by Travis Bughi
“Your grace.” The warlord bowed low before Jabbar, touching his head to the sand as instructed. “My Lord Katsu, you are generous and wise to accept my men and me into your command. I will serve you well.”
You are already planning to betray me, Jabbar thought. Pitiful fool.
“Your men will serve me well, indeed,” he said in Ichiro Katsu’s voice. “Of this, I have no doubt. As for you, however, your chance to live perished when you chose to oppose me. Your only service will be to quench Savara’s thirst.”
And then the katana fell, swiftly and accurately, parting the warlord’s head from his shoulders and drowning the desert sand in fresh blood. The warlord didn’t even cry out before his death, so sudden and clean was the samurai’s strike. Jabbar’s headsman was good at his job. She’d had lots of practice, as of late.
Jabbar waited a moment in his chair, sitting motionless as he watched Savara’s sands drink up the warlord’s red life. His thirty samurai stood rigidly at this side, mocking the stillness of the warlord’s corpse with their unyielding discipline. Of all his warriors, Jabbar liked them the most. Their fearless and disciplined natures made them the most useful tool in his army. Were it up to him, all humans would be raised with such a mentality: a slave who thought himself free. To think he’d only lost ten since arriving in Savara, and of that ten, only five had lost their lives to combat. Of the other five, one had succumbed to heat, one to disease, and three had figured out that Jabbar was a rakshasa disguised as their lord. They’d attempted to assassinate him one fateful evening, and Jabbar had thanked each of them personally for not revealing their suspicions to their fellow samurai—right before consuming them.
He suspected that more than a few others harbored similar suspicions, but they were smart enough to keep their mouths shut. Discipline, duty, and honor kept them chained to his will. That and victory. The real Katsu had brought them crushing defeat, while the new one brought them glory.
Beyond the samurai stood four hundred Savara-native warriors, and a good tenth of that were Kshatriya, or so they claimed. Almost half of that four hundred had just been acquired through the loss of the warlord’s head, and they had yet to swear their allegiance to him. They would, of course, every single one of them. Jabbar would bring them victory, fortune, and fame, and that was all any mercenary ever wanted.
The curse of humanity, Jabbar smiled. A narrow and shortsighted view of the world. It matches their existence well. I will live long enough to see the youngest of them die of old age.
“My name is Lord Ichiro Katsu,” Jabbar lied as he stood, “and I hail from Juatwa. I come as a conqueror, but will leave an emperor. You have seen this, how easily I defeated you. Know first that this was not your fault. Those who follow me are powerful and well rewarded, and the only reason you failed was incompetent leadership.
“This corpse, your former leader, will die nameless, forgotten and defeated, as will all others who stand in my way. I offer you the chance to follow me, if you’ll only take it. I am not another nameless warlord, content to sit idle and pillage squabbling villages filled with half-starved slaves and ragged cripples. I am Ichiro Katsu, and I mean to conquer the world. Join me, and together, we’ll sack Lucifan, enslave Juatwa, and bring law to Savara!”
The law part was for the Kshatriya. Many of them still followed a code of honor—as worthless as that was—and would be reluctant to join his campaign of slaughter. He gave them a way out and smiled when they took it. As one, alongside the mercenaries, his newly acquired Kshatriya cheered and shouted Jabbar’s false name.
One day they will know the real me, he thought. One day I will shed this fake skin and bask in the terror of men as they look upon me.
It took some time for all the warriors to kneel before Jabbar and swear their allegiance to him. He took great care to make sure that they chose their words carefully. Each one was to submit and yield their loyalty to him and his cause, not that false name he wore.
“I swear my allegiance to Lord Katsu,” one said incorrectly.
“No,” Jabbar stopped him. “Do not say the name as if I’m not here. You swear your allegiance to me.”
“I pledge my life to you, my lord,” the man said.
That is better. Much better.
