The hawk narrowly dodged through the leaves and branches as it zeroed in on the shelter. A moment later, it landed on the roost and patiently waited for someone to notice its arrival. It didn't take long before someone came and took the scroll from its back.

The hawk tore into the meat presented as a reward even as the man opened the scroll, clicked his tongue and left. Maybe an hour later, another scroll was placed on the carrier. The hawk was launched back into the air, despite the fact that it really wanted to nap. The hatch to the roost had already been closed though, so it had no choice but to fly.

____

Yuriko and Rhox walked from the palace towards the northern gate, which was really an enclosed square. The carriage that would take them to Viterra was there along with a footman and driver.

Out of the side of her eye, Yuriko watched Rhox nursing her head. The farewell dinner last night, though hastily thrown, had been filled with flagons of ale, beer, and brandy. Her first taste of the latter made Yuriko feel as though she had been sitting next to a fireplace for hours. The warmth of the liquor permeated her body, though she didn’t grow dizzy or intoxicated. Which was more than she could say for the Ahas woman.

Rhox had drunk so much ale that she had ended up under the table early in the feast. The next morning, she looked like someone had beaten her with a stick from the black spots on her scales and under her eyes. Rhox had whispered a good morning and trundled after Yuriko.

As for her, Yuriko had taken all of her possessions and stuffed as much of it inside her backpack as she could. The clothes were a bit too voluminous but the servants had given her a duffel bag to store them in. So she kept her delicates in the backpack along with a single change of clothing and kept the rest in the hand carry.

Rhox carried a single pack on her back, a change of clothes and her equipment, Yuriko assumed. She wasn’t in dougi and hakama today but in leather and chainmail. She also carried a longsword, a crossbow, and several quivers filled with steel bolts.

As for Yuriko, she kept to casual wear, having no protective clothing available. Today, she wore a grey hakama along with another off-white dougi paired with a silvery scarf that she kept unfurled. The long bit fluttered in the wind much like her hair did.

The morning had dawned blustery, and the constant wind against the canopy provided a melodic cacophony of rustling. It took an hour of silent walking to reach the north gate, and when they arrived, the Radiant Sun shone brightly through the canopy. A few beams touched Yuriko’s face, though her reserves were already full. Yes, she was glowing, but it wasn’t that apparent under the sunlight. At least that’s what she told herself, but judging from the staring that followed her as she walked…

Ah, and apparently, when she had her reserves filled with Radiant energy and her skin was suffused with light, she cast no shadow. That had been quite startling to realize and she wasn’t the one who noticed it first. Rhox asked her in a drunken stupor if she was only a figment of the imagination. Then the slender snakekin woman giggled.

Well, sufficiently thick clothing blocked the glow from her skin, so if she was dressed, she still cast a shadow. Yes, Rhox barged in on her this morning while Yuriko was naked and sunbathing.

She should either make sure the doors were locked or she should at least wear underwear. Well, panties and a breast band. A chemise or camisole covered too much of her body for ideal Radiant absorption.

While her mind wandered, they made it to the northern gate with little fanfare. Yuriko and Rhox signed the papers in the building and soon, they boarded the carriage that would bring her out of the city.

“How long will this take?” Yuriko asked.

“Three days, give or take,” Rhox muttered. “It depends on the weather. If it rains, some portions of the road will become muddy.”

“Ah, well that’s faster than I anticipated.”

“Well, if there’s a landslide then we may have to take a long detour. Viterra county is rife with such dangers.”

“Ah. Er, is that why His Excellency recommended running?”

“Ahaha, probably.”

The footman opened the carriage door for them. He was a lizardkin, with green scales and a magnificent yellow crest. He wore a hard leather breastplate over his dougi and had a short sword sheathed at his hip. There was also a crossbow slotted into a holder next to the driver’s seat. The driver was also a lizardkin and a man. The driver’s crest was red, but he was unarmoured and unarmed, save for a small belt knife, and a riding prod.

“Thank you,” Yuriko said as she climbed inside the carriage. Rhox nodded her thanks, too.

The vehicle was smaller than the ones they used to get from the Labyrinth entrance to the city, though it was still pulled by two horses. The two of them sat on opposite sides, with Yuriko facing front. Without much ado, their journey began.

The road was highly irregular, and the carriage’s shock absorbers weren’t the best, so every now and then, Yuriko was jolted out of her meditations. For the most part, she practised Animus manipulation and she formed and dissolved her sunblade, what she called the Animus blade infused with Radiant energy. She only made a miniature version, barely a couple of inches in length to conserve both her Animus and Radiant energy, but the complexity of the pattern was the same. If anything, it was actually more difficult to miniaturise it since there was far less space to form the patterns.

