War Priest: The Complete Series, page 13
With this in mind Arik relaxed his expression and lowered his shoulders, both hands on the grip of his blade, steady breaths doing little to calm his nerves. He dipped his head to some degree, allowing the shadow of his hood to obscure his face as he noticed something come over him.
The sound of rushing water meeting his ears.
Arik looked down at his arms to see that they were encased in an aqueous armor, his movements feeling as if he were wading through a body of water.
Suddenly the aggressor, Arik kicked up his pace and rushed toward the demonic kami, his first swipe amplified by a wave of water which struck his opponent in the chest, causing the circle of flame on his back to sizzle. A sneer on his mangled face, the demonic kami slashed his blade forward as well, an arc of fire following its tip, which Arik somehow managed to block, more sizzling all around him.
“Don’t resist, disciple!” Meosa said. “Just let me take complete control.”
Arik loosened up even further, and found in doing so that he was now moving faster than he had ever moved in his life. His next strike landed, the demonic kami spinning, wincing as Arik landed his blow.
He tried to respond with fire, but Arik was much faster, his water-fueled blade cutting his opponent’s weapon away, his blade going right through the yasha’s arm, black blood spritzing to the hard white soil.
The fighting style Meosa exhibited was completely unorthodox, unlike anything Arik had experienced before. There was no rhyme or reason to it, no agreed-upon method. It was simply a fighting style meant to win, and it was then that he understood one of Combat Master Nankai’s final lessons called Contesting Height. Contesting Height was all about infiltrating an enemy space without shrinking one’s body in the slightest, completely overpowering the enemy even if it meant putting one’s own skin at risk.
This was the difference between the way Meosa fought when taking over Arik’s body, and the way he had been taught. Whereas Arik focused on stances and keeping grounded, Meosa sought to truly overwhelm his opponent, creating a synergy between them as their powers worked together.
The fighting was a blur in the end, but the demonic kami known as a yasha was now dead, his head and arm severed, his sword now extinguished, the sand around his fallen body melted to some degree.
One moment they were facing off, and the next the yasha had been decapitated by Meosa using Arik’s body as his vessel.
“I must say,” Meosa told him as he began to relinquish control over his body, “that felt bloody marvelous. It has been—well, you know—a long time since I’ve been able to fight in that way, in control of an actual body. I was amazing!”
“That was…” Arik exhaled audibly. He looked down at his arm, at the sleeve he had cut earlier to remove the scent of blood. He was back in control, and as soon as he realized this, he turned to the other combatant, the one that the demonic kami had been fighting before Arik and Meosa arrived on the scene.
He took a step toward the person as the dust picked up, Arik suddenly feeling weak, his knees shaking.
“You’re going to need to take it easy,” Meosa told him. “To do what I just did I had to severely deplete your natural reserves of Revivaura. It was the only way to truly control your movements. I could go into more detail if you’d like, but just be lucky that you are training the way that you are trained; I can’t do that as fluidly with someone from one of the other schools, someone who has solely studied Chimaura or Thunderaura.”
“Right, the other schools…” Arik said as he felt a headache coming on, still shocked at what had just happened. He closed his eyes and rubbed his hand on his temple. Yet he couldn’t deny the feeling inside him, Arik’s duty to see to the person that had been attacked by the yasha.
Perhaps they were still alive.
Arik approached the figure, only then realizing as the dust settled that it was a woman.
“Be careful,” Meosa warned him. “Only someone crazy would try to cross the desert alone, without the safety of a caravan.”
“That is exactly what you told me to do…”
“Yes, and you have me to guide you. Who is guiding her? Why would she be out here all alone? Are you sure about this, disciple?”
Arik reached his hand out toward the woman to turn her toward him. “As sure as I’m going to be.”
****
The woman’s mask startled Arik, the disciple not at all anticipating that her face would be covered with the visage of a kitsune, fox-like features and a longer snout, the mask white with red accents along the eyes, and only covering the top portion of her face.
“Ummm…” Arik observed her body for a moment, noticing that the demonic kami hadn’t actually drawn blood. Still, the woman had been tossed at least twenty feet during the fight, which meant that there was potential for an internal injury.
Even though he was feeling taxed himself after Meosa had used some of his power to combat the yasha, Arik still had enough power left to do some good. He closed his eyes and lowered his hand toward the woman, where he began sensing for wounds. As he did so, he noticed her chi had taken shape on the inside of his eyelids, Arik scanning her aura for kinks. He didn’t find any large enough to indicate an internal injury, which told him that she had simply been knocked out.
With this in mind, he cycled a bit of her chi into him, absorbing what little injuries she sustained.
She came awake in a flurry, and as she did, the woman quickly withdrew a dagger affixed to her boot and shoved Arik on his back, the blade suddenly pressed against his throat, the female wild-eyed beneath her kitsune mask.
Arik didn’t have a chance to reply. The woman was shot off of his body and landed on her back with an umph, the wind clearly knocked out of her.
