War priest the complete.., p.11
War Priest: The Complete Series, page 11
Arik sighed. “Not great. I sold my boots, got robbed when I followed the crowd to the stadium where they were hosting slave fights.”
“Figures.”
“I saw Jinmo competing in one of the slave tournaments and tried to save him. I failed, and ended up hiding in the underground infirmary for the last three days, which has an outward-facing medical office at the front of the stadium.”
“A disciple in an infirmary. Seems like the perfect place for a person like you.”
“The people running it were nice.”
“And I suppose that’s how you got the bag and the sword?”
Arik nodded.
“Makes sense. Is there more to the story or should we get on with it?”
“There’s a little more…”
Trying not to look as if he were speaking to himself, Arik quickly caught Meosa up on what he had learned from the tanuki who ran the infirmary, that the man he had trained with known as Combat Master Nankai was at a school in Mogra, and that there was another instructor there, Master Altai Masamune, who also would be sympathetic to what happened Arik considering he hailed from his home country, the Onyx Realm.
“I like tanukis,” Meosa said after he had finished. “Trustworthy, generally pretty good yokai. Not all of them, a few have reputations as shrewd landowners on islands in the east, but most are good people. So, I take from what you told me that you want to head to Mogra, right?”
“That’s right.”
A hint of hesitation appeared in Meosa’s voice. “You do know what that entails, don’t you?”
“Master Kojiro gave me money to go with one of the groups on the overland trails.”
“They have overland trails now? They didn't have those five hundred years ago…” Meosa paused for a moment. “If you ask me, I think that money would be better spent on supplies and lodging once you arrive in Mogra. Why waste it on an overland trail when I know a shortcut?”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Through the Whitenor Desert?”
Meosa snorted, and as he did a gush of water struck the dusty pavement near Arik’s sandaled feet, eliciting a few stares as people wondered if Arik had either relieved himself or vomited. “Sorry, there was something in my nose, which seems to happen almost every time a human doubts the breadth of my knowledge. So anyway, yes, a shortcut. Through the desert. We’ll get there in no time, and along the way you can, I don’t know, tell me what your plan is. You do have a plan, right? We aren’t going to travel all the way to Mogra without a plan, are we?”
“I have one in the works, yes,” Arik said, remembering the revelation he had come to the other night after finding out that Jinmo had died, leaving Arik alone in an unknown world. It was time to act, to stop the Crimson Realm’s advance in any way he could, which meant he would need to improve his combat skills.
“Good, we can hash that out along the way. Mogra, Mogra, it’s been ages since I’ve even thought of the place. It will be interesting to see what has become of it. I’m hoping it looks better than Omoto,” Meosa said. “Believe me, disciple, this place has seen better days. It always looked as if someone had left it out in the sun too long, but there’s something worse about it now, a grime that it didn’t have years ago. Crossing the border into the Crimson Realm shouldn’t be much trouble, but, as I routinely find myself warning you, try not to reveal your powers. You know the drill by now.”
“I know.”
“Good, then let’s use that money to get a nice big waterskin. We should probably get something to cover your head and your face as well. The Whitenor Desert is known for its nasty sandstorms and even nastier yokai.”
****
A crowd gathered just past the border on the Crimson Realm side of Omoto, many of them in either conical hats, or the square-shaped straw hats Arik had started to see more of. He still had some Jadean sen left after buying the rather nice waterskin and was just turning to the group planning to travel together when he felt a sensation as if his ears were filling with liquid, Meosa’s voice appearing once again.
“Doubting me yet again, are we? I told you I can get us through this cursed desert faster than the caravan, and you will save money. You know nothing about Mogra, and believe me when I tell you that once you arrive, you will want shelter. Most disciples have the decency to take the advice of their elders.”
Arik grumbled, as he reluctantly stepped away from the caravan crowd. He was starting off toward the south when a soldier in red armor that matched a braid around his conical hat called out to him, the hairs on Arik’s arms standing to attention.
“You aren’t going with the caravan?” he asked as Arik turned to him, the man with a glaive, the sharp end made of a blackened metal.
“No.”
“Do you not have the funds? If you don’t have the funds, there are things that we could use help with in running the caravan,” the soldier offered. Even though he had a chiseled face there was a kindness behind his eyes, and considering he was the first Crimsonian Arik had met, not counting the combatants in the infirmary, it was nice to see that they weren’t all monsters, not all of them bent on enslaving people and murdering academics.
“I’ll… I’ll be fine,” Arik said as he continued on. He walked at a brisk pace until he could no longer see the caravan, the barren desert stretched before him.
“Good, now that the crowd is behind us, perhaps we should pick up our pace,” Meosa suggested.
Arik paused. “You mean like run?”
“You’re a disciple. Can’t you run?”
“For how long?”
“Long enough for us to cover a good distance. Don’t worry about the heat, in fact…” The cap of the waterskin loosened and fell, still attached to the bag by a leather cord. A mist of water lifted into the air, surrounding Arik. The mist was nice and cool, an instant retreat from the sun aside from its rays, which were kept off Arik’s face through the cloak he had also purchased.
