War priest the complete.., p.12
War Priest: The Complete Series, page 12
“Know what?”
“Maybe I don’t want to know if…” Meosa sighed. “You should get some rest, disciple. Just about two more days left of this desert and we will be in Mogra, where the real challenge begins.”
“There’s always a challenge.”
Arik had meant this to be a throwaway statement, but after it left his lips it seemed to linger, the words becoming a mantra of sorts in his head as he drifted off to sleep.
There’s always a challenge…
(Embrace it.)
He had nightmares that night, everyone around him being slaughtered by the masked warriors, the shinobi, Arik falling into the canyon below, captured by swirling entities that looked like demonically morphed versions of Sawtooth and the other slavers.
It was cold, but the temperature had a way of pushing him into a deeper sleep once the nightmares faded away. He awoke the next morning feeling surprisingly well-rested until Meosa’s hurried words reached him.
“Get your sword, disciple,” he said in a low voice, “we have gaki.”
“Gaki?” Arik sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.
“Gakido?”
“What?”
“So if you don’t know them by that name, you aren’t going to know them by their shortened name. Gaki are a type of tormented yokai that look vaguely human, if humans were all the size of five-year-olds with distended bellies and skinny little arms. Claws too. They are below us now, and they know we are here. They shouldn’t be difficult to kill, but they do have a habit of ganging up on their target. Do not show them mercy or think of them as human.”
Arik got to his feet, and as he did he reached for the sword that the tanuki had given him.
“What are you doing? Pack up your things, first. Unless you want to come back up here to get them after. They aren’t going to come up here; they’re incredibly stupid creatures,” Meosa told him as the morning light continued to illuminate the inside of the hollow. “The gaki’s buffoonery is legendary. You have time to watch them, to track them and understand their movements. Eat something as well.”
“You made it seem like I needed to rush.”
“Did I? In that case, I guess this is all my fault. Is it my fault, then? Is that what you’re trying to tell me rather than getting ready to deal with these wretched little monsters and doing as I suggest?”
Arik knew better than to start up an argument with Meosa, at least this early in the day. He was sure by the end of it they would be bickering to some degree, yet he was also starting to see that this was simply a side of Meosa’s personality, that he didn’t mean anything by it.
Still keeping low just in case Meosa was wrong about the gaki, Arik crept over to the edge and looked down to count seven of the little monsters. They were all looking up at him, snarling and snapping their teeth. The gaki had gray skin covered in scabs and leathery patches, Arik assuming the darker ones were older, the lighter yokai the younger of the group. They were blocking the way down from the rocky hollow he’d spent the night in, clearly looking for their next meal.
“And if we just wait for them to leave?” Arik asked Meosa as he continued to observe them.
“Won’t work. Once they lock onto your scent, those things will follow you to hell and back. Like I said, they are stupid, and there isn’t much to eat out here that is easy to catch.”
“Are you saying I’m easy to catch?”
“Ha! Compared to a lizard or snake, yes. Pack your things, and be sure to keep the waterskin over your shoulder, the cap off. I’ll assist you when I can.”
“I can do it,” Arik said, a hint of his true personality making itself known.
He’d been known back at the Academy for his competitive nature, which oftentimes took on a sense of stubbornness to win, to succeed. It was why he had chosen the Divine Branch of Wound Transfer, Arik wanting to set himself apart from the others, even though he had to work twice as hard as his peers in the end considering it was often a subject people saved for the mastery school.
He didn’t eat, as Meosa had suggested, and instead packed up his robes and his bag, Arik looking down once again at the crazy-eyed gaki as they continued to gather at the base of the canyon wall.
“How are we going to get down without them overwhelming me?”
“Don’t worry, disciple, I have a plan for that…”
“Another thing I’ve been wondering: what happens if you get stuck out here?” Arik asked the aqueous kami. “If I die, and you are stuck out here in the waterskin, what happens?”
“Hopefully, someone comes along, or…” Meosa hesitated. “It’s not really good for either of us; I don’t think I’d be able to control one of the yokai in the same way I can humans by simply pretending to be a voice in their head. Maybe I could exist on the gaki until I’m able to transfer to another creature in the vicinity, but it is pretty quiet out here, and the odds of me having to exist with these despicable creatures until some idiot tries to cross the desert alone is high.”
“Idiot? You’re the one that told me to do this.”
“Agreed, so who’s the idiot then? Don’t answer that question. We’re in this together!”
“If you say so,” Arik told him as he continued to watch the gaki.
“Enough talk. Point the nozzle of your waterskin at them. I’ll take care of the rest, giving you a chance to hop down without putting yourself in harm’s way. It’s good for you to practice with a real sword, so I won’t help you out in that regard, unless you are in trouble. How does that sound?”
Arik offered him a short nod. “Works for me.”
The disciple pointed the tip of the waterskin toward the gaki, and as he did, the water burst out, hitting the creatures and sending them flying backwards. Interestingly, the waterskin never depleted, Meosa cycling the water back and forth in a similar way to how Arik utilized Revivaura.
