourself; we’d have to eventually.”
“That was half a year ago!” Gavin scoffed
“You never said there was a time limit.”
Gavin stuttered, looked to the sky, and threw up his arms.
Takeo took that as a sign to continue. “Anyway, the long and short of it is that I want to know my past. After some two decades or so in this world, I’m finally ready to face my legacy and find out who my parents were and why my brother was so damned afraid to return home. I had the chance to find out once, but I struck the man down. Now I would find another and not repeat that mistake. I am bound for Juatwa, migrating like the behemoths back to my place of birth.”
A sharp screech echoed in the air, faint yet far too loud at the same time. Gavin and Takeo both whirled and searched the sky for its source. Gavin spotted it first and slapped a hand into Takeo’s chest because the samurai had looked the opposite way. Takeo turned and followed Gavin’s finger, which pointed to a mass of dark clouds that flashed white and roared with thunder.
Takeo drew in a deep breath and held it for a moment.
“Should we move?” he asked. “That’s a thunderbird, isn’t it?”
Despite the many stories told to him by Emily and having lived out here for a good year, Takeo still felt unfamiliar with the Great Plains. This had been Emily’s homeland, not his, and although she’d thought it a prison, Takeo was fascinated with the place and its creatures. One of those creatures was a thunderbird, and Takeo believed they were the most majestic things in all the world, greater even than the angels.
Gavin took one glance at the samurai and huffed at the level of interest written in those black eyes. He took a deep breath of his own and let it out with an exaggerated groan.
“Farmers say only fools wait to be killed by thunderbirds,” he said, “so let us be fools. Doubtless it’s heading for those behemoths anyway, and they’re far enough away the lightning bolts won’t hurt us. Hey, we might even get some rain. That’d be nice. I might be able to wash out some of this rum and shame.”
So, against their better judgment and the sage advice of farmers, the two men awaited the thunderbird’s approach.
Another screech pierced the air, and the thunderbird launched out of the mass of dark clouds that swirled around it, headed for the behemoth herd. Even at this distance, Takeo could see its yellow beak, pure white eyes, and mix of white and brown feathers. It looked surprisingly similar to a roc, though not nearly as big. Thunderbirds were as big as behemoths, but rocs were the size of mountains. As it soared, the clouds followed, miraculously appearing about the creature with every beat of its wings. With that came thunder, darkness, and rain, and the thunderbird cast a shadow so great that the darkness even encompassed the men.
As Gavin predicted, the clouds brought a chilling rain. They were on the outskirts of it and thus only received a light drizzle, but the behemoths were encased in the downpour of a thunderstorm. The beasts moaned and waddled together, huddling for safety and yet never bothering to halt their journey eastward. The bird screeched above them, dived down, and selected one of the poor beasts to tear into.
Takeo whipped the water from his eyes and squinted into the distance. Things became harder to discern with the combination of darkness, rain, and distance, but the sight of such an epic struggle was not easy to miss. The thunderbird attacked mercilessly, landing on one behemoth’s back and digging into it with razor sharp claws. Behemoth hide was thick, though, and although the talons found purchase, they did not rip through. The behemoth fought back, leaping up on its back legs to snap at the thunderbird. This proved a fatal error, as this exposed the creature’s vulnerable stomach. Takeo watched in fascination as the thunderbird swooped down and ripped open a gash in the behemoth’s side, all the while screeching horribly.
The behemoth stumbled to the ground, its blood pouring out onto the plains, but the other behemoths trudged onward hurriedly rather than assist the injured. When that happened, the thunderbird flew back into the sky, and Takeo held his breath.
Its two wings came together, and a bolt of lightning shot down to strike the behemoth dead.
The thunder blew into Takeo like a strike to the heart, leaving him breathless. He staggered, then tripped, his flat sandals losing grip on the slick weeds at his feet. Dimly, he was aware of Gavin chuckling at him. More acutely, he was aware of the thunderbird descending from the sky to feast on its meal. It screeched again, this time so l
oud that both men yelped and covered their ears. Then the bird began to rip into the dead behemoth’s belly.
Nearby, the behemoth herd moved on.
“Well, that settles it, then,” Gavin said, yelling over the wind, the rain, and the ringing in their ears. “I’m coming with you.”
“Really?” Takeo replied. “All the way to Juatwa?”
“Why not? Emily left me for that place, so there must be something special about it. Besides, what’s that old saying? Keep your friends close but your enemies closer? I haven’t decided yet which one you are, but I know for damn sure that I trust you a lot more than I trust myself. At least if I’m next to you, I won’t be climbing back inside a bottle anytime soon. So, lead on, samurai, and sleep well, knowing there is a knight at your back who was spurned by your true love.”
Takeo turned to Gavin and, for the first time in the year he’d travelled with the man, felt a warm tug on the fringes of his ice-cold heart. His left cheek twitched in what could have been a smile’s shadow.
“Where are we off to first?” Gavin asked.
“To visit old friends,” Takeo replied, “and to pay our respects.”
Chapter 2
It would be a several month journey back across the Great Plains to their destination, a trip they’d already made three times over the past year. The first trip had been from Lucifan to the Forest of Angor to deliver a set of letters to one ex-amazon-turned-werewolf named Belen. The second had been to take her one-year-old werewolf child named Cyrus back across the plains to the Khaz Mal Mountains for him to be cured by the angel, Ephron. The angel had instead given Cyrus the unique ability to control himself when shifted to his werewolf form and then sent Takeo and Gavin back, again, across the plains to the Forest of Angor to deliver the child back into his mother’s arms.
