Takeo's Chronicles, page 165
“My lord,” Oiu cut in. “You’re leaving?”
“There’s nothing for me to do here,” Takeo replied. “I have two other fortresses to break. I’ve seen all three fortresses now, and I’ve been away from the first for long enough. It’ll be the most important, too, by my count. I can’t well sit you on the Nguyen throne if I haven’t taken the Nguyen fortress, now can I?”
Oiu lowered his head, which served as a bow but could have been a sign of dejection. It dawned on Takeo that Oiu wanted him to stay, though whether that was due to any feelings of respect or simply because Oiu would rather defer difficult decisions to his general, Takeo couldn’t say—or could he care.
“My lord,” Qing piped up.
She always addresses me like this when she wants something. I don’t know what Gavin means when he says I lack empathy. People—and elves, for that matter—are hopelessly predictable. I can read them like a book.
“Yes?” he said.
“My lord, we made a mistake not following your example and burning down the village,” she said. “We’ll be sure to follow your advice and recombine our camp into one for safety. You’ve given your orders as to our next plans, but are there any other observations you can impart?”
Did she just ask me for advice? And in such a formal tone. Things certainly are changing around here, and it’s about damned time. I’d have won this war long ago if people had listened to me like this from the start.
Takeo let his gaze drift to Lord Oiu, but he kept his lips pointed towards Qing.
“Watch him,” Takeo said to her. “Make no mistake; there will be an attempt on his life.”
Oiu swallowed and turned paler than usual. Qing bowed. Some short time later, Takeo, Gavin, and Emy repacked their mounts and set off for the Nguyen fortress.
* * *
If Takeo were ever pressed to provide an opinion, he’d admit that in all his idle dreams of giving up the warrior life and retiring to a small farm somewhere, that somewhere was always the northern part of Juatwa.
It had, in Takeo’s mind, the ideal combination for a peaceful life. Sure, there were constant wars and dangerous creatures, but that was true the world over, and places without those problems usually faced others even more precarious, like scarcity of food, water, or warmth. At least Juatwa was fertile enough that moving around didn’t pose a significant hunger issue, so long as one didn't mind foraging for nuts and berries while new crops took root. And besides, as Oiu had pointed out, the northern end of Juatwa was notoriously difficult to assault, so the wars were far less frequent here than other parts of Juatwa.
There were other benefits, too. Northern Juatwa hit the sweet spot in a number of factors. Being close to the Khaz Mal Mountains, it was rugged and isolated, yet it was close enough to the lusher regions of Juatwa that it wasn’t difficult to seek out civilization. Sure, it snowed in the winter, but not much or for long, and the summer never got unbearably hot either. One could carve out a large swath of land to live on and never encounter a soul for days on end but then, just as easily, load up a cart of excess crops and take them to the market down at the nearest fortress city.
Then there were the views: splendid, jaw-dropping views of grass-covered hills, surrounding idyllic, trapped bodies of water that shimmered like glass in the morning sun. Trees heavy with fruit drooped to provide equal parts shade and food, in ways that Takeo assumed could only be mimicked by royalty surrounded by a small army of servants. Granted, one couldn’t lounge about all day when there was work to do on the farm, but the stretches of pure tranquility would taste all the sweeter when the only thing one had to wash off was dirt rather than blood.
Thoughts like these kept Takeo occupied as they traversed the land he would have settled in, if only life hadn’t fated him as a warrior. The thoughts were a welcome distraction, too, because his next goal was to pry into Emy’s closely guarded mind for hints at Qadir’s schemes.
He worked up the courage about halfway to the Nguyen fortress, when they’d stopped to catch some kappa in a small pond. Languishing under restlessness, he was blunt about it, too.
“So, let’s have at it, then,” he began, knowing that introduction could mean anything. “We’ve seen all three fortresses now and even launched an unsuccessful attack. Qadir’s first step is brazenly clear and defensive. What is he planning?”