“Withdraw your sword,” Meosa told Arik quietly, “do not alert her to my presence; she’ll hopefully think you kicked her. We haven’t really been over this, but you seem to have picked up on it. Regardless, do not alert others to my presence unless I tell you otherwise. Got it?”
“Yes,” Arik said as he went for his weapon.
“Talking to yourself is a way to draw attention. Answer me in more subtle ways when we are in a situation like this,” Meosa told him quickly.
“Uh-huh.”
“Better. Prepare yourself.”
Arik kept his sword at the ready as he took a step closer to the woman. She too had a sword, but it had been knocked out of her hand earlier, the woman miraculously hanging onto her dagger through Meosa’s sudden attack.
She slipped to her feet, her movements unlike anything Arik had seen in an opponent before, a feline aspect to it. She crouched, her dagger upside down and gripped tightly in her left hand, the woman ignoring strands of her dark-brown hair whipping against her mask as a wind picked up and settled.
“You were fighting with a demonic kami known as a…”
“Yasha,” Meosa whispered to Arik.
“…Known as a yasha. I was walking nearby and came to your aid. Look.” Not taking his eyes off his potential opponent, Arik tilted his chin toward the dead kami, whose head was several feet away, a halo of black blood surrounding its body.
Arik couldn’t quite make out the woman’s facial expression because of the mask, but he could tell that she was now second-guessing attacking him based on what she assumed had been his successful kill.
“Why are you out here?” he asked once she didn’t respond. “Did you come from Mogra?”
“She seems feral,” Meosa commented. “It may be best if we continue on our way. If she tries to sneak up on you or anything, I will make sure to drown her.”
“You can do that?” he asked under his breath.
“There is a lot that I can do that you have yet to consider, my boy. Drowning someone even though there isn’t an ample amount of water nearby is one of my specialties. I suppose I could have tried it on the yasha back there, but I was feeling like stretching my limbs for once, or your limbs, I should say. It has been so long since I was in a proper fight. We have to do that again sometime.”
“I’m going to put my sword away,” Arik said cautiously.
“She’s definitely thinking that you’re talking to yourself by now. Most definitely.”
“I’m going to put my sword away,” Arik told the woman in a steady voice. “I don’t want to fight you.”
She remained crouched as Arik sheathed his blade, much to Meosa’s chagrin.
“Well, I guess if she does try anything, I will just handle her myself. But you really shouldn’t be putting your weapon away around someone like that!”
Arik showed the woman his hands. “I mean no harm. Can you… talk?”
The woman stood, quickly enough that it raised the hairs on the back of Arik’s neck as he assumed she would spring at him. Instead, she relaxed her dagger, although she continued to keep it at her side.
“Are you thirsty?” Arik asked. As far as he could tell, the kitsune-masked woman didn’t have a bag or anything to help her get across the desert.
Rather than reply she turned in the direction of the dead yasha.
Once she reached the fallen body, she began cutting strips of his clothing, which she bundled up and slipped into a hidden opening at the back of the light robes she was wearing.
“You know…” Meosa started to say. “No, forget it. We shouldn’t assume.”
“Assume what?” Arik asked.
“Let’s just see what she does.”
The woman dropped before the body again and sent her dagger back into its sheath on her boot. She then went about removing the armor that had covered the yasha’s torso. It was unlike any armor Arik had ever seen before, light enough that it would actually fit under robes, a subtle glimmer to it.
The woman approached Arik, and it took everything he had not to tense up. She dropped the armor at his feet and took a step back, pointing at him.
Meosa’s voice again. “Yes, maybe that is something you could use.”
“The armor?”
“She’s clearly offering it to you. Take it, disciple. Let’s be done with her. It’s close to sunset. I don’t know what she is or why she’s here, but I have my suspicions, and perhaps it is best if we move on.”
Arik retrieved the armor and tucked it under his free arm. He looked back up at the mysterious female and shrugged.
“I am heading to Mogra. So… I guess that is…”
“Turn to your left,” Meosa said.
“This way,” Arik said as he followed the aqueous kami’s directions.
The woman grunted, and as he looked back to her she motioned for Arik to follow her.
“Why must we find ourselves in these situations?” Meosa lamented. “If we had just minded our own business… not to mention the fact that the blood we’ve shed back there will attract gaki.”
“Where do you want to take me?” Arik asked carefully.
The masked woman pointed toward a cliff about a mile away. It wasn’t exactly in the direction that they would be heading, but it wasn’t far off.
“Shelter?” he asked, trying to interpret her offer.
The woman looked up at the sky and nodded.
“And it’s just you?”
Once again, she nodded.
“All right,” Arik said after a brief pause in which Meosa groaned. “Lead the way.”
****
Arik followed the kitsune-masked woman up a winding passageway, stopping whenever she stopped. She seemed easily agitated by sudden movements, be it a scorpion, or the wind whipping up powdery pink sand into the air. The bits of sparkling sand hailed from a series of sand dunes in the distance, the ripples twisting down their slopes.
