Guardian of the God - God's Appearance - Part 2 Chapter 2 - Clever Beasts

  Guardian of the God

- God's Appearance

(Book 5 of the Guardian of the Spirit Series)

 

Author: Uehashi Nahoko

Translator: Ainikki the Archivist

 

  Part 2 - Beasts Fleeing Hunting Dogs

Chapter 2 - Clever Beasts

     

    Tanda sat on the floor of a cheap inn on a cheaper straw mat. It was still dark. His arms and legs were were bound so tightly that his wrists were numb and his back ached. His journey here had been long and grueling. He'd spent most of the trip lashed to the back of a horse like luggage. Every time the horse had galloped under him, he'd received the full shock of the movement in his gut.

    Sufar was always rushed and irritable. No matter how difficult the journey became, he would do nothing to decrease their pace. Tanda threw up more than once and cried out every time the horses broke into a run. Chikisa received the same treatment as him, but he'd been drugged and hadn't yet awakened. Sometimes he would groan or gasp in pain.

    Tanda wanted to check on him now, but he was tied firmly to a post that supported the inn's roof. The rope wasn't slack enough for him to slip free and reach Chikisa, who laid stretched out unconscious on the other side of the room. The young woman that Balsa had knocked unconscious was also traveling with Sufar, Tanda, and Chikisa, but the two magic weavers that she'd brought with her were chasing Balsa and Asra.

    I only managed to buy her a little time. I hope Balsa got away all right.

    The men chasing Balsa were magic weavers. If they were anything like Sufar, they could use the eyes of animals as their own. The animal Tanda feared most was Sufar's hawk. He was certain that Sufar's soul was bonded to it, which meant that he could control it completely. It had seen Balsa before, so it would know her on sight. It might be flying the skies searching for Balsa and Asra right now. Tanda wished he'd talked to Balsa about that hawk and its capabilities when he'd had the chance, but it was too late for regrets now. He tried not to worry about things he could do nothing about, but he was itching to do something, anything. He realized that he would have to trust Balsa—again. He'd always trusted her.

    Tanda smiled sadly to himself. He'd been taken hostage against Balsa, which was pathetic. He clamped down on his disgust with himself and focused on what he could do, which was learn and observe. He and Chikisa were being kept together, so Tanda could at least guess at Sufar's immediate intentions.

    The door of the room opened, revealing the young woman Balsa had knocked out. She carried a steaming cup of what appeared to be tea. She knelt down next to Tanda, forced his mouth open, and poured the tea down his throat. It was very hot, but Tanda dr a nk it down without resistance. He could tell from its aroma that it was some kind of medicine. Perhaps Sufar had decided to give Tanda something for his nausea caused by such rough treatment while traveling.

    "Help Chikisa before you help me," Tanda gasped after he'd drunk approximately half of the liquid in the cup.

    The woman looked at Tanda with cold calculation. Her eyes were as bright and clear as the surface of a frozen winter lake. Tanda got the sense that the mind behind those eyes was like the water of a lake in winter beneath its frozen surface—unfathomably deep, and more than cold enough to kill. Her face was pale and sickly-looking; her forehead was wrinkled by frown lines. Tanda thought her features looked harsh and unforgiving—but she also looked more than a little like Sufar. He'd been struck by the resemblance the first time he'd seen her.

    "Are you Sufar's daughter?" Tanda asked.

    The question affected her like being pricked by a thorn. Her expression displayed her irritation clearly. Tanda didn't know it, but seeing such a naked expression of raw emotion on Shihana's face was exceedingly rare.

    Shihana hated people like Tanda and Balsa. They rushed in and made decisions solely based on the information in front of them, without bothering to find out more or dig any deeper. She was sure that they believed they were good and virtuous people, but she despised them.

    Shihana leaned closer to Tanda and whispered in tight, precise Yogoese: "I'm Shihana. Remember my name. I'm going to kill that woman." Her pupils contracted sharply, becoming as small as pinpricks.

    Tanda remembered how Shihana's fight with Balsa had ended and asked, "Even though Balsa didn't kill you?"

    Shihana smiled menacingly. "We'll catch her soon. And she's too soft to kill us. We are Kashal—Rota's hunting dogs. What we chase, we catch."

    Tanda's expression didn’ t change, but he remained silent. If Shihana and Sufar considered themselves hunting dogs, then Balsa could be considered their prey. But when he thought in those terms, he realized that Balsa would be an incredibly clever and crafty beast. They wouldn't catch her easily; she'd spent half her life being pursued by people that wanted to kill her. Tanda felt that Shihana was severely underestimating Balsa...but she probably wouldn't make that mistake for long.

    Shihana tore her eyes away from him and stood up. She crossed the room and crouched in front of Chikisa. She lifted his head gently and pinched his cheeks to get his mouth open, then helped him swallow the remaining medicine in the cup. She whispered in Chikisa's ear in Rotan: "Hang in there. As soon as we find your sister, everything will change."