Emy didn’t look his way, but her ears had turned his direction when he spoke. She rarely changed forms these days. Takeo wasn’t sure why, as Emy used to enjoy taking on new disguises daily. She hadn’t spent this long in her true rakshasa form since they’d known her.
Her ears turned back, and she didn’t reply. Gavin cringed beside her, no doubt anticipating an outburst. Thankfully, Takeo was in a good mood.
“I know you heard me,” he went on, relaxed, “and we both know you’ve been thinking about it.”
“You could be talking to Gavin,” Emy said.
Takeo, lying on his back with arms crossed behind his head, rolled his eyes dramatically at her. She still didn’t look his way but sighed.
“I don’t see why you need me,” she replied. “You can probably work it out yourself. Besides, it’s not like we rakshasas are part of some collective being. I can’t possibly know what he’s thinking. You know him better than I do. The only time I’ve seen Qadir was back in that stupid cave.”
“I thought you said you would obey my orders. I asked for your opinion on Qadir’s plans. Let’s hear it. Unless you've changed your mind.”
Emy’s shoulders slumped, defeated. Gavin eased up.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You’re running circles in your mind, trying to think of how Qadir plans to win, right?”
“Essentially,” Takeo answered. “He and the brothers seem holed up in every corner of this land, trying to stretch me thin and attacking indirectly with fire and disease. I keep thinking the entire plan is to strike at me surgically along some unprotected flank, yet there’s nothing. Look at how confident I am of this, that here we are, three of us again, casually strolling through this land that is supposed to be hostile. I can’t see any path to victory for them. In fact, I’m not even sure I see a path to defeat for me, either. I mean, if he’s just planning to hole up, then what’s to stop me from reassembling my army and going from brother to brother, killing them at my leisure? Even if I did lose a number of men, I’d have all the time in the world to summon fresh recruits from the south and continue the war. All this does is delay me.”
Takeo’s speech came to an abrupt end as the weight of those last words fell on him. A reluctant smile stained Emy’s face, only perceptible by the way her whiskers tugged upwards as she refused to look in Takeo’s direction. He didn’t care, though. Takeo’s eyes had gone wide.
“All this does is delay me,” he repeated.
“As I said,” Emy replied. “You don’t need me.”
“Delay me,” Takeo said once again. “But what for? This whole time I’ve been thinking he’s probing for a weakness, but it’s not about the fight here, is it? He’s delaying me here, keeping me here. Not just me physically, either, as this problem requires all my attention. Knowing the mind of a rakshasa, knowing its preference for feints, that can only mean the fight isn’t here. Is it? Can it? Am I over thinking this? What fight could possibly exist beyond this one?”
“Now that,” Emy answered, “I have no idea, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t keep me up at night. It must be a grand plan. It’d have to be, knowing his hatred for you.”
“And what would you know of that?” Takeo snapped.
Emy shrugged, but otherwise made no reply. Meanwhile, Gavin had gone a touch pale and kept glancing between Emy and Takeo.
“What?” Takeo said, looking to the knight. “Do you know what Qadir’s planning?”
“No, but I’m with Emy on this one. I just realized that if you’re both right, then that means what I witnessed—an entire city burned to the ground–was nothing but a distraction. For what? By the angels, I can't fathom. I don’t want to know. What in the world could possibly be in store for us if that was a distraction?”
Gavin shuddered.
“By the angels,” he continued, muttering to himself. “I never should have left Lucifan.”
Takeo didn’t shudder, but he did feel a chill run up his spine. The excitement at having revealed part of Qadir’s intentions was overshadowed by the consequences of that discovery. Takeo followed the knight’s logic, and his stomach began to churn. The tranquil scene around him took on a mocking tone as his heart beat against his chest, and it dawned on him that Qadir was a hyper-intelligent animal backed into a corner.
The results of this battle could be devastating.
On some level, Takeo completely understood what Qadir was doing. When faced with a superior opponent—as Takeo had often faced in his youth—the prudent method to win was to attack indirectly. Do not engage the foe head on, but strike where they were weak, and avoid them where they are strong, whether facing a minotaur, a hydra, or an army. What Takeo did not anticipate—or could not imagine until now—is that a rakshasa like Qadir would consider a human like Takeo to be a superior opponent.
