I punched him so hard that I shattered a portion of his skull and his jaw, a wave of force haloing around his head for a moment.
The man hit the ground, out cold, likely dead.
“No…” The female attendant said, starting to cower. “Look what you’ve done! Hugo’s guards...”
The soldier’s hand opened around the hilt of his blade, the man letting out his last breath. Both of us looked to it, the hotel clerk backing away.
“We need to go,” I told Saruul once I saw another soldier at the end of the hallway. The soldier just so happened to be coming around the corner, everything that had just happened registering on his face.
“Get Roger; get my sword…”
I heard Saruul move into the room, the soldier at the end of the hallway calling for backup as he drew his blade.
Several more soldiers joined him, all steeling themselves for the fight that lay ahead.
“Get behind me,” I told the hotel clerk as I reached into my robe, pulling out my Cooling Fan.
She did as instructed, the men charging me forward with their weapons drawn.
With a flick of my wrist, a sudden wind ripped into the hallway, strong enough that it tore the mirror off the wall, the piece shattering over the head of the first soldier. Anything else was torn from the floor, the men swept away, a few of them colliding with one another as they spun out.
One soldier twisted in the air as if there were no gravity before being hurtled backward, where he slapped into another man who had just come into the hallway.
“And I was just getting to a good part of my dream too...” Roger grumbled as he came to my shoulder. “Is that a knife on the ground?”
“No, it’s your knife,” I told him.
“Fuck yeah, it is!”
“Let’s go,” Saruul said, pressing past us. She tossed me my Flaming Thunderbolt and morphed into her snow lion form.
While Roger grabbed the knife from the ground, I quickly slipped it into my belt, my fan already up in the pocket of my robe.
I brought my sword to the ready and followed Saruul down the hallway, the snow lion trampling over the bodies of the men who’d been knocked over by my wind attack. Most of them weren’t too keen on seeing a large lion in their vicinity, only one man standing to fight back.
For his troubles he received a swipe to the face from Saruul, the lioness coming in for another swat. I reached her just as another man tried to grab my leg. I brought my sword down into his throat and pulled out quickly, the wound cauterized, the man’s eyes wide for a moment before they rolled back.
We took a right, and as more soldiers appeared, Roger flew forward with his blade and jammed it into one of the soldier’s eyes.
Perhaps they would have been more worthy opponents, but all of the soldiers seemed inebriated, the swings of their swords not as precise as they should be, a couple of them not even wearing any armor.
Saruul and I fought through the ranks, and the only blow to reach me was a strike from a man two heads taller than me, my ability allowing me to absorb his attack. I returned fire with a fist straight to his rib cage, the man letting out a garbled noise as I drove my sword deep into his stomach.
I heard a roar as Saruul took down another of Hugo’s soldiers, immediately going for his jugular and tearing it to shreds.
“Holy shit!” Roger said as he flew past again, this time aimed at a skinnier soldier who was wielding a large scimitar.
The man tried to swat his blade at Roger; the tropical bird spun in the air to avoid it. The man was so distracted by Roger that he didn’t see me come up behind them, where I cracked him in the back of the head with the hilt of my Flaming Thunderbolt.
There were a few other soldiers coming from the other side of the hallway now, but most were keeping back, already seeing the damage that was done.
“I think this is our cue to get out of here,” I called to Saruul, who just taken down another soldier. She looked up at me, her maw covered in crimson. She began to morph, and as she did the blood remained on her face.
After a quick look around, Saruul saw that one of the soldiers had come out of his room with a towel in his hand. She wiped her face, her cheeks still slightly red. “Ready.”
A double door kicked open and soldiers spilled in, but rather than run toward us, they took off in the opposite direction, chased by the same skeleton guard we’d freed from Nyima’s family’s tomb.
“Is that…?” Roger whistled. “It totally is!”
The skeleton caught up with one of the guards, driving his blade into his back. He then tossed his shield at another guard, cracking him in the side of the head. The skeleton glanced over to us, nodded, and continued slaughtering Hugo’s soldiers.
“As I was saying…” I told Roger and Saruul. “I believe this is our cue to go.”
In the end, we hadn’t made much of an entrance when we’d arrived at the rest stop, but we sure had made one hell of an exit.
Chapter Nine: Heads Down
The jungle at night was as harrowing as I assumed it would be. I knew better than to be afraid—I had a goddamn fire sword with me, and a snow lioness, not to mention a cantankerous bird with a dagger—but that didn’t stop a small amount of fear from spreading through me, especially when we were in full blackout.
Knowing that the soldiers may be after us, I had yet to brandish my Flaming Thunderbolt of Wisdom, instead relying on Saruul’s night vision to guide us through the jungle. We pushed on, my focus now on Saruul, who occasionally flicked her tail against me to let me know where she was going.
I could hear myself breathing, the hum of insects all around me, the ground beneath me damp, a floral scent to the air. Commotion to our left caused Saruul to pause; she picked up her pace again, grunting to herself as we started down a hillside covered in vines and roots.
I nearly tripped; she caught me just in time.
“You have to keep up,” she whispered.