“Well? What are you waiting for? Run until you can’t any longer. You’ll soon see that there is madness to my method; you must grow stronger, and you only have a few days to do so. After all, you are the War Priest.”
Hearing the title almost took him off guard, Arik so used to his most recent role as simply a disciple, someone there to heal others.
“I’m… I’m not the War Priest.”
“Coro Pache? No, you are not that War Priest. You don’t live as long as me and still believe in reincarnation. Every individual soul is different, yokai, kami, humans such as yourself, perhaps even the more vile creatures that lurk in the dark corners of the continent. Not to mention Coro Pache was from the Crimson Realm, while you are from the Onyx Realm, and he only learned about healing later on, whereas you very well may be the last healer alive. So no, you’re not that War Priest. But you are a potential candidate for the next one, and you are heading to the combat school where he trained…”
Arik started walking briskly. He waited for a prophecy, and when one didn’t come, he finally decided to say something. “It was one time.”
“You mean the man you murdered? Yes, it was one time, the first of many, I believe, not that you’re a murderer or anything. Nothing like that. You are going to do what you have to do to survive. As I told you, my boy, I’ve been thinking a lot about you while you were slaving away—pardon my pun—in that wretched infirmary healing poor souls only to send them out again so they could once again sustain injury. You do realize that’s what you were doing, right?”
“I realize it.”
“And why aren’t you running? I told you to run! Come on, faster!”
Arik picked up his pace, and soon he was jogging, the air around him surprisingly cool. Even stranger, it hadn’t become muggy as he had expected it would. Each step forward was simply refreshing.
“As I said,” Meosa told him, “I’ve been thinking more about you, this lone lost healer trapped in a faraway land forced out of his little bubble and now, surprising even me, asking to go to one of the Crimson Realm’s most famous combat academies. The Double Sword Academy of Combat Arts is, or at least it was back in my day, the most prestigious academy in the land. They are trained to use two swords there, Coro Pache’s specialty.”
“Aware.”
“You should have asked that soldier back there about the blades that graduate from that school…”
“My combat teacher was from there, like I told you,” Arik huffed.
One of the things he had practiced through his studies of the Divine Branch of Regrowth was healing himself to increase his stamina and endurance. Up until this moment, up until Meosa had challenged him to run, Arik had forgotten about this. It came so naturally to him that the only time in recent memory where it hadn’t helped him was after his fall to the bottom of the canyon, Arik’s shock affecting his chi. It had certainly sustained him to some degree through his healing marathon in the infirmary, even if he ended each day exhausted.
It was uncanny moving through the desert at this pace, running in sandals across the hardtop soil yet not feeling the exhausting effects of the sun. Now Arik wondered how far he could actually run by simply focusing on some point in the horizon, and by doing so, cycling his own Revivaura, constantly replenishing his strained muscles and organs, fueled by the food he had eaten earlier.
That’s what will eventually stop me, Arik thought, hunger.
And sure enough, remembering this sparked a memory of Master Guri Yarna explaining some of the trials of prolonged stamina, the young disciples forced to travel long distances without rest or sleep, but that had been the extent of it.
While he hadn’t had much practice as he’d like, Arik kept his teacher in mind as he increased his pace slightly.
I’ll avenge you, Master Guri Yarna, he thought. Whatever I have to do…
“There, that’s the disciple I know! Faster! Now, where was I? Ah, yes, a different kind of War Priest, that’s what I’ve been thinking about. From what I’ve learned over the last several days, and from what you’ve told me, all of Taomoni is on the brink of war. The Onyx Realm in the north has been invaded by the Crimson Realm in the South, and somehow, the Crimson Realm was granted safe passage through the Jade Realm, which tells me that either the Jadean government allowed this, or the Crimsonians were simply aggressors, not unlike your realm used to be years ago. Not to mention these terribly twisted and conniving shinobi. Who knows what roles these dastardly illusionists play!”
Arik recalled Meosa telling him that the reason he had been banished to the cave was as punishment, but the aqueous kami had never gone into deeper detail as to how that had happened. Perhaps he would open up about it soon.
“So what I’m saying here is… are you listening, are you listening?”
“I’m running,” Arik told him, just slightly out of breath but still feeling good, strong. He’d been running now for twenty minutes or so, dipping in and out of Meosa’s monologue.
“Yes, you are running, and you should be listening as well. I can’t imagine what it would be like to meet some entity like me, and not be instantly curious about him or her. But that’s just me. I’m sentimental for the past, considering it is technically where I’m from. But I digress, as I often will over the next several hours. Disciple, listen! We have a destiny to fulfill, and you are uniquely set up to see it to its completion. Do I know what that destiny is? No, not really, but I believe I will be part of it. Should I be putting my faith in a human who likely has some psychological issues after all his friends and family were killed before his very eyes? Certainly, that is of concern. Should I be even more worried that he turns out to also be able to kill people relatively easily without much remorse? Yes…”
“I have remorse for that,” Arik told him.
