The western winds brought warmer weather, as well. On one particularly hot afternoon, Turesobei and Noboro practiced sword routines until sweat drenched them. The rhythm of the routines became a dance with the soles of their feet tapping the beats as they lunged, spun, thrust, backpedaled, and kicked.
Tap, thud, slash, swipe, thud, slash!
Neither wanted to end the dance of the long sword sequence, but a shout from the crow's nest interrupted them.
“Two sails on the horizon! Origin unknown!”
Chapter Seventeen
Sailors scrambled as Captain Tedeko shouted orders that Turesobei still didn't understand. He had only learned a little of the sailors' lingo. Other ships had passed them, but these were the first whose national origin wasn't clear. Captain Tedeko joined them at the port bow rail and aimed his telescope.
“What is it?” Noboro asked.
“I'm not sure,” Tedeko said. “Maybe pirates. It's hard to tell whether they're pursuing us, but we'll know soon.”
The two smaller ships were heading directly toward them. The Little Goddess was tacking into the wind the two new ships sailed with.
“We're going to turn north and see if they follow,” Tedeko said. He shouted orders and the helmsman altered their course.
Immediately, the two ships adjusted to intercept them. At that time they raised their colors. Two flags, white with a single line of crimson across the center.
The color drained from Tedeko’s face. “Captain Gaizanu,” he said without expression.
Sailors gasped and murmured in fear. Turesobei’s heart skipped a beat. He didn’t know much of sailing, but everyone had heard of the sadistic pirate lord Gaizanu. It was said that men who were about to be captured would commit suicide rather than face Gaizanu’s wicked tortures.
Noboro closed his eyes tight and grimaced, as if in pain. “Can you outrun him?”
“If we can outmaneuver him and get him heading into the wind with us,” Captain Tedeko said, “then maybe. But they'll catch us when we stop tonight.”
“But won't they get caught in the reefs in the dark?” Turesobei asked.
Tedeko shook his head. “They'll follow along the same path we took, knowing it's safe.”
“I could cast a spell to summon a small cloud of fog behind us so they couldn’t see,” said Turesobei. “Would that help?”
“Could another wizard counter it?” the captain asked.
“Easily.”
“It’s no use to us then. Gaizanu is a sorcerer.”
“Oh,” said Turesobei. “I didn’t know that.”
“So what will we do?” Noboro asked.
“We'll just have to do our best with the lanterns and spotters and plow ahead. We don't fight them unless we must.”
Turesobei turned to his father. “I could summon a couple of fire globes and have them hover over the sea ahead of the ship so it would be easier to see.”
Noboro looked at the captain and raised an eyebrow. Tedeko nodded eagerly. “That would help.”
Turesobei smiled, satisfied that he could help out in some way after all. “I'll be ready come night.”
Tedeko consulted his charts. “The safest routes are due west but they are closed to us now. We have two northwestern routes on the charts that we can take early tomorrow morning. The safest and fastest path is not an option, though. And unfortunately the other is quite dangerous at speed.”
“Why isn't the first an option?” Turesobei asked.
“Gitsukara. Reef Demons. They live between two large outcrops. A giant web stretches between the rocks and traps sailors as they come through. That's what I've heard anyway. I know this much for certain: no one goes through there.”
“Would the pirates follow us through if we took that route?” Turesobei asked.
“They would have to be desperate.”
“Everyone's afraid of that route,” Noboro told him. “And everyone sailing through this region knows of it.”
“You have Yomifano,” Turesobei said to his father, “and I have your white-steel sword. We could fight our way through demons.”
“But would that be better than fighting the pirates?” Noboro said. “We don't know how powerful these demons are.”
Turesobei shrugged. “I'm not familiar with gitsukara, but I can try to banish them. It might work.”
“I don't like it,” Noboro said. “But if we have to….”
Captain Tedeko nodded. “Then we'll do what we must.”
