The north wind blew hot over her and the dozen rangers in her retinue. The wind lifted the banner of Tar Ebon high above them. Despite having been in the desert lands of Sagami for less than a week, the group had already run into one sandstorm that caused them to seek shelter and buried them in sand.
As they approached the city, a group of riders thundered out of the gates, moving toward the retinue from Tar Ebon. Bridgette looked to the captain of the squad, Selby Osley. “Captain Osley, have your men keep their swords sheathed and their bows unstrung.”
The captain nodded, though he eyed the oncoming riders with suspicion. “As you say.”
The group of riders came to a halt a dozen yards from Bridgette. A trio of soldiers rode forward to stop a few meters from her. They wore indigo robes with thick head coverings, while veils covered all but their eyes. Loose indigo trousers sprouted from black ankle-high boots. Each man held a short lance in their hands, while the scabbard of a katana hung from the belt of each man.
The leader of the group studied Bridgette, dark eyes showing no emotion. “I am Captain Kado Yoshida. State your business here, wetlanders.” “Explain why a dozen soldiers from Tar Ebon are at our doorstep.”
“My name is Bridgette,” Bridgette began, biting back a sarcastic retort. “We are here on a diplomatic mission. We seek an audience with the shogun.”
“A woman?” he asked, sounding incredulous. “You are a woman?”
“You know the answer to that,” Bridgette said, getting annoyed.
The man laughed. “Your king sends a woman to negotiate with our shogun? Fool. Go back to your home, woman, and leave this business to men.” He shook his head. “Are the others with you women as well?”
Bridgette glared at the man. Chauvinism was nothing new in the world of Tar Ebon, Bridgette knew. Lord Garik’s own men had fallen prey to it - until she taught them otherwise. Men respected only strength but she was stronger than almost any man. “I will speak with your shogun, with or without your approval.”
The man’s eyes widened at the affront. “Is that a threat?” the man asked, a dangerous edge to his voice.
“It is a promise,” Bridgette said. “You will either lead me to the shogun, get out of my way so I can find the shogun myself or you will be…incapacitated.”
“You dishonor me! I will kill you for this.” He dismounted and assumed a fighting stand, with knees bent, legs wide and sword in its sheath. His right hand gripped the hilt, his left grasping the sheath beneath the hilt of the sword. He withdrew his katana, a shining steel blade over two feet in length, and adjusted his stance so that the heel of his left foot was even with his right heel and turned outward for balance. Tucking the sheath behind him with his left hand, he swung the sword from left to right at shoulder level. “Fight me!”
Bridgette dismounted and handed the reigns to Captain Osley. “Do not interfere, whatever the outcome,” Bridgette said. “If I fall, attempt to negotiate and flee if they refuse.”
“Good luck, my lady,” Captain Osley said.
“I’m no lady,” Bridgette whispered as she turned to face Captain Yoshida, “I am death.” She withdrew two of her long daggers from her sheaths and assumed a fighting stance, feet spread apart with her right hand raised above her head, her left hand holding her blade horizontally in front of her. She waited.
Captain Yoshida added his left hand to the sword and moved the blade to the right side of his body, held sideways, right elbow bent and left elbow bent, holding the swords just above his waist. He issued no battle cry, but rushed forward, swinging his blade as he neared Bridgette. Bridgette deflected the blow meant to disembowel her with her left dagger, while she spun her body to avoid the trajectory of the blade and attempted to slash the man with her other dagger. He was faster than she expected and her own blade met his as he flashed the lightweight blade around to counter.
The two exchanged blows, Captain Yoshida varying his strikes between horizontal strikes, overhead strikes and diagonal slashes. Bridgette spun and delivered a volley of slashes, though most of the blows were countered by Yoshida’s sword blade or hilt or his thick bracers. The man had an advantage with his longer sword, though Bridgette proved her skill as one of her blade sliced across his shoulder, drawing blood. The sight of blood enraged the man, causing his blows to come faster. Bridgette dodged and parried to avoid being struck, though the power to shift into the shadow realm, whether in part or in full, sat at the edge of her mind, ready to be activated with a mere thought.
