Journey to the Water Chapter III: Banwa Province

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My axe came down on the first guard’s head. His helmet caved in over his face and he stumbled backward with a curse I could not understand. The others pressed in around me, fencing me in with their spears. A flash to my left caught my eye, and I stepped back, fearing a deadly point. 

It was only the shaft of a spear darting toward me. It glanced harmlessly off my shoulder. They still intended to bring me in alive. 

I dropped Bran’s bridle and took my axe in both hands, swinging it in a wide arc. The covered blade struck the nearest guard, knocking him into the man beside him. With both of them out of the way, I hit the fourth man upside the head with the shaft. He dropped like a stone. 

The gate opened, and four more guards ran across the muddy clearing to surround me. My anger at being denied passage for my lack of papers was replaced with a fierce joy. It had been a long while since I’d had a good fight—longer, even, if I didn’t count the sparring matches with Heishiro at the temple. 

Their leader shook his head, to shift his misshapen helmet, but it was in vain. Bent metal covered one eye and part of the other. I was impressed he was still in the fight. He took a blind swing that missed me by an inch. 

My next strike missed the guards. I carved a space between them as they scrambled out of the way. The path to the gate was clear. I pulled Bran forward and put a foot into the stirrup. I was still no horseman, and my leap into the saddle was clumsy, but I stayed upright and kicked him forward. 

In the confusion, Bran staggered and turned from side to side, ignoring my command. The nearest guard reached for his bridle and grasped empty air.

I tried again to urge him toward the gate. He went, but I did not go with him—a pole struck me in the ribs with a mighty crack. I landed hard on my back in the mud. Two men grabbed my arms, and two more weighed my legs down, pushing me into the earth. My chest ached, and I struggled to draw breath. 

With a roar, I kicked my legs free. I stood, heedless of the pain, and threw the other men off. More guards had come from the gate, and two of them were leading Bran away. He tossed his head and screamed. 

I ran for him. Spear shafts struck me from all sides. I swung wildly, back and forth, knocking the guards out of my way. Their leader shouted, his voice muffled by his dented helmet, trying to rally them. 

Bran was still out of my reach. I chanced a look at the gate. There were more of these men in their plumed helmets—far more than I could possibly defeat on my own. 

Eventually, they would subdue me. Until then, however, I would take as many down with me as I could. 

A blow from the butt of my axe felled another guard, and my next strike hit his fellow’s helmet with a metallic ring. I rammed my shoulder into the man in front of me. Pain shot through my chest, burning down my left side. 

When I looked up again, the leader stood before me, spear at the ready. I hit him in the belly, and he fell once more. This time, he did not rise again. 

More blows from blunt weapons rained down on me. Finally, one hit the back of my head, and I lost consciousness. 

I awoke in a cell constructed of heavy wooden beams. The air was damp, and my narrow cot of planks was soft to the touch and smelled faintly of rot. My axe was gone, as was my straw hat, and I had no idea what had become of Bran. A single guard sat at a table on the other side of the lattice door, well away from my reach. He observed me with a wary eye. 

I sat up. I had at least one broken rib, and a nasty bump on the back of my head, in addition to a varied collection of scrapes and bruises. I knew how foolish it was to take the entire garrison on by myself, but I was pleased with my performance. If only I’d had a companion. Aysulu would have ridden circles around the guards. I missed her then, a pain almost as acute as the ache in my chest. I was utterly alone in this strange land. 

Perhaps I could have gone along with the guards. I’d still have been arrested, but I could have been arrested without the broken bone. 

They deserved what they got, I decided, for their lack of hospitality. In the desert, and in the lands of my birth, a lone traveler would have been offered shelter, not taken in by force for lacking a document. 

Night fell, and the narrow window on the wall outside my cell turned dark. The guard changed, and I was fed a thin porridge made of rice. Whether we shared a language in common or not, they did not speak to me, and I knew not if I would ever be released. I sang whaling songs as loudly as I could until one of them rapped a club on the wooden bars separating him from my cell. I could not understand him, but the message was clear.

I slept, exhausted, and I woke in the morning to see a new face at the bars. He wore the same deep blue silk as the guards, but his long black hair was gathered into a neat topknot, secured with an ornate silver pin and decorated with red feathers. His face was all sharp angles,  and he had an imperious look. 

“Well,” he said, in the same tongue as the Dragon Temple. “I’m not sure what I expected.”

I sat up again and returned his look. “I expected a little more hospitality. Your guards reacted very strongly to my lack of literature.”

“You do know you need a traveling pass, don’t you?” he said, raising an eyebrow. 

“I know no such thing. I am only passing through. This is poor treatment of a wandering guest who meant no harm.”

One corner of his mouth twisted in amusement. “But harm you did! You took down eleven of my men. Fortunately for you, they’re all expected to live. So, what brings you to Banwa Province, outlander?”

“I am traveling south,” I said, “to the port. I need to sail to the Isles of Ashinya.”

“And why would you ever want to do that?” he said with a chuckle. 

I leaned back against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest. It hurt, but I refused to flinch and give this new stranger the satisfaction. “It’s no concern of yours. I have no quarrel with you or your town. I only need to pass through.”

