Chapter 07
"You sure you wanna do this?" he asked the tall and tan girl following him down to the base of the mountain.
Chaska nodded. "I will follow you," she said. "You stumbled upon one of Nazim's workshops without even seeking it, which suggests your fortune is greater than mine."
Without saying it outright, she was telling him she intended to stick with him until they stumbled upon another one of Nazim's workshops together.
He'd suspected she'd landed on this conclusion the moment she insisted, that very morning, on getting moving toward the city in the distance, Eudeussac, and not for the reason he'd originally invited her along, which was to rest.
He didn't mind the idea of a pretty girl tagging along, but he had to point something out. "I'll admit, this would be a decent plan if it were based on observable evidence, a pattern. I randomly stumbled onto one of his shops. Is that really a reasonable basis to assume I'll stumble onto another?"
"That I don’t know for sure but you're definitely more likely to stumble upon him again than I am to find him on my own, given how long I've been searching."
He sighed and accepted it, since the girl clearly wasn't going to change her mind. "Also, earlier, when I asked if you really wanted to do this, I wasn't talking about that. I meant us getting moving so early."
In the plan he'd sketched out the night before, he'd meant to nurse her for a day or two at minimum.
It wasn't a life-threatening injury, but it wasn't the kind of injury where it would be reasonable to double down with a long march the next day either.
“I'm not in a hurry. I wouldn't have minded staying at the fortress until you got a little better, but—”
"The only reason I was at the fortress was to use it as a base for my excursion up to Widowmaker Ridge. With the workshop gone, I have no more reason to stay."
"I get that part, that makes sense, but—"
"The sooner we get moving," she declared resolutely, "the sooner we'll stumble onto another one of his workshops."
"You," he sighed, glancing at the bag holding the thing she was clearly planning to barter with the kobold. "At least hand it over," he said.
Like an uncooperative bystander in a mugging, she refused. He pressed. "I'm not going to steal your stuff."
"It's not that."
"If it's not that, then hand it over. The weight of it is clearly straining you and slowing us down.
" After a moment's hesitation, she handed it over for him to carry.
The part about it slowing her down was an exaggeration, but the weight in that bag was definitely not something a still-convalescing person should be hauling around.
A few minutes into the walk, she did something he hadn't seen her do yet. "Why the name? Why Shiro? Does it mean something?"
It felt strange hearing her initiate a conversation, considering how distant she had been less than a day ago. It was impressive how much a standoff and a subsequent beatdown could change a person. Beautiful.
"The honest answer is I just thought it sounded fitting. Shiro and Hiro sound similar, but different. As for the meaning, it means 'white,' which I'd say fits my circumstances well enough."
He thought back to what the kobold had told him, to embrace this new incarnation of himself for what it was worth. He still meant to dig into his past, to learn who Hiro had been and what he'd done with his life, but he had no intention of letting it become the whole weight of his existence.
"Speaking of white," he said, his gaze naturally tracing the rich, sun-baked warmth of her tanned skin.
His eyes lingered on her midriff, where a pair of bold, two-finger-thick white lines emerged, connecting, if they did connect, in her covered areas.
The parallel lines branched out across her smooth skin like strikes of elegant lightning, winding their way toward her hips and limbs, accentuating every curve of her body. "What do the lines mean?"
"It's a tradition of my people."
"I figured. Does it signify anything in particular?"
He looked at her expectantly, and she didn't seem eager to explain.
Just as he was about to give up, she finally broke the silence.
"Our people receive these marks before hunting, going to war, or setting out on a longer journey.
They serve as a compass, guiding us home.
The tribe bestows the mark on those meant to be welcomed back.
Only those who are cast out leave without them. "
"I see. That's a cool tradition, I think. It looks very pretty on you."
"It's not meant to be pretty."
"I know. But it's pretty on you nonetheless," he insisted, right as they reached what seemed to finally be the thing he'd been chasing for days: the base of the mountain.
It gave way abruptly to a wall-like drop, as if the mountain itself sat atop some absurdly elevated platform set into a verdant plain.
"Legend says a hero did this," she explained, "to make sure the abominations from Widowmaker Ridge could never spill onto this fertile land. He lowered the ground itself to create this fall."
"That's impressive," he said. "Any idea what the hero's name was?"
She shook her head.
"And this happened when, you said?"
"Some two hundred years ago, I think."
"I see." That timing lined up with what Nazim had said about the fortress being abandoned by the people who were there to repel the monsters of the mountain. "So how do we get down from here? Do we rappel down?"
