War Priest: The Complete Series, page 103
“It’s harder than it looks,” he said as Meosa laughed in his head.
“It’s going to be worse for her. You two are going to need to heal first.”
Arik looked to the other barrel, his heart tightening for a moment as he noticed just how still it was. “Is she still asleep?”
“She’s gone in and out of consciousness,” Meosa said, humor leaving his voice. “I figured it would be best for you to heal first and then help her out. But the good news is we are in. We’re in the Double Sword Academy of Combat Arts. Smuggling the two of you in as barrels of ale actually worked. Imagine that.”
.Chapter Seven.
“A berry that looks bright red in the sunlight can still be seen in the shade.”
–A quote attributed to Hidden Warrior Torugan de Avarga, Year 1429.
Arik felt the panic rise in his chest as he removed the top of Tayaura’s barrel. She looked pale, the illusionist barely breathing, her body completely limp.
“Help me,” he told Meosa as he tried to lift her out of the barrel.
The aqueous kami came to Arik’s aid. Soon, Tayaura was lying on the ground on her side, still with her eyes closed, her hair matted across her forehead.
“What did she do? Tayaura, can you hear me?” Arik launched into the process of healing her, absorbing her strain from being locked in the barrel for so long.
Tayaura gasped, and shot straight up.
She grabbed the disciple by the front of his robes and pulled him in close. It was only when she was drawing her fist back that he realized that it was an attempt to punch him. After blinking twice, the illusionist released Arik and let out a haggard breath.
“My apologies, disciple. That was longer than I thought it was going to be.” Tayaura looked down at her partially saturated robes. “If we had had more time, I would have put something for us to wear in a water skin and sealed it up. Then we would have dry clothes with us. I guess we’re going to have to be a little wet for this one.” She offered Arik a sly grin. “But it worked, didn’t it? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“What happened? You looked like you had died.”
“I’m alive and well, I think.” Tayaura brought her hands to her face. She then began playing with her hair. “I was simply trying to pass the time. I remembered an old illusionist trick that my father showed me, one that allows you to slow your rate of breath. I was doing that, and then I thought I would push it further. Perhaps I pushed it too far.”
“But you were still breathing, right?” Arik thought back to the way that she looked just moments ago. He was almost certain that she had completely stopped breathing by that point, her body completely still. Yet now, color had returned to her face; she looked much better than before.
“I will be fine. Don’t worry about me.” Tayaura placed her hand on his, the two holding each other’s eyes for a moment until they were interrupted by Meosa.
“Are we going to find the demon charm or not?”
“I don’t know if I can stand yet,” Tayaura told the kami.
“Let me heal you some more.” Arik tapped into the Revivaura all around him. He absorbed more of Tayaura’s pain, the disciple with his eyes clenched together by the time he was finished. He got to his feet, a bit wobbly at first, yet he still managed to offer Tayaura his hand and help her stand as well.
When she was on her feet, Tayaura dipped into the barrel and retrieved her sword. She checked it, and offered the disciple a firm nod. “Time to move.”
“You don’t want to dry off a little more?”
“That would probably be a wise thing to do. At least so we make less sound. Come to think of it, there may be some clothing somewhere in the kitchen. The people that work here may change when they arrive. Let’s explore.”
After they retrieve their swords, Tayaura took a few steps away from Arik. She reached her hand back to him and the two left the storage room together.
They came to the kitchen proper. The scent of raw meat was heavy in the air, which came from a carcass that was laid out on a cutting board, covered by cloth. There were a few flies buzzing around, but not many, the kitchen cleaner than some that Arik had visited in the past. There was another room, and it was here that they found gray haori capes that the kitchen workers generally tossed over their clothing.
“Ah, here’s what we’ll do.”
Tayaura began removing her robes. As soon as Arik realized she was going to strip completely to the nude, he turned away from her. Tayaura found this amusing, evident in a little soft laughter, yet she didn’t say anything to him until she had completely changed her clothing.
“What do you think?” she asked as she placed her wet robes in a hamper.
Arik turned to her to find that she was now wearing the haori cape with a belt tied at the waist, the illusionist presumably nude underneath, barefoot as well. She wore another belt, one that hung at an angle, her scabbard attached to it and accessible via her right hand.
“Change, disciple. I’ll wait.”
Arik found one of the haori capes worn by the kitchen staff, a large one with embroidery that extended from the shoulder to the neckline. He took off his robes. It was only once he was nearly nude that he realized Tayaura hadn’t turned away from him. He looked up at her, his black hair falling into his face. Arik swept it aside and fixed his hair back into a bun.
“You really look different,” Tayaura told him.
Arik glanced down at his chest, noticing that it was more chiseled than it had been when they first met. From there he looked to his arms, which had hardened, veins appearing. He swallowed hard. “Master Nankai said more strength would be necessary for me to wield two swords.”
“He wasn’t wrong.”