Jabbar left the division of loot and labor to his underlings. The new soldiers would be split up and assimilated into his existing squads and troops. Each one would be given a new leader, and old leaders would be given new troops. It would make futile, or at least more difficult to execute, any thoughts of betrayal; Jabbar needed no lessons in the fickle nature of men. His own race was rife with those who sought power at all costs, and he was one of them.
You all may seek power, he looked upon his newly acquired troops, but none of you have the ability to wield it. That is a task for a rakshasa, for me.
There was no celebration. There was no time. Jabbar took his most trusted generals with him into his tent, and stood with a map of the world displayed between them. One of those taken into the tent was a man named Aiguo Mein, a former soldier upon whom Katsu bestowed the rank of samurai due to his ruthlessness and willingness to obey. Aiguo was young and wiry with a firm jaw and small ears. He had been one of Heliena’s pets, so to speak, dishing out punishments and tortures for her when her husband was away. The man’s appetite for violence rivaled even his own, and that amused him.
“My first plan to conqueror Lucifan would have required at least six hundred more,” Jabbar said in Katsu’s voice. “That was, however, assuming the city was still guarded by nothing but a handful of knights. That plan changes now. I’ll want several thousand at my command when we sail. It is my understanding that Lucifan is ruled by a vampire who helped plot the angels’ downfall, so I’ll not underestimate him. Any creature that ends a regime of that length should be taken seriously. I’ll assume he’s smart enough to realize his city is vulnerable now that the colossi no longer protect it. I want to be prepared for a war, not a battle.”
No need to tell them that one colossus still functions, Jabber thought. They’ll find out one way or another.
“In addition,” he continued, “and just as importantly, I’ll need the ships to transport that many troops. We’ll need to conquer several port towns along Savara’s west coast, and I want to make it perfectly clear that when I say ‘conquer,’ I mean that those cities will remain under my control once I have left. The days of Savara being a broken land of divided thugs and worthless humans are at an end. Under my rule, Savara will bow to one emperor, fight under one flag, and know the will of one being.”
Aiguo Mein nodded. “Worthless humans. I couldn’t agree more, my lord.”
Jabbar resisted the urge to snarl. Poor choice of words coming from a rakshasa disguised as a human. He looked at Aiguo and caught the others tensing at the gaze. Aiguo did not flinch, though. He met the gaze calmly, bowed his head in respect, and let no emotion stain his face.
This one knows, Jabbar thought. He is not fooled by my false face, yet he seems pleased to serve me.
The samurai had served one monster before, why not another? Jabbar’s lips twitched at a hidden smile. He had a feeling Aiguo would become quite useful.
“Yes, worthless humans.” Jabbar raised his chin. “Humans better served by better people. Us. Me. You.”
The others bowed their heads low, but they rose with greed in their eyes.
“That will serve for now,” Jabbar continued. “Leave me while I think on the next nameless, useless warlord I mean to slaughter.”
They did, and Jabbar scratched his hairless skin with one hand and smoothed out the map with the other. The map contained the entire world and, as far as Jabbar was concerned, represented his future empire. His eyes lingered on Savara for only a moment before they jumped to Juatwa. In that territory, Lady Xuan Nguyen, the Old Woman of the Mountain, would soon be known as the Old Woman of Juatwa. There might be a few daimyo holding out, but soon they would all be well and truly conquered. Her forces would wor
ry his soldiers the most. If she still lived after he’d conquered Lucifan, she may come to oppose him. She had already put a bounty on Ichiro Katsu’s head, but Jabbar did not fear that. He was a rakshasa, and only one assassin would ever give him pause.
That assassin was young, strong, and swift. She had risen from nothing and defied the trappings of her birth. She had traveled the world, from one end to the next, toppled empires and killed an immortal. Worse, she had a voracious appetite for revenge, one that could only be quenched by the blood of those she hunted. She claimed to be human, but Jabbar doubted it. He would not believe a human capable of what she had accomplished. No human should be able to wield the power of an angel. No human should be able to command a colossus.
Jabbar traced a finger on the map, north from Juatwa and into the Khaz Mal Mountains. His eyes lingered, searching. She was out there somewhere, seeking a samurai that Jabbar had sold into slavery. She would find that samurai, Jabbar knew, for he had faced them both and knew their resolve.
