Guardian of Heaven and Earth - Rota - Part 2 Chapter 4 - A Small Boat at Night

  Guardian of Heaven and Earth

-

Rota

(Book 8 of the Guardian of the Spirit Series)

Author: Uehashi Nahoko

Translator: Ainikki the Archivist

 

  Part 2 - Enemies Among Friends

Chapter 4 - A Small Boat at Night

   

     The small boat was full of wheat. Balsa and Hugo crawled along the hull and felt the boat’s movement over the water. The ship was probably headed out to sea, so it might be difficult to get back, but neither Balsa nor Hugo wanted to get off the ship. It was best to hide here and avoid enemy eyes for as long as possible. They had no choice but to trust to luck for the rest.

    Hugo stretched out and glanced up, out of one of the high portholes inside the hold. The shore was still visible as the ship drifted downstream.

    “How far is it to the sea from here?” Balsa asked.

    “Maybe half an hour by boat,” Hugo answered quietly. “A lot of streams feed into the main river; it’s hard to tell which one we’re on now. We’ll know we’re close when we see a lot of tall grass growing on the shore.” Hugo sank into silence and stared at the shore through the narrow porthole.

    After a while, Hugo turned on his side and sat up. “Ah! There it is. We’re close. Can you move?”

    Balsa nodded. They heard the rushing roar of the water on either side of them. Balsa suddenly smelled blood; Hugo was still bleeding. His skin was too warm; she wondered if he had a fever.

    The boat tilted and started turning slightly to the left. The boat had entered a narrower tributary; Balsa saw nothing but grass as the ship cut its way forward through the water. The boat finally stopped in place, surrounded by grass that fluttered in the gentle wind.

    Aside from the waves lapping the boat and the wind in the grass, there was no sound. A half-moon shone overhead, but the night sky was so cloudy that its illumination didn’t count for much. Balsa and Hugo pressed themselves to the hull of the ship and stayed completely still. Hugo’s breathing sounded labored; the pain of his injuries had finally caught up with him. Balsa was now certain that he had a fever: he kept wiping away sweat and his face was flushed red.

    Balsa heard footfalls coming from the riverbank, but saw no people. She hoped that it was just wild animals coming to the river for a drink. She faced Hugo and nodded in the direction where she’d heard the sound.

    A large dog appeared on the riverbank. It sniffed the ground and dug up the grass as if it had found something valuable. The dog looked up, straight at Hugo as if he knew he was there.

    Blood, Balsa thought. The dog probably smells Hugo’s blood. She held her breath and stared fixedly at the dog. The dog sniffed the ground one more time, then sat down.

    “Seems like we’re being tracked,” Balsa whispered. “And they found us.”

    “I’m not so sure,” Hugo said. “A hunting dog would bark to alert his master about where the prey was.”

    Balsa rubbed at her numb arms. Some feeling was coming back into them. “There are magic weavers in Rota who can see through the eyes of animals,” she said. “They’re spies for the Rotan royal family.” Balsa stood up and looked down at Hugo. “Would your enemies use such methods to track you?”

    Hugo shook his head. “The Nanyoku don’t communicate that way. My guess is that we’ve been discovered by Rotan spies. I’ve heard of them before. Short and slight, but powerful magic weavers.”

    “Kashal,” Balsa whispered. “Dammit.”

    “Kashal?” Hugo asked, then coughed violently. There was smoke coming from somewhere; Balsa felt a tickle in her throat. It would be dangerous to drink the river water without boiling it, but if Hugo kept coughing they might be discovered by more than just the dog.

    Balsa scooped up some water from the river and brought some to Hugo’s mouth; he drank. She took a few sips of water herself and found it a bit muddy and silty, but also refreshing. Her throat no longer hurt.

    The dog still sat on the riverbank, watching them. Balsa paid it no mind. Even if the Kashal had found them, neither Balsa nor Hugo were able to move very far. If they climbed up the riverbank and encountered more people, they’d just be inviting more trouble for themselves.

    “The Kashal might not be our enemies,” Balsa whispered. “They’re great trackers and know the land well. I wouldn’t want to get on their bad side.” She remembered the last time she’d been tracked by the Kashal, when she’d carried Asra through the mountain forests to the town of Shirogai. She had fought with them, but never killed one; she liked to think she’d parted on good terms with their leader, Sufar.