“I’m not half-lion,” I reminded her, taking a moment to catch my breath.
She kissed me on the cheek and we continued.
Once we were far enough away from the rest stop, Saruul instructed me to stop and remain completely motionless. She nodded to the trees, and Roger flew to the canopy in an upward spiral.
She then morphed into a snow lion, taking a few careful steps around the area. Saruul returned to me, and satisfied that we hadn’t been followed, she morphed back into her human form.
“Are we good to use my sword?”
She nodded and I drew my blade, casting an orange glow on the foliage around us.
“Do you have anything brighter?” Roger asked as he touched down on my shoulder.
“It’s easier to see this way…”
“Maybe for you,” he said. “The lioness and I don’t have to worry about seeing in the dark. Maybe there’s a rune for that.”
“I’m sure there is,” I said as we continued forward.
“And so much for our restful sleep. I was having this dream…” he shuddered. “Okay, so it was about the white birds in Dornod, clearly, and there were two of them going down…”
“Shush,” Saruul told him as we made our way up a steep incline back to what I figured was one of the main roads connecting Anand to Ganbold, the plants mostly cleared from the main walkway.
“I was going to say that they were going down to the lower part of the Darkhan Mountains, nothing dirty. Well, not yet. Have you two ever hated something and loved it at the same time? There’s a lot to unpack in terms of what I saw there, but now that I think back, I’m starting to feel more and more fondly about it.”
“I think there’s a quote about nostalgia being toxic, but I don’t know who said it,” I told him.
“You’re probably right. Dreams are so fucked up.”
Roger occasionally rambled over the next several hours, Saruul and I hellbent on putting distance between us and the guards if they happened to be on our tails. I started to get the feeling that we had taken o
ut enough of them that the smart ones wouldn’t come after us, but there was no way to tell.
The sun started to rise, adding enough light to the jungle that I could put my blade away. It was then that exhaustion hit me, my mouth dry, my eyes watering every time I yawned.
“I’m starting to lose steam over here,” I announced at some point.
“Same,” Saruul said as she found a stream. She bent down to it and started to drink.
“I really wish there was a place we could crash for a while,” I said after I’d drunk some of the water as well.
“I’m sure there is,” she said, taking a quick look around. “But it may take me a while to sniff it out. If we stay on this same trail, we’ll eventually come to a rest stop. The monks back in Anand said there were others.”
And that’s what we did, Saruul always with her ears perked up, gauging to see if anyone was indeed coming after us.
Deeper and deeper into the jungle.
It was another three or four hours before we stumbled upon a rest stop that was a much smaller affair than the one we’d come from. There was no wall surrounding it, and rather than being fully staffed, it was run by a husband and wife, both thin and muscled from years of hard labor.
The man, who had a few faded tattoos on the side of his head, busied himself by preparing a tea while his wife spoke to us.
“Just another four hours or so to Ganbold if you walk fast,” the old woman said as she used a pestle and mortar to mash plantains. I’d already seen her add an orange spice to the mix, and watching her prepare it definitely caused my stomach to grumble. The woman laughed. “Let me guess, you all are hungry as well?”
“We left in a bit of a hurry,” I said.
“Understandable. Sometimes, that’s the only way to leave,” she said as she turned the pestle to me. “I’ll be back with some bread.”
“You want me to continue?”
She laughed. “If you’re going to eat it, you can help make it!”
“Some hospitality,” Roger said as I started up.
“It’s fine; I’m hungry.”
“As am I,” Saruul said as she followed after the woman. “I’m going to see if she has any meat.”
Roger snorted once she left.
“Don’t tell me that’s a joke here too…”
“What? Calling your junk meat? Not really my caliber of joke, Nick.”
Now it was my turn to laugh. “Then what are you snorting about?”
“Wait, people call their penises ‘meat’ in your world?”
“You’re the one that already mentioned it…”
“Anyone ever unpack that? Who’d want to have their peen eaten? Not this fucking bird, I’ll tell you that much.” Roger shook his head with playful disdain. “Sorry. I get vulgar when the monk isn’t around. He’s like a light at the end of the tunnel for me, his bouncing ponytail guiding the way.”
“Tomorrow,” I told him, suppressing a chuckle. “Food, rest, then we get to Ganbold.”
“And hopefully we don’t have to deal with any of Hugo’s soldiers along the way.”
“Hopefully. And what was so funny about Saruul craving meat?”
Roger laughed again. “It’s just a very liony thing to say, don’t you think? That’s why I laughed. I mean, what lion is a vegetarian? One that spent too long in the womb, if you ask me. Sometimes a joke is funny in the eye of the beholder. In this case, that beholder is me, and a lioness fiending for some meat is the stuff of comedic gold. Shit. I’m tired. I think my chatter is coming from my delirium. Perhaps my sense of humor has hit a wall.”
“Possible,” I said as Saruul and the older woman returned with fresh vegetables, a cutting board, bread, and an old pot covered in black grime.
We ended up preparing a meal with some dried goat meat the woman had, which we enjoyed with her and her husband. It wasn’t a very lively conversation, and neither of them understood what Roger was telling us about, but they were polite and it turned out to be a pretty decent meal, especially the dessert which was made with the plantains I’d helped prepare.
