Takeo's Chronicles, page 99
“He can’t help it,” Urddusk offered. “He’s a coward, always will be. I hope he doesn’t think we’ll sink to his depth.”
“It’s okay, Cyrus,” Katar continued. “We can help you from up here.”
“And remember, not a word to anyone,” Urddusk said. “Our father is on the High Council. Touch us, and you’ll get skinned alive, which would honestly be for the best. That’s the most you you'll ever amount to, being a pelt for others to walk on.”
“Sort of like this,” Katar said, and kicked Cyrus’ in the ribs.
Cyrus curled up on instinct, the pain ripping through his side for just a moment before the second blow struck the back of his head. He ducked, covering himself with his arms and drawing his knees up to protect his stomach. The elven boys found vulnerable parts anyway, kicking his back, his neck, his arms, and his shins. He grunted the first few times, but as the kicks kept coming, so did a constant pour of pain that numbed his ability to think and feel. He lost track of anything and everything, save the tears that never stopped. He tried rolling on his back, twisting, flinching, but he was assaulted on all sides, again and again, every second, every week. It almost hurt as much as the last time, but he couldn’t remember. Every strike felt just as bad as the last, because although they were aiming for his skin, they always hit his heart.
“I don’t know why we waste our time trying to help you,” Katar said, grunting.
“Yeah! You’ll just keep crying anyway,” Urddusk added. “Just stop crying, Cyrus. That’s all you have to do. Go on. Try!”
“Hey,” a voice shouted in the distance. “Hey, what are you doing?”
The kicking stopped. Cyrus was shaking and his vision blurred. Everything hurt as countless bruises ran down his body, just behind his clothes. The Phizeiros brothers were always careful about that, and it was just his luck that bruises didn’t show up so well on his skin anyway. Cyrus parted his forearms only a hair’s breadth to look out, blinking away the tears.
Across the forest, on the other side of a flowerbed, stood another elf no older than the Phizeiros boys. She was beautiful, with piercing eyes and yellow hair that fell like water down to her lower back. A basket was looped under one arm, which had two scrolls sticking out of it. In her free hand, she’d collected a trio of flowers, and her mouth had fallen open.
“What are you all doing?” she repeated
The elf stormed across the flowerbed to get a better look, her eyes fixed on the elven boys. The four shared a shocked and worried glance, momentarily slackjawed until the girl got close enough to see Cyrus’ battered form on the ground, covered in dirt and leaves.
“Are you,” she paused. “Phizeiros, are you kicking the werewolf?”
In a flash, all of Katar’s indecision evaporated. He stepped toward her.
“This doesn’t concern you, Glynynore,” he said. “Walk away and keep your nose stuck in your scroll.”
“We’re just helping him, anyway,” Urddusk added. “He asked us to do this. He wants all that rage beaten out of him up.”
“Yeah, he cries too much, if you haven’t noticed,” one of the others piped up.
“It’s a werewolf thing,” Katar said, then shrugged.
Glyn looked none too convinced. She looked from boy to another, eyeing them with lips turned up in disgust. They returned the gaze almost absentmindedly, faces filled with disinterest as if their actions were of no consequence to anyone. They offered her nothing, and her eyes fell to Cyrus. He looked away.
He couldn’t help it. This happened every time he looked at Glyn. From the first time he saw her to near every moment after that, her beauty rendered him speechless. He wondered if she knew how often he watched her every day, watched her read scrolls in the gardens, pick flowers, or brush her hair. He never dared look long, too worried of getting caught. She made his insides to turn to mush and his tongue swell and stick. He dreamed about her. When he left the elven village to visit his mother, seeing her was one of the few things he missed.
And now she was looking at him, perhaps for the first time, and he couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Cyrus,” Glyn said, and his heart tripled its pace. “Is this true?”
No, he thought instantly. Please, help me! And yet the words didn’t come. The moment he thought them, the moment their implication ran through his head. He couldn’t admit the truth, not to her. What was he going to say? That yes, he was a coward and a weakling, who couldn’t fight back because he was scared? What would she think of him? She’d pity him at the least, hate him at the worst, either one as bad as the other.
