Chapter One—Zanjah Burning

The invaders left no stone unturned as they ravaged their way across Kalush, burning, killing and stealing.

Smoke rose far into the night sky as Zanjah burned.

“Push! Push you worms!” Ushtan screamed.

The pole bearers, thick with corded muscles in the shoulders and arms, did as they were commanded, grunting in unison. The sound was as if they made a battle cry, and perhaps in a way, they were. The river barge moved with increased speed as Shiro glanced across the river at the city, the screams of people in the streets and the cries of warriors on both sides heightening into a general uproar of battle.

The isekai wanted nothing more than to jump off the barge and charge headlong into the fray, to kill the invaders sacking the city. Not out of malice, but out of a need to help.

“Soon, Shiro,” Jessamine said from behind as she put her warm hand on his shoulder.

He turned slightly, his left hand on the hilt of his red-bladed scimitar. Her scimitar.

“We’re almost there!” Ushtan said. He was a tall Scorpion Guard with thick muscles, much like the shirtless rowers. In their war against the southern invaders from across the sea, they had been short of officers, and so Shiro had decided to promote him to Captain.

“Shiro!”

He turned at the sound of Ali calling across the water from the river barge behind them. Shiro moved across the deck on light feet, his sandals tapping against the boards of the deck with rowers on each side of him.

“What is it?” he called back.

Ali was wearing black pantaloons, sandals and a tunic with a leather vest containing small plates of silver armor. “What is happening?”

Shiro turned to Ushtan.

The Black Guard Captain nodded. “Almost there, my lord.” He turned and pointed over the heads of the kneeling blackguards. The river barge was packed with them, shoulder to shoulder. There must have been two hundred on their barge alone. “Do you see that next tributary?”

“Mm,” Shiro noised with a nod.

“We go down that three-hundred paces then get off. The street should lead us directly where the grand vizier Jadu is being held captive.”

“Soon!” Shiro called back. “Be ready!”

Ali waved him off and turned around to address his own men.

“Shiro,” Jessamine said. “If we go now, we can beat the soldiers there.”

Regarding the river and the smoke, and the people running through the streets, Shiro decided that that was not a bad idea. “Let us wait until we reach the tributary, and then we will leave the barge.”

“Are you certain?” Ushtan asked. He seemed taken aback. “It could be dangerous, my lord.”

Shiro nodded.

“How is it that Jadu has not been taken away yet?” Shiro asked. “Why is he still inside the city?”

Ushtan grunted. “Reports from our night raiders have come to me revealing that the streets behind the satrap’s palace have been cut off by our forces. The enemy agents cannot escape until those men are dealt with, my lord.”

So that was why rowers from the city kept making contact with the boat. Shiro knew they were runners, but he didn’t know they had been in contact with their elite night raiders.”

Shiro was feeling impatient.

That can change on a whim.

“We must hurry.”

Ushtan turned to the poll bearers once more. “Push, you feeble dogs, or I’ll have your livers for dinner!”

They pushed and growled, their glistening muscles flexing with every movement of their ores. Jessamine sighed dramatically. “I have to say, Shiro, this is quite boring. I was hoping we would get to cut through hundreds of these foreigners to get to the palace.”

He said nothing.

Jessamine was always like this. She wanted to enjoy herself, and now that she was mortal, that hadn’t changed anything.

After killing Darius, her bond with him was broken, but because she was the one to do it, that betrayed her pact with him, resulting in her loss of immortality, a gift she would have been able to give Shiro, but now could not.

He had never wanted to be immortal, so as far as he was concerned, it didn’t matter. He had asked Jessamine on occasion if her loss of immortality beset her with grievance.

I still do not know the answer to that.

She had only replied flippantly, “With less time, one learns to value—to savor—that time, Shiro.”

Ever the equivocating jinni.

But despite her loss of immortality, she was still a jinni and held all the other advantages of being such. Shiro’s bond with her had increased his magic tenfold—his sword skills as well.

“We are here, Shiro.”

Narrowing his eyes, he glanced across the smooth waters as they reflected orange and yellow light from the fires. The night was dark, but the skies blue, his ability to see by the stars in areas where there were no flames, easy.

The high buildings with their many awnings and verandas and domes spires, was a majestic sight. Where the city wasn’t burning, the dark silhouettes in the starlight painted an ominous picture of contrast between peacetime and war.

With a strong nod, Shiro said, “Then let’s go!”

He jumped off the barge and onto the quay, his body flying over the water ten paces where he landed almost soundlessly on the wooden boards of the docks.

Jessamine never jumped like that.

Instead she dematerialized in a plume of blue smoke and rematerialized in a whirl next to him.

“Don’t lose the lamp,” she said with a smirk.

He smiled. “Never.”

“Shiro!” Ali called.

Glancing back, he heard Jessamine sigh heavily as Ali waved his arms in confusion. “What are you doing?

“Stick to the plan,” he called back. “I am going ahead.”

His trustworthy friend and ally made a noise of frustration, waving a hand dismissively. Shiro barely paid him any mind.

Ali was a complainer by nature.

“Well?” Jessamine asked.

Shiro drew his scimitar—the one with the black-ivory hilt and the red metal. As Jessamine dematerialized again, Shiro ran between the structures in the dark alleyway far faster than that of a normal man.

He ran in search of danger.

In search of the grand vizier of Zanjah.