Pilgrim, p.24
Pilgrim, page 24
Without weapons, the other two simply started to lift their fists, one of them female, all of them deformed in some way, their faces not unlike the chiseled rock that made up much of the Panchen Mountains.
“He’s with me,” said Dalan, the hermit hobbling forward.
He stepped into the space between Danzen and the giants, a haggard look on the hermit’s like he’d been awake for days on end. He had the same orange eyes that Danzen remembered, his long gray beard braided this time, the tips of his robes caked in mud.
“Thank you,” he told Kudzu, before turning his attention to Danzen. “Let me talk to them.”
“Who?” the giant with the club asked.
“Put your club down! He’s someone I know,” said Dalan, waving angrily at the giant as if they were the same size.
“Friend?” the giant asked.
“Yes, a friend. Put your club down, you fool. Tell everyone to relax. Do it!” The hermit turned to Danzen. “You two. Put your sword away, and stop looking like you are about to bite one of them,” he told Kudzu. “You’re not here to fight. You are here to help me.”
“I am?” Danzen asked, now confused.
“Yes, and thank you, Kudzu, for fetching our mutual acquaintance. I only wish I could have given you more information before you traveled all the way here.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice just as stilted as Danzen’s now.
“It appears their man-child,” Dalan gestured toward the smaller giant, who was lying on his side and moaning softly, “has a stomach sickness that is preventing him from standing. You’ll notice he is facing away from us; that is because of projectile vomit. It is not pleasant, and I was almost hit once. I need a certain herb to cure him. I can’t very well go after it, which is why I need you, Pilgrim.”
“You knew about this?” Danzen asked the white fox.
“No, when he was being escorted away, he just yelled for me to go after you.”
“They didn’t explain why they were taking me here,” Dalan said in a biting tone. “I’m sorry, where are my manners? It’s just that I’ve been stuck here in the mountains with these damn giants for several days now and they’re driving me absolutely mad.”
“Mad?” said the biggest giant, who appeared to be the only one that knew a few words. He was just as large as the one Danzen had slain, hairy too, with a serious overbite. He could clearly see, all of them with full eyesight.
“Yes, I’m mad at you! I’ve been mad at you since you forcibly took me from my cave and brought me here. As I keep trying to tell you, I can’t do anything for your boy without the correct medicine.”
“Medicine,” said the giant.
The female giant came up next to him and tugged on his arm. He batted her away, and she stumbled backward, the ground shaking.
“Stop growling, and stop being abusive to your wife, or your sister. I don’t know. I told you, friend,” Dalan gestured toward Danzen, “is going to get you medicine. This is not complicated.”
“Friend?”
“Yes, he’s my friend. And I need two more days,” said Dalan, flashing the number two. “Two days.”
“Two days. Boy good?” asked the big giant, looking toward the child.
“Yes, two days.”
“One day!” the female giant cried.
“The plant I need is in the Asura Forest. You don’t want to go there. You guys are scared of the forest. Remember, ghosts?” Dalan lifted his arms and made a ghoul-like gesture. The female giant, who was nude on top, her breasts droopy and bloated, hissed at him. “Yes, ghosts,” Dalan said again. “My friend will help your boy. Two days.”
“What kind of plant are we looking for?” Danzen asked.
“I thought you would never ask,” Dalan said as he motioned for the giants to get out of his way. He went to his pack and returned with a small diary, not unlike the field diary that Danzen carried.
He ripped out a page as he made his way over to the former assassin.
“Look, if you go quickly, it will only take you about one day, maybe a day and a half to get there and back. I’ve given you two, however, just in case you encounter anything,” said the hermit, handing Danzen the piece of paper, which had a sketching of a flower with petals that looked like honeycombs. “But try to hurry. For the love of all that is holy, try to hurry. Anyway. I need as many of these damn things as you can get.”
“Will do,” said Danzen as he pocketed the sketch. “Do I need to pack them in some way?”
“Pack them in a certain way? No. Just stuff as many as you can into your bag. You have room, right?”
“Yes.” Danzen patted his satchel, which was a bit lighter now that he wasn’t carrying his spare robes, which hung in the hermit’s cave.
“You should have plenty of space. I don’t need that much of it, to be honest. But bring as many as you can, just in case they all catch it. It’s always good to be prepared. And these plants, they smell terrible. You will smell them pretty much…” The hermit looked at the fox. “How far away could you smell the giants?”
“A mile,” said Kudzu, panting a little as she continued to breathe out of her mouth.
“They won’t be quite that pungent. It is a different smell, sort of a sour, fermented smell. But they definitely smell. You might want to get a new bag afterward,” he told Danzen.
“Do you have a bag?”
“If I had one, I would give it to you. But you know… they do have some fabric lying around here that they’ve made from Sunyata knows what. You could take some of that if you have a way to sew it up.”
Danzen nodded. “I have a way.”
“Well, in that case, let me grab that for you. I’m sorry to call you all the way out here.”
“Help boy?” the big giant asked.