“I don’t think she’s going to look away, disciple,” Meosa said. “You might as well continue.”
Instead of replying, Arik turned away from Tayaura. He removed the garments he wore underneath his robes and let them drop to the ground. He then slipped into the gray haori cape, which smelled of starch. It wasn’t nice on the skin, but at least it was dry. From there, he found the belt and tightened it around his waist, also adding the Whispering Sword and its scabbard so he now wore two belts.
“How do I look?” he asked Tayaura.
She approached and fixed his clothing. “Better. Let’s put our clothing in that bin right there and leave.”
Arik placed his robes in the wooden bin that she pointed out, only then realizing that his Mask of the Fallen was still in the inner pocket. Without saying anything, and feeling like a complete idiot for almost leaving his prized treasure behind, he grabbed the mask and placed it inside the inner pocket of his haori cape.
“Forget anything else?” Tayaura asked Arik as he turned back to her.
****
As soon as they exited the kitchen, Tayaura was all business. Like her father, it seemed as if the shadows welcomed her with open arms, the illusionist always partially hidden, dancing with the darkness, as Arik had heard someone once say in the North about illusionists. It could be moonlight coming in through a stained-glass window, or an actual lantern, or perhaps light from a different room. It didn’t matter. Tayaura constantly adjusted to it, her movements second nature.
Always light on her feet, Arik had to keep his eyes trained on the illusionist when she moved too far ahead. He kept having to fight this feeling that she would disappear completely if he looked away, leaving him stranded in the Academy.
They came to a long corridor, both of them pausing on opposite sides of the entrance. The voices at the end of the corridor began to crescendo as a woman and a man approached.
“Kami.”
“I’ll handle it,” Meosa told Tayaura, a hint of annoyance in his voice at the way she had spoken to him. Arik felt the water spirit shift forward, and he heard men also yelling in a different hallway. The two Crimsonians that were approaching stopped. They turned toward the sound, looking to investigate the disturbance. Meosa returned seconds later. “Quickly. There isn’t much time to reach the end of the corridor.”
Tayaura raced ahead, Arik doing his best to keep up with her. It was as if she glided across the stone floor, graceful yet completely focused. He nearly stumbled as they came to a larger room, one with a stairwell that led up to the second floor. There were two students on the second floor, the square-hatted future blades discussing something.
Tayaura pulled him to the side. “Careful, disciple.”
A crash in a different hallway caught the attention of the students on the second floor. The two blades turned in that direction and marched away; Arik and Tayaura quickly ascended the stairs.
“This way,” Tayaura said as she shifted down a hall, yet again keeping to any pockets of darkness she could find.
Arik heard activity in one of the dorm rooms. He remembered learning about test cutting, how Crimsonians would hack into corpses and cryptomeria wood so they could get a feel for what it actually felt like to slice into someone. It was important that they knew what it felt like, a practice that always struck Arik as gruesome. He was certain that this was what he heard as they slipped past another room, the sound not that much different than someone beating a hammer somewhere in the vicinity.
The hallway fed onto a skybridge that led to the next building. It was here that they would be most exposed. To negate this, Meosa went ahead of them, Tayaura and Arik following at a close distance. The water spirit was able to use misdirection yet again to distract the trio of blades, which allowed Arik and Tayaura to finally reach a nook at the start of a row of dorms.
“It’s here,” the illusionist announced with a short breath out. “Coro Pache’s room.”
Arik pressed his back to the wall as Tayaura moved to the door in question. As he waited for her, his eyes traced over a door frame that had been painted with gold leaf. Two Crimsonian flags had been erected on either side of the door. Other than that, the room wasn’t marked, no plaques like there would have been in the north, nor a bust or anything else indicating it was of importance.
Producing a tool from her pocket, the illusionist went to work. The lock itself took Tayaura a few minutes, but eventually, Arik heard the click as the door popped open.
We’re in.
Tayaura was the first in, Arik following after her. Light coming in from the windows outside provided visibility, Arik noting a bed frame without a mattress in the corner, as well as items that presumably belonged to Coro Pache: a carved wooden trunk, the chair that he used when he studied, and some robes.
“It’s here,” Meosa said as his form appeared. He pointed at a wall at the back of the room.
Tayaura approached the wall and knocked on it. She knocked again and soon found a hollowed-out section. “What’s back there?” she asked Meosa.
“A scroll. I would get it for you, but we may not want to get it wet.”
“Good call.” Tayaura retrieved a kunai that had been strapped around her leg. She carefully cut into the wall, making a hole big enough for her hand to fit through. She reached her hand inside, realized that the hole would need to be larger, and adjusted the size of the hole with her throwing knife.
Soon, the illusionist held a small scroll that was completely brittle, one no larger than a note passed from one student to another.
As carefully as ever, Tayaura unrolled the scroll, her eyes jumping over the words that had been written down so long ago by Coro Pache.
“What does it say?” Arik asked when she finally looked up at him.