“Ha! Watch the little bastards crumble under the force of my power. Go, disciple, go!”
He swiftly moved down to the first ledge, and from there to the next as he kept the waterskin pointed at the gaki. Arik reached the ground below, where he quickly withdrew his sword, the yokai growling and hissing at Meosa’s watery blasts.
Arik brought the sword down just as one of the gaki broke through the stream of water and dove for him, the disciple hacking at the creature just above its collarbone. He followed up with a horizontal cut that killed the yokai, the deranged creature letting out a final, bloodcurdling yelp.
“Yeearraaaghhhh!”
Another gaki screamed as it tried to come at him from the side, Arik initiating a strike before his opponent could reach him. His sword easily pressed through the yokai’s body, Arik using his sandaled foot to pry his blade free from the gaki just as another leaped for him, a dash of airborne blood following the tip of the sword as he swiveled to address his new opponent.
The next gaki would have reached Arik too had it not been for Meosa, who blasted the leaping yokai with a face full of water. “Take that, you hideous little desert gimp!” Meosa shouted.
Arik’s next strike managed to kill two of them, the disciple using his full body weight to sweep his sword in front of him. He had learned briefly about fighting multiple enemies, and knew that the best strategy in dealing with them was to herd them into one place so he could take them one at a time. But that was impossible in such a wide open area, Arik forced to take risky swings, secretly hoping that it would invoke fear to some degree.
But it never did; the three gaki surged toward him with hate in their demented eyes, one of them finally reaching Arik’s arm and sinking its claws in deep enough to shred blood vessels and scrape bone. The sting was sudden, as was Arik’s anger as he tossed the gaki off and advanced on the creature, quickly driving his blade through its chest.
Once again, Meosa saved Arik from being overwhelmed by the final two, especially as they both jumped at Arik at the same time. The two gaki were shot backward, straight into the burnt orange canyon wall.
“Finish them, disciple!”
Ignoring the swelling sensation in his arm, Arik drove his blade into the chest of the first gaki and quickly did the same to the second. He stepped away from them, listening as they garbled on their last breaths.
“Heal yourself,” Meosa said, a hint of panic in his voice, “and rip off any part of your sleeve that has blood on it. They will be able to smell it.”
Ignoring his throbbing arm, Arik looked down at his sword, just as a swirl of water flashed around it, the blade suddenly clean.
“Hurry, my boy,” Meosa told him. “And never forget this: where there are a few gaki, there are usually others. Sort of like thieves, and definitely like humans.”
****
Arik tried not to doubt where Meosa was leading him as he continued with the kami’s often bewildering directions. It seemed as if they were pressing further into the middle of nowhere, the sun high in the sky above, the landscape barren desolate, cast in hues of cream and brushed by ochre dust. The rust-colored slot canyons and mesas were ripe with iron, but impossible to mine considering just how far out they were, the wind chiseling at many of the formations as if it were a sculptor’s apprentice. This created natural arches, magnificent windows in stone which provided concentrated spotlights of sun, a fragile, unimaginable landscape.
It wasn’t the first time that Arik thought that he could die out here, that no one would discover his body for hundreds if not thousands of years. With absolutely no signs of civilization, and no sense in which way he would turn to reach the nearest town or village without Meosa’s guidance, Arik began to begrudgingly appreciate what the Crimsonians had gone through to colonize and bring order to their country. How these pockets of civilization had popped up and propagated was beyond him, Arik’s study of history limited due to the overwhelming nature of his chosen profession.
Becoming a disciple hadn’t been something he had chosen for himself, but he had been young enough to not let this bother him. As everyone in the Onyx Realm did at the age of five, Arik had been tested by a group of disciples led by an older priest whom he could barely remember now. Everyone in the Onyx Realm that wasn’t a healer had the mark, a scar on either their wrist or ankle, which was what Indra had shown him when the nurse first met Arik, proof of where she was from.
Upon receiving the test wound, five-year-old Arik had placed his hand over it, and when he brought his hand away, the wound was partially healed up. He passed the test without even knowing it, but he suspected now that his parents had known earlier, as many did. After all, someone with a natural healing ability exhibited signs before the age of five, through the various falls that toddlers took and the illnesses that could affect them.
Yet now, as Arik looked out at the vast expanse of increasingly white rock interspersed with pale red stone, he wished he had spent a bit more time not only studying history, but also geology. A mirage of sorts took shape, Arik squinting for a moment, wondering if it was real, if there truly was an oasis just about a mile off. He turned to it, Meosa’s voice coming to him just as he changed his trajectory.
“Where are you going?”
“There, water…”
“There is no water here, my boy, unless you’re talking about the water we are carrying with us.”
“Shade,” Arik said. “Trees…”
“Nothing like that exists out here. It is an illusion, disciple. Continue straight, and try to focus. Do not let the desert trick you.”