The reversal of roles sent a shock through Takeo’s system. He’d always imagined himself as the smaller fighter, in part because he was. That’s why speed was so important to his fighting style; he couldn’t throw a punch like a viking or take a hit like a knight. Before his time with the Hanu, Takeo had never been entrusted with command; he’d been a ronin, an outsider, so ostracized by society as to be considered an invalid. He’d been sold into slavery, twice. No one powerful or influential should be able to claim such a past.
Yet here he was, facing off against an opponent doing everything in his power not to fight. The evidence was clear. Takeo had been looking at this all wrong, and time would tell how many lives that would cost.
The rest of the journey back to the Nguyen fortress was uneventful. Minus the sleepless nights and the dead silence that hovered over the trio, Takeo could look back on that trip as one of relative serenity. Every waking moment was spent thinking about Qadir and what that rakshasa had in mind, and also upon the thought that Takeo was probably too late to stop it.
Chapter 11
If Takeo were to have arrived at the Nguyen keep to find his entire army dead, his camp burned, and the whole war lost, he would not have been surprised. He’d worked himself into such a state of nervousness and insecurity that it shocked him even more to find nothing had changed. The steep mountain still lay besieged by a healthy, if not depleted, Hanu army. The Nguyen fortress at the mountain’s peak still sat impervious and quiet, with the gate-strewn path leading towards it unmolested and bleak. Takeo jumped at shadows at the sight of it all.
His arrival was announced by three short horn blows. Soldiers flooded out from their tents to catch a glimpse of their infamous leader and to honor him by bowing low as he passed. Takeo waded through the deluge. Other people, weaker people, might be persuaded by such displays of fealty to think themselves elevated above the common man, but Takeo was raised stronger than that. The adoration fell uselessly at his feet, and he did not waver in his pursuit of what matter most: ultimate victory.
His eyes watched the Nguyen fortress, looking for cracks in the stone walls so high above. He scanned the distant guards, waiting to see if they wavered in place or showed some other sign of fatigue. He searched the skies, watching for carrier pixiu to be released, which would need to be shot down.
Takeo swept the lines before him until he found his prisoner and prison guard, the Yilmaz boy and Nicholas, respectively. They were on the elevated training grounds, and they paused and stared back at Takeo’s approach. They appeared to be armed with training weapons, and Takeo squinted. He didn’t remember giving Nicholas orders to train the boy, yet what else could they be doing?
I suppose it’s to be expected. Guarding that child must be terribly boring, and what else does Nicholas do when he’s bored except drink and fight? Still, I should warn him not to get too friendly. I may have to kill the boy, and soon.
Takeo also spied Kuniko and the other daimyo awaiting his arrival just outside the royal camp, gathered about as any good procession would expect. The throng of bodies bowed before him created the perfect path to guide him, so disciplined and eager to serve were the soldiers that they dared not block their lord’s intended path.
Takeo kept one hand firmly on his sword, using his heightened senses to search for arrows or rocks or ninja stars or anything, anything at all that aimed to slay him in this vulnerable moment.
He did not like being afraid.
Kuniko and all the daimyo bowed as Takeo came close. They stayed there, too, so long that it dawned on Takeo they were awaiting orders, or perhaps a speech. He faltered. He hadn’t intended to deliver anything, not even the bad news that weighed on his mind about the other sieges. Messengers had already been sent, surely, so there was no need for him to speak of these things. What did they want? He didn’t have time or patience to assuage their curiosities. He’d speak to them when he was good and ready.
“Dismissed. Kuniko, a word,” he grumbled and then slipped away to his tent.
Meager though the command was, it was obeyed with vigor. Soldiers and daimyo alike dispersed. If they were disappointed in Takeo’s lack of communication, they did not show it. Takeo thought there was something to be read there, but he was in no mood to divine the meaning. He only wanted to know what great tragedy awaited him. Surely Kuniko would know, yet her report left him even more disturbed.
