Beyond the Hell Cliffs (46 page)

“What?”
Izanami asked, getting to her feet quickly.  “What do you mean?  There is still much further to go.”

“I’ll climb it.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!  I can jump you all the way there and then you can see this precious Noriko chick you’re so hard for.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way,
Izanami, but if this journey is a test of my worthiness, every quick step I take with you is proof I am not worthy of the power I seek.  This is not about you; I just don’t need your help.”

“Fine, you idiot,” she hissed.  “You’ve paid for a full trip up the mountain.  It’s no loss of mine if you want to cut yourself short.  Thanks for the fuck.”

In the next moment she was gone and he was alone with the roaring wind.  He smiled as he thought of condemning himself to more hardship, just as he did a week ago when he first descended into the bog.

Raegith focused on breathing, getting his lungs back under his control and then ventured out onto the ledge.  He looked up and sighed. 
Maybe I could have let her jump me past this part, at least.

He shook his head and cleared the doubts in his mind.  He had come this far now, farther than even Thorin.  He would continue up the mountain
by his own will and earn his place among the Junrei’sha.

It was another two days on the mountain before he reached the golden rope.  His stomach was empty and his mouth was dry, but he was alive and moving.  It was cold beyond belief without his parka and winter gear and some of the blackness had begun to form on his skin.  On the day he expected to reach the top, he was amazed when each peak turned out to be another landing below a taller peak. 

Just before dusk, he reached a forty-foot cliff face with a golden rope hanging down to the bottom.

He tested the rope and it seemed very secure and sturdy.  Then he brushed it aside and began to climb the wall with his fingers and feet.  It was difficult and twice he slipped and nearly plunged to the bottom, but he held on, promising himself to rest no matter how disastrous it might prove to his skin and health, once he reached the top.

As he pulled himself over the top of the ledge, he saw movement.  He flinched, worried that it was another large, predatory cat, and almost launched himself backward off of the face.  It was Noriko.

“What are you doing, you maniac?” she asked, laughing as soon as he recognized her.  She reached her hand down and grabbed him by the collar.  “Didn’t you see the rope there?”

“I thought it was another test,” he stammered, his jaw clattering with the cold.  “Something else to fool me into taking the easy road.”

“No, the mountain is enough of a test, we think.  The Golden Rope is there as a symbol of the end of your journey.  You’re the only one… everyone takes the rope!  I’m inclined to make you go back down in order to climb it.”

“No, fuck that!  Come on,” Raegith pleaded.

“
The important thing is that you’re here now,” she said, reaching down and pulling him to his feet.  “Come, let’s get you warm.  I’m so glad you came.”

Raegith was led away from the ledge, through the snow and past a rock wall.

On the other side of the wall was an oasis of green grass and bountiful trees, lined with colorful fruit and vibrant leaves.  It was brighter and somehow warmer; open fields and ancient buildings that he would not have thought possible in such a place.  He looked up and shielded his eyes from the sun for the first time in years.

“How is this possible?” he asked, dropping to his knees and spilling tears onto the ground below him.

“This is where the Path leads, Raegith,” Noriko said.  “This is where you have been called to.  Here you will be healed, body and soul.  Here you will be nurtured, educated and enlightened.  Here you will finally find peace.”

Chapter 43

Hitomi
stood over the unconscious Lokai male in the middle of the field and wiped the blood from her knuckles on her pants. 

“So… anyone else
want to tell me what they really think of these morning exercises?” she yelled at the men and woman in formation before her.  The exhausted group was silent except for those trying to catch their breath.

“Three months… the entire cold season; that’s how long we’ve been doing this and yet some of you still want to be asses.  Hey, that’s fine!  I’m open to suggestions on how to run this brigade… from anyone who can beat me.”

Hitomi had been reluctant to take on the job of militia commander.  She was a warrior, not a leader; but then so were the other Helcats that had stayed behind when Raegith departed for the east.  Indie was not smart enough to put together a militia and Kimura was busy learning the Shadow Dancing skills of Kensei’s Nagas.  Meanwhile there were over a dozen Lokai, including most of the prison survivors, who begged Hitomi to train them like a Helcat.

When the elders from Haruka village offered to pay her and put her up in one of their nicer houses, she finally broke down and accepted responsibility for the first Lokai Militia in the west.

She took Naoko, Indie and Magda with her to be her assistants.  Although not officially proven Helcats, Magda and Naoko both had skills that Hitomi found useful enough to promote them above the others.

What had at first been only a way of passing time and making some coin became a passion.  It had taken her entire life to awaken the bloodlust inside of her; to find a reason for being.  Had Helkree and Grass-hair not plucked her from the torments of the guards and fighters inside the Pit she would be dead; but it was so much more than survival.  She could have lived anywhere and still be dead inside.  Being tested, learning the way of violence and feeling the thrill of physically overwhelming someone in combat were the gifts she received as a Helcat.  They were the gifts she intended to give every young Lokai who asked for them.