He couldn't tell her the truth. She'd despise him.
“Just go,” he whispered.
A thin, light smile streaked across the faces of the four elven boys. They tightened around Cyrus’ crippled form, eager to protect their kill. Glyn balked and withdrew a hair, a wave of shock rolling over her features. Her long, golden hair swayed with her movements. She blinked.
“Fine,” she said, turning her nose up. “But this isn’t healthy. I’m telling Nathok and Vensandoral.”
She went to leave, taking one step before Katar grabbed her by the wrist. Cyrus went still and his vision cleared.
“There’s no need for that,” Katar said, hastily. “They already know.”
“Well, I guess there’s no harm in telling them then,” Glyn replied. She jerked her hand, but Katar didn’t let go.
“You’ll only embarrass him,” Katar said through clenched teeth. “Keep this to yourself, Glynynore.”
“No. Phizeiros, stop. You’re hurting me.”
Cyrus scrambled to his feet, the sudden movement catching everyone off guard. The three elven boys stepped back. As they gazed on him, Cyrus gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists, but he was secretly terrified.
“Phizeiros,” he said. “Just let her go…please.”
Katar’s eyes opened wide. He looked from Cyrus to Glyn to his friends. A sly grin crept slowly across his face.
“What’s this?” he taunted. “Looks like the werewolf has a soft spot for an elf.”
The three others chuckled, and Glyn looked shocked. She gave her hand another jerk, but Katar held her firm. Cyrus felt his cheeks burn.
“Let her go,” he repeated.
“Oh, was that a warning?” Katar smirked. “What are you going to do? Cry at us, little Cyrus?”
The three others went from chuckling to laughing, an extreme show of emotion by any elven standard. They added to the misery by pointing, and Cyrus felt his eyes start to water again.
What? No! Not again. NO, please no. Why does this always happen to me? Stop. Stop it!
But he couldn’t, and thinking about it only made things worse. The elves laughed at him, his bruised skin, and his dirt stained clothes, and Glyn watched. She got a full view of all of Cyrus’ pain and misery, his weakness and self-loathing. He thought about all the times that the Phizeiros brothers had tortured him before. All the times he’d been pitied and tisked at by others as he walked about the elven village. He thought about Nathok’s warnings, that he was part beast and not to be trusted. He thought about his mother, telling him to stop crying just for once.
His hands balled into fists.
“Just let her go, Phizeiros,” Cyrus said.
“Oh ho,” Katar sung, taunting. “Found your weakness, did we?”
The elf paused, his pointy ears going perfectly erect. An idea seemed to form in his head, and it settled slowly down his face until it reached his maligned smile.
“You like this elf that much?” Katar said, tightening his grip on Glyn, pulling her close. “You know that’s disgusting, Cyrus. You’re a beast. She's nothing like you. You’re not even fit to be her pet.”
“Just let her go,” Cyrus replied, teeth clenched.
“Or you’ll what? Huh? Hit me?” he laughed at the idea. “Like this?”
Katar brought up an open palm and slapped Glyn lightly across the cheek. She gasped and recoiled. The elven boys gaped and raised their eyebrows.
Cyrus saw red.
He launched himself across the short gap between him and Katar, raising and thrusting his fist at the same time. His knuckles connected with Katar’s face, full of years of torture and pain and solitude, hard enough to hear the cracking of bones, and the elf was knocked off his feet. Katar’s hand came free from Glyn’s wrist as his eyes rolled back, and he crashed to the ground motionless. The thud deadened into a shallow pile of brush that littered the forest floor.
Cyrus froze, his fist still raised and held midair where it had connected with Katar’s chin. He was breathing hard, though not through effort, and the countless bruising stings across his body had gone silent. For a moment, he didn’t know what to do.
He didn’t think that would work. He hadn’t fought back against Katar in years. The last time he had, they’d beaten him so badly he’d run home to his mother. Ever since then, he’d been too afraid to fight back.