"Rappel?"
"You know, like this." He mimed the motion.
That earned him a look of utter bafflement.
"I know a path. I came up this way," she said, leading him along the length of the abyss.
As the hour wore on, it became clear this was an awful detour compared to a straight descent, but just as he was about to complain, they reached the stretch she'd mentioned, where the lower ground finally rose to meet theirs.
From there, they walked on verdant grass, a welcome change from thick snow and hard rock, heading straight toward the city they'd seen in the distance.
It proved farther than it looked. By the time afternoon settled in, they were only about halfway there, which meant that unless they wanted to push through the night without rest, they'd have to stop somewhere along the way.
They chose to stop, and for their resting spot they picked what looked like a lone, abandoned tower in the distance.
As they drew closer, it became clear the tower was anything but abandoned.
A whole commotion unfolded before their eyes: a tower under siege, carriages, horses, drake steeds, warriors, and guns, all locked in a fight as dusk closed in.
"You vile bitches! Come down here so we settle this honorably!"
"Honorably?! What do you know of honor?"
"The only thing this vile bitch has to say to you and your backstabbing kind is fuck you, and whatever rotten lord sent you can eat my dick, and my sister's, which is definitely bigger than yours, you backstabbing pricks!"
Blam! Blam! Blam!
From the tower, defenders fired muzzle-loading black powder arms, their booming reports and rolling smoke marking them as older smoothbore weapons rather than modern repeaters, volleying down at armored knights scrambling behind transport carriages for cover.
Below, a second assault party converged on the heavy oak postern, where defenders desperately braced the barricaded gate from within.
"What the hell?" Shiro muttered, taking in the scene.
After everything that had happened with Chaska, he'd been hoping for a warmer reunion with civilization. This was a little too warm for his taste, warm enough that he'd rather put distance between himself and it before getting burned. Unfortunately, fate had other plans for him.
A group of hooded belligerents sheltering behind a carriage noticed them backing away, some eighty meters off.
Shiro caught one of them pointing at him and Chaska, drawing the attention of the others, who all turned toward them with a glacial look, even from that distance. "That doesn't look good, does it?"
"It doesn't," Chaska said flatly, glancing at what remained of her bow, useless in her current state.
Three of the hooded men ducked from cover and ran for their steeds to rush at them.
One was shot off his mount by someone atop the tower before he made it far, but the other two closed at full stride, weapons drawn, their intent obvious.
Shiro’s hand moved like lightning, ripping the heavy steel revolver from his holster. Two deafening roars split the air, drowning out the pathetic chaos for several seconds. Less than ten meters from him, the two hooded men dropped hard to the ground, their mounts scattering like spooked animals.
The first man died instantly, his head obliterated, for lack of a better term.
Sickened by the gore, Shiro aimed the second shot in a desperate attempt at mercy.
It backfired horribly. The bullet tore away a massive chunk of the man's abdomen, yet somehow, after falling from his stead, he stood up.
He even tried to stem the bleeding—a futile gesture when evisceration, not just blood loss, was the immediate threat.
That he could stand at all with such a wound was a gruesome miracle, one that did not last long.
"So much for being mundane," Shiro said, remembering what the kobold had told him about that particular round, as the man collapsed into a pool of his own blood and definitely died shortly after.
He hadn't hesitated killing him, and he registered that fact the way he'd registered his own readiness to shoot Chaska the day before, casually, without much resistance from himself.
He glanced at her, expecting to find her horrified.
Without much exaggeration, she could have easily been either of these men.
Instead he found her staring at the corpse with a detached expression.
When their eyes met, he understood she must have seen her share of things like this before.
He turned his attention back to the fight, which seemed to be reaching its end as the gun-wielding side gained the upper hand.
The door the hooded men had been trying to force open finally gave way, only to greet them with gunfire.
The hooded belligerents fell in droves, and out through the door emerged a crowd of musket-wielding defenders, weapons raised and ready.
With only five men left, the hooded group hiding behind the carriages made a break for retreat.
Under fire from the musket-wielders, their numbers were culled down to three, who managed to escape.
At the urging of what he guessed was one of their leaders, several of the armed defenders mounted vaulters, and those who couldn't find one resorted to climbing onto horses instead, riding off after the fleeing three.
That left the area littered with bodies, along with him, Chaska, and the musket-wielding group, who had by now noticed their presence. Shiro hoped their next move would be a little different from the last group's.
Fortunately, it was.