    Chikisa looked up at Shihana with weary eyes. His vision was blurry, and it was clear he hadn't understood her.

    When the medicine cup was empty, Shihana stood and faced Tanda once more. She gazed down at him from above with an expression of pure contempt. "You and that woman are complete idiots. You don't see anything unless it's right in front of your faces. Maybe you'll realize that, before you die," she spat, then spun on her heel and left the room.

 

 

    Balsa's stolen horse was wild and spirited. After leaving the inn, Balsa let the horse gallop a little ways down the main road before turning off onto a smaller trail near a river. She pulled up on the horse's reins and let it rear, using the added momentum from the horse's throw to direct her and Asra safely into the river's wide current.

    The horse seemed relieved to be rid of its unfamiliar riders; it dashed off in a straight line. She hoped that the horse would run a long way ahead of her and Asra before it got caught. If Balsa and Asra's pursuers followed the horse's trail, they'd be led off in a wildly different direction, at least for a little while—that was Balsa's hope.

    But Balsa also knew that the horse was exhausted. It probably wouldn't be able to run very far before it needed to stop and rest. If the horse was caught quickly, their pursuers might be able to determine where Balsa had jumped off. The river would conceal their tracks, but if their pursuers guessed that they'd dismounted at the river, they would only have to search in two directions.

    Balsa walked in water up to her ankles for a long time after sending the horse away. The water was cold, but its flow was sluggish, which was fortunate. Balsa tracked the river's depth and speed carefully as she walked. Most rivers she was familiar with had currents that strengthened based on the depth and surface area of the water. Water took the path of least resistance, so shallow streams flow ed into deeper ones at increasing speeds; getting sucked in by a rapids current or an undertow was how many people drowned . If she let her guard down, she might be pulled from the shallow shore of the river into the deeper rapids at its center.

    Balsa could usually see fairly well in the dark, but tonight the moon was scarcely half-full, so she couldn't make out much. The wound in her side reopened and bled as she walked. Asra's weight on her back felt heavy. She walked through the river slowly, occasionally stumbling over the small smooth stones that lined the riverbed. She gasped every time she took a step.

    When Balsa scented the distinctive aroma of kasara grass on the air, she breathed a sigh of relief. The smell of the grass was so powerful that if she stomped on it to crush it, it would cover her and Asra's scent completely for a while. Kasara grass grew in thick clumps in the springy marsh-like ground near the riverbank, so she didn't leave clear tracks even when she stomped on it. The earth beneath her feet filled with water and absorbed her footprints as if they'd been erased.

    Balsa felt a blast of cold air cut through her as she walked along the river. She had to find a place out of the wind before they could stop. She climbed uphill from the river's edge and kept climbing for a fair distance. She entered into a forest thicket and found a large tree. She put Asra down, then turned around and returned to the river to fetch water.

    Balsa had walked in pathless mountains before; usually, she created landmarks for herself to help navigate. She wasn't familiar with this area, so she tried to remember the shapes and orientations of the trees as she walked slowly back to the river.

    Her entire body was wound as tightly as a thread about to snap. Everything in her encouraged her to run, keep going, keep fleeing because the danger wasn't past. But she couldn't make any rash moves. If she acted without thinking, she'd only make mistakes.

    Balsa poured water from the river into two deep bottles made of bamboo. She inspected the ground and the riverbed for tracks and erased all signs of her own passage as she ascended back to the large tree where she'd left Asra.   

    When she saw Asra, Balsa put down the water she'd gone to fetch and opened her pack. It was probably safe enough for them to sleep here tonight. Balsa unrolled two large sheets of oiled paper from her pack and wrapped  herself and Asra snugly under them. Then she gathered Asra to her chest and closed her eyes. Her body needed rest if it was going to heal.

    Balsa awoke when early morning light pierced the canopy of the trees above her. Asra was still in her arms; her back was supported by the tree behind her. It was just past dawn and the breeze was cool, but Balsa felt warm with Asra clutched to her. Mist covered the ground in a thin haze.

    They'll figure out we ditched the horse soon,  if they haven't already, Balsa thought.

 

 

    Asra woke up when the sleeping medicine wore off. Her throat was so parched it felt burned; her entire body was entirely too warm. She probably had a fever.

    The first thing Asra saw when she opened her eyes was a strange pattern of shadows and leaves. She saw branches winding and twisting around the trunk of a young, thin tree directly in front of her, creating shadows so dark that they appeared to be carved into the wood. She followed the pattern of branches with her eyes and discovered a ring of shining iron, and above that a wooden scabbard for a blade. It was Balsa's spear, covered in the shifting shadows of the tree cover above them.

