by Andrew Rowe
“I thought—”
“I’d thought he was dead, too. But he rose, one last time, and turned to the stranger. ‘Raizo of the Tails of Orochi, I banish you from this sacred place forever. Dawnbringer will never be yours.’ By giving his name, Raizo had given my father what he needed for the spell. Raizo screamed and raised his sword, but my father’s magic worked faster than he could move. A moment later, he’d been sent far away, and he was barred from ever returning to the Whispering Woods.”
“I ran to my father after that, clinging to hope that he would survive the ordeal. But the banishment spell had taken the last of his flagging strength. He lowered his head, and he whispered that Dawn was my responsibility now. We had precious few moments left after that. We whispered a few more words. Not nearly enough. And then my father was gone.” Reika turned her head back toward her home, now far to the west. “And I vowed to avenge him.”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “I understand.”
I ignored Dawnbringer.
“And I’ll help you get ready to fight Raizo, if that’s what you want.”
Reika looked away. “It is. But I’m no fool. I saw that fight. Even if my father hadn’t been blinded by that coward, I don’t know if he would have won.” She shook her head. “I’m not even a fraction of that powerful yet.”
“Stick with me, then. And someday we both will be.”
She turned back to me. “You mean that?”
“I have to. I have my own reasons for needing to get stronger. But for the moment, I’m going to need to focus on just being strong enough to walk.”
Reika let out a breath. “Fine. You’re right. If Zenkichi really is with them, it’d be too dangerous for me to attack by myself. If Zenkichi is after Dawnbringer, though, he’s not going to stop. Either he’ll want it for himself, or he’s trying to get it as something to trade to Raizo. We can’t let either of those happen.”
“We won’t. Dawn will be safe with us. For the moment, let’s move on toward that shrine. At night, we can spend a little more time training together to get stronger. We’ll keep our eyes out for other sources of magic, or other ways we can improve our odds. Then when Zenkichi catches up to us, we’ll be ready.”
Reika nodded. “And after we beat him, we can get ready for Raizo.”
“Right.”
It sounded like a solid, coherent plan. And, in fairness, at least I’d gotten Reika to abandon the idea of going straight after the Tails by herself.
At the time, I had no way of knowing just how badly I’d underestimated the Tails of Orochi.
Chapter IX – Mysterious Dungeon
We marched on along the lake.
During the day, we hiked as far as we could. Most of our meals involved birds. Occasionally, one of us managed to snag a fish or a small game animal from the edge of the forest.
We found some fruits and berries every once in a while, but neither of us were sure if they’d be poisonous, and I wasn’t confident the purestone could handle turning their liquid into something safe to drink. So we stuck with meat.
At night, we trained, just as I’d promised.
I couldn’t handle much of it at first. My injuries were just too fresh. But I started working with Reika on the basics of footwork for swordplay, since she’d never actually fought with a sword before. And beyond that, I started trying to teach her some of my sorcery, but she didn’t seem to be able to make use of it.
“All my abilities are natural,” she explained. “I don’t think I can learn other types of magic like humans can. And more than that, the other humans around here can’t do what you can, either. Not without an attunement.”
I spent some time thinking about that, trying to figure out if it was a solvable problem. Could I help her establish a connection with a dominion somehow?
I tried having her hold onto the purestone to see if the aura in it would help her learn water magic. Holding onto items with magical auras always seemed to help me, but it didn’t seem to do anything for her. I also let her carry Dawnbringer for a while, which she was extremely skittish about, but she conceded when I told her that it was part of a training exercise that might help her beat Raizo.
That might have been unfair, but it did get her to spend more time with Dawn, and Dawn seemed extremely pleased about that. After a few days, Reika seemed to ease up about the idea of not being allowed to touch Dawnbringer, and I found them chatting more often without my intervention being necessary.
Aside from magical items, I also wondered if I might be able to help Reika by casting spells on her directly, but I didn’t really have any beneficial spells that I was confident wouldn’t hurt her. Even Body of Stone was the type of spell that could be dangerous to someone who didn’t have the same kind of mana composition that I did, and most of my other spells were attack spells.
It was something we could experiment with if we found someone with healing magic or something similarly innocuous. Beyond that, we talked about the idea of getting attunements for ourselves. Neither of us had any idea if it would work, since both of us had magic that worked differently than the local humans already.
At the moment, it was a moot point, because we were nowhere near a spire and didn’t know if we could get inside one. Still, it was something to think about for a future step of our journey. The sacred swords were a higher priority, but there was a good chance that we’d find at least one of them in close proximity to one of the spires, or even inside one.
Days passed. After a full week, I was feeling more up to physical combat, and we did some basic drilling. Then I tore one of the wounds in my hand back open and took another few days to recover.
During my recovery, I focused on improving my stone shaping, since it didn’t require as much physical exertion. I got better and better at rapidly reshaping the ground to form a wall, but it didn’t prove to be very useful while we were on soft terrain. I figured I could make good use of it if we ended up back in another cave like Reika’s, though, or inside a stone building.