“Do you know something about the Great Deep?”
Arik recalled that this was where Nobunaga had sent those who had lost the tournament he had hosted. It was also where they had tossed Combat Master Altai after his student, Sonjin, had betrayed him. The Great Deep was a pit not far from town, one that seemingly had no bottom. It was the perfect place to hide something.
“I know where it is,” Arik told Tayaura. “I’ve been there before.”
“The demon charm is in the Great Deep, in a cave along the inner wall of the pit.”
Meosa spoke: “We should be able to retrieve it then.”
“We will do so tomorrow.” Tayaura slipped the paper into the front of her haori cape. “Let’s get out of here.”
****
Escaping the Double Sword Academy of Combat Arts didn’t turn out to be as difficult as getting in. The only true problem lay in moving over the walls along the exterior. Even so, they had Meosa to assist them. When it seemed like things were quiet enough for them to move on, the kami was able to lift the pair over the walls and back to the city of Mogra.
From there, it was a race back to the Hidden Warrior retreat on the outskirts of town. They grabbed a drunken Istvan along the way, and reached the quarters they had stayed in, where they changed their clothing and gathered the rest of their things, from Arik’s other sword to their shinobi tools. While they did so, Istvan explained to them some of the things that happened at the tavern, the northern man loud enough that Arik took it upon himself to remove some of his intoxication.
That helped, but now Arik felt inebriated.
Like Omoto, Mogra had a lockdown in place due to Nobunaga’s death. Yet it seemed more relaxed here, Arik, Istvan, and Tayaura able to reach the city limits relatively quickly. From there it was a straight shot to the Hidden Warrior retreat in the mountains beyond the city, to safety.
“How did it go?” Istvan asked as they approached the retreat. He burped. “Did I already ask you that?”
“You did.” Arik stepped aside, allowing Tayaura to take the steps to the front door. She opened it and motioned them inside. Once they were in the quaint building, he spoke again. “The infiltration went well enough, even if there were some complications. What matters is we got the information that we needed, the location of the demon charm. We will go there tomorrow.”
“Why not tonight?” Istvan placed his hammer in the weapon rack near the door. He plopped down onto the ground. “It’s still early, isn’t it?”
“Because I was tired,” Tayaura said. “We have been crammed in barrels for eight or nine hours. And then we had to sneak through the Academy. It was no easy task.”
“You didn’t have to fight anyone, did you?” He squinted at them, glassy-eyed. “Did I ask that already? Did you two kill anyone tonight?”
“No, we didn’t have to fight anyone, and no, we didn’t kill anyone. Meosa handled that. Well, not the killing part, but the distraction part.”
The kami’s form took shape. “I am actually surprised that the two of you were able to get the information you needed and escape without sounding any alarms.”
“Why would that surprise you?” Arik asked Meosa.
“It has nothing to do with their skill levels, but we’re talking about Crimsonian blades, and they always seem on edge. Get it? Ugh. I tried. They always seemed so sharp, to me, anyway. No? A cut above the rest. No?”
“Enough, kami.” Tayaura started a quick soup made from green onions and mushrooms. It was only when she chopped some garlic that Arik realized how hungry he was, his mouth watering by the time the water reached a boil.
Soon, they would have a quick evening meal, and then it would be time for them to rest.
The Demon Charm of Katano awaited.
.Chapter Eight.
“When you are born, you are raw. When you pass, you are raw. Yet throughout your lifetime, you are cooked.”
–A quote attributed to Combat Master Yob Nur Murakami, told to an incoming class of blades, Year 276.
For a moment, Arik paid little attention to Meosa. He could hear his voice, yet the disciple still felt like resting, especially with everything that had happened the previous day, from their confinement in barrels to sneaking into a Crimsonian academy. But then Istvan’s and Tayaura’s voices broke through his reverie. Arik blinked his eyes open to find the two scrambling toward their weapons.
What’s going on? he thought as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing.
“Disciple, they’re here,” Tayaura said, the illusionist already with her kitsune mask over her face. “Mask on, we have to go out.”
He tilted his head at her. “Who…?”
“Crimsonian blades,” said Meosa as he brought Arik’s swords over to them. “On your feet, my boy. They have found us. There have to be thirty of them.”
Arik gasped. Somehow, the Crimsonian blades had tracked them back to the Hidden Warrior retreat. They had surrounded the place, and now Istvan and Tayaura were scrambling to address them. It all added up now; they needed to act.
After Arik got to his feet, the disciple fastened his two swords at his waist. He slipped the Mask of the Fallen over his face and tied the purple ribbon off at the back.
“We have you surrounded,” said a deep voice at the front of the retreat. “Come out now, or we will burn this place to the ground.”
“I’d like to see them try,” Meosa’s form strengthened, muscles rippling and popping as if he were psyching himself up. “Let the basket-headed Crimsies try something. I believe I can give them enough trouble to allow the three of you to escape. How would you like to do this?”