    In the best case, the Kashal were an outside party who might help her. At worst, they might ignore her. She wasn’t expecting any open hostility from them, but she also couldn’t dismiss the possibility completely. Sufar’s daughter Shihana had worked very hard to gain the power of the terrifying god Talhamaya for the purpose of installing Prince Ihan safely on Rota’s throne after his brother’s death. Balsa had interfered with those plans. Shihana could definitely be considered an enemy; many Kashal had taken her side in that conflict. Shihana had fled after her plan had failed last time, but she’d also managed to foil all of her pursuers. She was an excellent spy; Balsa doubted she’d allow herself to be caught easily. She also doubted that Shihana’s base of support had disappeared overnight, even taking the failure of her plans and strategies into account.

    But even if Shihana was still out there, the purpose of the Kashal had always been to serve and protect Rota’s royal family. The southern lords were in league with the Talsh and were more or less diametrically opposed to the royal family. Balsa doubted the Kashal would do anything that might assist the Talsh. It made more sense to think of the Kashal as enemy counterspies to the Talsh.

    Hugo muttered something, but Balsa didn’t quite catch it.

    “Huh?” she asked.

    “I’m glad Prince Chagum isn’t in lord Suan’s palace anymore.”

    “What?” Balsa asked in clear surprise.

    “The Nanyoku are a rowdy lot--no finesse. It was easy to mix in with them and find out what they knew. The last thing I heard was that he escaped. There was quite an uproar over it.” 

    Hugo took a breath, then continued: “The Nanyoku thought we were responsible for breaking him out, but I swear it wasn’t us. Though I’m not sure why you’d believe me. The Nanyoku certainly didn’t.”

    Hugo frowned and gritted his teeth. “I need to treat my wounds,” he said.

    “Seems so.”

    Hugo removed his belt, then ripped off the sleeves of his under-kimono. He wadded up one sleeve and pressed it to the wound in his side to stop the bleeding. Balsa passed Hugo some of the leather twine she carried at her hip so that he could bind off his leg wound above the knee. With that done, he seized the broken shaft of the arrow and prepared to pull it out.

    “Wait,” Balsa said. She checked over the state of the wound, then nodded to herself. “All right. Pull it out.”

    Hugo nodded, took a deep breath and yanked out the arrow on one long pull. The wound bled, but didn’t gush; the leather twine tied above his knee was keeping more of the blood back. Hugo took his remaining detached sleeve and pressed down hard on the injury.

    With all that done, Hugo stretched out flat on his back and took long, deep breaths. Balsa saw something glint silver on his bare chest and blinked. “Put your shirt back on. Anyone who sees a silver necklace is going to want to steal it. Or it might be used to identify you.”

    Hugo nodded. He ripped the necklace off, then hid it underneath himself.

    “What is that, anyway?” Balsa asked as she got a closer look at it.

    “A gift from Prince Raul,” Hugo said. “Well, sort of. It’s a reward for distinguished service. It’ll be useful if we run into any more spies on my side. They’ll recognize it for what it is and listen to me.” He grinned wryly.

    “Were you rewarded for capturing Chagum?” Balsa asked.

    Hugo’s smile deepened. “Yep.” He looked at Balsa for a long time, smile fading by slow degrees. “If you hate me and consider me an enemy, now’s your chance to strike me down. You’re armed. I’m not. I’m also injured; I can’t fight back. You might not ever get a better opportunity than this.”

    Balsa looked at Hugo expressionlessly for a few moments, then said, “If I wanted to kill you, I would have already done it. Stop trying to atone for your guilt by pushing the responsibility on others. It’s annoying.”

    Hugo couldn’t quite meet her eyes. The wind blew through the grass surrounding them, loud; Balsa heard the scurrying of some wild creatures close by, but otherwise it was completely silent.

    The wind blowing off the river was cold and made her muscles feel tight and stiff with nervous exhaustion. She stretched out and breathed. Though she was cold, the persistent numbness in her limbs had almost dissipated. If she kept improving at this rate, she might be able to move more or less normally in half a day.

    Hugo stretched out a little way away from her with his arm over his eyes. She couldn’t tell if he’d fallen asleep or passed out. His slack features made him look incredibly young.

    Balsa sighed. How did she get herself into situations like this? She understood that Hugo was a Talsh spy and that she was perfectly within her rights to leave him here, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

    A Rotan bird of prey called a rakurou swooped down on a mouse not far from her in the darkness. Balsa looked up at the stars.

