by Dante King
She wrapped her legs around the small of my back and thrust hungrily against me as I filled her up.
Afterward, I lay on my back with an arm behind my head, looking up at the ceiling. She lay with her head pillowed on my chest, breathing softly.
The thought of increasing our Persona circle by adding a third person was attractive, and not just because it would mean some exciting new possibilities in the bedroom. The ability to work together with Cara hugely increased the power of the Personas; bringing another into that circle would increase that potential power again.
At the same time, it was true that the idea of having both women as willing sexual partners at the same time would be a dream come true for me. I knew that in some lands, for a man to have more than one partner was considered wrong, and for three people to enjoy each other at the same time was considered positively deviant, but I had never subscribed to that idea. Except in the case of romantic relationships between warband leaders, the people of Saxe were not prudish about sexual relationships between consenting adults. If Kai and Cara wanted to join me in bed at the same time, that was fine by me. If we could expand the circle of Personas while we all enjoyed each other's bodies, so much the better.
On that pleasant thought, I drifted off to sleep.
In the morning, Cara and I woke feeling refreshed. We had slept the night through, and we only woke up when a servant tapped discreetly at the screen door to let us know that he had brought breakfast. He entered followed by two others, and the little group laid out food and fresh wash water for us on the low table, before bowing their way out.
We ate and drank and put the warmed and scented wash water to good use. Feeling refreshed and energized, we headed out and went downstairs. I wore the civilian aspect of the Ironside Persona, and Cara dressed in the non-combat aspect of the new Tree Spirit Persona. It suited her perfectly, and I could see from the confident sway of her hips and the cheerful way she hummed as she walked ahead of me that she was very pleased with it.
The first person we met was General Koshu. He was sitting on a low seat in the main hall, looking out thoughtfully into the practice court, but he stood and turned to us, bowing as we entered. His bristling beard had been washed and brushed, and he was wearing a neat robe of black, similar in style to the robes which Toshiro wore.
“I have something for you,” he said, addressing Cara once he had greeted us.
“For me?” she said in surprise.
“Indeed. A useful gift. Come, I will show you.”
Cara and I followed the General, who seemed pleased and excited at the prospect of giving Cara his gift, whatever it was. Cara squeezed my hand and smiled at me as we went with him.
Koshu led us out of the house. Nearly all trace of the battle was gone. Lady Kai’s troop of riders were camped a little way off from the house, in rows of neat tents, with horses picketed in lines nearby. A little above them, in a rougher-looking camp, were the mercenaries. The Byakko continued to lounge in the shade by the lakeside, some way off to our left. It crossed my mind that despite their size and ferocity in battle, they were not dissimilar to domestic cats in their capacity for sleep.
“It’s up here, by the mercenary camp,” Koshu said as we walked with him up the hill away from the house. When we reached the camp, the mercenaries who were up and about stood to attention. Koshu cast an approving eye over them, then set them at ease.
We walked through the camp and up to a grove of trees overlooking the tents.
“Here,” Koshu said proudly. “Here is my gift to you.”
There was a beautiful black horse picketed there, dressed in rich, gleaming tack and harness.
“His name is Yokaze,” Koshu said. “He is the horse which was given to the treacherous Kitsune priest, who turned out to be an agent of the Festering. One of the men found Yokaze wandering in the woods after the battle—he ran off when the priest began to transform, but now he is here without a rider, and I thought that you would be the most appropriate person to give him to.”
“Thank you!” Cara said. Pleasure at the gift shone in her eyes. As she approached, the great black horse came forward to let her nuzzle his silky neck.”Yokaze,” she said, and the horse whickered in response. “What does the name mean?”
“The word means ‘night wind’,” Koshu explained. “He’s named for his color and his speed.”
“He’s a perfect gift.” Cara smiled at the general. “Thank you.” She turned to me. “I’m going to have to try him out.”
The horse was fast and responsive. When Cara mounted, he immediately answered her reins and her heels. She leaned over and spoke into his ear, and he tossed his head and broke into a canter, heading down the valley in a great loop. As he put on speed, I heard Cara whoop with joy and the horse neighed in reply.
Back at the house, Cara led the horse to Toshiro’s stables and left him with the groom there. Her face was glowing with the pleasure of riding as she came with us through the house and out back again.
Here, Kai joined us. I greeted her warmly, and she seemed pleased to see both Cara and myself. I couldn’t help remembering Cara’s words, fantasizing about the three of us sharing our bodies and joining our power together. I saw from the twinkle in Cara’s eyes that she was thinking of it too. Kai looked at us both as if she could tell that there was something we were not saying, but she seemed content to let it be for the moment. I felt a stirring in my crotch, but firmly resisted the image of both their mouths slipping back and forth around my cock. There would be time for that later, I felt sure.
We found Toshiro in the practice yard. All was ready for our departure, he told us. Lady Kai, General Koshu, and Toshiro all made it clear that they were still determined to accompany me and Cara to take on Yakuna.
“This is the biggest service we can give to our land,” Toshiro said, and the others nodded solemnly.