    When Asra realized what she was looking at, she began to panic. She remembered falling asleep at the inn with her brother, but she was in the forest now and didn't see Chikisa anywhere. She tried to get up and look for him, but someone pressed down gently on her shoulder from behind.

    "Sh," a woman's voice said in her ear. "We need to be very quiet. I promise to tell you everything that's happened since yesterday when I can, but we need to stay still and quiet for a while, all right?"

    Her voice was low and kind. It made Asra feel safe. But then she realized she was being held by a woman she didn't know, and she stiffened. The woman unwrapped them both from large sheets of oiled paper and lifted up a fat bamboo bottle capped on one end. She removed the cap and offered the bottle to Asra.

    "It's water. Drink it nice and slow so that you don't choke."

    The cool, sweet water slid down Asra's fever-parched throat. All of her muscles relaxed as she swallowed.

    "Does your head hurt?" the woman asked.

    Asra shook her head. She felt a little foggy and dazed, but nothing hurt. She wondered why the woman's voice calmed her so much. She didn't know this woman at all, but she wasn't scared.

    The woman started speaking slowly, telling Asra about herself. Her name was Balsa. She was the herbalist Tanda's childhood friend. She said that the magic weaver Sufar had been afraid of Asra—that she might cause some kind of disaster—and that he'd planned to kill her and Chikisa. She told Asra that there'd been a fire at the inn, and that they'd fled to this place overnight.

    As Asra listened, she realized that this was the same woman she and Chikisa had seen practicing with her spear in the inn's garden. She remembered what Chikisa had said about her then: "She's definitely good. When I was hurt, she hugged me and helped me calm down."

    Chikisa. Her chest was tight with pain; she felt like she was being stabbed with a thousand tiny needles. What had happened to him?

    Balsa seemed to guess what she was thinking. "Don't worry," she said. "I'm sure your brother is alive."

    Asra started shaking. Balsa rocked her gently in her lap. "Listen. Sufar is after you , not your brother. Try to think about what that means."

    With great effort, Asra swallowed down her urge to cry. Her breaths were shallow and painful.

    "I'm sure you understand," Balsa said. "As long as you're alive and out of reach, your brother is a valuable hostage. Using him as bait is the easiest way for him to catch you. He won't kill Chikisa until he has you."

    As Balsa's words sank in, Asra felt her ragged breathing become more even. She watched the shadows of the birds flitting through the trees overhead. Their bright voices called out to one another, each to each.

    "Do you want to see your brother?" Balsa asked.

    Asra nodded.

    "I thought so. If you want to see him again, then we have to keep running for now."

    Asra turned to look at Balsa. "Are we going to save him?"

    "I'd like to save him as much as you, but that's impossible right now. I'm injured, our opponents are magic weavers, and there are at least four of them. We need time to recover. I don't know if we'll get that time.  If we stay in one place for too long, we won't be able to escape. They're searching for us right now. If they catch us, it'll be the end—for us and  your brother."

    The god could save him, Asra thought. If I pray to the god, she'll save Chikisa.

    Asra closed her eyes and listened to the sound of the river flowing deep within herself. The whispering water seemed very far away; it was hard for her to even sense it. She'd felt it flowing so strongly before in times of fear and anger; the river had swept away her senses and flowed cleanly out of her in a rush—but now she couldn't access it at all.

    She wanted to save Chikisa more than anything. She was sure that if she could see the faces of the people hurting him, she w ould get mad enough to call the god. The river's strong flow would return to her then, and the god would kill her enemies. But when she prayed to the god to take her to her brother, nothing happened. The god only responded to her prayers when she could kill people.

    Asra remembered the ugly gash that the god made on Chikisa's palm on the night she'd summoned the god to the inn. Chikisa had told her that the god slit the throats of all the bad people around them. He'd said, "I don't want to see the god again. All the god does is kill people."

    The people that had captured her brother were evil. She was willing to kill them to save him. But even though she felt that way, she had doubts. She felt like she was wandering in the darkness while shrinking into something helpless and small. She had no idea what she should do. She shook in Balsa's arms without calming for a long while.

    You must be as still and majestic as the surface of a frozen lake.  Asra heard her mother's voice in her ears. People blessed by the god must never give in to their emotions. Asra took a deep, cleansing breath.

 

 

    Asra was pitifully thin. Her eyes were huge and round in her emaciated face. She was clearly frightened, but she didn't try to cling to Balsa; she faced her fear alone, staring straight ahead. She was like a tiny brown mouse curled in on itself, knowing that there was nothing it could do to protect itself from the talons of the hawk flying overhead.

    Balsa held onto Asra silently until she calmed herself. The birds trilled lightly in the trees. Suddenly, all the birds called out shrilly to one another at once, then fell completely silent.

