Takeo's Chronicles, page 42
To everyone’s surprise, the old drunk hadn’t lied about everything. It just so happened that Zulima was indeed on this side of Savara, and the rumors were saying she’d returned from a hunt. Also, the rumors said the hunt had gone horribly wrong.
“Zulima has been stalking the females, you see?” a villager explained in some small portside town on Savara’s southwestern end. “She’s been hunting the female rakshasas, trying to put an end to their line, and she tracked one, but there ended up being two there! Heheh! Two rakshasas, one of them a male looking for a female, and Zulima and the male, see, they stumbled upon this female at the same time. Hah! They was trying to start a family, those two, and Zulima and her hirelings done dropped in there unprepared, see? It’d been some old ruins they were hidden in, partly buried under sand. Only one way out of a place like that, and that there place was bathed in blood. Out of all the humans and rakshasas that went in, only Zulima came out. Haggard and near bled to death, so the rumors say, and carrying two rakshasa heads in her pack.”
The only thing that Takeo understood from this villager’s butchered speech was that Zulima had just returned and needed a whole new gang of recruits. He obtained her rumored location, and his group took off as fast as the wind could carry them. Against all odds, their luck stayed true, and the rumors proved correct.
They knew upon entering the town’s edge they’d found the right place when they saw two freshly decapitated rakshasa heads stuck on spears. The fresh part was relative, as severed body parts quickly rotted and turned to mush in the Savara sun. Takeo only knew they were rakshasa heads because some patches of orange and white striped fur hadn’t fallen away yet, and because the open mouths exposed jaws full of long, sharp teeth. They couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old because they still stank horribly. The heads had to have been placed recently, too, because they had yet to be picked clean by any olgoi-khorkhoi or phoenixes.
Looks like Zulima traveled with those heads for a while, Takeo mused.
Assuming she was here, Zulima had chosen a strong town to which to bring her captured bounty. This town had walls for defense, a standing guard that watched and patrolled the parapets, and a bustle of traffic within. Takeo was surprised to see so much activity upon entering the city, from people carrying baskets to carts being pulled by karkadann. They passed several open-aired markets that were selling everything from food to clothing, tools to weapons, and even luxury items from jewelry to fine art. Takeo stopped at one of the vendors to behold a painting of a girl with long brown hair and a bow in both hands, watching a setting sun over the Savara sands.
“Do you like it?” The vendor rushed over, a short and portly woman with a pleasant smile. “It’s my daughter’s work. She calls this one the Angels’ Vassal.”
Takeo smirked, but something inside him broke. He nodded meekly and wandered along, leaving the woman flabbergasted and shouting something about rudeness.
They stumbled upon a slave auction, unfortunately, and Takeo got to see Gavin’s heart sink as he caught a glimpse of how inhumane humans could be to their own kind. Broken shadows of former people were marched up on a raised platform and sold as so many pounds of flesh. Takeo had been there once, and so had Emily. He tried to pull Gavin away, but the knight planted his feet.
“There has to be something we can do,” he said.
“There isn’t, Gavin.” Takeo sighed. “We can’t buy them all, and we can’t fight this city alone. Let’s move on.”
“We can’t just let this happen,” Gavin begged, staring in horror as a young girl, no more than a decade old, was marched up to the stage.
An old man in the crowd licked his lips and shouted out the first bid.
“Just her, then,” Gavin pleaded. “Buy just her.”
“And with what money? Gavin, we can’t save her, or anyone else for that matter,” Takeo said. “There’s nothing we can do now. Not yet.”
Nicholas paced forward to stand in front of the knight’s vision, and Gavin blinked and stared up at the viking. Nicholas frowned and shook his head, and a look of defeat took over Gavin’s features. The knight swallowed and nodded meekly. Takeo led on and purposely turned corners so as to deaden the sound of the announcer’s voice.
A few questions, a slip of a coin, and a subtle threatening glance from Krunk and Nicholas later and they obtained that Zulima was currently in a tavern on the edge of town, close to the sea. They followed the directions, exited the busy streets, and came upon a lopsided adobe building with a sign out front, which had a crude drawing of a fire carved into it. The Smoke Stack, it read.
