Chapter Thirty-One—From the Hills

Shiro awoke to rattling chains. He was in a swaying wagon topped with a cage, his world feeling dizzier and dizzier by the moment. He must have lost more blood than he thought from his wound.

After glancing about and realizing his ankles and his wrists were chained, and that the wagon was surrounded by guards both on foot and on horseback, he realized this was to be his end.

One of the guards had mentioned a royal torturer back when they were beating him at Faridoon’s manor house.

Darius al Hassarani had the lamp—had Jessamine—back in his possession, and now he would want to know how Shiro had defeated his dungeon guardian Akarilion.

He would surely make an example of him. His death would probably be gruesome, a warning to anyone who dared take the property of the Sultan of Darshuun.

But where were they going?

Not to the palace, surely? They weren’t inside of the city. The road here was dirt, and it was heading up into the mountains?

The crickets chirped loudly and the winds were picking up. Had he not been in this state—had Jessamine been with him, surely Shiro would have thought this night a beautiful one.

The wagon was empty. Ali wasn’t here.

His heart lurched inside his chest as the worry for his friend assailed him. This cage is large enough for two, he thought. And yet he isn’t here.

Had Ali died, making the prison wagon unnecessary for him?

Shiro could think of no other reason why his friend wouldn’t be here with him, headed for their torture and executions. A tiny sliver of hope came to him, as he thought perhaps Ali had found a way to escape.

But that was a fantasy.

Those men—those guards, were Darshuun royal guards wearing red and black. Shiro had seen them before and Ali and Jessamine had remarked upon them previously.

These were the best of the best. These men had magical prowess and skill with a blade unmatched in any unit employed within the armies of these lands.

There is no way I’m going to escape.

Kami-sama, he prayed, looking up into the skies. But no answer came. Shiro was a stranger in these lands, and isekai. He had no friends and no Allies other than Ali and Jessamine.

Ali was dead, and Jessamine…

Still unable to understand it, he kicked the cage bars suddenly as a fit of anger hit him.

One of the guards on horseback turned to him and slammed his spear over the metal grating. “Silence, you foreign dog!”

“Bakayarou!” Shiro growled an insult and spit at the guard.

The guard called a halt and jumped off his horse, his movements clearly that of an angry man.

Snarling, Shiro waited for the guard to unlock the cage and as soon as he grabbed Shiro by the arm he punched the guard in the nose.

He stepped back and two other guards rushed in to get at him. Shiro gnashes his teeth and swung his right fist.

And then he was dragged out and beaten on the dusty ground.

Growling like a wild animal, he cried out, squirming, as if purely by will he could defeat these elite guards.

But then a sudden idea came to him.

If he provoked them enough, they would kill him before they ever delivered him to be tortured and executed.

It was a better death.

Kicking and grasping at their ankles, he lashed out at them and suddenly one cried out and fell away, a warm spray hitting Shiro in the face.

The men around him spread out, leaving him alone on the dusty ground. Men cried out and died as Shiro glanced about, looking for whoever was here, but all he saw were snatches of a man dressed all in black on the edges of the torchlight surrounding the procession.

Another man went down as a scimitar cut him down suddenly from behind, fast footsteps coming and receding as the horses neighed and kicked up on their back legs while men cried out and died.

There was one man left, his spear in hand. He stood slightly crouched, ready to throw as he glanced about wildly. Shiro saw a rock on the road. He grabbed it, his knuckles going white as he got up and bashed the guard in the head. He went down and Shiro finished him off with three strikes to the head as hot blood mingled with the dry earth.

Grasping the weapon, he got up, aches and pains—the one in his chest most of all—making themselves known, but he ignored the pain and glanced about, ready to defend himself from this wild, unseen murderer.

Footsteps pattered ahead then circled around. Shiro turned, trying to keep his front facing those sounds.

They stopped.

All was quiet, save for the crickets and some croaking night animals. The sounds of his own breathing were like a storm to him as he listened for any sounds—or approaching footsteps.

“Shiro Takeda,” a voice called out.

He whirled.

Shiro’s eyes widened when he realized the Black Cobra standing there with his turban covering his face, his scimitar smeared red. He pulled down the covering, his features barely visible in the torchlight.

“Come with me. Quickly.”

“And why would I do that?”

There was a moment of silence between them. Then he said, “Did I not just rescue you?”

Shiro wanted to snarl, to attack this man. And kill him.

“Come.”

He turned and started walking.

Shiro watched him. With nothing else to do but run like a mad dog with pursuers at his heels, he decided to follow this adventurer.

Shiro’s enemy.

But first, he picked a scimitar up off the ground.