“Yes, they’re going to help your blasted boy,” the hermit said, grinding his teeth to hide his agitation. “Two days,” he said as he returned his focus to Danzen. “Don’t make me stay here any longer than I have to.”
“Do they know?” Danzen asked, referring to the giant he had killed.
“These imbeciles? No, they don’t know, but they do think of me as some sort of medicine man, and they will kill me if I don’t cure him. So please, try not to do too much sightseeing on your way to the Asura Forest.”
****
The slopes that led away from the giant’s enclave were muddy, Danzen barely able to keep himself stabilized as he climbed up them.
He was going at this pace for a reason, Kudzu finding the slope difficult to climb as well.
“I could carry you,” he suggested to her at one point, the white fox shaking her head.
“I will make it up myself.”
Danzen nodded and the two continued.
He understood the pride associated with undertaking an endeavor, what it was like to challenge one’s self. He had done this for a long time, most notably in his personal goal not to get cut, Danzen always extremely cautious when it came to navigating most scenarios.
As he climbed, he thought back to what happened in Palmo’s courtyard, when Norwin Dawa had struck him with the bladed tendrils of his robes.
He probably could have prevented it.
Over the past two years, Danzen had played out their battle numerous times in his head, scolding himself for not being more aware, especially in the way that Norwin Dawa had been teasing him just before that happened.
Lost in his thoughts, Danzen moved even faster, eventually making it past Kudzu.
They reached an overhang, both of them able to transfer onto it. And after traveling along a narrow ledge, they came to a mountain pass, a huge rock with a square top blocking their view of the horizon.
“Just give me a second to catch my breath,” said the fox.
“Take as long as you’d like.”
“We're probably going to have to get the flower in the morning,” she told him. “We will definitely reach the forest in the next few hours, but it’ll start getting dark at that time. It would be best to shelter in place somewhere.”
“We can continue if you’d like,” he told her. “It’s really up to you.”
“I’ve already told you how I feel about operating during the night.”
“I’m sure we could handle it.”
The fox peered at him for a moment, her tail lifting ever so slightly. “You’ve been out at night already, haven’t you?”
He nodded. “It wasn’t by choice, but I had to find someone. It was closer to Chutham, if that makes a difference.”
“It isn’t as dangerous there.” She started moving again. “Come, it’s less muddy now; see if you can keep up.”
Kudzu took off, faster than she had traveled previously.
The white fox skittered from rock to rock, traveling in a northwest direction, Danzen fast on her tail.
As he followed after her, he thought of how he didn’t test his powers enough. Danzen was so concentrated on hiding it from people that he rarely used them. The mountains in his backyard would be an ideal location for him to explore and exercise, to test his limits.
Then again, testing his limits could also bring unwanted attention…
The two moved a bit higher and a light snow began to fall. As they descended, Danzen practically sliding down, Kudzu doing the same, the snow turned into a soft rain.
An hour passed, then two, the rain moving away, the sky now pink with blue brushstrokes as the sun started to set.
They reached the large rock with a flat top, Danzen greeted with a view that caused him to pause. What looked like an endless forest spread before him, the foliage thick, no indication of what lay beneath the trees.
“Stay here,” she said. “I’ll find a place for us and then I’ll return.”
Danzen nodded and took a seat, his legs crossed beneath him as he stared out at the start of the Asura Forest. It wasn’t long before Kudzu climbed back up the rock, letting him know to follow her.
The fox had managed to find a decently sized cave that overlooked a small pond with water so clear that Danzen could see minnows swimming beneath it.
“Do you mind fishing?” she asked him.
Danzen took another look at the pond. He saw that there were few larger fish swimming around, nowhere near as large as the one they had eaten the previous night.
“I’ll do my best.”
It didn’t take very long to use his sword to catch three of the fish, Danzen keeping them on a rock as he went for the very last fish in the small pond.
He returned to the cave with his catch, where he found that Kudzu had gathered some kindling and dry wood.
“Thanks,” he told her as he got the fire started. Once it was going, he put a little more wood on it and used his sword to prepare the fillets. He took them down to the water and dipped them in, placing all four on the tip of his blade.
They ate, and as night descended across the valley, they heard what sounded like chatter outside of their cave.
Danzen immediately went for his sword, Kudzu stopping him.
“Spirits,” she said. “You don’t want to go out there.”
“Spirits?”
“I should have checked last night…”
Kudzu tilted her head as she peered at the cave opening, her eyes reflecting a bit of crimson.
“A red moon,” she finally said. “It happens once a season, and when it does, all of the spirits that somehow got stuck between here and Diyu make their presence known. If you go out right now you will see thousands upon thousands of floating entities.”
“Are they dangerous?”
“The more powerful ones are,” she explained, “which would be those who cultivated their echoes when they were alive. Remember, echo cultivation doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with good or bad; it is simply strengthening one's inner power by tapping into whatever slivers of Sunyata have been passed down. Its power is ambivalent, so if there’s a bad person or even a nefarious yokai out there who has cultivated their echo, yes, they may be a problem. I’m glad we didn’t try to press on tonight.”