“Do you?”
“He… not only did Konwa try to kill me, but I witnessed some of the things he did to the other slaves.”
“And you believe he deserved to die?”
Arik found himself nodding. He was aware that this wasn’t how justice was supposed to work, not in a semi-civilized realm, but it was how it often played out.
“Judge, jury, and executioner? See, disciple? You are most definitely the new War Priest. And the sooner you learn to embrace it, the better chance you have of living long enough to do what it is you plan to do. And because we are heading south, rather than north, or deeper into the Jade Realm, I am going to assume that you have decided that the path of revenge is what best describes what you plan to do next. Am I wrong?”
Arik hated to admit it, but he wasn’t one to lie. “No.”
“Then don’t be ashamed of this, embrace it. Not to sound evil or anything. That’s definitely not my intention here; Nobunaga and the shinobi that attacked your Academy have it coming. Keep running until it feels like your legs will fall off at the knees! With what you plan to do, you’re going to need to be not only the best healer in Taomoni, but you’ll also need to be a remarkable fighter.”
“I can handle myself in a fight,” Arik grunted, especially if I use my wound transfer ability, he thought to himself.
Meosa laughed long and hard, his voice loud in Arik’s ears. “Says almost anyone who has won a few battles and spent most of their life fighting with wooden weapons. Does that describe you?”
Arik wanted to curse at the kami, but he didn’t.
“I know how disciples are trained, my boy, do not forget that. But, at least you have some weapon skills, at least you were trained by a professional, and perhaps you will learn more at the Double Sword Academy of Combat Arts. That remains to be seen. It is going to be rather odd, don’t you think?”
“What will be odd?” Arik asked as he started up an incline, rocks falling around them once he reached the top. He paused for a moment, hands on his hips as he took a deep breath in.
“You’re just going to show up at the Academy and expect them to enroll you? If anything, you would have to be part of their mastery school considering your age.”
“I… I don’t know what I expect yet; I just need to get there,” Arik said, trying not to be intimidated by the expansiveness of the desert, and how it was cast before him as far as the eye could see, the remnants of volcanic rock twisting up into spires at some points, the only shade provided by side canyons in the distance and clusters of prickly yellow cacti taller than the disciple.
It made him thirsty just looking at it, but, as Meosa had promised, he felt no thirst. Silencing the fear of the unknown, Arik took a deep breath in and started running again.
He couldn’t give up now.
****
It was hours later, when the sun had officially set and the desert started to cool, that Arik grew concerned.
“We didn’t get supplies for a fire,” he said as he began to slow down. He hadn’t run the entire time, but he had done several thirty to forty-minute stints, and while he wasn’t completely exhausted, he was definitely ready to call it a night.
“You can’t really blame me, can you? Fire and I aren’t exactly friends.”
“How am I supposed to stay warm tonight?” Arik asked.
“Maybe that’s something you should have thought of before deciding to cross the desert by yourself.”
“It was your idea,” Arik said, growing annoyed with Meosa.
“You’re right, and I’m certain the caravan would have plenty of fire and good food for everyone. In fact, I’m sure of this. We may have made a mistake going about this on our own…” Meosa began to laugh. “Relax, my boy, we will survive this together. You have extra robes, do you not?”
“I do…”
“You’ll be fine. You’re lucky it’s not winter; it gets much colder here during the winter.”
Rather than say something about Meosa pointing out the obvious, Arik began to scan the side of a canyon wall, using what light was left to find shelter. He located a hollow of sorts, protected by the rocky overhang, the hollow deep enough for him to crawl into. Once he reached it, Arik used his sword to make a little bit of noise, just to be sure that there wasn’t something living in the space.
“I could have checked for you,” Meosa said.
“Nothing here but…” Arik swept away dry clumps of dung, not quite certain of what animal it had come from. It tumbled down the side of the canyon, all of five feet before hitting the ground.
“Ah, good. Now that you’ve cleared the crap out, I suppose this is as good a place as any to rest for the night. As you know, I don’t really sleep, so I will keep an eye out to make sure nothing bothers us. Just be sure to leave the cap off the waterskin.”
“Will do.”
Arik took a few items out of his bag, including the spare robes and some of the desert almonds that Indra had given him. He ate the nuts, and as he did so he thought about the best way for him to keep warm. He settled on sandwiching himself between the two sets of robes, one of them higher up so he could rest his head on it, his hood keeping his ears warm.
He got comfortable, not quite certain of where Meosa was at the moment but figuring that the aqueous kami was hovering near the waterskin.
“Where did you go?” Arik asked aloud after he’d settled. “Back in Omoto. I’ve been wondering about that.”
“Where did I go? I… I hopped around from shoulder to shoulder in search of…” Meosa grew quiet. “You know, it really doesn’t matter now that we’re here in the desert resting under the stars. I don’t know if anyone from my time is still alive, and if they are, they’re probably just about as surly as I can be at times. So maybe I don’t want to know.”