Cyrus turned his head to Glyn, only to see her looking more shocked and afraid than before. As their gaze met, she backed away from him, covering her mouth with her hands.
“You,” Urddusk stammered from behind. “You killed him.”
“What?” Cyrus gaped. “No, no I didn’t.”
Cyrus went to kneel, but Urddusk rushed forward and pushed him away.
“Get away from him,” the younger Phizeiros shouted. “You monster!”
“Phizeiros!” the other two elf boys shouted and joined Urddusk.
The trio rushed down and began shaking Katar. They tapped his cheeks and shook his shoulders. They begged him to wake up, whispered his named, asked if he could hear them. All the while, Cyrus looked on with mouth ajar.
Until he looked up at Glyn again, and saw that she was looking at him.
She looked terrified.
World of Myth X
A Dagger in the Light
Prologue
All in all, Aiguo Mein honestly believed he led a good life. Not by any moral sense of the word, but in a much more measurable way—wealth and power.
He’d been born on the wrong side of the table as a poor peasant conscripted into a daimyo’s army at the ripe old age of able-bodied male. His purpose in life had been to fall on a samurai’s sword, helping to wear out such a seasoned veteran’s stamina, so other samurai could kill that individual in the name of honor and glory. If Aiguo resisted, the punishment would be death. If he ran, the punishment would be death. If he complained? Well, they’d probably have killed him anyway.
The problem had been complicated further by the fact that he wasn’t much of a fighter, as he quickly learned during his first few training sessions. Not that his superiors had cared. That just meant he’d be the first in. They had shoved a spear in his hand, slung a backpack of dried rations on his back, and shouted an order in his ear. There was a war to win.
He’d had but one saving grace: His mother had taught him his letters.
Once this was discovered, he had been promoted from meatbag to running meatbag. He became the army messenger so coveted by every ninja lurking in the forests. He could take solace in the fact that he was no longer expected to fight and that his upcoming death would be grim yet interesting. He might even be lucky enough to die with a look of surprise on his face, assuming he saw his killer coming, which he wouldn’t. No ninja could fail when it came to killing young Aiguo Mein.
Yet then an angel had arrived, or rather an angel from Aiguo’s perspective. She’d had dark hair, darker beauty, and an even darker soul. His own shogun’s wife, a woman named Heliena, as it happened to be, and she’d shown Aiguo so many things he’d never known. Things like torture and revenge, and how suffering could be fun when inflicted on others. He wondered what else she might have taught him if only she’d survived. Her teachings had left him quite prepared to follow Jabbar and the reckoning that rakshasa had brought upon the world.
And so Aiguo had risen from peasant to conscript, from conscript to messenger, and from messenger to henchman. There’d been a slight hiccup when Jabbar had died, but Aiguo was back on top of the world now. From his perspective, he was sitting on the right side of the table once more, the side of a powerful, if crippled, rakshasa. It was the side with a loyal army of thousands of samurai waiting to slaughter his enemies. The side with a shogun who carried all the malice and contempt needed to ensure victory. Aiguo claimed the title of samurai, owned land, ate well, and slept easily. He was no longer a ninja’s target or a throat to be stepped on by royalty. He was valued, useful, and compensated properly. Yes, indeed, Aiguo had led a good life.
The only problem was that on the opposite end of the table sat a terrifying ronin with eyes black as night, a face carved of stone, and an uncanny knack for upsetting all of Aiguo’s hard work and sacrifice. Worse yet, that ronin wanted him dead.
However, that wouldn’t be a problem for much longer. Not with the information he’d just received.
Aiguo whistled his joy as he strolled down the neat rows of army tents. The aforementioned samurai army that waited to slaughter his enemies was milling about along his path, cleaning weapons, playing cards, or carrying out their duties. The typical army stench wasn’t so bad as the Nguyen family enforced a strict hygiene policy on their men. This army was also far less rowdy than the one Ichiro Katsu had led and certainly more hospitable than the band of mercenaries Jabbar had cobbled together. Aiguo had to admit, Lady Xuan had put together quite the professional flock of murderers.