“And they will be gone by morning?”
“They will. I’m surprised no one ever mentioned this in the village. Whenever there is a red moon, everyone locks up pretty tight. Perhaps they just assumed you would know this.”
“Likely.”
“I’m getting tired,” she said after a long yawn, “but if you would like to tell me the story of who you are and why you are here in Genshin Valley, I would gladly listen.”
“I’ll pass.”
“I figured you’d say as much.” Kudzu placed her head down onto her front legs. “I’ll get it out of you one day. And when I do, I’ll tell you of a shrine in these mountains that may interest you, the one I mentioned earlier, that my kind look after. Good night, Pilgrim.”
Danzen nodded, his eyes still fixated on the mouth of the cave, whispers reaching his ears.
He tried to decipher what they were saying, but all he could interpret was that some were sad, and others seemed angry. Others spoke in a mindless way, just rattling off information, and many were confused.
Tonight wasn’t the night, but there would be one night that he ventured out to see what this actually looked like. After listening for a little while longer, he retrieved the soiled fabric given to them by the hermit. The former assassin made a crude bag to hold the flowers in, Kudzu impressed with his sewing skills.
“It comes in handy,” he said as he placed it away.
Without an extra set of robes to sleep on, Danzen simply placed his arms behind his head and lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling of the cave, the fire still crackling, the whispers of the dead ever-present.
.Chapter Four.
The next morning was bright, no sign whatsoever that spirits had been out the previous night for the red moon.
Danzen awoke to find Kudzu stretching, the white fox with her tail up in the air, humming something. She had yet to notice that he’d awoken, and for a moment he simply watched as she practiced bending her echo.
Danzen knew what bending one’s echo looked like, and he realized now that the other morning she had been doing the same thing, likely part of her morning ritual.
Eventually, she stopped, the white fox making her way to the small pond outside their cave. She sat there until Danzen joined her.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
Danzen nodded.
For a brief moment, before they could slip away, he caught his reflection in the water. He saw himself in his robes, his hood over his head as he stood next to the white fox, who seemed to radiate with energy. Once again, he was reminded of how far he’d come from where he was just two short years ago.
Without fish to eat, they pressed forward into the Asura Forest.
Danzen was light on his feet, and didn’t leave much of a trace as they moved through the woods. He wasn’t as light on his feet as some that he had faced off against in his past, those able to even land on the broadside of a sword and jump off it, but he could move rather rapidly, while making little sound.
This had been part of his training in his youth, and his enhanced powers only aided him in his ability to move in such a quiet yet swift way, Danzen preferring the silent killer approach rather than something that would require extended confrontation.
As the forest became thicker, he kept his eyes on Kudzu’s tail, watching as it bounced left and right, the fox stopping every now and then to sniff the ground, her ears twitching as she listened to the woods.
“Anything?” Danzen asked her after they’d been traveling for well over an hour in silence.
“Something is not right,” she said, her nostrils flaring open again. Kudzu’s eyes narrowed. “Are you ready to fight?”
Danzen barely had time to withdraw his blade as a small humanoid with gray skin hopped down from a tree with the spear in his hands. The yokai was naked, his belly distended, his teeth yellow and sharp.
And he wasn’t the only one.
Three more burst out of the bush, another two appearing behind Kudzu and Danzen with big rocks in their hands.
Danzen sprang into action. He loosed his boomerang sword, which tore through the chest of the being with the spear. The yokai bellowed as Astra returned to Danzen’s hand.
Danzen spun just in time to avoid a rock from another of their opponents, this one coming dangerously close to his head.
Once again, he sent Astra into the air; his blade met his opponent between the eyes, the tip breaking through the creature's skull and pressing out of the back of his head.
Danzen’s sword returned to his hand and he ducked another rock, as he charged forward and cut this yokai down.
He jumped back as another of the small gray humanoids tried to jab at him with the spear. Danzen managed to knock the spear out of the way, the man lunging toward him.
Danzen brought his blade down in an arc and killed him instantly.
He counted six and he’d already killed four, Danzen glancing to see Kudzu on top of one of the small yokai, mauling him to death while another went for one of the dropped spears.
Once again, Danzen flung his sword, which sliced through the small man’s arm quickly and returned to his grip. As his opponent cried out in agony, Danzen swiped him down, blood and viscera spritzing the air.
Their final assailant grabbed a large rock and slammed it against Kudzu’s shoulder, the fox yelping as she fell to the side.
Danzen threw his weapon into the yokai’s throat, the tip of his blade pressing out of the crown of the creature’s skull.
Astra returned to his hand. He flicked his wrist once, and when that didn’t get the blood off his blade, he used a large leaf to press away what was left.
“Are you all right?” he asked Kudzu. The gray-eyed fox got to her feet, and glanced at him. She panted now, a smudge of red on her white coat.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Are more coming?”
“No, not that I can sense. They travel in packs. They’re called gaki. You can find them in your little book,” she said, nodding toward his field diary. Kudzu sat on her haunches. “Go on, take a look. I need to catch my breath.”