And then Jabbar and she would dance, like two masters who held the fate of the world within their grasp.
“I hope you’re ready,” Jabbar whispered.
Chapter 1
Emily Stout calmly drew another arrow and nocked it to the string. Her arms pulled back immediately, unable to resist the engrained reaction any more than she could resist breathing. The treantwood bow provided a tough resistance that was bittersweet and dripping with nostalgia. The feathers of the arrow touched her cheek, and her ears tested the wind. Tiny adjustments were made, starting with her hips, then her shoulders, then her elbows, and finally her fingers.
Her target was a good ways off, small, about the size of a gnome, but hideous and deformed with green skin, lanky limbs, and an ugly face—similar to an akki, but not so round. The creature had taken a decent head start after Emily had downed its partner, and she could just barely see it, shivering in fear behind a boulder blanketed by snow. She wondered briefly why goblins were green when the Khaz Mal Mountains were nothing but grey and white. Then she took a deep breath and released the arrow, expelling the air from her lungs along with the shaft.
The little goblin, so far off as to appear nothing more than a twig, squealed so loudly that its voice could be heard before the sound echoed in the rocky valley.
“Found you,” Emily whispered.
She sprinted by the first dead goblin towards the one she’d just wounded, leaping from rock to rock, trying to avoid patches of snow and ice in favor of sturdy landings. It made the going slower, but the dwarves had warned about falling in the mountains. It was easy to break a leg here, and what appeared to be thick snow was sometimes thin snow over hard rocks. In the mountains, there was no such thing as a soft landing or an easy rescue. A cry for help would echo off rocks, disguising the location, or go unheard, muffled by snow. One might never be found: alive or dead.
And that was assuming something with an appetite, like a cyclops or a dragon, didn’t come first.
The dwarves had promised that dying of cold was not so bad, quite happily claiming the pain would fade when everything went numb. Dwarves were strange, she thought, but at least they were kind about it. Emily had no intention of dying, though, neither now nor later, but a different story awaited the goblin she’d wounded, who was trying to limp away despite the arrow in its leg. Its hobbling movements hadn’t carried it far, and the blood trail it had left in the snow made Emily wonder why it had even tried.
“AH!” it squealed at the sight of her. “No! Please no! No kill me! I sorry! I do nothing! No nothing! Lots of nothing!”
“You’re a bad liar,” she said and drew her dagger.
It screamed and covered itself, but Emily did not step forward to finish it off. Her arrow had been accurate enough; she needed this one alive.
“You’ve been following us for the past two days,” she said.
“No! I not!”
“Shut up. You and your friend have been following us for the past two days, taking turns as one runs off to inform however many orcs are nearby of our movements. The dwarves talk and snore too loudly for them to hear you, but to me, you make as much racket as a behemoth. You think to capture us and make us slaves, but unfortunately for you, it’s going to be the other way around.”
Emily reached down and grabbed the ugly goblin by its arm, ignoring its cries for help. It kicked at her with its good leg, tried to scratch and bite, but a quick slap and prod of her dagger pacified it enough to let her drag it back through the snow.
She dragged it past the dead goblin and then another hundred paces beyond that to where the two dozen dwarves had made their camp. When they first saw her, they cheered in those gruff and thick voices of theirs until they noticed the goblin she was dragging. Then their mood went sour, and they hefted up axes and hammers as big as themselves.
Emily liked the dwarves. She’d liked every single clan and every single member of those clans she’d ever met. Even the rude ones, being as rude as they could possibly be, seemed to do it purely for the sake of honor and respect. They were stubborn, old, and fiercely loyal to their families. In a way, they reminded her a lot of her mother, and Emily missed her mother.