    Who helped Chagum escape? And why? Where did he go?

    In Rota as in Talsh, there were many factions and motives to consider. Nothing about this situation was black and white. Hugo had known that Chagum was in lord Suan’s palace; he seemed to think he was still alive.

    Hugo coughed violently and sat up, hunching in on himself as coughing made his injuries protest with the pain of movement. His eyes were open, but he was looking down. His teeth chattered. Balsa put her palm to Hugo’s forehead reflexively, checking his fever. His skin felt hot enough to burn.

    Balsa ripped off the sleeve of her own under-kimono and dipped it into the river. She wrung it out, then placed the wet cloth on Hugo’s forehead. Hugo closed his eyes and lay down again. Balsa kept dipping the cloth in fresh water whenever it dried out and replacing it on Hugo’s forehead.

    The moons sank lower in the sky as the night passed. Hugo passed into an uneasy sleep. Balsa stayed up for a little while after, then stretched out and went to sleep herself.

    Hugo’s voice woke her some time later; it was already getting light out. The sky was blue-purple with early morning light. Hugo was still asleep; he seemed to be having a nightmare. He kept calling out the same word over and over--maybe a name. Balsa thought he was calling out to a woman, but she really couldn’t tell. There was pain in his voice.

    Balsa shook Hugo’s shoulder to wake him up. He opened his eyes and blinked. Hugo glanced up at Balsa through hooded eyes. “Where are we?”

    Balsa didn’t answer.

    Hugo sighed and blinked a few times as he came back to wakefulness. His breath steamed in the cool air. “Ah. I remember. No one found us during the night?” he asked.

    Balsa took the damp cloth off Hugo’s forehead. “You were having a nightmare,” Balsa said.

    “Yeah. Fire does that to me sometimes. I can’t help but remember....well, certain things. My nightmares never change no matter how much time passes.” Hugo closed his eyes again.

    Birds started singing with the arrival of dawn. Balsa took in more of their surroundings now that they were visible. “Say,” Balsa said, “what did you plan to do when you caught up to Chagum?”

    “Who knows?” Hugo replied. He opened his eyes and said, “Sodok was the magic weaver you knocked out and tied up at the harbor. You probably heard me talking to him before. Anyway, he wanted to track down the Crown Prince so that Talsh could use him to force a peaceful resolution to the war. That’s what he would have done if we’d found him. But we had no guarantee that he was even alive.

    “Right now, New Yogo is like a wild beast being penned in from all sides. Nowhere to run; no way to stop it from being killed and devoured. I know that Crown Prince Chagum wanted to prevent that if possible. His supporters did, too.”

    Wind sighed through the grass around them.

    “But I don’t think you’re searching for Crown Prince Chagum for political reasons, are you?” Hugo asked.

    Balsa simply stared at Hugo. “What are you expecting me to say?” she asked.

    Hugo didn’t answer immediately. He frowned and said, “I want to help Crown Prince Chagum. He’s planning to create an alliance between all the nations of the northern continent. If he wants to actually succeed, then he has to go to Kanbal, and soon--before he sees the King of Rota. I want to tell him that.”

    Balsa frowned at this unexpected revelation. “Why would you even care?”

    Hugo faced Balsa squarely. “New Yogo will go to war at the opening of the new year. Talsh has been using the past two years to fortify and build up their presence on Sangal’s islands. They’re directing all their land forces to Sangal’s main peninsula. Most of these forces belong to Prince Raul. They’re battle-hardened veterans who have seen many campaigns, some in Orm, which others in Old Yogo.”

    Hugo’s expression was pained. His eyes were as black and dark as bottomless pits. “New Yogo’s soldiers have never been to war. They’ll be slaughtered. It won’t be a battle; it’ll be a bloodbath. That’s what the current Mikado has chosen for his nation.” 

    Hugo looked down at his hands. “My guess is that this initial battle will take place in two months, give or take. The King of Rota is already building up resources and preparing for a possible invasion. People say the King of Rota is has a decent heart, but I doubt he’d be foolish enough to send his own troops in to save New Yogo when it’s the Mikado’s own fault that his troops will be slaughtered. But the King of Kanbal...well, he’s in an entirely different position right now.”