    Balsa looked up and frowned. There was a hawk circling over them, high above. Balsa placed her hand on Asra's head and pushed her face down. "We need to stay still," Balsa whispered.

    After a long silence, the birds started singing again. Balsa's nervous tension unraveled. Asra twisted herself around to look at Balsa. "There's a hawk up there,"  Balsa whispered. "Maybe that's why the little birds were scared."

    "Why?" Asra said with a little frown as she looked up. "That hawk's pretty small."

    "Maybe the hawk's not an ordinary hawk," Balsa said. "Sufar is a magic weaver. I remember seeing hawk just like that one on his shoulder."

    "Hawks obey people like that?" Asra asked.

    Balsa shrugged. "I don't really understand magic weaving. But I've heard about magic weavers that can see through the eyes of dogs and other beasts. It's hard to detect, and even harder to protect ourselves from."

    "Do you think it knows we're here?"

    "Probably," Balsa said. "Hawks have good eyes. The oiled paper is brown, so we probably blended in with the trees overnight, but when we showed our faces it was able to find us."

    Balsa removed the oiled paper from them completely and folded it up for storage in her pack again. "We need to move on soon anyway, whether the hawk spotted us or not."

    Asra tried to get up, but she didn't have the strength to lock her knees. She was in danger of falling, but Balsa caught her from the front and helped her stand.

    "Looks like the drug hasn't completely worn off yet, huh?" Balsa asked. She placed Asra's hands against the tree, then removed a bottle from her pack. She removed two small objects that looked like pills from the bottle. She popped one in her mouth and handed the other to Asra.

    Asra put it in her mouth and swallowed it easily. It didn't taste bitter like she expected it to: it tasted like honey-sweet flower nectar. Balsa noticed Asra's surprised expression and smiled.

    "It's a snack made by mixing the honey from yuna flowers with flour. Isn't it nice? It's convenient to carry, though I'd prefer it if we had the antidote for whatever Sufar gave you. Still, eating something sweet and drinking lots of water should help us get a little stronger, at least."

    Asra ate three more pieces of the yuna flower candy and drank lots of water while Balsa stowed everything away in her pack and prepared to move. Balsa settled her pack over her stomach as she had the previous night and gave Asra a piggyback ride.

    Balsa assiduously erased all trace of her and Asra's passage as she walked. Even if the hawk led their pursuers directly to this spot, Balsa made their tracks very hard to follow. A patient and tireless pursuer might take the time to shift the fallen leaves from the forest floor to search for faint footprints underneath, but that would take time. All things being equal, Balsa was certain that their pursuers could move faster than them, so she wanted to slow them down as much as possible.

    Balsa's footprints weren't as light as she'd like them to be because she had to carry Asra. She knew how to erase her tracks completely, but that would take a lot of time that they didn't have, so she chose a path beneath full tree cover and moved over a thick carpet of leaves with every step. Whenever she could see the sky overhead, Balsa shifted course until she stood under a thick dark canopy of leaves again, zigzagging back and forth through the trackless woods.

    It was challenging to find footing in the underbrush, but she didn't want the hawk to catch sight of them again. She wasn't simply being cautious; she had to prevent anyone from discovering her intended destination.

    Asra learned Balsa's walking pace and began shifting her body in time with Balsa's steps. She did her best to be an easy burden to carry.

    "Where are we going?" Asra whispered in Balsa's ear.

    "We're heading for Shirogai," Balsa said.

    "Shirogai?"

    "If we keep going this way, we'll reach it in two days. It's a big town."

    "Why are we going to a town? Wouldn't it be easier to hide in the mountains?"

    Balsa shook her head. "The people after us know what they're doing. They know these mountains better than I do. They'd notice the signs of our hiding places because I don't know what looks normal."

    Balsa reached out to a bush full of hanging blackberries. She gathered a handful and passed them back to Asra. "Crush these and paint your face with the juice," Balsa said. "Make sure to cover your entire face."

    "Huh?"

    Balsa crushed the fruit in her hands and painted her face with the juice and pulp. Asra frowned as she crushed the fruit between her fingers. More juice came out than she expected. When the berries were crushed, they smelled a lot like freshly cut grass. She closed her eyes and painted her face with the fruit juice.

    "Don't forget your ears," Balsa said.

    Asra spread more juice on her ears.

    "Faces stick out a lot," Balsa said. "In the darkness of the forest or the mountains, a face will look white even if it's far away."

    Asra nodded in understanding. Her father had said something similar to her a long time ago. He'd been a trapper, and she remembered times when he' d come home with his face completely covered in mud. When Asra had laughed at him, he'd told her that he had to do that so the animals in the forest wouldn't know he was there.

    "Remind me to wash our faces before we get to Shirogai," Balsa said.

    Asra was soothed by Balsa's gentle voice and steady steps. Some of her worry eased as they made their way through the trees.

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