It was approaching afternoon by this point, but after cleaning up we retired, ready to call it a day and a night. The room was quaint, forgettable, and most important: comfortable.
“If anyone comes looking for us...” I reminded the older woman once she came with an additional blanket.
“I remember, don’t tell them anything,” she said with a curt nod. “You aren’t the first guests to request this, and will most definitely not be the last.”
“I’ve got to admit,” Roger said after she left. “It feels good to be a couple of badasses on the run from the law.” He yawned. “Really good.”
“Until they catch us.”
“They won’t,” he assured Saruul. “And if they do, Nick here will slow down time and turn them all to barbeque. I’ve got my knife as well. Actually, Nick has it in his boot. But he can get it to me and I’ll do my part.”
“I’m sure you will,” Saruul told him, “but let’s not hope for such an encounter.”
It didn’t take long for the three of us to pass out, Saruul in my arms and Roger snoring, the bird on his back with his wings resting on his belly.
I was too tired to dream. I simply awoke early the next morning to find Saruul still asleep, Roger now on his side, his beak open and his tongue hanging out.
Rather than disturb either of them, I shifted to a seated position and closed my eyes, taking deep breaths all the way to the back of my skull. We would reach the capital city of Ganbold soon, and reunite with Lhandon. But I would also have to deal with Hugo, which may be more difficult now that I had killed some of his guards.
And how was I to be granted an audience with him anyway? Was I supposed to just show up near the emperor’s estate and wave my hands until they let me in?
And even though I was supposed to be meditating, I found myself nodding.
That was exactly what I would do.
Shifting my thoughts away from how things could potentially play out, mostly because I knew that trying to predict my own future never worked out exactly how I envisioned it, I again visualized the switch that turned on my power.
Activating my power was getting easier now.
Soon I would be able to use it even more fluidly, and at that point, I would try to decrease the strain I felt in using it. As it stood, I could only use my power three or four times in a row without incurring a massive headache.
Hopefully, that would change.
Roger started shrieking, the bird shooting to the ceiling before realizing he was dreaming and lowering back down.
“Dreaming about white birds again?” I asked as Saruul woke, the lioness groaning about Roger.
“Not this time,” Roger said, still catching his breath. “It was your archnemesis, Evan. He shot me with an arrow and this time it actually connected. Fuck!” He looked at his body just to be sure there wasn’t an arrow sticking out of it. “We’ve got to kill that guy next time we see him.”
We were served yesterday’s bread for brunch, and after some tea, we set out, eventually coming across more bodies roped to palm trees. These ones had rotted for a longer period of time in the jungle, flies and other insects eating away at them.
It was foul. It was an absolutely terrible thing to witness and smell, so we quickly moved on.
“I really hope your friend the emperor can understand birdspeak because I got a few things to say to him about this gross display of power he keeps pushing on the islanders,” Roger said as we dipped under vines covered in blue flowers, bees humming around them.
“I have no idea what he’s going to say.”
Roger swallowed one of the bees whole. “It’s good eating, Nick!” he assured me.
The jungle started to morph into something more akin to a marsh. We walked along a boardwalk that looked as if it had recently been installed, the wood still fresh. I could now see the city walls of Ganbold in the distance, a haze hanging over the capita
l of the Island Kingdom of Jonang.
The space was mostly flat, palms jutting out of the marsh. There were other boardwalks as well, some with people fishing off them. I saw soldiers as well, many standing guard and holding umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun, which I could definitely feel on the tops of my ears and the back of my neck.
“How should we do this?” I asked Saruul as I spotted some guards in the distance. “They could have sent a seagull.”
“Leave it to a goddamn seagull to rat us out,” Roger said.
“Or…” Saruul raised an eyebrow as she nodded at me.
“Or what?”
“This place is all about honor. If a dozen of your soldiers lost to two people…”
“Three!” Roger squawked.
“Okay, three. If a dozen of your soldiers lost to three people, and you had a terribly cruel ruler, would you report it? Or would you think of some other way to explain what had happened.”
“Good point,” I said. “Either way, be ready for anything.”
“I always am, honey,” she said, using the word I’d used on her the other day.
I ignored Roger’s cackle as we approached the soldiers at the Ganbold city gates. We were just passing them when one called out to us.
“Yes?” I asked, turning to him and keeping my hand close enough to my sword that I could draw it.
“Where are you coming from?” he asked with a grunt.
“Um…”
“Lhasa,” Saruul told him. “Have you ever seen a snow lion on an island before?”
“I can’t say that I have,” he said, eyeing her curiously.
“We were shipwrecked and we have an important meeting with the monks at the Temple of Ocean Sky.”
“Wait a minute. Are you with the monk from Lhasa?” he asked, a smile coming onto his face. “The Exalted One?”
“Yes, do you know him?” I asked.
“In fact I do,” the soldier said. His counterpart approached and he waved him away. “He stopped by this morning and brought us refreshments, telling us that he was expecting company. Remember that monk?” he asked the other soldier.
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