There were no signs of the Tails of Orochi following us, at least that we saw. I wished we had Lydia with us — she would have been far more effective at detecting and locating pursuers. Even without her, though, I was determined to make sure we didn’t get caught off-guard a second time.
We took watch rotations at night, much to Reika’s chagrin. She far preferred to sleep together, and I didn’t blame her in the slightest. We settled for spending a little bit of time huddled together in the early morning.
There was a brief period of water scarcity between the lake and the next large body of water, but that same stretch proved to be an even better spot for hunting. I was much more familiar with hunting forest game, and a couple deer fed us for much of the next week.
As time passed, the three of us grew more comfortable with each other. That did, however, lead to a bit of awkwardness when they finally started to ask more questions about my past.
***
One day, as we were recovering from a sparring session and eating lunch, Reika saw me shuffling through the items in my bag and asked an important question.
“So...,” she began awkwardly, “what’s with the mask? Are you some kind of reformed former bandit or something?”
I laughed. “No, nothing like that. And I don’t think this is the right type of mask for that sort of thing. Don’t bandits wear cloth or leather masks?”
“I guess that’s true, but you could be a fancy bandit. Like the Phantom Thief Ravenshade or the Blackstone Bandit...” She gasped. “You’re not the Blackstone Bandit, are you?”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m neither a current nor a former bandit. I’m a knight, remember?”
I was teasing with that last part. I didn’t really consider myself a knight, in spite of my membership in a paladin organization, but I knew Reika enjoyed thinking of us in storybook categories.
>
Her eyes narrowed skeptically, but she relented. “Okay, Mr. Knight. Why would you have a mask, then? That doesn’t seem very knightly. Unless you’re planning to take a damsel to a masquerade ball?” She considered, “...Or maybe you’re a renegade knight, and after dark, you fight in secret as a hero of justice, righting wrongs while wearing a mask?” Reika’s expression brightened. “Like the Green Guardian!”
“Yeah, it’s basically none of that.” I pulled the mask out of my bag briefly and waved it in the air. “It’s a magical item.”
Reika blinked. “Oh. Oh! That makes sense. I think the Phantom Thief Ravenshade has one of those, too. But if it’s a magic mask, why aren’t you wearing it? What’s it do?”
“It blocks various forms of knowledge sorcery — or what you’d call divination — from locating me and anyone near me. The range is about fifty feet, but it only works when I wear it. It also has some sort of mental effect that prevents people from recognizing me, even though it only covers a portion of my face.”
“Hm...” Reika pondered for a moment. “That sounds perfect for a hero of justice! Don’t worry, Keras. Your secret is safe with me.”
I had no idea how to even begin to respond to that, so I didn’t. I just put the mask away slowly and tried to focus on eating my food.
She didn’t let me escape the conversation quite so easily, though. “But wait. If it blocks detection magic, that sounds like it could be really useful for preventing the Tails of Orochi from following us. Why aren’t you using it?”
I winced. “You’re right, that would be a good security measure. But I can’t wear it yet. I’m waiting for one of my friends to find me.”
Reika blinked. “You have friends?”
She sounded genuinely surprised. I felt a little insulted.
So, I just sighed and responded, “Yes. And one of them, Lydia, is a proficient user of knowledge sorcery. She’s adept at detecting illusions, gathering information, and finding people. When she arrives on this continent, she should be using her tracking magic to find me.”
“Ooh! Tell me more about her.”
I smiled, pleased to be thinking about Lydia. “She’s a powerful sorceress, recently trained by Blake Hartigan, one of the three legendary immortal sorcerers. Knowledge sorcery is her specialty, but she can also use protection sorcery, dream sorcery, a bit of air sorcery.”
“Wait, the Hartigan? The legendary ancestor of their family? The one in the Blackstone Assassin books?”
I nodded. “Pretty sure he’s the same one. He’s one of three sorcerers from my homeland who learned how to extend his life indefinitely. Anyway, Lydia was already very talented before she started training with Hartigan, and she’s even more formidable now. Knowledge sorcery is still her specialty, but she also has powerful defensive magic, and a magic ring that commands fire.”
I turned my head down to Dawnbringer. “No, Dawn. Lydia is not my girlfriend.” I rolled my eyes. “She’s a close friend, and I care for her a great deal, but it’s not a romantic thing. Also, that’d be inappropriate, given that she’s my commanding officer now.”
Reika frowned. “Why would that be inappropriate? Knights get into relationships with each other in my books all the time.”
“It’s not illegal or anything, but it’s generally considered poor form for people to have a romantic relationship when one has authority over the other. There are all sorts of problems that can come up. Favoritism can be an issue. Or if the relationship ends badly, the higher ranking person could destroy the lower ranking person’s career. It’s not strictly forbidden in my particular organization, but it’s generally considered unwise.”