* * *
The Little Goddess had outmaneuvered the pirates, but her lead on them was dwindling rapidly. Turesobei stood in the ship's bow manipulating his two flame globes ahead of the spotters' lantern-light. He kept his focus by counting the sloshes of sea against the ship's keel. His father and Guard Captain Fodoru stood nearby watching quietly.
Captain Tedeko joined them. “We must fight either the pirates or the reef demons.”
“It is your choice, captain,” Noboro said. “Either way, you can count on us.”
“We won't win if we fight the pirates. If the lookout has counted correctly, they outnumber us three to one. And my sailors are not hardened warriors.”
“Then we risk the passage and see if the legends are true?” Noboro asked.
Tedeko sighed and with his fingers made the sign of the crescent to ward away evil. “If your son is up to the challenge….”
Chapter Eighteen
Turesobei drew a knife blade across his palm. He dipped one finger into the blood and then drew a series of runes onto Captain Fodoru's broadsword. To Turesobei’s kenja-sight, the blood glowed with an eerie, pulsing cast. Blood magic provided strong energies, but its use held great risk. Turesobei chanted the proper words and completed the spell.
“What will this do?” Fodoru asked.
“It's a demon bane.”
“Will my blade harm them like white-steel?”
“No, but they will feel more pain from it than normal.”
Fodoru smiled weakly. “So it will anger them?”
“I intend for it to distract them. Could buy you some time if you’re in danger.”
Turesobei repeated the process on Captain Tedeko's saber. Then he placed demon wards on the armor of both men and that of the helmsman. Turesobei's armor of enameled leather had a permanent ward placed there by his grandfather before they had left. His father's armor had an identical spell that had been cast many years ago. The wards would fortify them against zhurakami magic and their physical attacks, but it wouldn't fully protect them by any means.
No one except Turesobei, Noboro, and Fodoru would stay on the foredeck as they approached the gitsukara.
Turesobei knelt and meditated as the Little Goddess eased into the wide channel that would lead them to the demon outcrops. Fog obscured much of their route. The helmsman steered by the sound of crashing waves more than by sight. Their ultimate destination he could see, however, as glowing gossamer strands slowly appeared ahead, like sapphire veins within the fog. Waves crashed against reefs and rocks and spindrift flew into their faces. A strange wind blew through the strands and whistled with a crooning sweeeh.
Turesobei wiped saltwater from his eyes and took deep breaths. His heart pounded. He was, he admitted, terrified. He was also afraid that he'd let everyone down. Forty-five people including his father and their Chonda guards depended on his skills in magic.
Lap, crash, sweeeh!
Turesobei let those sounds echo in his mind like a mantra as he opened his kenja-sight. The threads proved to be not entirely kenja as he had suspected, though they carried a strong taint of demon magic. He guessed they were more like spider silk than anything.
Lap, crash, sweeeh!
Turesobei spotted the gitsukara crouched in the center of the silken web. He had expected something like a spider. Instead he saw something as much like a squid or lobster, only larger than a man. A dozen tentacles emanated from a hard-shell body, and a pincer capped the end of each tentacle. Black eyes sat near a hook
ed beak. Thin spider legs held the body to the web.
“I-I see it,” Turesobei stammered. “It's ugly and it has a lot of tentacles.”
From mid-deck Captain Tedeko cursed. “I'd hoped the legends weren't true!”
“Just one gitsukara?” Noboro asked.
“That's all I—” Something moved out onto the web. “Wait, two more. They're smaller, though.” Turesobei described them, cringing as he did so.
Lap, crash, sweeeh!
A screech pierced the fog, followed by a half-dozen lesser calls. Everyone clasped hands over their ears and fell to their knees as the noise deafened them.
“By the Earth-Mother!” Turesobei yelled, having seen more movement. “There are four more small ones now!”
The ship sailed to within thirty yards of the web. Turesobei glanced back and saw the helmsman had collapsed to his knees. They might soon crash into the rocks.
Turesobei struggled to his feet and drew the bamboo strip with the spell of demon banishment. He chanted and found that as he concentrated on the words, he could block out the effects of the screech.