    Balsa’s forehead puckered in confusion. “What do you mean?” she asked. “It seems to me that he’s in the exact same position. I know he’s weak-willed compared to the King of Rota, but his best move right now would likely be to send troops to the border of New Yogo along the Misty Blue Mountains to repel invaders. I don’t think he has any interest in helping New Yogo with its problems.”

    “True enough,” Hugo said, “but that’s not my meaning. I wanted to tell Crown Prince Chagum to give up on alliances for New Yogo; it’s too late for those to be truly effective. What’s needed now is an alliance between Rota and Kanbal.”

    Balsa’s eyes widened.

    “If New Yogo falls, Rota is next, then Kanbal. The King of Kanbal may be weak-willed, but he’s not stupid. He understands all of this. An alliance with Rota would be most beneficial to Rota right now, but it’s also critical for Kanbal, for the sake of its future. Rota and Kanbal also share a long border in the north.

    “The southern clan lords wouldn’t even need to agree to the alliance for it to work,” Hugo went on. “If Kanbal and Rota’s northern clan lords formed an alliance, they could leave the south to the Talsh and build up a defensible position in the north.” Hugo’s eyes shone brightly with conviction. “Even if New Yogo falls, they can create a highly defensible wall using the mountains and push back the first wave of the invasion. It would take time and soldiers and resources to break down such a wall. Prince Raul is in charge of the invasion plan for the northern continent, and he’s no fool. He won’t waste resources on such a vast scale when there are other diplomatic options available.”

    “You seem to be skipping ahead pretty far,” Balsa said. “I doubt Chagum expects New Yogo to fall to the Talsh. Besides, what would you gain by telling him all of this?”

    Hugo shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to govern a province...but Prince Raul would have to become the Talsh Emperor for that to even be a possibility for me.”

    Hugo laughed when he saw the troubled expression on Balsa’s face. “You must be wondering how Prince Raul failing to conquer the northern continent would put him in a good position to become Emperor. Everything’s relative in this case. If Prince Raul fails, it looks bad, sure--but it looks even worse if Prince Hazar succeeds in his place. And Prince Hazar has been building support in Rota all this time, so if New Yogo falls, so will Rota, and quickly. The Emperor of Talsh is very ill at the moment. If Prince Hazar pulls off such a clear victory on the northern continent, then he’ll certainly become the next Emperor.”

    Balsa nodded in sudden understanding. “You want Kanbal to strengthen Rota so that it won’t fall to Prince Hazar. The part of Rota Prince Hazar already controls is unstable; the southern clan lords have been trying to start a civil war for years. With the northern clan lords and Kanbal forming that wall you talked about, Prince Hazar wouldn’t be able to invade the north. At least not easily.”

    “Exactly. It’s simple.” Hugo looked up at the sky. “There’s something else you should know. There’s...well, kind of a time limit. Talsh is consuming itself from within. They can’t afford to spend a lot of time or resources conquering other places right now. It’s in their best interest to settle this conflict peacefully before things escalate to violence. All they can hope for if things stay as they are is a bloody and protracted war with an uncertain outcome.” 

    Hugo frowned severely. “The continents are separated by a vast ocean. Talsh can use Sangal as a hub to ship resources and troops, but that’s egregiously expensive. They’ll need to raise taxes on their own citizens to pay for that. And they’ll need to conscript more soldiers from territories they’ve recently conquered. Yogo, Orm, Horam, Sangal...the innocent people of those nations will suffer just as much as the people on the northern continent.”

    Birds twittered in the sky above. Morning light illuminated Hugo’s face in bright white light. “Right now, Talsh is like a wineskin filled to bursting. If the situation remains as it is and doesn’t shift, the wineskin will burst. Seeing Talsh destroyed might make some people happy, but it would destroy the lives of untold thousands of people. I’d rather not see that happen.”

    “If the situation is so bad at home, why is Talsh even invading other nations?” Balsa asked. “Why not fix its own problems first? Isn’t the south richer and more prosperous, anyway?”

    Hugo smiled a little sadly and said, “That used to be true, but not anymore. The southern continent is played out. The weather’s getting worse and the harvests get poorer every year.

    "Talsh's wars have helped to make it poor, of course, but that's not how the Talsh princes tend to think. They believe the current crisis is a religious one, and that the bounty that the southern continent used to enjoy has been shifted to the northern continent. The source of this prosperity is what they call the Are Rou, the Gate of the Sun."

    "Gate of the Sun?" Balsa asked with a frown.