“What in Valhalla does that mean?” Nicholas said. “Why is it called The Smoke Stack? That’s a picture of an open fire. This place should be called The Bonfire or something.”
“Krunk sees it,” the ogre said. “Where there’s fire, there’s smoke!”
“Thanks, Krunk.” Nicholas shook his head. “That was insightful.”
“Welcome.” He grinned, lips spreading tight across his tusks.
Takeo entered first, making sure to give enough room for the others to follow. The room was a little darker than it was outside, but his eyes adjusted to take in the scene.
This inn was smaller than most taverns in Lucifan, and it only had a single raised bar along one end, which led from the entrance to the back wall. There was no upstairs, only two doors on the back wall, which made Takeo believe this place probably had no more than two or three rooms for rent. The bar itself was made of adobe, as were the floor and the shelves, which showed just how confident the original builder had been that this place would never change. There were four tables, each with their own set of chairs, and three barstools pushed up against the bar. What surprised Takeo the most, though, was that despite it being midafternoon on a hot day, nearly every chair in the tavern was filled.
Light poured in through open windows and along the entrance’s cracks, revealing a good fifteen people or so scattered about the place, most with ceramic cups and bottles before them and an array of dice sprawled out across the tables.
Takeo recognized a gambling scene when he saw one, and he expected to find gruff-looking thugs, gambling away their ill-gotten money on this side of town in a lopsided building, but a quick look around revealed most of the patrons actually seemed more terrified of Takeo and his companions than the other way around. Men and women alike—all looking remarkably well kempt and clearly not a warrior among them—balked at the sight of them, and especially at Krunk, unsuccessfully whispering their shock at seeing such a massive and hideous creature. Gavin tapped Krunk’s shoulder and whispered for him to smile, but that turned out to be a terrible idea. The twisted grin Krunk made looked more like he was suffering from insanity, hunger, or both, and the patrons recoiled with a gasp.
All except one that is, and Takeo’s eyes singled her out. Sitting at the bar on the last stool leaned up against the far wall was the stoic figure of a woman who’d seen her fair share of the horrors this world had to offer. She also caught Takeo’s eye because she was, perhaps, the most hideous and terrifying looking person Takeo had ever seen in his life.
He’d clearly found the right place.
Chapter 16
She had a short stubby body mashed onto skinny stilt legs as if a chunk of limestone had fallen on her head and made her shorter from the waist up. Her clothing consisted of hacked pieces of hide leather interwoven with bits of scale armor and was held together by straps pulled far too tightly, resulting in several cracks and openings, which squeezed out bits of fatty flesh, including a far too noticeable ring of fat that rolled out at her waistline like pressed dough. The revealed skin was sunbaked, scarred, and seemed to be suffering from a lack of proper blood flow. Her hands were so gnarled that calluses were visible from across the room, and her left hand was missing the entire pinky, while the ring finger was a stump.
And her face, Takeo would never forget that face.
The entire right side of her head was mauled so badly that only scar tissue remained, and her hair refused to grow except in long yet wispy streaks of brown. This was contrasted by the hair on the left side of her head, which grew out just fine, but appeared to have been cut by dunking her head in a bucket of dull blades. Some patches of hair were short, no more than a finger’s width in length, while some were long and cascading down to her shoulders. She was missing her right ear, but a mound of flesh remained as if something were growing inside her head. Her entire face was raked and healing over with scar tissue, making Takeo wonder if perhaps she’d had fire set to her face; it appeared to be partially melting. The right side of her mouth was so disfigured that she didn’t seem capable of working it, and when she took a drink from a ceramic bottle, some of the liquid dribbled out, down her chin, and splattered on her filthy, blood-stained armor with an audible splatter that could be heard all too well in the dead silence. Across her back, she had strapped a scimitar of simple design with a handle worn smooth from apparent overuse.
