The Saga:
Dragon Heart
Sea of Sand
Book IV
By Kirill Klevanski
Text Copyright © 2019 Kirill Klevanski
All rights reserved.
No part of this book can be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
Introduced by Valeria Kornosenko.
Translated by J. Kharkova, R. Mansurova
Edited by Damir Isovic
Cover designed by Yuliia Zhdanova
Illustrations by Valery Spitsyn
BOOK ONE: STONE WILL
BOOK TWO: IRON WILL
BOOK THREE: BLOOD WILL
Chapter 256
It was almost impossible to come across someone in the street while the scorching midday sun was high in the sky. Here at the border with the Sea of Sand, no one dared to venture outside the relief-giving walls of taverns and hotels.
The small town, surrounded by walls made of yellow stone, stood on huge golden and orange dunes that stretched across the horizon. They seemed to loom overhead like the waves of a raging sea and threatened to overwhelm the little settlement and the sparse vegetation surrounding it.
Here, in the vicinity of the town named Three Horseshoes, one could still find the occasional bushes and low trees sprouting from dry, red earth, and sometimes even springs flowing through canyons. But no one went there, as everyone knew that the canyons were where the bandits lived. Fortunately, every border town had a deep well with tasty, and, most importantly, cold, clean water.
At this time of day, with the sun’s rays bearing down so mercilessly that even the camels were hiding in the shadows, people mostly stayed in teahouses.
In one of them, a middle-aged man was sitting on some comfortable pillows. He was wearing a caftan and a turban on his head, holding a pipe. His pointed beard was a little gray, but the cool gaze of his almost black eyes and the curved hilt of a broadsword meant that people didn’t bother him.
“Thank you, darling,” the man nodded, taking another bowl of hot tea from a waitress.
It may have seemed odd, but the Bedouins and residents of the Sea of Sand always drank only hot beverages. That way, they kept cool. They had to spend a huge amount of money on incense, as they wanted to cover the stench of their own sweat. The hotter the drink was, the more they sweated, and the more they sweated, the cooler they felt, which led to more incense to cover the smell.
A month ago, Hadjar had considered this to be made up, but now he was calmly sipping hot tea while observing the far table.
A young man was sitting across from him. He kept glancing at the waitress with the kettle. There was definitely something to admire there: her thin, silk clothes were translucent enough to draw the eye of anyone so inclined.
“Are you listening to me, Shakh?” the man grinned, having noticed that the young man was distracted by the waitress.
“Yes, uncle,” Shakh nodded, adjusting the sash that held his curved daggers. “Of course I’m listening to you.”
“Are you sure? It seems to me like you’re looking at the thighs of that desert emerald instead.”
Hadjar raised his bowl and the girl poured him some tea. Hadjar saw the small spark in her green eyes — all that remained of a once blazing fire. The girl was obviously tired, and her bronze skin had even turned slightly gray due to her weariness. Alas, that didn’t bother the owner of the institution, who continued to ‘exploit’ his only employee, as well as the young man named Shakh.
“No, uncle, I’m listening to you attentively,” Shakh kept insisting.
“Are you sure you want to go to the Empire with me, Shakh?” the man scratched his beard as he looked into his nephew’s eyes, as if trying to find the answer to his question there. “It’s a long journey,” he continued. “We’ll end up traversing the entire Sea of Sand. Our transport is simple: camels and Desert Beasts at the stage of the Awakening of Power, no higher. We’ll be gone for at least three years. This isn’t some month-long jaunt in a caravan of nobles.”
“I don’t have the money to travel with nobles, uncle.”
“But your father does,” the man shrugged his shoulders and called the waitress over with a gesture.
The girl immediately went over to him, bracelets jangling on her bare ankles, and splashed some more fragrant tea into his bowl. After a moment, she moved on to the next table. The tables were wide and round, with short legs, almost resting on the ground. There were no chairs, just cushions, and the ceiling was a round hole covered with dry branches and mats. Hot air would quickly leave the room through such a ceiling, making way for life-giving coolness.
Hadjar hadn’t been able to get used to that for a long time, nor to the fact that during the several months of his journey to the border of the Sea of Sand, it hadn’t rained at all.
“He doesn’t want me going to the Empire,” Shakh sighed, sipping at his bowl as if a fortified wine was splashing around inside it.
“I can understand your father’s reasons. My brother is wise.”
The young man’s eyes flashed menacingly and he flushed.
“Your brother wants me to dig wells all my life, just like him!”
“Because you are the eldest son of the eldest brother,” the man ignored the boy’s outburst. “That is our tradition, Shakh. Besides, where will you find a person richer than a good well digger in the Sea of Sand? Everybody needs water. Even the best practitioners!”
“What if I don’t want to be a well digger or a practitioner? Uncle, I could become a cultivator in the Empire! I could walk among the clouds and birds. I could see the world, meet people with different skin colors...”
“Look behind you,” the man nodded toward Hadjar, who pretended not to notice it. “You see, underneath our sun, the difference in skin color is rendered almost unnoticeable. The man from Lidus is almost like us now.”