“My lord,” she began, on her knees with forehead to the ground. “Nothing has changed since you left. The Nguyens remain eerily quiet. No soldiers have attempted to flee, nor have there been any attempts to send messages through our lines.”
Takeo sipped hot tea, which had been brewed the second he’d been sighted.
“None?” he repeated. “Or they’re sending them at night, perhaps?”
“If so, my lord, then they have been careful to only send them when there is no moon, and I’d not count on that. Urgent messages cannot wait a month to be sent. There has only been one attempt at communication, with us, which is why I’m glad you are here.”
Takeo raised an eyebrow.
“Qadir has sent a messenger for you,” she went on. “The messenger said he can only deliver Qadir’s words directly to you. At least, I believe that’s what he said. Yes, it is.”
“You sound rather uncertain.”
“I’m sorry, my lord, but this messenger is baffling. Several times I forgot he was even at our camp, and some of the guards even forgot they were supposed to watch him. I distinctly remember him walking freely through the camp, finding me, and repeating his insistence that he speak to you as soon as possible. I’m ashamed to admit such lax behavior in myself and my soldiers.”
Takeo froze, blood running cold in his veins. He dropped the teacup and bolted to a stand, hand on his sword. The rapidity sent a chill down Kuniko’s spine, and she bolted upright, too, thinking he’d spotted an intruder.
“My lord?” she said.
“Him? He’s here?” Takeo snarled. “Where is he? Where is he!”
“My lord, we have him at the, uh,” she paused, “one second. I know. I know I should know. I sent him there, to the, uh, he, um—this way.”
Takeo burst out of the tent and Kuniko followed, sprinting to take the lead.
“My lord, if you’ll forgive me, perhaps we should use caution,” she said, breathlessly. “I haven’t finished putting together your new honor guard yet. There were hundreds of volunteers, but I’m still culling the weak. If Qadir sent him—”
“I need a guard when I’m sleeping, Kuniko,” Takeo said, cutting her off. “I’m awake, and Aiguo is in my camp, lurking around, spying, and I’ll be damned if he slips out of here before I’ve removed his head from his shoulders. That bastard has probably seen, heard, and read more in my absence than I could tell him myself. Qadir could send any lowly samurai to give me a personal message; Aiguo is here to scout. I’ll be lucky if he hasn’t slipped away already.”
Kuniko redoubled her efforts to remember the way. She closed her eyes at one point and let her feet lead her, realizing her mind couldn’t be trusted, but that perhaps her intuition could. It was a trick Takeo had learned, too, when it came to Aiguo. The man could not be remembered by face or name, but Takeo could by utilizing his hatred.
In the meantime, Takeo scrambled as he thought of what questions he could ask to narrow his search. He had no doubts that Aiguo was gone by now, as news of Takeo’s arrival would have spread like wildfire. He contemplated sending for Emy, for her sense of smell, but he couldn’t be sure she would be helpful in time. How would she know which smell was Aiguo’s? Would his jinni power throw her off? Time was more important, and Takeo could send another to fetch Emy while he tracked Aiguo. The space between the camp and mountain was a vast field of nothingness, and so if Aiguo attempted to flee back that way, then perhaps he could be stopped in time. Then Takeo would cut him down like the animal he was.
When they reached the tent that Kuniko swore was the right one, Takeo didn’t even wait for formalities to pass. When the guards went to bow, the ronin yelled out at them.
“Get up, get up,” he shouted. “Where is the prisoner? Where has he gone?”
“My lord, I,” one of the men stuttered.
“The prisoner, my lord?” the other said.
“Ah yes, the prisoner, yes,” the first remembered, bowing out of habit despite the direct order. “He’s inside, my lord.”
“No, he’s not,” Takeo snarled. “Quickly, look inside and tell me which way he could have gone. Did you speak to anyone recently that you can remember? A faceless person? Did it feel like a dream? Are you unsure if it happened at all?”
The two guards shared bewildered looks. One recovered first dashed inside, only to come out just as quickly, looking more confused.