It was an incredible sight, but the disciple didn’t have long to look at it as the masked woman, who now had a black sword with a hint of silver in its blade sheathed at her waist, pressed on. She also now carried the blade that the yasha wielded.
As they pressed on, he noticed something else about the way she walked, the woman moving in a strange way, sweeping her legs out with each step, almost as if she were injured. But she wasn’t. And he realized looking down at the sand that the tracks she’d left didn’t look human, that disguising the way she walked came so naturally to her that she no longer thought about it.
“I still don’t like this,” Meosa said. “There is no telling what this strange woman will do to us, and who knows if she is actually telling the truth, that she is alone. But it will be her death if she tries anything. I know you are running low on energy, but I have enough to get us to Mogra and further still. To be alive again, my boy, has brought a spark to my day. That is, if you survive whatever this potentially devious woman plans to do to you. I suppose if she fillets you in some way, I can just hang a ride with her…”
“You don’t mean that,” Arik said.
The woman paused and looked over her shoulder at him, Arik getting a side view of her kitsune mask and its small, vulpine nose. Who was she? And why was she out here all alone?
She could have done something to me by now had she wanted to, Arik reminded himself.
They soon reached the cave, Arik expecting it to be lived in. What he found instead was that the woman had a couple of bags with her, and that she had made a fire last night, or at least someone had. Was she tracking the yasha? Arik thought as he took a quick look at her bags in the most inconspicuous way possible.
“Well, no one has jumped out of the dark yet and tried to kill us,” Meosa said, the sudden appearance of his voice startling Arik, as it often did. “But I’m not relaxing my guard any time soon, and neither should you. Try to keep some distance between you and the masked one, enough room for her to draw her weapon and for you to draw yours.”
Arik didn’t respond. Instead, he offered the woman a tight smile. “Do you live here?” he asked.
The woman shook her head and then motioned for him to set his items down, including the yasha armor. She produced something from one of her bags, which looked like a block of wood wrapped in some sort of fabric. She placed it in the makeshift fire pit, added some kindling she’d already collected which consisted of shriveled bits of cactus, and got a fire started. It burned slowly, the flames a color of blue that reminded Arik of the mirage he’d seen earlier that day, the oasis and its glistening water.
The masked woman motioned for Arik to sit, which he did, realizing as soon as his rear touched the ground just how exhausted he was. He brought his bag over to the side and leaned his arm against it.
“You weren’t supposed to get comfortable,” Meosa reminded him, but Arik ignored his remarks.
The woman produced strips of meat that had already been salted. She withdrew one of the rocks buried beneath the flaming brick and placed the meat on the rock, the strips sizzling instantly.
Arik didn’t know what kind of meat it was, but as soon as the smell reached his nostrils he was hungrier than he had been in days. He licked his lips, took a drink from the waterskin—which elicited a comment from Meosa—and watched the meat cook.
Once it was finished, the woman nodded her head to it and went back for another, indicating that Arik should take the strip of meat off the hot rock. He did just that and ate it, the pockets of fat and salt satiating him.
He wanted the next strip, but he maintained his poise as she cooked this one and ate it for herself. Arik’s spirits lifted when she procured another strip of meat, one that was thicker than the other two and required a different rock to cook. Once it was done, she nodded toward Arik.
And so it went, the two of them eating four strips of meat each, Arik offering what little food he still had to the woman, only for her to decline with a headshake.
He watched the sun set, the landscape illuminated in shades of ruby and dark amethyst that Arik would never be able to describe. As he relaxed even further, the woman went about repacking one of her bags, her kitsune mask remaining over her face.
Arik saw the crests of mountains past the sand dunes, a few with pockets of snow on them, at odds with the desert around him. The smell of cooked meat didn’t linger in the air for long, replaced by something that had a hint of charcoal to it, Arik turning to see that the woman had placed small black rocks around the fabric-wrapped wooden block she had procured earlier.
“How far are we?” Arik asked her after a long spell of silence. “To Mogra, I mean.”
The woman pointed toward the sand dunes before Meosa could comment.
“There is another way,” Meosa said once she returned to her task, “but that might be the fastest. I suppose. The sand dunes are famous, you know. There are no others like them in this particular area. People shouldn’t be too far beyond the dunes. Families go there for outings and children use their father’s old shields to slide down them. At least they used to. Things could have changed since last I visited this absolutely horrid part of our world.”
Arik yawned.
“Am I boring you, disciple?”
The woman never struck up a conversation with him as the night wore on, no words exchanged as she sat on the opposite side of the fire and prepared a place to rest. Copying her, Arik did the same, going with the same setup he had the previous night. It was much warmer now next to the fire, but he knew as the night advanced and coal burned out that the temperature would drop.
Arik lay down, and he turned to his side, looking at the woman over the fire, the orange of the flames flickering off her mask as she rested on her back.