“Hopefully, one of them will be lucky enough to put a blade through Takeo,” Aiguo mused aloud. “What was that she was fond of saying? Let others do unto themselves? I think she meant, let others do your killing for you.”
A soldier walked by and nearly ran into him. Only by stopping short did he keep them from colliding, and only then did the woman finally turn and realize his existence. She took one look at him, not recognizing his face, but noting the ranked insignia of his clothing, and her jaw fell open.
“Sir, I apologize,” she began. “I didn’t see you.”
She started to ramble, but Aiguo just grunted and trudged on, leaving her flabbergasted. He wasn’t worried about the rudeness of his actions. She’d soon forget him; they always did. Such was the wish he’d been granted in that cave so many years ago.
Once upon a time, he’d wondered why the jinni had never cursed him along with granting his wish. The ability to pass unseen among strangers, friends, and enemies, surely such a thing would require a hefty price? And yet the jinni had granted him this ability with no consequence—or he should say, no added consequence. He understood now that his request had been a curse. Once, he’d dreamed of escaping Jabbar or Jabbar’s enemies, whichever came for him first, but now all he wished for was to be recognized every once in a while. It was damned near impossible to command when one’s subordinates forgot what their leader had said or whom their leader was. Sure, it was nice to know he could never be a ninja’s target, but it was horribly inconvenient to have every servant forget his orders the moment they left his sight. From the miserably inconvenient meal request to the terribly important, newly arrived guest, Aiguo was constantly reminding people he was still here and needed to be heard.
Honestly, he was lucky Qadir could remember him by scent. Otherwise, he might have been forgotten altogether.
The irony of it all, he thought. I wished myself to be free of a rakshasa, and now I need one just to be remembered.
However, Aiguo still felt he’d led a good life. His gift did have its perks. He could insult anyone he wished, he could rob in plain sight, and he could have any woman he was strong enough to hold down. So long as he slipped away quickly, his victims would forget his face and sometimes even the deed itself. Despite his troubles, Aiguo had more allies than enemies. In fact, he only had one enemy.
Too bad that enemy was Takeo Karaoshi.
Qadir will be pleased to hear this. He won’t forget what I have to say. Not this time.
In the center of the army lay the command tent. Large and encapsulated with regal flags and ornate displays of wealth, it was easy to spot, which was just the way Lord Pircha preferred things. As far as the shogun was concerned, the burden of lugging so much heavy décor around Juatwa was worth people knowing just how far above the lowly soldier he sat. So what if this hindered their chasing Lady Zhenzhen’s generals from one bloody battle to the next? It didn’t bother him that he was made a target by such displays or that he was exhausting supplies and troops or that he alienated himself from his own men. Such things weren’t vices, but his birthright, and he’d be damned before he was denied them for the slightest moment. The only thing that mattered to him was that their army was winning battles, and it was all thanks to the infamous strategic ability of one crippled rakshasa.
As Aiguo approached the tent, he knew he should have been allowed to pass the guard unhindered—he was Qadir’s right hand, after all—but he was also a realist.
He stopped just shy of the guard, letting their commands to halt wash over him. They glared at him, demanded his business, and blinked a few times at his name. Slowly the recognition returned to them, like waking from a deep slumber, and they apologized. He could tell they weren’t fully trusting, despite having seen him before, but they weren’t informed enough to stop him. Aiguo heard the all too familiar words of wonder at how they could have forgotten him, and then he was allowed to pass after surrendering his weapon.
Into the tent he went, and the heat nearly knocked him off his feet.
Lord Pircha Nguyen, despite being a rather rotund individual, had a terrible habit of being cold. He whined like a resentful wife: The kind Aiguo had had before he’d ripped out her tongue thanks to Lady Heliena’s encouragement. The kind that griped every winter and even half the summer. The kind that insisted a large fire be built to satisfy one’s self-importance.
The heat was always staggering, even for Aiguo, who’d spent a good portion of his adult life in the sunsoaked sands of Savara. Yet Aiguo knew better than to question a shogun and so pushed aside the itching feeling of sweat as it began to collect on his body. He bowed low the moment he walked inside even as he took in the scene.