She could have been thirty, forty, or fifty years old for all Takeo could guess. Maybe even older, but he thought she carried herself too well for that. The woman pulled away the bottle, slammed it down on the counter, and then wiped her chin with the back of her wrist, leaving a streak of dirt.
“Krunk, look,” Nicholas whispered. “It’s your mother.”
“Krunk doesn’t think—”
The ogre’s words were cut short as Gavin elbowed both Krunk and Nicholas in the ribs.
“Zulima Nazari?” Takeo asked.
The woman scoffed and shook her head.
“They always find me,” she muttered. “No matter where I go, they always find me.”
Her voice was as harsh as a banshee’s wail, as if her throat was clogged with smoke. When she spoke, her lips parted, and Takeo caught a glance of a mouth black as tar with a good half of her teeth missing and the rest yellow as sand.
“You looking to die?” the woman asked.
“That depends,” Takeo replied. “Are you Zulima Nazari? The one who hunts rakshasas?”
“I don’t know.” She frowned, seemingly caught off guard by Takeo’s question. “I might be. I certainly go looking for monsters often enough, yet sometimes I think it’s the monsters that are hunting me.”
The woman appeared caught in the sudden grasp of an existential crisis. She looked down at her gnarled hands with their missing fingers and stared at them in wonder. Her shoulders hunched and her back bowed. The tavern patrons switched their focus from the woman to Takeo, then back again. Takeo cleared his throat.
“If you’re Zulima,” he said, “we’re looking to join a rakshasa hunt. We know where one is, and we’re looking for help taking it.”
“Well then, congratulations.” She looked up and grinned, and Takeo glimpsed madness in her eye. “You’ve found me, and you’re only the third group to do so in the past week. Here’s to you!”
Zulima grabbed her bottle and hoisted it into the air before taking a long, deep drink. When she pulled it away, she gave a satisfied gasp of air, and then hurled the bottle across the room at Takeo’s head.
Takeo ducked, as the others behind him scattered to the side. The bottle struck the door, shattered, and sprayed Krunk and Nicholas with ceramic and alcohol. Takeo’s hand went to his sword, and he saw that the patrons of the tavern looked more shocked and scared now than before.
“That was a test.” Zulima winked. “You passed.”
One of the people sitting at a table jolted to his feet and glared at the Kshatriya. A middle-aged man, going bald but with an impressive mustache, he glared at her and then pointed an accusing finger.
“That’s enough!” he said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Zulima, but I’m going to have to ask you to take it outside.”
Zulima met the angry gaze and stayed quiet for a moment.
“Well?” she finally asked.
“Well what?” the man repeated.
“You said you’re going to have to ask me to leave,” she said. “Are you going to ask or not?”
The man slouched and his jaw slacked. Nicholas muffled a snicker.
“Can you please take it outside?” the man asked.
“Absolutely!” Zulima replied, sounding cheerful, and she hopped off the barstool. “Have a good day. All of you, truly, enjoy your wonderful little game. Don’t worry your pretty little heads about the evils beyond these walls. I’ll take care of them for you.”
She marched across the room towards the door, and Takeo and the others cleared a path for her lest she barrel into them. The door slammed back as she kicked it open and exited into the sunlight. Takeo took an apologetic glance around the tavern, and then he and his group followed.
Zulima had crossed to the other side of the narrow street and was pulling up her hide armor while her squeezed fat attempted to push it down. She grumbled something unintelligible and squinted severely in the bright sun while turning to face Takeo and the others.
“Did you smell that?” Nicholas whispered. “That was strong arrack she was drinking, and that bottle she threw was near empty. If she drank that whole thing, well . . . let’s just say I wouldn’t be standing half as good as her.”
“So you’re all hardened warriors, eh?” Zulima shouted far too loudly. “And you want to kill some big kitty cats? Oh, and you think you know where to find them, too? I suppose you want a reward?”
“Yes to the first three,” Takeo said, “no to the last.”
“Fantastic!” Zulima waved the hand with missing fingers. “I’ll see you in the morning. Meet me outside the city at first light by the two rakshasa heads—the monument to my latest work.”
