Chapter Three—Into the Palace of Shahir

Taking in a deep breath, Shiro ran, jumped and put his palm over the terrace railing as he vaulted over into empty air, his body close to the minaret’s wall. As he fell, his sandals touched the sand-colored bricks, sliding and slowing his descent. Still, he was falling fast, the wind rushing against him, his hair, which he hadn’t cut in months, fluttering out behind him as his tunic filled with air.

Nearing the bottom, he pressed his feet down, slowly and incrementally, but not nearly enough to make his landing one that any normal man could survive.

Before hitting the bottom, Shiro pushed his legs out, launching himself into the air where he flipped frontwards. He landed on his feet and rolled again across the brick paving stones with his momentum. With his hands, he vaulted himself over again. When his sandals came back down, he slid across the stones for a good two paces and ran.

Jessamine’s voice echoed into the air beside him, though she hadn’t materialized enough to let him see her. “Who’s the showoff now?”

With a grin, he ran forward across the wall, the parapets giving him cover as he made his way toward the next minaret. As a shaft came out of the murder holes on either end of the door, Shiro stepped out of their paths like they were nothing more than leaves falling from a tree. When he came up to the door, he kicked it in with a loud crash.

Men screamed in sudden panic.

This would be his first direct encounter with the enemy. So far, their shafts were nothing to worry about.

The men inside shouted and drew their swords. As he waited, none of them ventured out to attack him.

Something snapped and came at him—fast.

Shiro moved, swinging his scimitar at the same time. The crossbow bolt that he deflected off the side of his sword knocked his forearm back with the force of the blow.

Narrowing his eyes, Shiro lunged into the minaret and slammed his sword into the chest of the crossbowman, then he turned and met the swords of the other six men in the ante chamber, knocking their blades aside and making quick work of them in sprays of blood and high pitched screams.

As they lay dead and dying on the floor, they moaned pitifully—at least the soldiers who were still alive.

“Gory,” Jessamine said in disgust. She still hadn’t materialized. Then, sounding incredibly bored, she added, “I do prefer it when you kill monsters. Humans are too easy.”

“Except for when they are top-tier adventurers, yes?”

“Even then, I suspect you would kill them quickly.”

Shiro stepped over the bodies and went down the stairs to ground level, whereupon he opened another thick door with iron bracers and entered the courtyard.

The night was hot and the cloying smell of smoke in the air was beginning to dull his senses. As the samurai stepped into the courtyard, he glanced toward the gates, saw the fifty or so soldiers bracing the doors as a team of crossbow men stood at attention, their large shield bearers and cranking partners at the ready. They were well organized—clearly professional soldiers, as each crossbowman had two partners.

“So,” Jessamine said bemusedly, “this is why the empire is not able to push back these invaders.”

Shiro did not run. In case he was seen, he strode confidently toward the inner doors of the palace. If he was spotted, perhaps it would simply look like he belonged, even if he was dressed like an Abassir.

The general alarm still had not been sounded. He had taken those men in the minaret by completely surprise.

Perhaps they will think I am a spy working for them.

“I am certain,” he said, “that there are many other reasons why.”

“Indeed,” Jessamine said.

Shiro went to the massive doors only to find them closed. He pushed on them, but they didn’t budge. He glanced up and the domed tower overhanging the structure’s walls like a massive mushroom shaded the starlight.

But sticking out of the bricks were thick wooden beams with pinions in the green and gold of the empire.

Bending, Shiro launched himself up with a powerful jump that he could not have otherwise done before and grabbed onto the first beam, then he pulled himself up with his arms. “I thought of something.”

She appeared atop the beam with him in a swirl of blue mist. “Yes?”

“If you do not have to stand on the ground,” he said, “could you levitate in the air and pull me up?”

She giggled.

“It will not work,” he said, feeling sheepish as he answered for her.

“Do you want to try?”

Shiro shook his head. “I can do it on my own.”

He jumped to the next beam and Jessamine sighed contentedly as she levitated through the open air to join him.

In a swirl, she disappeared, laughing.

“What is”—he jumped, grabbing onto the next beam with a grunt—“is funny?”

She said nothing as he glanced to his left. There was an enclosed portico with a tiled roof close enough to jump to. With a grunt, he landed on the tiles, a little more roughly than he wanted.

A man from underneath shouted something.

From the sound of the voices, he thought he heard multiple voices, and then someone went running. Shiro turned, seeing Jessamine sitting atop the tiles, her hair blowing in the night breeze. She looked at him with an indulgent smile. “He’s running for the alarm, Shiro.”

“Oh!”

He jumped, falling so that he was facing inward to the portico. At the last moment he put out his hands and grasped the gold-gilded railing. A soldier at attention there screamed in sudden alarm and spoke in a foreign tongue Shiro had never heard before.

The isekai hoisted himself up, his sandals coming into contact with the rail. When the soldier swung his blade, Shiro dodged the soldier’s attack with a quick jump and grabbed his wrist, then he yanked the soldier over the portico railing where he fell to his death.

“So loud,” Jessamine said as she appeared within the open corridor.

Shiro ran past her, his speed fast enough that he could catch the fleeing soldier, who just rounded the corner into another chamber.

As he slid across the tiles after the man, one of the invaders pushed a trumpet out of a murder hole to sound an alarm.

Shiro cut him down.

As a group of eight more men ran toward him, their strange swords with thin blades and their long poles with the heads of axes and spears, a swirl of blue mist erupted behind them.

As they turned in confusion a figure in green silk moved, her sword flashing through their bodies before the mist could even dissipate.

Blood sprayed and limbs flailed as the soldiers screamed and died a bloody mess, the bodies of the soldiers unmoving. “Do not be too slow, Shiro, or else Ali and his Scorpion Guards will arrive and take all the credit.”

“Now who is showing off, jinni?”

Jessamine smirked as she spread her arms in a shrug. “Am I not the Sword Dancer, Shiro?”

“Mm,” he growled.

“That is not an answer.”

He strode forward as she glanced about.

“The Palace of Shahir is not as sumptuous as I remember.”

“You have been here before?”

“Of course,” she said in her undulating tone.