The mercenaries, said General Koshu, were committed to helping us as well. Since there were only twenty of them left, they would not be much good as a mercenary band for hire. Their reputation for being undefeated was in tatters.
They wanted to avenge their comrades, who had been tricked by the evil of the Festering.
General Koshu felt that he had to fight the Festering to regain his honor, since he had been tricked also, and Lady Kai assured us that her fifty riders would follow her into the fight as well. Toshiro revealed that ten of his servants, men who had fought with him in the old days, desired to come with us too, and they could provide their own horses from Toshiro’s stables. All in all, Cara and I would lead more than eighty mounted warriors to fight Yakuna.
In a very short time, all was ready. Kai’s riders and the mercenaries broke camp quickly and efficiently. Toshiro led his small band, dressed again in his old black armor. His servants, one or two of whom I recognized, looked very different in their own black samurai armor. They moved like a trained and practiced unit, and they were armed with lances, bows, and swords.
The Byakko submitted to be ridden again by the remaining mercenaries, and Yasei came to me and bowed his back to allow me to mount. Cara rode her new horse, Yokaze, whose black coat gleamed in the sun.
When all were ready, I rode Yasei a little way in front of them all and turned to look down at my small army. The gleaming gold of Kai’s cavalry contrasted with the reds and yellows of the mercenaries, and the clean, white-furred Byakko. In the midst of all, Toshiro’s band were dressed in all black armor on black horses, looking like a cloud of shadow amid the riot of color of the rest of the group.
I stood up in my stirrups and held up my hand. They were already motivated for this mission, but I felt it was worth making a statement to this brave band who had aligned themselves with me. The sun blazed down from the blue sky and gleamed on their armor and their weapons.
I was wearing the armor of Ironside, and I raised an axe up into the air.
“You are with me now!” I cried, and I heard my voice ring and echo off the surrounding cliffs. “You are
with me, the Soul Binder! Together we will cleanse this land of the Festering taint, and bring peace to Yamato!”
“Soul Binder! Soul Binder!” they all called in unison, then gave a great cheer as I threw my axe up into the air and caught it again. I glimpsed Cara’s proud smile as I turned Yasei’s head and led the company up the valley and out into the woods beyond.
After we had been going for an hour or so, Toshiro approached me and spoke quietly. We were a little distance away from the others.
“You sense it, don’t you?” he asked me in an undertone. “You sense the Festering, but you don’t feel the crippling fear which it causes in other men. Why is that?”
It was a direct question, and it deserved a direct answer, but I didn’t feel like going too deeply into that just now. I had not even told Cara the full story yet, and she seemed to accept that it was not something I wanted to speak about. I looked at Toshiro for a long moment. In my mind, I saw a splash of bright blood on white silk. An open mouth. Claws. The echo of a long-ago scream.
“My childhood was... bound up with the Festering,” I told him after a moment. “When I was very small, I fought the Festering in my own way. It was an internal battle, and I won. Eventually. Ever since then, it has affected me differently from the way it affects other men. I sense it, but I do not feel the fear of it. I will never fear it again.” The ferocity in my own voice startled me, and Toshiro actually drew back from the expression on my face.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize how personal it was. I’m glad you don’t fear it. Cara has her potions to give to the mercenaries, my guards, and Kai’s soldiers, but without the potion, we would be crippled by the fear of it. We’re very lucky to have you two as our leaders.”
We rode northeast through wooded foothills, keeping clear of the road. Though we weren’t headed for the town of Otara just yet, we’d judged it best to avoid the possibility of being seen by the Shogun’s scouts. News might have reached him already about the victory at Toshiro’s house, but if we could avoid him knowing that a large band of armed warriors were heading in the direction of his city, so much the better.
As the day passed, the trees became scarcer and the land wilder. We were climbing steadily, and as evening was darkening to night, we could see the whole lowlands dropping away toward the sea on our right. On our left, dark mountains loomed out of deep forest.
My sense of the Festering told me that we were nearing our goal.
In a wooded dell near a stream, I called a halt. We would rest now and be at our best for tomorrow. No doubt, when we faced Yakuna, we would battle with a Festering-tainted creature of great power. But we would be ready. I had an army at my back and Personas from which to draw strength and skills.
My heart beat in my chest, and my hands ached to draw my axe. I stilled them both and sat in front of a crackling fire, staring into its embers as I recalled the first day I had encountered the Festering. The vision came to me unbidden, and I would have allowed it to continue before my mind’s eye were it not for Cara who came to sit in my lap.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“For what?”
She stared into my eyes. “To face the man who was once called Yakuna.”
“With you by my side? And this army at my back?” I gestured at the many tents that had sprung up around us. “I am ready.”
“Good. Now, come to the tent. I have an aching desire for your seed.”
Chapter Seventeen
The next morning, we mounted up again and continued on our way. The day was gray and overcast, with a suggestion of rain in the air. Mist blew ominously across the treetops. We were approaching the Festering.
It didn’t take long before the men under Kai’s command felt the fear. They seemed to be more attuned to it than the mercenaries or Toshiro’s folk for some reason, and they muttered and glanced around as if they feared an attack.