Without another word, she turned a hard right and began to stumble off. Her movements became increasingly uncoordinated with every step, but Takeo chose to believe Nicholas’ words that he should be impressed. More so, though, he was shocked. Part of him said to just let her go, but he couldn’t hold back after such a long time spent hunting this woman down.
“Wait!” Takeo called out.
“Ugh,” Zulima spat and whirled back to face him. “What?”
She sounds like a mother speaking to a child.
“Is that it?” Takeo asked, unable to suppress his voice. “You don’t want our names or where we’re from? Why we want help? See us fight at least?”
“I got what I wanted to know,” Zulima groaned and then squinted, making her even more hideous than before. “And don’t think you’re so special because you found some hiding rakshasa. Half my kills come from other hunters specifically seeking me out just like you, nitwit. I asked you if you were prepared to die, then I threw a bottle at you. What more do you want?”
“Yeah, Takeo,” Gavin whispered. “Isn’t that enough?”
“I,” he paused, more hurt than annoyed now, “I suppose that’s all.”
Zulima huffed and whirled back around, over-corrected, then stumbled off in a jagged line. Takeo watched her disappear, still shocked that so few words had to be exchanged.
He had really anticipated more. He’d figured this Zulima would be like Hyun, as ultra-guarded and suspicious as a father meeting his potential son-in-law. He’d expected to be interrogated about his background, his reasons for helping, his combat skills, and even his knowledge of Savara and rakshasas in general. Instead, he’d been treated like some side character in a campfire fable, not even worthy of a name.
He would have been insulted if he wasn’t so worried.
“I’m not sure whether it’s her or us,” Takeo said, “but someone just made a terrible mistake.”
* * *
At first light, Takeo and the others did as instructed and convened outside the city. They were quickly joined by eleven other people who appeared divided into four groups.
One was a lone man, old enough in age to be a grandfather to a toddler, standing off on his own, carrying three swords, one scimitar on his back and two smaller falchions that hung on either side of his waist. He looked a tad frail to be traveling on his own, but he carried himself like a hard soul, and the fact that he didn’t once give Krunk an odd look told Takeo the man was well traveled.
Another group consisted of two younger men, perhaps a few years younger than Takeo and Gavin, and a satyr. The three were huddled close together, and while the satyr was naked, the other two were dressed in loose, dark clothing that hung about their bodies precariously. They all had short, braided goatees, and for a moment Takeo thought them pirates, judging by their plethora of smaller weapons, such as daggers and falchions, but that didn’t ring true to him. He could imagine a satyr being a pirate, but he couldn’t imagine three pirates leaving the sea to chase rakshasas. This sort of work was too serious and dangerous to suit their typical lifestyles. Perhaps they were slavers, judging by the fact that the satyr carried a barbed whip.
Opposite of them stood a group of four who couldn’t have hidden their previous lives if they wanted. Takeo recognized a true mercenary when he saw one, and here stood four shining examples of the worst Savara had to offer. Dirty, grimy, mean-looking men with yellowed teeth, crazed eyes, shoddy but well-used weapons, and dressed like they thought civilization an elaborate cage. They reeked of alcohol so badly that one couldn’t stand downwind of them without a strong stomach. As if to enhance their horrid appearance, they openly leered at the final group.
Standing farthest away was a group of three women, all dressed in heavier garb, which was part loose clothing, part leather, and part scale armor, with scimitars on their backs and crossbows at their sides. They could have been soldiers, mercenaries, or even kshatyria, but what captured everyone’s attention the most was how beautiful they all were. Even with their bodies covered in armor, Takeo could still make out the womanly curves that most men lusted after, and their faces were sculpted with the sort of detail that would make a daimyo smile. They were young, too; only one appeared equal to Takeo and Gavin, while the other two looked to be nearing the two-decade mark. It was one thing to see a beautiful woman walking in a village; it was quite another to see three in a group, huddled together, armed to the teeth, and joining a rakshasa hunt. Takeo looked sidelong at Gavin to see the knight’s thoughts and then sighed. Gavin and the oldest woman were already sharing admiring looks.