“It’s okay, Cyrus,” Katar continued. “We can help you from up here.”
“And remember, not a word to anyone,” Urddusk said. “Our father is on the High Council. Touch us, and you’ll get skinned alive, which would honestly be for the best. That’s the most you you'll ever amount to, being a pelt for others to walk on.”
“Sort of like this,” Katar said, and kicked Cyrus’ in the ribs.
Cyrus curled up on instinct, the pain ripping through his side for just a moment before the second blow struck the back of his head. He ducked, covering himself with his arms and drawing his knees up to protect his stomach. The elven boys found vulnerable parts anyway, kicking his back, his neck, his arms, and his shins. He grunted the first few times, but as the kicks kept coming, so did a constant pour of pain that numbed his ability to think and feel. He lost track of anything and everything, save the tears that never stopped. He tried rolling on his back, twisting, flinching, but he was assaulted on all sides, again and again, every second, every week. It almost hurt as much as the last time, but he couldn’t remember. Every strike felt just as bad as the last, because although they were aiming for his skin, they always hit his heart.
“I don’t know why we waste our time trying to help you,” Katar said, grunting.
“Yeah! You’ll just keep crying anyway,” Urddusk added. “Just stop crying, Cyrus. That’s all you have to do. Go on. Try!”
“Hey,” a voice shouted in the distance. “Hey, what are you doing?”
The kicking stopped. Cyrus was shaking and his vision blurred. Everything hurt as countless bruises ran down his body, just behind his clothes. The Phizeiros brothers were always careful about that, and it was just his luck that bruises didn’t show up so well on his skin anyway. Cyrus parted his forearms only a hair’s breadth to look out, blinking away the tears.
Across the forest, on the other side of a flowerbed, stood another elf no older than the Phizeiros boys. She was beautiful, with piercing eyes and yellow hair that fell like water down to her lower back. A basket was looped under one arm, which had two scrolls sticking out of it. In her free hand, she’d collected a trio of flowers, and her mouth had fallen open.
“What are you all doing?” she repeated
The elf stormed across the flowerbed to get a better look, her eyes fixed on the elven boys. The four shared a shocked and worried glance, momentarily slackjawed until the girl got close enough to see Cyrus’ battered form on the ground, covered in dirt and leaves.
“Are you,” she paused. “Phizeiros, are you kicking the werewolf?”
In a flash, all of Katar’s indecision evaporated. He stepped toward her.
“This doesn’t concern you, Glynynore,” he said. “Walk away and keep your nose stuck in your scroll.”
“We’re just helping him, anyway,” Urddusk added. “He asked us to do this. He wants all that rage beaten out of him up.”
“Yeah, he cries too much, if you haven’t noticed,” one of the others piped up.
“It’s a werewolf thing,” Katar said, then shrugged.
Glyn looked none too convinced. She looked from boy to another, eyeing them with lips turned up in disgust. They returned the gaze almost absentmindedly, faces filled with disinterest as if their actions were of no consequence to anyone. They offered her nothing, and her eyes fell to Cyrus. He looked away.
He couldn’t help it. This happened every time he looked at Glyn. From the first time he saw her to near every moment after that, her beauty rendered him speechless. He wondered if she knew how often he watched her every day, watched her read scrolls in the gardens, pick flowers, or brush her hair. He never dared look long, too worried of getting caught. She made his insides to turn to mush and his tongue swell and stick. He dreamed about her. When he left the elven village to visit his mother, seeing her was one of the few things he missed.
And now she was looking at him, perhaps for the first time, and he couldn’t think of anything to say.
“Cyrus,” Glyn said, and his heart tripled its pace. “Is this true?”
No, he thought instantly. Please, help me! And yet the words didn’t come. The moment he thought them, the moment their implication ran through his head. He couldn’t admit the truth, not to her. What was he going to say? That yes, he was a coward and a weakling, who couldn’t fight back because he was scared? What would she think of him? She’d pity him at the least, hate him at the worst, either one as bad as the other.