When one man blanched and fell from his horse in a faint, we stopped so that Cara could distribute her potion. Everyone took some, even Kai, Toshiro, and Cara herself. I was the only person who didn’t need it.
Once the glow of the fear antidote was shining through all of the company, Cara rode forward to me and brought her horse, Yokaze, up next to my tiger mount, Yasei. We rode together in silence for a while.
“It’s close, isn’t it?” she said.
“Very.” I pointed uphill from where we were. “To my sight, there are visible waves of brown, rotten energy pulsing from up there. I think we should see the Festering’s origin when we climb to the top of this ridge and look down.”
We were riding along the spine of a ridge of hills, but now I urged Yasei up the slope, ahead of the rest of the company. Sure enough, when I gained the summit and looked down into the next valley, I saw it.
The Festering.
Gray clouds of noxious vapor floated in the valley below. Thick brown mold coated every blade of grass, and the trees were warped and distorted into demonic, nightmarish shapes. Cara and Kai both rode up and sat on their horses beside me, looking down into the foul and infested valley.
Kai shuddered. “Even with your potion, Cara, I still feel something of the horror of it. I’ve not been here for a long time, but I knew this valley years ago. It was beautiful. Now it has become a place of terror.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It will take a bit of doing, but we’ll drive the threat out, and when we do, it will return to the way it was. Come, let’s not delay. The morning has almost passed. I want to make the most of the daylight.”
But it was not going to be so easy.
When everyone had reached us, we led our powerful force down into the valley. Cara, Kai, Toshiro, and myself were in the lead. Green grass ran down to the valley floor, and the day was bright despite the overcast, but at an abrupt line, the Festering began. We stopped at the line and dismounted, then all four of us stepped over the line into the Festering, leading our mounts.
To my surprise, I heard a dull thud and a growl behind me. At the same time, there was a frightened whinny from Cara’s horse, and the line she was leading him by went taut. I turned and saw to my surprise that Yasei and Yokaze were both pressed up against the line of the Festering as if there were an invisible barrier there blocking their way.
Yasei growled, clenched his muscles and leaped, but he hit the barrier with an audible thud and fell backward. None of our mounts could pass.
General Koshu hurried up and tried experimentally to cross the line to reach us on the other side, but he could not.
“What is this?” he called, sounding angry and afraid. His voice sounded muffled, as if he was shouting through a stone wall. He raised a fist and slapped the air in front of him, but his hand flattened out as if it were pushed against a glass pane.
I approached what looked like the invisible barrier and pressed my own hand against it. Indeed, it was solid, and I could not pass through to the other side where Koshu, our mounts, and the rest of the troops were standing. Kai, Cara, and Toshiro also attempted to pass through the barrier, but they were unable to cross back over either.
“We cannot let you go in alone!” General Koshu protested from the other side. He drew his sword and slashed at the barrier, but his blade met an impenetrable force with a clang. From the way he gritted his teeth, it seemed the feedback had shot up through his hands and shaken his whole body. He drew back his sword, as though to strike the barrier again.
I held up a hand. “Stop, Koshu. I don’t think we have any choice. I have the three most powerful members of the party with me here; I’m not afraid of what the Festering will throw at us. You must take command of the rest of the party and wait for us. Test the barrier regularly to see if it is still in place—if it drops, come after us.”
One of Kai’s lieutenants came up to the barrier as well to talk to Kai. She instructed him that they should follow General Koshu’s orders until such time as we met again.
“And if we do not meet again?” the lieutenant asked,
his brow furrowed and beads of sweat glistening on his forehead.
“Then the Broken Sword Company must pick a new leader from among the ranks.”
“I’m not happy with this at all,” Koshu protested.
“We have no choice, my friend,” I repeated. “Wait for us, and be ready to follow at a moment’s notice.”
I turned to my three companions. The air smelled foul, the daylight was clouded and hazy with the noxious fumes that accompanied the presence of the Festering.
“Come,” I said to my small group. “Let’s go on. If this is a trap, our only choice is to travel to the center of the Festering and find the source.”
“It has to be Yakuna,” Toshiro said. He winced, as though to say the words about his old friend was physically painful. “This is near the site of the rumors.”
“If it’s Yakuna, then he’s somehow using the Festering to create this invisible barrier around the area which is under his influence. The only way to break it will be to break him.”
Koshu and the others watched reluctantly as I led Cara, Kai, and Toshiro away from them, into the thick haze and polluted mist of the Festering.
“Can you locate its center?” Cara asked me after we had been walking for a little while.
I looked around. Behind us, there was no sign of our companions, only the corrupted brown of the Festered landscape fading in the dark mist. Undulating hills marched off into the haze in every direction, and twisted, rotten trees stood about in little copses. I concentrated on my sense of the Festering, seeing the waves of malignant energy pulsing through the air around us.
After a moment, I pointed up the valley. The land in that direction climbed slowly. A river ran toward us along the valley floor. In normal times, it would have been beautiful, no doubt. Now, the water was thick and foul-smelling even from here, and overlaid with a glistening, oily scum.