Hadjar had really gotten sunburned over the past few months. However, even that tan couldn’t hide his origins from the locals. The quickness with which they’d identified him as being from Lidus was startling and sometimes scary.
“Admit it, Shakh, you just want to run away from your father. From your mother. From your sisters. You think that you will gain freedom in the Empire, but that’s just not true. Even if you survive our journey through the Sea of Sand, Darnassus will destroy you. It’s more or less an endless struggle there.”
“I’m strong, uncle,” there was determination in Shakh’s eyes now. “Even without my father’s support, I reached the Formation Stage by the age of twelve! Now, at seventeen, I am the best practitioner in town, as you well know.”
The man nodded and placed his bowl on the table. “I know, Shakh. No one in town can handle your Technique. The foundation for your Transformation of the Mortal Shell Stage is as strong as the God’s Tooth.”
Hadjar didn’t understand the comparison with this God’s Tooth, but he decided that it had nothing to do with actual teeth. Thanks to South Wind and the neuronet, the young Prince knew a fair number of languages, but that didn’t mean he always had the context needed to use them properly.
Still, just the fact that he could understand and speak the language of the Sea of Sand meant that the functions of the neural network were slowly being restored.
“That’s why, uncle, I’m asking you to take me with you. You know my daggers are as fast as Rukh and my Technique is as strong as a predawn storm.”
“And your speeches are as sweet as molasses,” the man
laughed. “As soon as I take you with me, many of the men in the caravan will have to start hiding their wives and, more likely, their daughters from you.”
Shakh blushed, but his gaze remained firm.
“You are the chief of security, uncle, and I’m not asking you to take me with you just because of our relationship. Give me an opportunity to participate in the selection process for the guards. That’s all I ask for.”
Shakh bowed deeply. As deeply as it was possible to bow while still seated at the table.
The chief of security of the largest caravan in the surrounding area thought it over for a while. Then, after waving his hand in annoyance, he put a few square coins on the table.
“If I have to return to my brother with your corpse, I’ll curse your soul.”
Shakh smiled.
The pair stood up, thanked the tired waitress, and left.
Hadjar finished his drink calmly, adjusted the plain sword in a plain sheath at his waist, and set off after them. He, like Shakh, didn’t have enough money to buy a spot in the caravan of nobles. However, he had a sword he’d use to not only get to the Empire, but also to make money off it.
Hadjar had left Lidus with almost no money. Now he only had some simple sandals, pants made from a thick, brown fabric, a white shirt, a leather vest, bracers with inscriptions on them, a blue silk scarf around his neck, and an orange bit of fabric wrapped around his head, just above the eyebrows. Without it, he would’ve had to keep shaking a lot of sand out of his hair every morning, which had initially made his skin itch so badly that Hadjar had scratched it bloody in the first weeks.
He didn’t care about such minor things, however, because his journey had continued.
Or just started.
That was the right way to look at it.
“Milady,” Hadjar smiled at the waitress.
She didn’t understand him as she didn’t know Lidish. But even one word, spoken in his mother tongue, was enough to cheer Hadjar up. He’d never thought he could be so sentimental before.
Chapter 257
Moving his scarf from his neck up to his head, Hadjar followed the caravan chief of security and his nephew. He had given almost all of his money to find out which border town had the best caravan. His journey had turned out to be not only exciting and a way to heal his soul, but also very expensive.
For example, the sword which Hadjar had at the moment had cost him a very sizeable sum of money at the very beginning of his journey. For the same amount of money, it would’ve been possible to buy a good farm and several farmers in Lidus.
Hot sand got into his sandals, leaving small burns on his skin. Over the past months, Hadjar had gotten accustomed to this feeling, and the wounds healed very quickly. The Technique of Strengthening the Body he’d acquired long ago was rather helpful.
There were legends that claimed the Masters of such Techniques who reached the level of a Heaven Soldier could easily take a direct hit from an arrow fired at a distance of twenty steps and end up without a single scratch on their body.
Hiding among the rare passersby, carpets, and silks of the bazaar, Hadjar followed the duo. At the same time, he looked at the dark-skinned, short, but broad-shouldered people.
The locals were very different from the Baliumians or Lidishes. They looked kind of like the nomads, only with different facial features and smaller eyes. They loved to talk, drink, and have sex. Morals were very loose here. Perhaps that was why Serra had so quickly gotten together with Nero...
Almost stumbling at the memory of them, Hadjar patted the wallet that held his dead friends’ bracelets. Smiling sadly, he shoved their visages out of his memory, and the sharp pain slowly left his heart. Despite his occasional sadness, the journey really had cured his soul, leaving only ugly scars behind...
“Only three coins for such a handsome man,” somebody whispered hotly in his ear.
Hadjar turned around and saw a very attractive girl who had a tenacious and cold look about her. She showed off her very seductive thighs and ample breasts.
“I’m afraid I can only offer you a tattered sandal,” Hadjar snorted.
The woman immediately lost interest in him and started searching for another lucky customer. There was nothing surprising in seeing whores selling themselves in the middle of the afternoon in the Sea of Sand. Hadjar still couldn’t get used to the fact that even this woman had emanated the aura of a practitioner, though. Of course, she’d been weak, her cultivation no higher than the fifth step of the Bodily Nodes, but even then...
