Guardian of Heaven and Earth
-
Kanbal
Part 1 - To Kanbal
Chapter 3 - Ambush
Balsa and Chagum left Dohal and his family at dawn the next day and resumed their journey. They neared Rota's border with Kanbal near midday. They were rounding a gentle turn on the mountain path when Chagum stopped abruptly to catch his breath. Up until now, he'd only ever seen Kanbal's southern mountains through a screen of trees, but now, they towered majestically overhead. His view of the mountains was entirely unobstructed. They were much taller than any mountains he'd ever seen in Rota. Snow dusted summits that looked sharp enough to cut the sky.
"It's the start of the Yusa mountain range," Balsa said quietly.
Chagum squinted from the harsh reflection of the light off the snowy peaks. The Yusa mountains marked the border of Kanbal, Balsa's homeland. They were almost there.
Chagum turned to Balsa and looked her in the eyes. She smiled. "Well, then. Let's go."
They kept moving down the mountain path. Two squat towers appeared in the distance in front of them. The towers were made of the same dark stone common to Rota and Kanbal. There was a scout on top of each tower. All told, there were roughly ten guards on duty here, but this was a general border crossing road, so the guards were fairly lax. Some looked sleepy. There were four men on this side of the border and four on the other, with the two scouts in the towers to either side.
A group of five people were approaching the border from the Kanbal direction; they were probably looking to cross over into Kanbal for work. One of the men in the group rode an emaciated horse. When Balsa and Chagum approached, the guards were milling around a shared fire, trying to keep warm. Some were smoking gazal, a sweet kind of tobacco that grew in Rota.
None of them moved from the fire as Balsa, Chagum, and the group of people from Kanbal approached the border.
Balsa and Chagum passed through the group of guards. One stank so badly of smoke that Chagum wrinkled his nose. He wondered if the man could smell himself, or if he'd gotten used to it. One of the guards, a middle-aged man with a haughty sort of air, peeled off the main group and followed them. Chagum felt his heart beat faster; he followed where Balsa led and tried to appear calm. Four of the guards carried spears that looked a lot like Balsa's. Two of them gave a signal to the one who had followed Balsa; he nodded in acknowledgement.
"Stop your horses," the guard said, "and remove your face coverings. Let's have a look at you."
Balsa and Chagum did as instructed. The guard blinked when he saw Chagum's face. Chagum stayed still and silent, waiting for the guard to say something. His heart pounded so hard that it hurt. The guard exchanged a glance with one of his fellows.
"Can we help you with anything, sir?" Balsa asked.
The guard cleared his throat. "We inspect everyone who comes in from Rota these days. There have been reports that bandits and thieves have been trying to cross the border." His tone was rude. "You can advance as far as the towers. We'll check your baggage there."
The guard faced one of his younger comrades and called out, "Hey! Follow these two and check their stuff." He returned to the fire. The young guard he'd called out to followed Balsa and Chagum a little way forward, then asked them to stop again. He checked their baggage in a perfunctory way, but Balsa felt like there was something off about the guard. She was about to relax when he started to check everything much more thoroughly, as if he was looking for something in particular. Even after it was clear that he'd found nothing, he continued to make a pretext of searching through their bags. It was almost like he was trying to slow them down. When the sleeve of the guard's uniform slipped a little as he searched her bag, Balsa saw that he was wearing a silver bracelet on his arm.
At long length, the baggage inspection was over. "Fine," the guard said. "You're free to go."
The guards allowed Balsa and Chagum to pass. Chagum was so relieved that he was a little lightheaded from it. They rode to the other side of the towers, expecting to see more guards there, but there were none to be seen. They kept riding for a while in uneasy silence.
"That place was weird," Chagum whispered.
"Those guards sell information on who's carrying valuables in exchange for a cut," Balsa muttered.
"What?!" Chagum was shocked.
"I saw a silver bracelet on that guard's arm. Border guards aren't paid well enough for them to afford something like that."
"If they sell information...do you think they'll tell anyone about us? For money?" Chagum asked.
"Possibly. I don't doubt they've helped arrange ambushes--to help them take their share of whatever valuables they're owed."
"And you think that Talsh assassins might pay them to do that?"
"I'm not certain they have, but it's better to assume that they have and be wrong than to stumble right into a trap."
The wound on Chagum's face tightened with pain. He remembered that he'd been too slow to avoid the last Talsh assassin's blade. His shame at failing to defend himself felt worse than the pain of his injury. "What should we do?" he asked.
"We'll keep riding until they can't see us anymore, then leave the road. We can take a brief detour through the forest and try to lose any pursuers. Then we'll tie the horses in the woods and lie in wait near the road, waiting for them to pass us by. We don't want to run into them on the road. If they don't find us, they may leave us alone."
Chagum looked confused for a moment, but then he nodded. "I see. If they sell information, it's possible that their contacts will figure out who we are. We might be brought back to the towers in that case. But since we know that's a possibility, we might be able to hide--or spring our own ambush."