Power lurched from his body. Kenja from the ocean, air, and even the reefs moved in tune with the energies propelled outward from within Turesobei and the spell strip. The banishment swept across the gitsukara. Immediately, the screeching stopped and the small ones withdrew to their rocks. The large one remained and tensed its body.
The demon opened its beak and projected silk webs toward the ship. The webs arced over the bow and struck Turesobei. He fell, wrapped in sticky webs that still trailed all the way back to the beast’s maw.
The webs tightened and the gitsukara jerked him forward, sucking in the webs. Turesobei slid across the deck toward the bow. Noboro lunged forward and slashed through the webs with Yomifano. The demon snapped down on the loose webbing, severing it from its end, and then blasted another mouthful toward the ship.
Noboro swung Yomifano in a wide arc and cut through them just before they struck. “Captain Tedeko, guard the helmsman!”
Tedeko climbed the rear deck to shield his helmsman from danger. The ship closed to within ten yards.
Turesobei struggled but couldn't break free from the webs that were still wrapped around him. Fodoru hunched down and cut the webs off Turesobei while Noboro dodged another mouthful.
Turesobei stood and swept the stinging webs from his face and arms. He felt weak and nauseous. But he was lucky. If not for his armor's demon warding, the webbing could have leeched all the kenja from him within a few minutes.
He reached Sumada toward Fodoru. “Take it and give me yours.”
“But—”
“I'll be too busy with spells.”
Ignoring the law against a zaboko wielding a white-steel weapon, Fodoru took the blade. Then he gave Turesobei his broadsword.
The ship crashed into the webbing. The silken strands stretched and groaned but didn't tear. The ship slowed to a halt. The large gitsukara leapt onto the foredeck.
The smaller gitsukara started to crawl back onto the web, but Turesobei chanted an impromptu banishment and drove them back again. Fodoru stood nearby and shielded him. Noboro dodged another blast of webbing and waited to see what the beast would do next.
He didn't have to wait long. The gitsukara hissed and vaulted over them. While overhead, it spun around and slashed at them with its tentacles. One struck Turesobei in the back and knocked him down, though the claw didn't pierce his armor.
Noboro severed one tentacle, and it fell to the deck where it twitched for several moments before dissipating like smoke. But then another caught Noboro by the leg and lifted him into the air. He cursed and swatted wildly with Yomifano, but to no avail.
Fodoru rushed forward to save him, chopping through a tentacle as he went, but the moment he reached Noboro, a tentacle struck him in the neck. Fodoru fell and didn't move.
Turesobei rushed forward, sliding across the deck. Now that the creature was within range, he drew the fire-beam strip from his pouch and chanted the activation command. The red-gold beam shot forth from his hand with a crackling hiss. The blast seared across the creature's left flank and burned one eye shut.
The creature screeched in pain and dropped Noboro. Turesobei's father immediately jumped to his feet, dodged flailing tentacles, and plunged Yomifano deep into the creature's body. The gitsukara writhed and screamed.
Noboro jerked the blade free and stabbed the beast again. The gitsukara dimmed and turned hazy around the edges. Noboro struck again, and Turesobei, though weak and dizzy, chanted another banishment spell.
With a sucking gasp, the creature imploded. Like a cloud of smoke drawn into a pinhole, the gitsukara disappeared into the nether hell from which it had originated. The remaining gitsukara fled to the other side of their rocks.
Fodoru weakly rose to his feet. He felt at his neck and his hand returned with blood.
Noboro ran to him. “You all right?”
“Nothing serious,” Fodoru said, wincing in pain. “At least I don’t think so.”
“We'd better cut the ship free before the others decide they can take us!” Captain Tedeko yelled.
Noboro ran to one side, Fodoru the other. With the white-steel blades the two easily cut through the webs holding the ship. As they did so, Turesobei collapsed to his knees.
“Sobei!” he heard his father yell as he slumped to the deck.