During a lull in the fighting, Bridgette backed up. Enough was enough. Her opponent watched, moving in a semi-circle, sword at the ready. “Do you yield?” she asked.
The man was silent for a moment, before bellowing out a laugh. “Yield? It is you who should yield, little bitch. You think that slicing me once means you will not die? Foolish child.”
Bridgette sighed. Why were men so stubborn? “I think that I have been holding back, you doddering imbecile. I was hoping to avoid killing any of your kind today, so I am offering you a way out. Admit I have won, or at least that it is a draw, and take me to the shogun. No one needs to die today.” Despite her statement, a part of Bridgette longed to kill someone. Before she met Jason would she have just ended the man’s life, shifting behind him and stabbing him in the back? Perhaps. Jason may have been a thorn in her side from time-to-time, being all noble and mushy and talking science all the time, but he was always honorable.
“I would rather die than submit to you.” He charged as he spoke, blade held in position to execute an overhand diagonal slash.
Bridgette waited until the blade was inches from her before unleashing her power. The world became gray as she shifted in an instant into the shadow realm, a sub-reality of the real world. Time worked differently in the shadow realm. Everything moved as if it were encased in gelatin. Captain Yoshida’s fast movement slowed to a crawl. Bridgette slipped around the man and positioned herself behind him. Accessing her power again, she reversed the effect, banishing the shadow realm and returning to the physical realm. No sooner had she released the effect then she wrapped her right arm around Captain Yoshida’s neck and stabbed him in the back with the dagger in her left hand. The man stiffened in surprise and pain and struggled to turn. Bridgette gave him no chance, continuing to stab him repeatedly in the back. She felt weight on her arm as his legs gave out and she removed her arm, letting him crumble to the ground. Blood spewed from his mouth as he coughed, trying to speak, while pools of blood ran from his back down his sides to gather on the soil beneath him.
Bridgette stood back, watching as the mighty warrior died. As he gave one final convulsion as death took him, she surveyed the remaining two warriors. “Do you wish to challenge me as well, or will you face death as he did?” She pointed at the corpse of Captain Yoshida with her dagger, the blade dripping blood.
The two looked at each other before bowing, right hand on the top of the hilt of their swords. A sign of respect? They made no move to withdraw the swords, so she presumed so.
“Good,” she said, sheathing her blades. “Now take me to the shogun.”
The men turned without a word and led her and the rangers toward the city. The other warriors fell into formation around them; an honor guard or prison procession?
Chapter 8
Jason felt the wind in his hair as he stood atop the deck of the trade vessel named The Black Shadow. The ship swayed as it streaked through the water, sails full. Jason glanced to his left toward the shore. The dull terrain of the White Mountains had given way to lush green rolling hills and open fields days earlier as they passed into Allyrian lands.
Small fishing villages dotted the coast, fishing boats littering the shallower waters away from the shipping lanes. A young boy out fishing with an older man waved from one such fishing boat as The Black Shadow passed. Jason returned the wave as they moved past.
Jason was enjoying the last leg of their journey more than he had the first leg. He and a few of the rangers accom
panying him had been beset with sea sickness after the first day on the turbulent waters of the Tar River. They had developed their sea legs soon after they began following the coast eastward. Now Jason could enjoy the motion of the ocean beneath him without his stomach disagreeing.
As a child he had never gone on boats. A ferry ride here and there, but he had never been sailing or jet-skiing or anything related to recreation in the water except for swimming at the beach. However, Jason had become fascinated with the water since arriving on Tar Ebon. His expanded awareness of the world around him granted by magic allowed him to see the molecules of the ocean, to feel its depth, to sense the life teeming within its waters. Jason cast his awareness out of his mind and down into the depths of the water they passed. The water was not particularly deep in this region, yet wreckages of ships littered the floor. He felt the wood of their structures, the life of the algae clinging to the surface. Jason moved his mind into the wreckage of one ship in particular and felt a strange object. As he studied the object he realized it was gold. A treasure chest of gold. He wondered how many other treasures sat unclaimed at the bottom of the ocean, waiting for someone to claim them.