He couldn't tell her the truth. She'd despise him.
“Just go,” he whispered.
A thin, light smile streaked across the faces of the four elven boys. They tightened around Cyrus’ crippled form, eager to protect their kill. Glyn balked and withdrew a hair, a wave of shock rolling over her features. Her long, golden hair swayed with her movements. She blinked.
“Fine,” she said, turning her nose up. “But this isn’t healthy. I’m telling Nathok and Vensandoral.”
She went to leave, taking one step before Katar grabbed her by the wrist. Cyrus went still and his vision cleared.
“There’s no need for that,” Katar said, hastily. “They already know.”
“Well, I guess there’s no harm in telling them then,” Glyn replied. She jerked her hand, but Katar didn’t let go.
“You’ll only embarrass him,” Katar said through clenched teeth. “Keep this to yourself, Glynynore.”
“No. Phizeiros, stop. You’re hurting me.”
Cyrus scrambled to his feet, the sudden movement catching everyone off guard. The three elven boys stepped back. As they gazed on him, Cyrus gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists, but he was secretly terrified.
“Phizeiros,” he said. “Just let her go…please.”
Katar’s eyes opened wide. He looked from Cyrus to Glyn to his friends. A sly grin crept slowly across his face.
“What’s this?” he taunted. “Looks like the werewolf has a soft spot for an elf.”
The three others chuckled, and Glyn looked shocked. She gave her hand another jerk, but Katar held her firm. Cyrus felt his cheeks burn.
“Let her go,” he repeated.
“Oh, was that a warning?” Katar smirked. “What are you going to do? Cry at us, little Cyrus?”
The three others went from chuckling to laughing, an extreme show of emotion by any elven standard. They added to the misery by pointing, and Cyrus felt his eyes start to water again.
What? No! Not again. NO, please no. Why does this always happen to me? Stop. Stop it!
But he couldn’t, and thinking about it only made things worse. The elves laughed at him, his bruised skin, and his dirt stained clothes, and Glyn watched. She got a full view of all of Cyrus’ pain and misery, his weakness and self-loathing. He thought about all the times that the Phizeiros brothers had tortured him before. All the times he’d been pitied and tisked at by others as he walked about the elven village. He thought about Nathok’s warnings, that he was part beast and not to be trusted. He thought about his mother, telling him to stop crying just for once.
His hands balled into fists.
“Just let her go, Phizeiros,” Cyrus said.
“Oh ho,” Katar sung, taunting. “Found your weakness, did we?”
The elf paused, his pointy ears going perfectly erect. An idea seemed to form in his head, and it settled slowly down his face until it reached his maligned smile.
“You like this elf that much?” Katar said, tightening his grip on Glyn, pulling her close. “You know that’s disgusting, Cyrus. You’re a beast. She's nothing like you. You’re not even fit to be her pet.”
“Just let her go,” Cyrus replied, teeth clenched.
“Or you’ll what? Huh? Hit me?” he laughed at the idea. “Like this?”
Katar brought up an open palm and slapped Glyn lightly across the cheek. She gasped and recoiled. The elven boys gaped and raised their eyebrows.
Cyrus saw red.
He launched himself across the short gap between him and Katar, raising and thrusting his fist at the same time. His knuckles connected with Katar’s face, full of years of torture and pain and solitude, hard enough to hear the cracking of bones, and the elf was knocked off his feet. Katar’s hand came free from Glyn’s wrist as his eyes rolled back, and he crashed to the ground motionless. The thud deadened into a shallow pile of brush that littered the forest floor.
Cyrus froze, his fist still raised and held midair where it had connected with Katar’s chin. He was breathing hard, though not through effort, and the countless bruising stings across his body had gone silent. For a moment, he didn’t know what to do.
He didn’t think that would work. He hadn’t fought back against Katar in years. The last time he had, they’d beaten him so badly he’d run home to his mother. Ever since then, he’d been too afraid to fight back.
Cyrus turned his head to Glyn, only to see her looking more shocked and afraid than before. As their gaze met, she backed away from him, covering her mouth with her hands.