This wasn't good.
He wasn’t injured, but the webs and his spell casting had drained his internal kenja down to a dangerous level.
Once again the ship lapped forward into the sea. Footsteps pounded across the deck. People spoke but he couldn't understand the words.
A hand touched Turesobei's arm as he passed into darkness.
Chapter Nineteen
Turesobei awoke to the din of a bustling street of haggling merchants, squawking chickens, rumbling denekon, and playing children. The scents of grilled meats and baking bread drifted through the bamboo slats of shuttered windows. Those scents mingled with the musty odor of the dingy, second story room. Only a little light filtered into the room, but it was enough to see that his accommodations were less than ideal.
Three more pallets lay near his, and Captain Fodoru sat on one of them meditating. A clay pitcher was placed on a shelf on the opposite side of the room along with what looked like hard biscuits and slices of apple.
Turesobei felt incredibly weak. The last thing he remembered was his father and Fodoru cutting the Little Goddess free from the gitsukara's webs. He tried to sit up, but couldn't manage it.
“Fodoru?” he called weakly.
The guard captain turned and smiled. A bandage was wrapped around his neck and shoulder. “You're awake at last. How do you feel?”
“Terrible…thirsty.”
“I bet you are.” Fodoru brought a biscuit and a bowl of water to Turesobei. “Here, let me help you sit up.” Fodoru lifted and turned Turesobei around so that he could lean back against the wall.
Turesobei drank and took a few bites out of the biscuit. His stomach couldn't tolerate more than that yet, so he set it aside.
“Where's everyone else?”
“Your father has gone to hire a local guide he knows. Some of the guards are with him, and the others are waiting outside this room.” He grinned. “I'm stuck here with you because of my shoulder.”
“How is it?”
“Getting better. The filthy beast had some sort of mild venom. The wound burns and itches like a giant mosquito bite. The healer said it would get better, though. You were the one we worried about. You've been out for five days.”
Five days! No wonder he felt so stiff.
“I'll be all right,” Turesobei said. “I just need to recover my spirit.” If he was awake, the greatest danger was gone. Of course, he may have drained anywhere from several days to several years from his natural lifespan. “Where are we?”
“Nijona. It's a small coastal town in Wakaro.”
“What about the ship
?”
“Gone on to Dogo Daiyen. Captain Tedeko has a cargo to deliver. He's going to return here afterward and wait for us. Believe it nor not, but this is the best inn Nijona has to offer.”
“It must not be very much of a town.”
“Probably forty thousand people, actually, but they are not wealthy.” Fodoru gave Turesobei an apple slice. “Try to eat some. It will make you stronger.”
Turesobei managed to force it down then finished the bowl of water. “I'm going to rest some more now.”
Fodoru helped him lie back down. “Of course. Noboro said we wouldn't leave until you were well enough.”
“A few more days then,” Turesobei murmured. “Tell him I'm sorry.”
* * *
Two afternoons later, Fodoru left and Turesobei was at last in the room alone by himself.
“Lu Bei,” he whispered.
A muffled pop emanated from his satchel, then out flew the amber, bat-winged fetch who immediately rushed to Turesobei and landed on the pallet beside him.
“Master, you shouldn’t waste your energy on me!”
“Shh! There are guards outside. And don’t worry about me, I’m almost well.”
“I wish I could have done something, master.”
“But you couldn’t, and I made it here just fine. In fact, I’m glad I fought the demon.”
Lu Bei’s eyes went wide with expectation. “Why, master?”
“Because I’ve proven myself now. What test could Grandfather give me that would exceed that?”
“None, master. It was a great feat, and I’m certain you will accomplish many more like it in time. I’m certain that one day demons such as the gitsukara will prove to be of little challenge to you.”
Turesobei chuckled. “I’m not so sure about that, little fetch. But I do feel that I’m up to the task now, that I can handle anything this expedition throws at me.”
Storm Phase Series: Books 1-3 Page 10