“You won’t get very far without papers,” said the man. 

“Why do I need them?” I asked. “Just to travel? Is it against the law to walk the land here?”

He laughed again. I was starting to find it grating. 

“Yes, of course,” he said. “If the peasants all packed up and left, what would we do?”

That made little sense. “Ah,” I said, the realization coming to me. “You have slaves here.”

“No, nothing so crass.” He shook his head. “But I’m not here to argue politics with you, outlander. I am Governor Niran, most recently of Banwa Province, which is where you find yourself.”

“And I am Eske, world-treader and champion of the Cerean Tournament. It would be in your best interest to let me go.”

“It would reflect very poorly on me if I just let people wander around,” he replied, “so no, I’m not going to just let you go. Here is what you and I are going to do. You are an accomplished warrior with no ties to this area. I would be willing to send you on your way south to isles, with the proper traveling papers—”

“I need papers for other towns, as well?” I interrupted. 

“Yes. Anywhere in the empire, which is most of the world.”

I had traveled much of the world—I thought, at the time, that I had seen most of it—and never heard of this empire, but I said nothing. 

“You’ll be free to travel anywhere,” Niran continued. “I’ll even give you your horse back, and all your belongings, if you do a small favor for me.”

“And what’s that?”

He smiled, and rested a hand on the hilt of the sword at his hip. It was finely made, likely steel, and had a silken red tassel tied to the pommel.  “There are a number of bandits hiding in the hills north of here. You may have encountered some of them in your travels. As impressive as your performance was yesterday, I don’t need you to slaughter them to a man. I need their leader: a man by the name of Sun.”

I did not want to backtrack north, nor did I want to waste time getting myself involved in this, but it looked as though I had no choice. “Do you want him alive or dead?”

“It does not matter. Dead would be easier for you, I’d imagine.”

“What are his crimes?” I had no qualms about killing reavers, and I had done so before. I did not want to kill innocent men. 

“All manner of banditry over the past six months,” Niran said. “He and his men have been preying on the villages, as well as committing a number of other crimes, none of which concern you.”

“Very well,” I said. “I’ll need all my equipment returned. And I’d like a set of armor, if you have one to spare.” 

“Bring me Sun’s sword, or his head, and I’ll consider it.” Niran’s smile was as sharp and mirthless as a knife. “Quite frankly, my friend, I don’t care if you die in the hills. This will solve my problems either way. I’ll let the doctor take a look at you, though.”

I stood and bowed, the way I was taught to at the temple. The movement made my chest hurt anew. 

Governor Niran bowed also, though it was more of a nod, and he left the room. 

A guard came and unlocked the cell door, and another man looked at my chest and wrapped a bandage around it without speaking to me. My broken rib would take weeks to heal. Khalim could have mended it with a touch and a smile. 

And I would see that smile again. I swore this would only be a minor delay on my quest. 

The sun was shining as I left Banwa town. I collected Bran and my axe, and more guards escorted me to the gate and shut it behind me with a decisive slam. I was alone once more. 

I walked first to the last village I had seen, where the bridge had been washed out in the storm. It had been rebuilt, after a fashion, of ropes and planks, and it hung a bare few inches above the water’s surface. Through signs and gestures, I managed to communicate my intent to the keeper of the village’s only pair of cattle: I was going into the wilderness, and I needed someone to look after my horse. The buffalo were black, their heads crowned by heavy horns, and their keeper was a stocky woman of middle age. She refused my offer of fish, pointing to the abundance of fish drying around the village, but she accepted the last of the honeycomb I had been given and a good portion of the game I had hunted on my way south. 

That done, and my burden lightened, I left the village and the road behind. Weeks of rain had made the grass grow green, and the trees had leafed out into a canopy that obscured the bright afternoon sun. In the shadows, I found a deer-trail, and I followed it for a few hours before I found a human footprint among the tracks. 

Once I found one, I found more in short order. These bandits were not as experienced as I had feared at hiding their presence in the woods. By nightfall, I found a cleared patch of ground and a palisade much like the one around the town. The camp backed up against the face of a cliff, and the men had cut down the trees in a half-circle around their wall, enabling a clear view of anyone who approached. 

I kept my distance, and waited, and watched.

Judging by the size of the camp, there were at least two dozen men here. Four or five stood on the battlements throughout the day. They wore broad straw hats and cloaks of woven grasses, like the men who had stopped me on the road some time ago. Those men had warned me against troubling the villagers, and now I thought to question why. 

My answer came at nightfall. A party of four men came up the trail from the south, grim-faced and slow in their steps. They had been in a fight. Their hats bore the signs of bladed weapons, and one with bare arms was cut as well,  though the wounds were shallow. The man at the head of their small column wore a damaged cloak, and through the place where the grass had been slashed, I saw a familiar brigandine breastplate. From the pommel of his sword hung a red tassel. 

These men were outfitted exactly like the garrison soldiers. Something was not right here. Governor Niran had misled me.

Back to Chapter II: The Road South

Forward to Chapter IV: The Hills of Maagay

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Thanks for reading! Tune in next time for the conclusion of this arc and Eske’s next steps.

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