“You,” Urddusk stammered from behind. “You killed him.”
“What?” Cyrus gaped. “No, no I didn’t.”
Cyrus went to kneel, but Urddusk rushed forward and pushed him away.
“Get away from him,” the younger Phizeiros shouted. “You monster!”
“Phizeiros!” the other two elf boys shouted and joined Urddusk.
The trio rushed down and began shaking Katar. They tapped his cheeks and shook his shoulders. They begged him to wake up, whispered his named, asked if he could hear them. All the while, Cyrus looked on with mouth ajar.
Until he looked up at Glyn again, and saw that she was looking at him.
She looked terrified.
World of Myth X
A Dagger in the Light
Prologue
All in all, Aiguo Mein honestly believed he led a good life. Not by any moral sense of the word, but in a much more measurable way—wealth and power.
He’d been born on the wrong side of the table as a poor peasant conscripted into a daimyo’s army at the ripe old age of able-bodied male. His purpose in life had been to fall on a samurai’s sword, helping to wear out such a seasoned veteran’s stamina, so other samurai could kill that individual in the name of honor and glory. If Aiguo resisted, the punishment would be death. If he ran, the punishment would be death. If he complained? Well, they’d probably have killed him anyway.
The problem had been complicated further by the fact that he wasn’t much of a fighter, as he quickly learned during his first few training sessions. Not that his superiors had cared. That just meant he’d be the first in. They had shoved a spear in his hand, slung a backpack of dried rations on his back, and shouted an order in his ear. There was a war to win.
He’d had but one saving grace: His mother had taught him his letters.
Once this was discovered, he had been promoted from meatbag to running meatbag. He became the army messenger so coveted by every ninja lurking in the forests. He could take solace in the fact that he was no longer expected to fight and that his upcoming death would be grim yet interesting. He might even be lucky enough to die with a look of surprise on his face, assuming he saw his killer coming, which he wouldn’t. No ninja could fail when it came to killing young Aiguo Mein.
Yet then an angel had arrived, or rather an angel from Aiguo’s perspective. She’d had dark hair, darker beauty, and an even darker soul. His own shogun’s wife, a woman named Heliena, as it happened to be, and she’d shown Aiguo so many things he’d never known. Things like torture and revenge, and how suffering could be fun when inflicted on others. He wondered what else she might have taught him if only she’d survived. Her teachings had left him quite prepared to follow Jabbar and the reckoning that rakshasa had brought upon the world.
And so Aiguo had risen from peasant to conscript, from conscript to messenger, and from messenger to henchman. There’d been a slight hiccup when Jabbar had died, but Aiguo was back on top of the world now. From his perspective, he was sitting on the right side of the table once more, the side of a powerful, if crippled, rakshasa. It was the side with a loyal army of thousands of samurai waiting to slaughter his enemies. The side with a shogun who carried all the malice and contempt needed to ensure victory. Aiguo claimed the title of samurai, owned land, ate well, and slept easily. He was no longer a ninja’s target or a throat to be stepped on by royalty. He was valued, useful, and compensated properly. Yes, indeed, Aiguo had led a good life.
The only problem was that on the opposite end of the table sat a terrifying ronin with eyes black as night, a face carved of stone, and an uncanny knack for upsetting all of Aiguo’s hard work and sacrifice. Worse yet, that ronin wanted him dead.
However, that wouldn’t be a problem for much longer. Not with the information he’d just received.
Aiguo whistled his joy as he strolled down the neat rows of army tents. The aforementioned samurai army that waited to slaughter his enemies was milling about along his path, cleaning weapons, playing cards, or carrying out their duties. The typical army stench wasn’t so bad as the Nguyen family enforced a strict hygiene policy on their men. This army was also far less rowdy than the one Ichiro Katsu had led and certainly more hospitable than the band of mercenaries Jabbar had cobbled together. Aiguo had to admit, Lady Xuan had put together quite the professional flock of murderers.