    "The Talsh worship a sun god called Are. The god is--was--important in Yogoese culture as well, especially among magic weavers. The priests of Are closely advise the Emperor on all things. It's obvious that the southern continent's climate is changing--it's getting colder and colder with each passing year. The priests advised the Talsh Emperor to look to the north for a source of warmth. If Talsh captures this source--this Gate of the Sun--then it can be prosperous again. That's the theory, anyway."

    Balsa's eyebrows lifted slightly. She smiled.

    "Looks like you believe that about as much as I do," Hugo said. "But the Talsh Emperor believes it. The Talsh princes believe it. That's why they're attacking the north. Some of the priests believe that capturing the Gate of the Sun will lead to an eternal spring with no winter, famine, or war. Spies were sent out to look for it." Hugo smiled. "But we never found it."

    Hugo stopped speaking and turned his face to the deep blue sky. "The Gate of the Sun might not be real, but it's undeniable that the southern continent is getting colder and more impoverished with each passing year. I understand why the the Talsh Emperor wants to hope for a change for the better."

    Balsa remembered that the harvests in New Yogo had been unusually good for the past few years. Even northern Rota, which had usually been poor, had increased its livestock populations after a plague and was faring better than it had in generations.

    Hugo was still speaking. "Of course, poorer harvests also affect how much can be collected in taxes. The nations that have been most recently conquered bear the brunt of Talsh taxes, so it’s no surprise that Talsh is facing internal dissension and revolt. I’m sure the Emperor is hoping that finding a new source of prosperity will end those problems as well.

    “It almost goes without saying that the prince who improves Talsh’s lot for the better will be the next Emperor. The current Emperor doesn’t have much time left. Whatever the princes do now, they’ll have to act fast.

    “Still, this crisis isn’t new.” He sighed. “The princes began plotting to take over New Yogo the instant they heard about the Gate of the Sun. We spies have been on the northern continent for years, searching and gathering information. It’s true that the north is warmer than the south now, when it didn’t used to be. And it’s true that New Yogo has a lot of arable land that’s sparsely populated. That’s what the two Talsh princes are really after, I think. The Talsh are great at making a little land stretch a long way when it comes to growing food.

    “Of course, Rota has some good land, too, but New Yogo has more, and less of it’s been developed. That makes it easy for the Talsh to turn it into whatever they want or need. But Rota’s included in this plan, too. When the northern lords eventually revolt, their common people and townsfolk will move south and set up farms there. That’s the idea, anyway. Having all this land conquered and used for growing could ensure peace in Talsh for generations to come. There’d be no more taxes, either.”

    Balsa snorted through her nose. “Seems like a lot of trouble to get someone else to solve their problems for them. They’re willing to go to war and spill blood and take innocent lives just so they can take over some land?”

    Hugo’s smile was tight and filled with pain. “No. It’s the opposite.”

    “Huh?”

    “Talsh has always maintained peace through war. This is the same thing. Gaining the land is a secondary goal. For Prince Hazar especially, conquest was always the point. It’s just how the Talsh do things. It’s a self-feeding cycle: Talsh conquers a country, then recruits soldiers and collects resources from that country so that it can attack another. Men who volunteer to be soldiers make themselves and their families full citizens, so they don’t have to pay the high war taxes.

    “There’s an obvious problem with this strategy: what happens when there are no countries left to conquer? There’ll be no need for soldiers then, and a huge country at peace would struggle to support a standing army. I predict that the instability that results from that will bring nothing but chaos.”

    Hugo smiled coldly. “There aren’t really any nations left to conquer on the southern continent. The citizens of Talsh live rich and peaceful lives at the expense of the people they’ve recently conquered--the Yogoese, and people from Orm and Horam. The Talsh empire chose to attack the northern continent in part so that more people from those nations could gain citizenship through the war.”

    Balsa snorted again. “Whoever’s in charge is an idiot. How long do you think they can keep this up? Like you said, there’s only so many countries left to conquer.”

    Hugo laughed. “Yep.” He faced Balsa and stilled his expression to seriousness. “I do think that the Talsh princes are going to see that, and soon. They can’t keep going on as they have; old strategies won’t work when there are no more independent nations apart from Talsh. I think--well, maybe it’s more accurate to say that I hope--that they’ll work out a peaceful resolution on the northern continent and convert their soldiers into farmers and merchants to expand their wealth and trade networks.