"If all goes well, maybe," Balsa said.
They were rounding a turn that would take them out of visual range of the fortress when a chill went up Balsa's spine. She pulled up on her reins and said sharply, "Chagum, get down!"
Chagum complied immediately, but he didn't sense any danger. Something glinted just above his head and struck his horse in the neck. Tanda screamed and fell over. Balsa leaped off her own horse and planted herself flat on the snowy ground like a wooden plank. Chagum followed her down, getting a faceful of snow. Balsa held her spear in her right hand and directed Chagum, through gestures, to hide in the underbrush at the side of the road.
Two arrows landed in the snow behind Chagum as he rolled into the underbrush. Shadowy figures emerged from behind trees. They wore light gray and blended in almost perfectly with the snowy forest landscape. Balsa looked around and tried to determine how many assassins there were.
Five. Shit.
Balsa gritted her teeth. These weren't bandits; they wouldn't allow Balsa or Chagum to simply run past them.
"Run into the woods and don't look back," Balsa whispered in Chagum's ear. She gripped her spear and faced the advancing assassins. They scattered as they approached. Four cornered Balsa while a fifth locked his gaze on Chagum and prepared to give chase.
Balsa cut two assassins down in front of her with blinding speed. They collapsed to the snowy ground; the face of one of the assassins was bleeding profusely. While the two others cornering her blinked in astonishment, she moved to cut off the assassin who had targeted Chagum. Her spear's shaft struck him sharply across his body, making him grunt and retreat backward. Balsa rushed at him and brought her knee into his side. She heard the sound of his ribs breaking as she stepped back. He collapsed to the ground, clutching at his chest; he wasn't able to regain his feet.
Balsa picked up the injured man and threw him at the assassins running at her. The injured assassin tumbled to the ground in front of his comrades, briefly tripping one of them. The other assassin sprang at Balsa rapidly, bringing his sword down in a powerful slash. Balsa avoided the cut and brought her spear up to strike his face, but he dodged.
Balsa felt sudden sharp pain in her side and realized she'd been cut. She wasted no time: before she could be injured further, she bent all the way down, seized the assassin's leg and broke it at the knee.
The assassin whose face she'd cut was sneaking up behind her. He brought his wide-bladed, curved sword down on Balsa's back.
Chagum ran desperately through the woods. He didn't want to waste Balsa's sacrifice; she was working so desperately to buy him time. He set his jaw and kept running over the slightly slippery ground. The trees became older and thicker as he ran; they grew closer together, making it harder to run. He heard someone approaching from behind, but didn't turn around to look. He kept running until he reached a clump of trees on top of a hill. He was about to sprint through the trees when his foot caught on something under the snow.
He felt himself fall, but he didn't stop moving: he landed and rolled forward as fast as he could. He reached a clearer space and got to his feet. The face of the assassin pursuing him was clearly visible when he stood up; the man had almost completely closed the distance between them.
The assassin had a backhanded grip on his sword hilt, which brought the edge of his weapon that much closer to Chagum. Chagum drew his own sword and blocked the assassin's incoming slash. The assassin raised his sword again; Chagum took a step back and dodged the blade, then barreled forward into the assassin's legs.
The assassin fell to the ground, face-up, still clutching his weapon. He tried to slash at Chagum's back.
Someone kicked the assassin so hard and fast in the knee that Chagum couldn't track their movements. The man briefly lost control of his weapon; Chagum felt a shallow slash to his side and gasped. There was blood dripping down Chagum's face, but it was hard to tell if it was his own or if it had fallen off of the assassin's sword.
The assassin didn't move. Chagum lifted his arm speculatively and disarmed him; there was no reaction. The assassin's arm dropped with a heavy thunk into the snow.
Someone seized Chagum's arm from behind. They spun him around, a little roughly for the circumstances, and wiped the blood off his face. "Are you injured?" they asked. The person who had saved him was a woman--definitely not Balsa. His eyes widened in shock as he recognized her.
"Shihana?" She was one of the Kashal, magic weavers and spies who worked for the royal family of Rota. Her right eye was covered by a white eyepatch. There was blood on the short sword she carried.
"Shihana, where is Balsa?" he asked. "Balsa!"
"She's probably fine," Shihana said with a slight smile. "There are more Kashal here than just me, you know."
Chagum took a deep breath, then started running back to the road. Shihana gave a signal; she and several other Kashal started running after Chagum. Shihana's monkey leaped from tree to tree above them, keeping pace with the runners. When they reached the road, the monkey leaped directly onto Shihana's shoulder.
Chagum hoped that Balsa was all right; he didn't want to search the battlefield and find out that the worst had happened. There were several people on the road ahead of him: some were archers; others carried swords, but he didn't see Balsa among them.
"Balsa!" he called out. "Balsa!"
Balsa limped out of the tree cover near the road, clutching her knee with one hand and her wounded side with the other. When she caught sight of Chagum, she stood up straight and asked, "Are you all right? Were you hurt?" She came all the way up to him and pushed back his hair, which had fallen into his face while running.