“Hopefully, one of them will be lucky enough to put a blade through Takeo,” Aiguo mused aloud. “What was that she was fond of saying? Let others do unto themselves? I think she meant, let others do your killing for you.”
A soldier walked by and nearly ran into him. Only by stopping short did he keep them from colliding, and only then did the woman finally turn and realize his existence. She took one look at him, not recognizing his face, but noting the ranked insignia of his clothing, and her jaw fell open.
“Sir, I apologize,” she began. “I didn’t see you.”
She started to ramble, but Aiguo just grunted and trudged on, leaving her flabbergasted. He wasn’t worried about the rudeness of his actions. She’d soon forget him; they always did. Such was the wish he’d been granted in that cave so many years ago.
Once upon a time, he’d wondered why the jinni had never cursed him along with granting his wish. The ability to pass unseen among strangers, friends, and enemies, surely such a thing would require a hefty price? And yet the jinni had granted him this ability with no consequence—or he should say, no added consequence. He understood now that his request had been a curse. Once, he’d dreamed of escaping Jabbar or Jabbar’s enemies, whichever came for him first, but now all he wished for was to be recognized every once in a while. It was damned near impossible to command when one’s subordinates forgot what their leader had said or whom their leader was. Sure, it was nice to know he could never be a ninja’s target, but it was horribly inconvenient to have every servant forget his orders the moment they left his sight. From the miserably inconvenient meal request to the terribly important, newly arrived guest, Aiguo was constantly reminding people he was still here and needed to be heard.
Honestly, he was lucky Qadir could remember him by scent. Otherwise, he might have been forgotten altogether.
The irony of it all, he thought. I wished myself to be free of a rakshasa, and now I need one just to be remembered.
However, Aiguo still felt he’d led a good life. His gift did have its perks. He could insult anyone he wished, he could rob in plain sight, and he could have any woman he was strong enough to hold down. So long as he slipped away quickly, his victims would forget his face and sometimes even the deed itself. Despite his troubles, Aiguo had more allies than enemies. In fact, he only had one enemy.
Too bad that enemy was Takeo Karaoshi.
Qadir will be pleased to hear this. He won’t forget what I have to say. Not this time.
In the center of the army lay the command tent. Large and encapsulated with regal flags and ornate displays of wealth, it was easy to spot, which was just the way Lord Pircha preferred things. As far as the shogun was concerned, the burden of lugging so much heavy décor around Juatwa was worth people knowing just how far above the lowly soldier he sat. So what if this hindered their chasing Lady Zhenzhen’s generals from one bloody battle to the next? It didn’t bother him that he was made a target by such displays or that he was exhausting supplies and troops or that he alienated himself from his own men. Such things weren’t vices, but his birthright, and he’d be damned before he was denied them for the slightest moment. The only thing that mattered to him was that their army was winning battles, and it was all thanks to the infamous strategic ability of one crippled rakshasa.
As Aiguo approached the tent, he knew he should have been allowed to pass the guard unhindered—he was Qadir’s right hand, after all—but he was also a realist.
He stopped just shy of the guard, letting their commands to halt wash over him. They glared at him, demanded his business, and blinked a few times at his name. Slowly the recognition returned to them, like waking from a deep slumber, and they apologized. He could tell they weren’t fully trusting, despite having seen him before, but they weren’t informed enough to stop him. Aiguo heard the all too familiar words of wonder at how they could have forgotten him, and then he was allowed to pass after surrendering his weapon.
Into the tent he went, and the heat nearly knocked him off his feet.
Lord Pircha Nguyen, despite being a rather rotund individual, had a terrible habit of being cold. He whined like a resentful wife: The kind Aiguo had had before he’d ripped out her tongue thanks to Lady Heliena’s encouragement. The kind that griped every winter and even half the summer. The kind that insisted a large fire be built to satisfy one’s self-importance.
The heat was always staggering, even for Aiguo, who’d spent a good portion of his adult life in the sunsoaked sands of Savara. Yet Aiguo knew better than to question a shogun and so pushed aside the itching feeling of sweat as it began to collect on his body. He bowed low the moment he walked inside even as he took in the scene.