    “But I know that’s not Prince Raul’s goal now, or Prince Hazar’s. From their perspectives, New Yogo looks like a prize being dangled right in front of them. They won’t have time to think until one or the other of them has captured it. Unless the northern continent suddenly gets a lot more difficult to conquer, they won’t back off.”

    Hugo sighed. “I planned to tell Crown Prince Chagum all of this if I ever found him. But Crown Prince Chagum, perhaps justifiably, sees me as nothing but Prince Raul’s shadow. Maybe if he heard all of this from you, it would carry more weight.”

    Hugo looked at Balsa. “And so I’ll ask you to tell him for me, if you find him. Please.”

    Balsa didn’t say anything in reply. She heard voices from far off and the sound of oars being dipped in the water. It seemed that the people who lived along the riverbank were stirring and going about their morning activities.

    “I...” Balsa trailed off. “I really don’t care much about what countries do to one another. I just want Chagum to be happy.” Her voice was quiet; she sounded like she was speaking to herself. “He’s always been at the mercy of his responsibilities because of his birth. I think that being free of it, all of it--governing a country, living for its people--was the only time he was truly happy. Even lugging around firewood and digging out splinters, he seemed completely content.”

    Hugo smiled a little. “He was great at cleaning on board ship. We were all a bit surprised at that. By the end of the journey, he was as tan as any of the sailors and could have been mistaken for one himself.” His smile grew wider. “So I guess you’re the one who taught him how to clean and work.”

    Balsa’s eyes narrowed.

    “You definitely won’t believe me, but...I want Crown Prince Chagum to be happy, too. I’m not sure it’s possible for him to ever live the kind of life he wants, but I still hope he achieves that for himself some day.”

    Waterfowl that nested in the rushes near the riverbank were suddenly startled by something and scattered in all directions. Balsa put her hand over Hugo’s mouth to shut him up.

    People are coming.

    Balsa could hear them: three or four, maybe more, moving through the tall grass as silently as beasts. Hugo drew his short sword and gripped it in front of him. Balsa pulled up her spear and tested her strength; the drug she’d been given had finally worn off. Balsa tore off a flax bag she wore over her chest off, then used her teeth to split the bag in two, then in two again, creating two pieces of cloth of roughly equal size. She tied each piece of cloth over her bare shins for protection, then she covered Hugo with an empty grain sack to hide him.

    “What do you intend to do?” Hugo whispered.

    Balsa chuckled. “Run. What else? Injured people are easy to catch, but I can’t just sit here quietly and wait for that to happen.” She settled the sack completely over Hugo so that it hid him completely.

    “You don’t have to do that, you know,” he said.

    Balsa stood up and prepared to leave the boat. She saw the shadows of three people farther up the bank, crouched down in the grass. She removed the scabbard from her spear, then jumped all the way onto solid ground.

    The closest person to Balsa was a man carrying a bow. “Don’t move!” he shouted at her.

    Balsa ignored the command and ran toward the man. The man nocked an arrow and fired straight at Balsa. Balsa turned the arrow aside with her spear, then brought her weapon down in an arc on the man’s head. He man’s eyes rolled back into his head as he collapsed.

    Two more figures emerged from the grass. Balsa picked up the man she’d knocked unconscious and used him as a shield.

    “Don’t shoot! You’ll hit him!” Balsa called out in Rotan.

    The other two figures began to move.

    “Listen! I’m Balsa the spear wielder,” Balsa yelled as loudly as she could. “I’m almost certain that you’re Kashal. Why did you attack me? Answer me! If you don’t, I’ll kill this man.”

    Giving her name was a gamble. If these Kashal were working for Shihana, she expected them to attack her with everything they had now. She yanked in the unconscious man by his left arm. He was coming to, though he still appeared confused.

    “Did you say that you’re Balsa the spear wielder?” an old man asked. He had a bow, but it wasn’t pointed at her. “We’re chasing Talsh Taku--one of their spies. We noticed that a boat went missing from their hideout last night and tracked it down the river. If you’re really Balsa the spear wielder, then what were you doing on that boat?”

    Balsa lowered the confused man in her arms to the ground. “It’s a long story,” she said. “I mean you no harm. If you want to capture me, I won’t resist. I want to talk to your leader.”

    Balsa set her spear on the ground, took three steps away from it, and put her hands up.

    The two men closing in on her exchanged uncertain glances, then approached Balsa with arrows prepared to fire.

 

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