There were also a lot of serious practitioners who were at the Formation Stage and above. At first, Hadjar hadn’t been able to believe that he hadn’t wandered into a military garrison. Demons and Gods! Even in the best army of Lidus — the Moon Army — there hadn’t been as many strong practitioners as there were simply walking down the streets of Three Horseshoes. It was a terrifying prospect, trying to imagine how many of them there were in the cities of the Sea of Sand, not to mention the Empire itself.
Over the years he’d spent in Lidus, even the ones he’d spent fighting a war, Hadjar had gotten used to feeling confident in his swordsmanship. Now, however... Of course, he wasn’t the weakest among the locals. Many warriors, after meeting his eyes, would try to disappear from his sight quickly. However, more often than not, they would prepare to fight. They weren’t afraid of Hadjar, and were ready to cross swords with him at any moment in order to determine who was the strongest.
Frankly, Hadjar was pleased with this. The goal that he had set for himself at the bottom of the palace lake could only be reached by possessing unthinkable, beyond legendary power. After all, none of the heroes in South Wind’s tales had ever found any gods...
Therefore, Hadjar was going to become stronger than any man, creature, demon, or monster that had ever lived in this vast world.
Walking past a tavern, Hadjar came up to a fence that separated a small parade ground from the main part of the town. A few dozen warriors had gathered there.
Among them were Shakh and his uncle, who now looked much more formidable than he’d recently seemed to be in the teahouse. His beard looked like a spearhead, and his gaze held an unnerving intensity.
Looking at the chief of security, Hadjar wondered if he could survive a fight against him. He guessed that this warrior at the Heaven Soldier level had survived enough battles by now to face any challenges without fear.
That’s right, the ‘simple’ chief of security of a local caravan was at the Heaven Soldier level. And he wasn’t even close to being the first true cultivator whom Hadjar had met on his way to the Empire.
Compared to the Empire, there weren’t so many of them, but compared to Lidus… In his two months on the road, Shakh’s uncle was the eleventh cultivator Hadjar had come across. After twenty-five years of living in Lidus, Hadjar had met only three of them: the Balium Patriarch, the Governor of the Empire, and Primus.
Hadjar approached four muscular warriors with almost triangular faces and thick, black beards.
“May the sea stay hot for you, stranger,” one of the guards greeted him.
“And the oases never deceive you,” Hadjar answered.
How to greet the inhabitants of every nation had been the first thing that South Wind had taught him.
“Move along, stranger. We’re testing people to see who is worthy of guarding Shah Akharab’s caravan.”
“That’s precisely why I’m here.”
The guards looked at each other. Hadjar towered over them by almost a head and a half, but they still managed to look down on him.
“Are you sure, stranger?” The guard’s voice was as dry as the ground underneath his feet. “No one will take your dead body back to Lidus to bury it next to your ancestors.”
Hadjar was once again surprised at how quickly his nationality had been identified.
“As far as I know, honorable overseer, any man or woman who has reached the Formation Stage can participate in the selection process, regardless
of what country they were born in or how old they are.”
The guard smiled awkwardly, revealing an uneven row of yellow teeth. They weren’t yellow because he was sick or didn’t take care of himself, but because the local food was saturated with special spices that colored one’s teeth. However, without these spices, food ended up being tasteless.
“Go away, stranger,” a second guard said. He looked at Hadjar far less amiably than his partner had. “The smell of your incense makes my eyes water. If I stand next to you any longer, your stench will cling to me and my wife won’t make love to me tonight.”
A dragon stirred in Hadjar’s blue eyes, but only one of the four guards noticed it. The one who’d tried to be polite, although he also didn’t like white-skinned northerners.
“Your wife? Forgive me, honorable overseer, but I left her exhausted before coming here. She won’t be able to make love to you either way.”
After the years he’d spent embroiled in endless wars, Hadjar found he now had a short fuse. Five years ago, he would’ve never allowed himself to hurl such an insult, but who could blame him for having changed? No one. Except for maybe Azrea, who was sleeping in the depths of Hadjar’s turban.
“Remember the names of your ancestors, stranger!”
The guard reached for his broadsword, but didn’t even manage to touch the heavy handle. He screamed in pain as an invisible blade slashed his wrist. Blood dripped down onto the sand, and his pants soon followed, adding to the humiliation.
The rest of the guards looked at Hadjar as if seeing a monster standing in front of them. They felt that the northerner was at the Transformation Stage, but the skill that he’d just demonstrated... Spirits of the desert! Even Shakar, the chief of security for the caravan, probably wasn’t capable of such a feat.
“Come in, Northerner,” the first guard said respectfully. “And you, Zulu, be more careful and polite next time.”
Not paying attention to the whining of the wounded guard who’d also been deprived of his pants, Hadjar went through the fence. He’d arrived just in time. Shakar was starting his speech.
Dragon Heart: Sea of Sand. LitRPG Wuxia Series: Book 4 Page 1