EXCERPT - CHAPTER ONE

 

As the autumn winds swept across his face, Kith-sei Ra narrowed his eyes and looked into the fields that stretched out below him. The bright sky shone on the grasses and the trees undulated in the wind. These lands were only a few days march from his homeland to the west, but they looked so much different—so much flatter and more vulnerable. Here and there peasants still walked, but for the most part they kept inside their houses—they didn’t want to take any risks. He looked beyond the fields to a ridge with bushes, and further on a line of trees. It was from here that a thin line of smoke rose up into the sky. That was where they were camped, no doubt.

He patted his horse’s neck and grimaced at a sudden pain in his arm. Beneath the hemp cloth of his sleeve he could feel the sweat mingling with the cut he had suffered the other day. He had applied herbs to it and bandaged it, but the pain was only getting worse. It felt as if a poison had entered his body, and now it had seeped into his blood like a cold rain slipping through stones. The memory of the battle two days ago made him nauseous.

“Let’s go back,” he said to his horse. “I must talk to Mayu-kira.”

He swung her around and galloped down the hill towards camp. On an open space before a cove of trees, his men were lounging in front of their tents, smoking pipes and playing dice. They noticed him as he passed but only a few stood up to bow. He flew by them, not wanting to meet their eyes.

At his tent he left his horse to a soldier and entered to see Mayu-kira standing by the lamp inside, looking over a scroll. The light cast a warm glow on the mild features of the cleric’s face. Ra caught the familiar scent of the cleric’s fragrant oils and herbs.

“Prince,” the old man said plainly as he bowed. Mayu-kira was never one to fawn. He always gave the impression he did not try too hard at anything, but Ra knew it was only a facade.

“Mayu, I must talk.”

“I thought that might be the case.”

Ra sat on his mat, removing his sword and placing it on the lacquered sword rest. He undid the strings on his sleeve, loosening the strain on his arm. A cold sweat was starting to form on his brow.

“I sense that they do not like me, Mayu—the soldiers.”

“Prince, you are still young. It will improve with time.”

“They think I am a foreigner.”

“Is that the case? I never heard such a thing.”

“I’ve heard it said.”

Mayu-kira rolled up the thin paper of the scroll and put it into a case. He wiped his hands on the pale blue silk of his robes and sat in front of the prince.

“Do you wish, then, that you were born to a different mother?” He said it a bit coldly and Ra froze.

“Of course not. It’s just . . I hardly even remember what she was like.”

A servant entered to bring him hot tea Ra exhaled in relief at the interruption. He took the warm cup in his hands and felt his nerves ease as he sipped the pale, fragrant liquid. He avoided Mayu-kira’s eyes, hoping against hope that the cleric would not lead into a lecture.

“In any case,” said Mayu-kira, forgetting his admonitory tone, “there is the matter at hand. Guar is in our sights. If we do not pursue him—if we do not leave this very minute, in fact—he will be long gone.”

“I know—I saw his encampment. Maybe ten, twelve li. The weather is good and they will move swiftly. We could catch him by evening.”

Mayu-kira sat back in his stool and blinked his eyes.

“But something is wrong, Prince?”

Ra said nothing. Then he set the cup on the table beside him and began to unwrap the bandage around his arm. As the red stains of the cloth emerged from beneath and a stench drifted up to his nose, he frowned in consternation. “This wound—it has been three days now. I didn’t think it was much, but the pain does not go away.”

“Very unusual,” said Mayu-kira with concern. “Let me see it.” Ra presented his arm to the cleric. It was a short gash that ran across the inside of his forearm. The color was a pale brown mixed with dashes of deep red, and the skin surrounding the wound was marked by strange patterns.

Mayu-kira furrowed his heavy eyebrows and ran his hand down the length of Ra’s arm.

“Do you know what it is? Can you heal it?” asked Ra.

Usually, Mayu-kira could fix these kinds of things.

“Sara-kri must see this” he responded matter-of-factly. “This is no ordinary wound.”

“The Sage of Bar-kar?” said Ra, his voice rising. “Is it that bad? I don’t want to go through all the formalities of seeing her. They say it takes weeks. Also, I don’t want to waste her time. This is nothing—it will heal in a week. I should be able to heal it, in any case” he said in frustration.

“You cannot heal it,” said Mayu-kira. “There is some mysterious power here. And I should not like to try and heal it. The sword that cut you must have been tampered with. Let me see your armor.” Ra brought over the leather armor, and Mayu-kira ran his hand across the arm greaves. “See, this.” He rubbed his fingers together and a soft powder trickled to the floor. “Almost like rust. I will keep a sample of this and find out what it is. But it is clear that it was no ordinary sword.”

“Well, I don’t really care how it happened. I am tired.” Ra covered the wound back up and lay down on the straw mat. But inside, his heart beat with trepidation. It was not often that Mayu-kira couldn’t heal his wounds—it must have been serious if he recommended seeing the Sage.

“Prince,” said Mayu-kira, noticing his perturbation. “This can be solved, and it will be solved with Sara-kri’s help.”

“Guar is in our sights.”

“He is already on the run and he will flee East on his own. I am sure one of your generals can lead the army and then reconnect with Lord Kei. Your health is the most important thing.”

“Very well,” he said. “We shall go to see Sara-kri tomorrow.”

Mayu-kira nodded silently, and left the tent.

