Shadowland

Chapter 12 - Peace - Part 06

Sun Tai and Val Duval made the quickest time they could as they travelled east, walking until they were so exhausted they could not move another stop, then rising before dawn to continue. As they reached the head of the mountains where the rail line ended, Sun Tai had a strange, disquieting feeling as she contemplated trying to cross through the easily navigable pass Frika had described to them. Quite apart from her visions, she had been getting odd feelings throughout her journey, and she had quickly learned to trust them; they seemed to be premonitions, warnings. "We can't go through the pass," she said to Duval as they rested at the foot of the mountains. "There's something dangerous waiting for us there. We have to climb farther up." Duval looked at her skeptically, but he too had learned that her sixth sense rarely led her wrong, and acquiesced.

With the aid of Sun Tai's intuition and Duval's parrot Porthos scouting the path, they picked out a barely-existing trail that rose above the pass, up and down multiple mountain sides. Having avoided whatever it was that waited in the pass, they descended into a brackish swamp which, after a couple of days' travel, gave way to a deep, gnarled and twisted forest. There was a slightly better-traveled path through the wood, and they came upon a tiny village where they were able to refresh their supplies, though the citizens looked askance at strangers in their midst. They rested there a day to fortify themselves for the rest of the journey, and then continued until they reached the collapsed ruins of some structure of jet-black rock.

"Here is as good a place to make camp as any," Duval said as they neared it. "My bunions are growing bunions."

Sun Tai agreed, and they set up their meagre sleeping bags. Soon a fire was crackling, and a rabbit Sun Tai had snuck up on and killed was roasting over it. As they sat silently, both lost in their own thoughts, she watched Duval gaze into the distance, melancholy painted on his face. He was clearly miserable, and the farther they got from Arc City, the worse it became. Something had to be done.

"What happened between you and Mordecai?" she asked softly.

Duval started. "What do you mean?" he asked defensively.

"It's clear you two had some kind of falling out, and you're dwelling on it too much. I need you focused. Talking about it might help."

Duval sighed. "I think I love him," he admitted. "But the night before we planned the raid on City One ... well, I don't want to go into details, but I found myself ... inadequate to the task of loving him. Something is terribly wrong with me, something I can't even name. This body is not mine."

"I'm sure whatever was broken can be mended. We all need to be able to depend on one another. He is one of exactly 15 other people in the world we can maybe possibly trust. You have to make it up to him."

"Yes," Duval said disconsolately, and then with more fervour in his voice, "Yes! It is too important to leave things as they were. I ran from him, and that can't be undone, but when next we see him, I will do whatever it takes to fix things between us!"

Sun Tai could see that the depression had lifted; she just hoped it would last. "I'll take the first watch," she offered, letting Duval get some much-needed sleep.

As was now customary for her, she settled into deep meditation while Duval snored in his bedroll. It had been some time since the gift of prophecy had visited her, but she was beginning to recognize the feeling of the ki slowly building deep inside. It would not be very long before she had a vision again, and this time she was going to be alert for every detail.

As she hung in a void of emptiness and clarity, an intense feeling of alarm seized her, and she quickly opened her eyes. A dark shape, barely distinguishable against the blackness of night, was leaning over Duval's slumbering form. Leaping to her feet and grabbing her nearby staff in one easy motion, she shouted an inchoate note of warning. Duval came awake with a startled shudder, and she saw the shape swing something down at his body. He managed to barely snatch up his scabbarded sword and put it between the figure's arm and his throat.

With a sharp cry of "Ki-aii!" Sun Tai pranced nimbly forward and swung her staff at the figure. As she got closer and her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw it had the shape of a person, but it was if it had been coated with slick black tar, light-deadening but slightly shiny. It was not the knot of roiling shadow she had seen in her visions, but somehow it reminded her of that creepy thing; it had the same sense of menace, of things just not being right. It moved quicker than a snake, almost as quickly as the woman in the frilly black gown had, throwing an arm wide. Each of its hands held a long black blade, like the edge of night and sharp as obsidian. He caught the end of her staff with one of them, almost effortlessly parrying the strike, redirecting its energy harmlessly into the ground.

Duval was up now, his sword flying from its scabbard, and Porthos was flapping a circle around the figure's head, shrieking "Go away!" and trying to distract it. The thing barely paid attention to the parrot's harrying. It turned fluidly and began swinging its knives in vicious overhand stabs toward Duval's body. The thing was so fast that even his effortlessly brilliant swordplay was barely enough to keep its blades away. Sun Tai settled into a deep-centred stance and twirled her staff in a whirlwind attack, end over end, each swing a strike. The black thing swung around, viper-quick, and knocked each blow wide with blurring slashes of the knife, then went on the offensive, twisting its whole upper body in a compact circle, slipping past her guard and aiming a thrust up into her gut. She leaped back with catlike grace and the knife blade caught only air.

Duval took the momentary respite to take an aggressive posture, thrusting his smallsword's wicked point at the thing's back. WIth barely a momentary hesitation, it twirled and expertly parried. But now both Duval and Sun Tai had regained their footing and were on the attack. The figure was pirouetting like a ballerina, around and around again, parrying Sun Tai's staff with one hand and Duval's sword with another, unable to riposte. Then, Duval pulled off a brilliant triple feint, pulling both of the creature's blades away as it moved to parry four strikes in quick succession. It was fast as lightning, but not fast enough. Sun Tai swung her staff down at the ground, planting it almost vertically, and swung her body around it, delivering a brutal kick to the thing's exposed back.

The blow knocked the strange thing off its feet and sent it tumbling to the ground. Sun Tai moved to follow through as she alighted, swung her staff up and over into a crushing blow, but the prone figure rolled effortlessly from under it. But after it leaped to its feet, bouncing nearly a foot into the air, it began to back away; seemingly, it had had enough. Without a sound, it disappeared into the night, its slick black form vanishing in an instant as if it had never been there, leaving Sun Tai and Duval panting from exertion.