“I’m fine,” Chagum said. “The blood is the assassin’s.” He clasped her hands. “You’re the one who’s hurt.”
Her left hand was bleeding severely. She looked down at it with a slight frown. “It’s fine. The wound is shallow.”
Her face was deathly pale. Chagum didn’t notice that her side was wounded as well--and it was bleeding far more than her hand. She relaxed a little when she realized that Chagum was safe: enough to understand that she would need treatment soon. She broke out in a cold sweat and shivered violently. It hurt to breathe; her vision went white around the edges.
Chagum was speaking to her, but his voice was getting farther and farther away. She blinked a few times and tried to focus, but her efforts only made her head ache. She fell unconscious without realizing it as she fought to breathe.
Balsa awoke when she felt something cold on her face. Chagum’s blurry face came into focus above her. Her head was resting on his knees; he had just placed a damp cloth on her forehead. It seemed that she hadn’t been unconscious for very long. They were still on the road; she saw Kashal surrounding them.
“Are you all right?” Chagum whispered.
Balsa nodded and tried to get up.
“Don’t move yet,” Chagum said. “You might pass out again. Just rest. The Kashal have a camp in these woods; they’re making a litter to carry you now. Try to be patient.” He said all this in a rush, as if he was expecting Balsa to try to interrupt him.
Balsa shook her head a little and lay back down. She pressed both hands against the wound in her side to help stop the bleeding.
“I don’t need a litter,” she said.
“The litter’s coming,” Shihana said. “Stop being a stubborn child and wait for it.” She was standing behind Balsa and Chagum; Balsa could barely see her from this angle. “If your wounds go bad or you bleed out, you’ll never make it to the capital to see the king.”
She was surprised to see the Kashal here, assisting them against the Talsh spies as if they’d known exactly where the attack would come. And she’d never expected to see Shihana, of all people, ever again. Balsa had cut out Shihana’s right eye. She looked for some sign of hatred or resentment on Shihana’s face, but saw none.
When the litter came, Chagum helped Balsa stand up. She bowed her head to the Kashal. “You saved our lives. Thank you.” Shihana gave a signal to her comrades that were bearing the litter; Balsa lay down on it without a fuss. The Kashal picked her up and carried her to their camp deeper into the woods.
As they traveled, Chagum realized that the corpses of the fallen Talsh assassins were gone. The Kashal must have cleaned up the battlefield and dumped the bodies somewhere so that they wouldn’t be discovered easily. A chill went down his spine. Kashal were spies and assassins, too. He was glad they were on his and Balsa’s side.
Balsa probably hadn’t killed any of the Talsh assassins that she’d felled, but since their bodies were gone, Chagum had to assume that the Kashal had found the injured assassins and finished them off.
The Kashal served the royal family of Rota. From their perspective, Talsh assassins were enemies of the kingdom and deserved no consideration or mercy. If the Kashal had let them live, they would have certainly caused more trouble down the road.
Chagum understood that. He kept his eyes fixed on Shihana’s back and kept moving. He couldn’t control his shivering, or the slight trembling in his hands.
He had traveled with Shihana and the Kashal before. The Tohasa clan had rescued him from lord Suan’s palace in southern Rota after he’d been captured. The Tohasa clan were generally kind and easy-going; traveling with them had been pleasant and almost fun. But then Shihana’s band of Kashal had caught up to them on their way to Prince Ihan’s castle, and the entire mood of the journey had completely changed.
The Kashal who served Shihana were ruthlessly efficient in their movements and actions. They were also smart and anticipated any potential enemy’s moves and strategies before they happened. Chagum was grateful for their protection, but he found himself wishing for the kinder, gentler mood that had marked the beginning of his journey with the Tohasa clan’s Kashal. The Kashal that served Shihana were far too intimidating to ever be considered friendly.
I guess they have to be, since they spy on and assassinate the King of Rota’s enemies.
He suddenly remembered his father’s Hunters: eight warriors who assassinated the Mikado’s enemies in secret. Jin had always felt sorry for him and protected him--even against orders--but he knew that even Jin was capable of killing ruthlessly, without mercy. The Mikado and the King of Rota both ruled their nations and made use of assassins to protect their power.
Chagum still had an assassin’s blood drying on his face. He brushed his hand against his cheek, then swallowed. He remembered picking up the man’s arm and dropping it--realizing that he was dead. His shivering became so intense that he couldn’t stop it, but he wasn’t cold. He reached out his hand to Balsa, who lay on her litter next to him.
Balsa grabbed his hand and squeezed it.
Her hands felt warm; her grip was strong. That was reassuring. He kept his hand in Balsa’s all the way to the Kashal’s camp in the forest.
I'm glad that Shihana came in to help out~ Looks like Shihana and her warriors along with Balsa and Chagum will be traveling together. It may be better that way
ReplyDeleteI agree! Sadly, they won't be staying long...they have to get back to Rota because of the civil war. *sigh*
Delete