“No,” Arik said, now certain that there were palm trees, and a pool of sparkling blue water the same color as the sky. “I see it.”
“You are uniquely stubborn and growing increasingly delusional from the day’s travel. Continue straight, toward that rock that looks like a giant’s finger. We will find shade under the rock. You should eat as well.”
“But…” Arik saw a large fish jump out of the water, its scaled body glinting in the sun, creating a rainbow-like effect. Rather than admit that it was indeed an illusion, he corrected his direction and moved on.
From a distance, the rock that Meosa had pointed out didn’t look so large. It was an oddity, sure, especially considering the flat, hardtop soil that surrounded it. But as they grew closer Arik realized just how tall the stone was, the rock formation looming over the landscape like a cathedral. Arik couldn’t tell how high it was, but it was certainly taller than any building he had ever seen, and the empty space around it made it seem that much larger.
Arik reached the rock, and once he did, he took a seat in the shade that it provided, the temperature dropping to some degree. He removed his bag and rummaged around it for some of the food that Indra had given him. His supplies were dwindling, but if they were indeed closer to Mogra, it wouldn’t be that much longer until he could have real food again.
“Drink,” Meosa instructed him. “You will never run out of water with me around.”
Arik had come to understand that Meosa’s presence amplified the water source, the aqueous kami both thriving off it and able to control it to an insane degree. The waterskin had yet to deplete, even though Arik had continued to drink from it over the day.
What time is it? he thought as he looked up at the sky, but he didn’t know much about the position of the sun, nor how long the days lasted this far south.
After a short rest in the shade, Arik took off jogging again, reluctant at first, but eventually finding a steady pace. This was his choice, after all.
“I know this may seem strange now,” Meosa said once Arik had been running for a while, “but back in my time, it was common for people to cross this way with the help of a kami such as myself. Of course, we are a higher being than a mere human, so we generally offered our aid in exchange for something. Like what, you ask?”
Arik didn’t respond.
“Money was no use to us then and wouldn’t be now, but there are other favors we were able to obtain having a human in our proverbial pockets. Well, not many things, but some things. And humans are social creatures which benefit us to some degree. Sure, I could just do what I did back in Omoto and convince someone that I am a voice in their head, and I’m not saying that I haven’t done something of that sort before, but long-term schemes require—”
“—What’s that?” Arik asked as he noticed something in the distance. He blinked a few times, not certain of what he was witnessing.
From his perspective, it seemed as if two figures were fighting, their moves exaggerated and fast, much quicker than any battle Arik had ever been part of or witnessed.
“Maybe we shouldn’t get involved…” Meosa said.
“So it’s real? What I’m seeing is real?”
“Unless I am now suffering from desert hallucinations, yes, it’s real. If you head toward the left now, we may be able to use the coverage of that rock there to prevent them from seeing us. One will eventually win, and who knows if they will come after us next.”
Arik considered his options, and naturally found himself turning toward the fight.
“Why did I know that you were going to do this?” Meosa moaned as they started off again. Once they got a little closer, he spoke again. “This isn’t a normal fight. Listen to me, disciple, you need to turn back now… You need to…”
One of the figures was struck hard enough that they were sent backward at least thirty feet, where they hit the ground and rolled.
“I… I have to do something.”
A slight wind had started up, adding a bit of white dust to the air and obscuring the two figures in the distance. Once again, Arik squinted, this time placing his hand over his brow, hoping it would help to some degree.
It was time to act.
Ignoring Meosa, Arik bolted toward the battle, where he skidded to a halt just as the combatant still standing turned to him. The dust settled, Arik now face to face with a humanoid creature with dark-purple skin, spiked hair and sharp teeth, fierce glowing eyes, his chest covered by an ornate armor over yellow, red, and white robes.
“This is bad,” Meosa said, his voice cutting through to Arik’s psyche. “That’s no human, and it’s no yokai either. It’s called a yasha, a type of demonic kami. I told you we should not have come here!”
A demonic kami? Arik placed his hand on his sword, his throat constricting. A wheel of fire took shape behind the demonic kami’s back, his spiked hair now with a golden glow to it, the being unlike anything Arik had ever seen before.
Arik withdrew his sword, and prepared his stance, even though his arms were a bit shaky. “You’re going to help me with this one, right?”
“You should have listened to me, you really should have listened to me,” Meosa scolded him. “Yes, fine, I will help you. Of course I will. What else do I have to do, right? Ugh. Just fight him as normal, and do not be alarmed in what I do next, my boy. Trust yourself, and trust me. And make sure you don’t let him puncture my waterskin!”
“Got it.” Arik dropped his bag to the ground and turned so the waterskin was facing away from the demonic kami.
The entity known as a yasha approached, his stance loose, a wicked grin on his face. Arik tried to match his posture as best he could, recalling the lesson that Combat Master Nankai had drilled into him, and how important it was to seem bigger than one’s opponent, more confident.