He withdrew his mind from the ocean and turned it to the wind. The second element that had intrigued him, Jason yearned to know more about the wind. He knew what caused wind, air flowing from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure, but the power of it left him awestruck sometimes. Back on Earth, tornadoes and hurricanes could wreak tremendous havoc. But on the other side of things, the wind could generate electricity. To be able to harness the wind, with its raw awesome power, would be an amazing experience. Jason felt the movement of the air as it passed through his hair on its way to the sails to his right. If only he could somehow produce wind. He pondered the situation. What if he could somehow create an area of low pressure in front of the sails? Would that cause the air from high-pressure areas to gravitate to the area of low pressure, increasing the wind speed?
He envisioned the area ahead of the sail. Isolating the atmosphere in the air, he thrust some away from the small area. He expelled more and more, creating a barrier to stop the atmosphere from returning. Distantly, he felt the wind picking up speed, but it was coming from the area of low pressure. The ship began slowing down. He frowned. How did that…wait! He had forgotten the Coriolis Effect, which was due to the rotation of a planet. Winds in the northern hemisphere would deflect to the right while wind in the southern hemisphere would deflect to the left. Having an area of low pressure in front of the sail caused the wind to swirl around the area of low pressure, which would actually cause some of the wind to push back toward the sail, slowing it down. Kicking himself mentally, Jason released the barrier around the artificial construct of low pressure and reconstructed it behind the sail, closer to him. He created it up high enough that it wouldn’t affect the majority of the crew members. He noticed after establishing it that the sails became full as the wind swirled toward the area of low pressure and spun around it. Jason kept a thread of his concentration on maintaining the barrier around the low-pressure pocket and pulled the rest of his mind back to his body. He felt the ship picking up speed. Sailors began chattering about how full the sails were, while others cast wary glances at the sky, searching for signs of a storm such high winds often heralded.
He concentrated on the area of low pressure for a time before he became tired and hungry. Jason had learned early on that any expenditure of mental energy over a period of time would cause him to become tired, hungry, suffer from headaches and other symptoms of exhaustion. This made sense of course, considering the laws of conservation of energy. Alivia had explained that mages could train themselves to use their energy in a more efficient manner, allowing for use of more powerful magic for longer periods of time. Jason had experienced this effect first-hand, as his own magical capacity grew over the course of several months.
His thoughts turned to the pair of letters in the satchel stowed away below deck. One for the king of Allyria, one for a mysterious friend of Dawyn named Favio whom he claimed would be happy to help Jason in his quest. How was he, a nerd from the middle of nowhere, supposed to get the king of Allyria to join forces with Tar Ebon. Coryn had assured him that relations between Tar Ebon and Allyria were good and told him that he should have no problem, but Jason still had his doubts. Yes, he had an official escort of rangers and yes he was a mage, but in the face of a king that didn’t matter.
As he thought about facing another king, memories of Coryn’s father rose in his mind. He had met the former king of Tar Ebon on the same fateful night he met Bridgette. If he had not met her, would she be dead now? Or would the king have died? He wasn’t sure. With her powers working nothing short of an army, or her brother, could stop her. But in a place like the Celestial Palace, where magic use was nullified, she was forced to fight like any normal person - albeit a trained and highly skilled normal person.
An hour passed and the increased speed lifted the spirits of the crew members, cautionary frowns and wary glances at the sky replaced with smiles and talk of good fortune. The captain was the most jovial of all - he walked among the crew slapping them on the back and talking about how they would all get something extra when they arrived at the Citadel. He approached Jason and slapped him on the back. “’Tis good fortune, my friend,” he said. “The gods have seen fit to lift our sails with a strong wind. We shall see the Citadel before nightfall if this wind holds.”