The only armor and weapons available
were what had been left behind by the ousted guard, none of which fit the Lokai or even the handful of Rathgar youths.  The village had a small forge and Magda and Indie got to work.  They had time to reshape the armor and create more suitable weapons; Hitomi was not eager to start training the recruits on weapons.  First, they needed to be tempered, just as she had been in the Pit.

For months the recruits ran.  They ran when they woke up and after each meal and before dropping onto pallets on the ground in front of the skeleton of their future barracks.  When they were not running, they were
sparring each other and Hitomi personally beat them if they ever lost discipline.  It was not the intensity that Helkree had put her and her sisters through in the Pit; the young recruits could not handle something like that, but it was tough and several were kicked out of training before they ever picked up a weapon.

“You little shits have come a long way.  You’re not fainting during the runs anymore; you’re not bleeding all over the place from a single punch anymore.  You’re turning into fighters… but you’re still not ready.  None of you could hold your own against an armored guard
, but I bet anything you could fucking outrun them!”

The recruits were not allowed to laugh, even if any of them had found her humorous.  She continued.

“If you don’t have stamina; if you’re exhausted after one fight, then you’re expendable grunts.  I have no need for warriors who can only give me one fight.  We do not have the numbers for that bullshit.  Every single one of you will be expected to outlast our enemy.  Until then, you don’t have any business with armor or weapons.”

Hitomi
turned to Magda, who was standing behind her.  “Take ‘em into town for their meal, then take them to the forge for drills.  Naoko and I are training together this morning.  Bring ‘em back when the sun is high.”

“Understood,” the Rathgar replied.  She turned towards the recruits.  “Someone pick this dumbass up and carry him.  We’re marching i
nto town.  Follow me.”

Hitomi watched the recruits marching off towards the village for a moment and then turned away.  The Lokai villagers were starting to arrive at the barracks to start work that morning and Hitomi did not like training where they could see her.  She did not pack water or even stop by her shack for a bite to eat on her way into the forest of Hardshrooms, treelike mushrooms with hard, wooden stalks.

As she got closer to her training area, she could already hear Naoko.  The petite Lokai girl was already warming up, going through the exercises that Hitomi had taught her.  As Hitomi approached, Naoko stopped and turned, smiling at her.

“So what are you trying out today?”

“I’m working the spear and sticking with it,” Hitomi said.  “I’m done trying to get anywhere with the other weapons and I’m clearly more proficient with it than anything else.”

“The spear is basic, practical and has a long reach,” Naoko said.  “It suits you.”

“And you can teach me how to use it?”

“I can show you the principals of it, but mastering it will be all up to you.”  Naoko walked over to one of the Hardshrooms and pulled a crude, makeshift spear, little more than a sharpened pole, of
f of the stalk.  “My grandfather showed me all of the hunting weapons, but once I realized my skill in archery, I focused on it and ignored the other skills.  If we could have captured one of the guards and forced him to…”

“I don’t want to learn how Rathgar use spears,” Hitomi interrupted.  “I may be a brute compared to other Lokai, but I still have grace.  Show me the basics, whatever you know.  After that, I will make this weapon my own.”

“You’re already in charge of training a group of almost three dozen warriors, running with them everytime they go out.  You personally oversee their sparring and even sleep out in the open with them even though you have a perfectly good house.  Now you want to spend an extra three or four hours a day, on top of all of that, so you can master the spear?  Aren’t you overdoing it a little?”

“I’m a Helcat, Naoko, just like you will be some day,” Hitomi replied.  “In the Pit, it was enough for me to be the best hand
-to-hand fighter next to Grass-hair, but we’re not in the Pit anymore.  Kimura is already a natural at that Shadow Walking shit Kensei teaches.  Fenra is faster than any riding beast and Indie is strong enough to use an ox as a projectile weapon.  You and Magda are both being vetted by the rest of the Helcats as soon as Helkree returns just based off of the talents you already have.  If I stay at the level I’m at, I fall behind everyone else in terms of usefulness.”

“And you think Helkree or Grass-hair will discard you if that happens?” Naoko asked.

“It doesn’t matter.  I won’t let that happen, regardless of the consequences.  That is my pride as a warrior and as a Helcat.”

After a few hours in the forest, the two of them exited and made their way to Hitomi’s house.  The two room building was old and seated at the far end of the village, closest to the developing barracks, but Hitomi spent only brief periods of time there, preferring to be outside training or overseeing the recruits.  Naoko had been allowed to move her things in and it was more her home than her senior’s at that point.

As soon as Hitomi opened the door, she was greeted with a familiar face.

“Grass-hair?” she asked, blurting it out as she entered the house quickly.