“Hm.” Reika seemed to consider that. “But if she wasn’t in a higher position than yours...”
I shrugged at that. “I don’t really think of her like that. I don’t think she sees me romantically, either. Sometimes friendships can just be platonic. That doesn’t mean we aren’t close. I think your books tend to overemphasize the importance of romance as the foundation of close relationships. A strong friendship can be just as important as a romance, or even more so.”
“That’s probably true, but romances are more fun to read about.” Reika grinned. “Okay. So how good of a fighter is she?”
“I haven’t really fought her seriously, but she’s competent. It’s difficult to compare her skills to mine, since they fall in completely different areas. She can use a sword, but she’s much more focused on magic. Now that she’s been trained by Hartigan, I don’t know if I could handle her in a serious fight. She wouldn’t bother to go sword-to-sword against me; she’d probably try to put me to sleep with dream magic, or maybe hit me from a distance with ranged attack spells. I have ways of countering all that, but it’s not a good match-up for me.”
“Ooh. I haven’t fought anyone like that before. Do you think she’d let me fight her?”
I chuckled. “I’m sure we could coerce her into a bit of sparring. But you’re going to have to learn to pull your blows against ordinary humans. I reinforce my body with a lot of magic. Your punches would break bones against ordinary people.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess people from your kingdom don’t have shrouds... That might be tricky. We could probably use some kind of special rules for sparring, like I just have to poke her a certain number of times to win. That might be fun.” Reika clapped her hands together. “I’m getting excited just thinking about it.”
“I’m glad. I think you’ll like her. You’d probably get along with most of my other friends, too.”
“Oh, right. You said friends, plural. Who else are you expecting to see?”
I shook my head. “I’m not entirely certain. Landen, maybe, if he can get away from babysitting his cousin. He fights with two swords.”
“Yes, Dawn, Landen is cute. And very dexterous. And no, I’m not dating him, either.”
“Moving on...” I chuckled. “Last I checked, Lydia was with Velas. You’d like her a lot — she could probably take a punch from you. And she loves fighting.”
I gave Dawn a groan. “No, Dawn, Velas is not my girlfriend either.”
My relationship with Velas was...complicated. It might have been considered romantic in some respects, but it definitely wasn’t the traditional sort of relationship that Dawn was teasing me about.
Reika was looking more interested now. “Loves fighting, you say?” She gave me a toothy grin. “How good is she?”
“Her skill level is about the same as mine. She’s...very competitive with me.” I didn’t mention that Velas was responsible for the permanent injury on the center of my left hand.
“Competitive” was something of an understatement when Velas was concerned, and she didn’t have the same compunctions that I did about holding back in a friendly fight. I didn’t know if she’d ever be satisfied unless she felt she’d beaten me completely in a fair fight...and even then, I suspected she’d just be disappointed in the aftermath.
I didn’t know if introducing her to Reika would be wise. It sounded like a great way to get either or both of them hurt. Still, they’d probably enjoy the fighting if I could keep them from mauling each other too horribly.
Maybe it’d be better to find a healer before I let them meet each other.
Reika leaned closer. “What can she do?”
“Velas is talented with a wide variety of weapons, but what makes her effective is that she’s extraordinarily fast and mobile. She’s a motion sorcerer, and through training that, sh
e’s gradually built up her speed in the way that I’ve built up my strength and resilience. She can also use motion sorcery to jump high in the air, or blast people backward, or that sort of thing. She uses an enchanted weapon called the Heartlance. It’s supposed to inflict wounds that never heal unless they’re blessed by some sort of god, but that’s not quite accurate. I think it does have some kind of ability that slows healing down, though, and it also has a power to accelerate the motions of the wielder.”
“She sounds amazing. I really want to fight her now. How soon can I meet her?”
I hung my head sadly. “I don’t know. I was sent ahead to gather info and resources, but I wasn’t expecting it to take this long for them to catch up. Maybe something went wrong...”
Or maybe I’d been tricked and that old sorcerer had never meant to send them after me in the first place.
I didn’t want to say that aloud, though, because I didn’t want to think it.
My hope was that they’d just been slightly delayed, and that they’d all catch up to me soon. I couldn’t guarantee that, though, so I cycled back around to the start of the conversation. “You were right that the mask could slow down anyone tracking us. Do you want me to wear it to keep us safer from the Tails of Orochi? I shouldn’t have made that decision without consulting you, since the Tails are putting both of us in danger.”
“What? No, no. I wasn’t complaining or anything. I’m fine with fighting the Tails of Orochi any time. I just wanted to know why you weren’t using a magic mask, that’s all.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks. I’m glad we’re in agreement. I hope I can introduce you to my friends soon.”
“Yeah! I can’t wait to fight them.” Reika pounded her fists together.
Even knowing the kinds of problems that might cause, I couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm.
***
My friends didn’t arrive the next day, as I’d hoped.