Jason thought that their gods had nothing to do with the wind, there was only one God, but he smiled anyway. “It is wonderful, Captain,” he replied. “The sooner I am in the Citadel, the better.” Better to let them believe what they would than get into a theological debate or reveal that it was his magic driving the high wind speed. People in Tar Ebon were not particularly religious, but Jason had learned that in other parts of the world beliefs varied. To the west, in Sagami, for example, a form of Christianity existed, with churches and belief in God and Jesus, while in Rovark the horse lords believed in a horse god. Other places were polytheistic, and many did not believe in anything at all. Of course, this made sense considering the Founders who settled on the planet had come from a future Earth. It seemed that even in the future theological differences had still existed.
“And the better for my trading,” the captain said. “I will be able to trade sooner, making me more money.” A look came over the captain’s face that reminded Jason of the term “dollar signs in their eyes”. He supposed that it would be “gold pouches in their eyes” or some such phrase in this world.
The captain departed, replaced with Creswell Gales, captain of the ranger contingent sent to protect Jason. Captain Gales nodded to the departing ship captain and turned his gaze to Jason. “The ship’s abuzz about the changes in the wind,” he observed. “Odd that.”
Jason nodded. “It’s quite fortunate. The captain said we should arrive before nightfall.”
“You wouldn’t have had anything to do with this fortunate turn of events, would you?” the captain asked. The look on his face said he already knew the answer.
Jason sighed. Of course, Jason had briefed the rangers on the fact that he was a mage, plus Captain Gales had proved himself quite astute from the conversations they’d had thus far. “You caught me, Captain. But please don’t let it get around. I don’t want to draw attention to myself or make them think I will do it all the time. They’d probably want to keep me on permanently.”
Captain Gales chuckled. “Aye, sir, they would at that. You’d be their own personal mage. Can’t have that now, can we? I for one am happy to be arriving sooner.”
“Because we can get the aid we need sooner?” Jason asked.
“That,” Captain Gales acknowledged, “but also because I’m sick of being cooped up on this ship for so long. The men are getting restless. It’ll be good to give up our sea legs and be back on solid ground again.”
“Well, try not to give up your sea legs completely,” Jason said. “We’ll need th
em again on the return voyage.”
“Aye, we will at that.” The captain excused himself and returned below decks.
Alone once more, Jason thought about how the others were faring. He had the furthest to travel, though a ship made better time than a horse, so the others should already have been at their destinations. He felt for the part of his mind he knew connected to Bridgette. Bridgette, are you there?
At first, there was nothing, and Jason wasn’t sure if she was sleeping or ignoring him or what. There was a time difference between him and her, but what that difference was, he wasn’t sure. 3 hours at least? Still, with it being midafternoon she should be awake… Yes, I’m here, Jason. What is it? Are you in trouble?
Jason frowned. Why would she think he was in trouble? No, everything is fine. We’re almost to the Citadel. I was just thinking about you and wondered how your mission is going.
About as well as expected. I’ve already killed a man, so it’s a great start to the day.
Oh, you…killed a man. That’s…wonderful, Jason replied. Could Bridgette go anywhere and not kill someone? I hope it wasn’t the shogun of Sagami. Are you in trouble for it?
Not in trouble yet. They're escorting us into the city now. I’ll keep you informed. Be safe in the Citadel. She sent a sense of compassion through the link, like a mental “I’m thinking of you” card to show she cared about his wellbeing.
Thanks, you too. He returned the thought of compassion before the connection terminated. His relationship with Bridgette was complicated, and confused Jason. At first, Bridgette had hated him, resenting the fact that she was bound to him. But she had warmed up since then, particularly after her brother Dawyn came back into her life for good. Now she seemed to care about him, and Jason found himself reciprocating the feeling. Whether it was a side effect of the link between them or just natural growth of compassion, Jason wasn’t sure, but he also didn’t care. In his mind, Bridgette was a friend, perhaps even a friend that could one day grow into something more. The Lord knew he had found his thoughts wandering at night to images of her face.
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