“Still no sign,” Kimura replied.  She was sitting in the corner of the room, dressed in black clothes and eating a flap of dried mushroom.  “Sorry to get your hopes up by coming here, but I have news you need to hear.  Where is Indie?”

“At the forge,” Hitomi said, closing the door and going to the water basin to wash her face.  “We can go into town after I eat… if you haven’t devoured everything here.”

“Don’t bother, I’m not staying for long.” Kimura looked at Naoko, who just stood there.  “Hey, kid.”

“Good to see you, Kimura.”

“Give me the news and I’ll pass it along to Indie this afternoon,” Hitomi said.

“I hear Beretta is doing better with the Gimlets out in the desert,” Kimura said.  “There are almost a thousand Gimlets out there already, swarming the damn thing with scrap and knickknacks.  The vestiges of the Empire, in the Citadel, have started to take notice.  General Greela is still alive and in command.  This growing city is a threat in his eyes.  He might send a raiding party.”

“And where did you hear this?”

“Goji and I infiltrated the Citadel.  I just got out after spending months inside, blending in and making contacts.  It wasn’t easy.  Greela has turned that place into a larger version of the Pit.  His Guards do whatever they want and the people are little more than slaves.  People have started disappearing, too.  Anyone who gets out of line is put down hard.  With so few Rathgar men left, the general keeps a desperate grip on the people.”

“If he’s so desperate, then what makes you think Beretta and her city of fools is in any danger?”

“There are rumors that Beretta and the Gimlets are working on a weapon similar to the ones the men from the north used years ago to sack the Citadel.  I’ve been to the Gimlet City to see Beretta and the rumors are completely baseless, but Greela is scared shitless of the possibility that they might have one of those weapons.  His generals have managed to reason with him, so far, but he’s growing increasingly volatile.  It’s only a matter of time before he does something drastic.”

“You gathered all of this information in just a few months?” Hitomi asked.  “Is this some kind of
Naga trick?”

“Not really,” she replied.  “I was a consort for one of the higher-ranking guards.  I had access to the entire palace every night as soon as the idiot fell asleep.”

“Oh, so when your shadow skills fail you, at least you can fall back on your whore skills.”

“Indie is too fat, Magda is too ugly, you’re too manly and the kid is too frail,” Kimura shot back.  “I’m the only one suited to the task.”

“Manly?!” Hitomi roared.  “My tits are twice the size of yours, whore!”

“Yeah?”
Kimura laughed.  “So is your dick!”

“Naoko, lock the door!” Hitomi yelled, stretching her arms out and cracking her neck to the side.

“Oh, bring it on, shemale!” Kimura said, lighting to her feet and facing off against Hitomi.

Ten minutes later the three Lokai women were sitting around the wrecked house, passing around the remnants of a broken bottle of rice wine that had managed to survive the brawl between the two Helcats.  Hitomi was nursing a bite mark on her arm and had one eye closed.  Kimura’s face was swollen and she gripped her side and grimaced with every breath.  Even Naoko, who simply failed to get out of the house fast enough, was not unscathed.

“Well… that took me back,” Kimura said, easing up to her feet.  “Two years of training with Goji and Kensei and I still can’t beat you unarmed.”

“Yeah, I’ve still got that,” Hitomi sighed.  “As long as no one ever comes at me with a weapon, I should be fine, right?”

“What kind of attitude is that from a Helcat?  Grass-hair won the battle at Shimada Village without ever holding a weapon.”

“I’m not Grass-hair.  No one is when it comes to bare-fisted power,” Hitomi replied.  “Torga was the only one who could beat him by the time he left the Pit and that was years ago.  When Grass-hair left for the east, there was no one in this land who could match him unarmed.  We are the ones who are supposed to protect him from the armed threats.”

“Come join Goji and I,” Kimura said.  “Lokai were meant to be assassins, using agility and stealth to fight.  You’re not so clumsy that you couldn’t be a Naga.”

“Thanks, but I’m learning my own weapon.  When Grass-hair returns, I will not fall behind in my duty to protect him.”

“I know you won’t, Hitomi.” Kimura reached down and gripped her sister-in-arms by the shoulder.  “We might need your strength before he returns, though.”

Then she walked out the door and was gone.

Naoko fidgeted with her empty mug.  “Boss, what should we do about Beretta and her village?  If what Kimura said is true…”

“Greela doesn’t have the men to spare raiding a village of Gimlets,”
Hitomi replied, leaning back in her chair.  She paused for a moment, thinking about the Infernal and the charge Raegith had given her to start a scrap and research facility for the Gimlets.  Beretta was a destructive force, but living as a pet to the Emperors for three centuries gave her the instincts of a livestock animal.  She was only as good as her preparation.

Hitomi got up from her chair and turned toward the door.  “Come on, Naoko.  Today we start working on siege defense strategy.”