The similarities were in attitude only, of course. Physically, the dwarves were far different. They were taller than gnomes, but not quite of human height. Even the tallest among them was just a hand’s width shorter than Emily, but they made up for that in width. Dwarves packed more muscle than a viking, having arms thicker than Emily’s thighs. Despite their height difference, she could hardly lift a single one of them, yet they could hold her aloft like a feather. The men—even some of the women—all had thick, well-manicured beards that they groomed lovingly every night and morning. Strangest to her were their beady eyes, despite them having thick noses and ears. They weren’t exactly a pretty race, but none would call them soft. The dwarves exemplified this as they gave the goblin hard stares that made the little green creature shiver and soil itself.
“What have ye here?” Hadkar Grumdisnev said in the thick speech of dwarves. “I was thinking ye run off looking for game.”
“I saw my prey,” Emily said, tossing the goblin among the dwarves.
It squealed as it hit the ground and the arrow twisted in its wound. The dwarves circled the thing until they stood side by side, grinding weapons and teeth alike.
“Look at me,” Emily said, waiting until the goblin did. “Pay attention to me. I’m the one you need to worry about, do you understand?”
“I ain’t so sure ‘bout that there, Emily,” Hadkar said through gritted teeth.
Emily glanced over at the young dwarf—well, young for a dwarf. Hadkar was actually over one hundred years old, but to a dwarf, that meant he was just barely old enough to be given command of their small squad. His beard was fiery red, his skin taut, and his stamina inspiring. Despite their height, Hadkar and the other dwarves could walk a full day without stopping for rest, all while climbing the treacherous slopes of the Khaz Mal Mountains. To keep pace with them, Emily had to sprint ahead so she could stop and catch her breath as they caught up. Their marches left her exhausted, and she’d slept like a rock each night despite the cold. She could hardly complain, though. This expedition was being made upon her request.
In fact, sprinting ahead had allowed her to discover the goblins following them.
“Ye got good eyes, missy,” Hadkar said. “How’d ye find this snot-green piss-bucket?”
“I listen well,” she said. “Hey! Look at me!”
The goblin pulled its eyes off Hadkar and looked at Emily, wide eyed. It was afraid, terrified even, and that was just what Emily wanted. It cowered, hopeless and lost, and Emily tore a page from a lesson she’d learned from an old enemy.
“Do you want to live?” she asked.
It nodded vigorously.
“Ack!” Hadkar cried out. “Only refuge this thing will find is under me hammer! Ye can’t offer it life. It’s a goblin!”
“We can if we
want our friends and family back, Hadkar,” Emily said. “Now, be quiet.”
The other dwarves switched their attention to Hadkar. In spite of the fact that most of them were older than he was, he was their commander for this mission, appointed by the elders, and dwarves tended to take rules, lineage, and oaths very seriously to the point that even samurai seemed fickle compared to them.
However, none of them would be here were it not for Emily.
She had stumbled into the dwarven outpost out of the blue, armed with information she’d collected from the seaside ports along Juatwa’s northwestern border. She knew not only of the dwarves’ location, but also that of a small band of orcs that had been raiding the dwarves for slaves and supplies. The dwarves had lost more than a few good souls and hadn’t had much luck in fighting their agile attackers, so to some, her timely arrival seemed suspicious. It didn’t help that her sources remained unnamed—the old ninja had been very clear about that requirement—and the dwarves had been reluctant to trust her. Hadkar, however, was eager to prove himself and so had offered to take a small squad into the mountains with Emily as their guide.
It was tough being a guide in a land one had never visited—Emily had found that out soon enough—so she’d led the dwarves in the direction she'd been told and hoped for the best. As it turned out, the best was a goblin, and Emily didn’t want to ruin her only chance to find the orcs that had bought her samurai.
Hadkar didn’t want this expedition to fail, either. He wanted glory, honor, and the chance to free the dwarves his clan had lost. So when Emily told him to be quiet, he only eyed her in defiance and then looked to the goblin. The other dwarves followed suit.
“Alright then,” Emily said. “So, goblin, do you want to live?”
It nodded vigorously.
“That’s good,” she nodded along with it, “because I want you to live, too. I have no interest in you. You are worth nothing to me dead. All I want from you is information, and you can go free. Would you like that?”