 

They had been pursuing Guar for the past week. The warlord’s bandits had been terrorizing the villagers of Wa-alar--entering houses and stealing possessions--and Ra’s father had instructed him to drive them out. Ra gauged that the old man was eager to impress the king of Wa-alarn, with whom he had only recently forged an alliance. He couldn’t understand why this so-called ally couldn’t manage his own lands, in any case. His father had seemed particularly anxious when he instructed Ra to lead the mission after Guar, pacing across the room more than usual and giving highly specific instructions.

“This Guar must be driven out” he had said with finality. He was of medium height and build but had a deep tone to his voice that inferred a sense of authority. He had stopped pacing and sat cross-legged on the mat in front of Ra. He pointed fixedly to the location on the map where Guar was supposed to be entrenched. “His men have been raiding the rice fields in Wa-alarn, killing peasants, stealing food. Idiots—no strategy or point to what they are doing. We have dealt with their kind before—they run amuck in our kingdoms. It should be easy enough. There are only thirty or forty of them. Just give them a scare, and drive them completely out of Wa-alarn. An early attack of archers, a cavalry drive, and that should do the trick.”

Ra listened obediently, but made no mental notes of his father’s instructions. He would use his own strategy when the time came. His father’s tactics were often orthodox and plain, or so he believed. Too safe.

“Yes, Father.”

“Mayu-kira will accompany you. His military knowledge is not extensive of course, but it should be enough to help you. He has been in a battle or two, I believe,” he said with a scoff. He gave one last look to Ra and suddenly his eyes softened. “Will you be okay? Will you be prepared for this? I have given you an abundance of soldiers.”

“I will be fine,” said Ra, and then his father nodded confidently.

“Good,” he said, his face relaxing into a broad smile. “I know you will. I will be attending to the king of Er-Markara, who will be here for the week. This potential alliance with his kingdom is very important for us. I’m depending on you to get the job done, and come back quickly.”

It had turned out that Guar had more than thirty soldiers—close to three times that number, in fact. They were also a hungry, fierce bunch who seemed slightly insane, as if they had seen devils with their own eyes the day before. They wore red bandanas and carried curved swords and fought wildly. Ra didn’t know what was driving them but figured it was just barbarism. In any case they had been beaten without too much trouble, but not before cornering him by the river and killing a number of his men.

Their red bandanas swirled before him and his soldiers fought with fury. Then a contingent of four or five men on horses broke through his line and pushed towards him. One of them managed to slash him across the arm. The rage in the marauder’s eyes had been manic, almost as if he had been possessed. Ra had stepped back, regained himself, and thrust his sword down into the man’s shoulder.  His men drove off the rest of the contingent, and he had stood there panting as he watched the blood spurt from the bandit’s open neck. Just now, he had a mental picture of the sword that lay there in the gathering blood—yes, it was a strange-looking weapon, with odd parts affixed to it. A twisted and grotesque thing. He shuddered now to think of it.

There was much to do now that the plans had changed. A letter was sent to Lord Kei regarding Ra’s condition. The army of 800 men was entrusted to the second general, who was instructed to link up with Lord Kei north of the Grey River. Ra knew that Kei would be able to manage things from there—he felt relief for being able to depend on his friend. Ra was bitter to abandon his duties, but he knew that Mayu-kira was giving the right advice. After he had accepted the serious nature of his wound, he felt that he could let down his guard and concentrate on resting.

That night, after all preparations were made, Ra retired to his tent, sensing that a fever was about to take him. As night fell, he lay on his mat in. The pain in his left arm grew every hour, as if the poisonous element within his body grew more confident with each weakened breath he took. His arm felt as if it weighed as much as a slab of stone, and the sweat continued to pour out of his brow and trickle through his hair. But he knew he had to get through this night.

Thoughts of the Sage plagued his mind. He was anxious about seeing her. He did not want to show her any weakness. Ra was a vandu warrior, and that meant he had to uphold the tenants of the ii in action, thought and attitude. He knew that when he met the Sage, she would judge him in all of these areas. This was what he dreaded about meeting the Keeper of the Circle, the one who was said to keep her eyes and ears on all matters throughout Aora. The only thing that reassured him was that she was said to always have an answer to a problem, and that she would help any and all regardless of their kingdom and loyalties.

Eventually sleep took him. It came suddenly and with a jarring shift in his senses, as if he had been physically shoved from reality into a dreamlike state. He could see his room around him, the same four walls of the tent and the shadow of his armor. But it was if the light had been completed sucked out of the space around him, and he suddenly knew that there was some spirit present. His arm was now shackled to the floor, and he envisioned leather straps tightening against his skin as his blood pumped furiously in his veins. The wound raged and swirled, and he seemed to see an eye appear in the center, to his horror.

He heard a voice howl through the space above him, but it said nothing. Just a sound that was mixed with low and high screams, pushing his head back even as he tried to rise. A sudden rage filled him.

“Who is this?” he tried to shout. But his mouth would not open. If he could wake up, then he could find the spirit and destroy it. “Whoever you are, I will destroy you.”

A vacuum of space and time formed above him, and he felt a fear strike his chest that he had never felt before. Then a word emerged from the blackness like an inky dragon, ringing dull and heavy against his ears. It was a word that he had never heard before and was tinged with an alien nature.

A new and terrible word.