The small sunblade took only about five lumens of Animus is a mote of Radiant energy, something she could recover just by having an arm exposed to the sunlight for a few minutes. She mainly practised now to increase the speed she formed the blade. The first time she did it, it took several minutes. With a bit more practice, and since she was used to forming Animus blades anyway…it took longer.

The structure of the sunblade was vastly different from the Animus blade. For one thing, an Animus blade was formed by roughly forcing it into the shape of a blade, while the sunblade actually created structures and pathways. She had to let the Radiant energy guide the process several times before she managed to memorize it, but by the end of the first day in the carriage, she had it.

That wasn’t to say that she spent the entire day meditating and practising. A good part of the day was also spent just staring out the window and watching the countryside. The terrain near Lucenti was mostly marshy, of course, but that didn’t prevent the reptilian-kin from farming. Most of the fields were flooded, actually. It was rice, apparently. Rhox informed her when she asked.

“No, they don’t all start in the flooded fields,” Rhox laughed. “For the first part of growing, rice is planted in dryer soil, but once it grows to a certain level, it’s transplanted to the paddies. No, I don’t know the exact details; I’m not a farmer.”

“Oh, interesting. Most of the crops back home were wheat and oats,” Yuriko remarked.

“How do you eat them?”

“You grind and turn them into flour,” Yuriko explained, “then bake it into bread.”

“Bread, hmm? Ah, they’re more prevalent in Tiath and Grieford,” Rhox observed, “though rice is the staple throughout Bella plane.”

“I see. Tell me something, Rhox.” Yuriko brought out a handful of coins while the other woman arched a scaly eyebrow. “I asked both of their Excellencies about coins and if I should have them changed…”

“What do you mean changed? Ah, when you head out of the plane! Well, no worries, gold is gold and is usually good anywhere else. Just the gold coins though, ehehe, the bronze and silver ones may fluctuate in value.”

“No, oh, that’s actually something I didn’t think of,” Yuriko muttered. “I just wondered why there was no need to change coins. Back home, the Federation of City-States used Shekels instead of Sovereigns.”

“Oh, that’s unusual, isn’t it? All five city-states in Bella use Denari.”

“Who mints the coins then?”

“I’m…not sure,” Rhox murmured, then she shook her head dismissively. “Well, it hardly matters.”

“I suppose not.”

That evening, they reached the outskirts of Lucenti’s territory. They had travelled roughly fifty longstrides today, nearly the same distance from the City to the Labyrinth entrance. In Vizugmon, the nearest entrance to the Labyrinth was apparently right next to the city, so the Lucentians were at a disadvantage.

Their driver, Drosk by name, brought them off to a clearing by the road. The path had turned from cobblestones to hard-packed dirt, but there were portions where gravel had been dumped to cover the sunken portions of it. The woods weren’t particularly thick around here, but there was high grass everywhere.

The point they stopped at was on a barren hillside. From the looks of it, the ground beneath the topsoil was too gravelly to host much greenery. Or at least, that’s what Yuriko thought. She wasn’t that well versed in ecosystems as that particular subject had only been touched loosely in Natural Science class. Still, the dry and boring lectures took on a life of their own when she actually saw and experienced the natural world in its rawest form.

The two men slept outside on bedrolls with the footman, Rharn, taking the first watch. Yuriko didn’t neglect to scatter some alarm stones around the camp, as well as near her beddings. Being the passenger, she hadn’t been required to take watch even when she insisted. Still, she woke up before dawn to stretch and practice.

The second day of their travel they passed beyond the wet and marshy land and entered into rolling hills. The road wound around broad grassy undulations, though sometimes, part of the hill had been carved off by the road makers. Here, part of the road was covered in gravel, forming two lines about a dozen inches wide. Drosk made sure that the horses walked on the strip of dirt instead of the gravel, otherwise, they might hurt their feet. The steady cloppity clop of their hoofbeats sent Yuriko in a stupor, so much so that she nearly missed the whiz of crossbow bolts.

Thunk!

“Ah!” she yelled, startled, as a steel bolt slammed into the window sill.

“Ambush!” Rharn yelled, “Get us to…argh!”

His voice trailed off into a wet gargle even as the carriage wobbled dangerously as the horses reared and whinnied their distress.

“Easy! Easy!” Drosk yelled, but already, his panicked tone only led to the horses going out of control. The carriage jerked as they started to gallop. But they took no more than a dozen steps before another volley silenced their cries. They came to an abrupt stop and Yuriko barely stopped herself from slamming into Rhox by flaring her Anima. Uh, Rhox nearly got flattened anyway until she managed to make her Anima more flexible rather than the instinctive rigidity.

“Slithering worms! Who would dare?” Rhox yelled as she struggled to her feet.

As for Yuriko, she controlled her Anima into a protective shell and started the process to create a sunblade. Bolts smacked into the wooden chassis.

“Ah!” Rhox screamed when one of them bounced off the windowsill and careened around the interior before clattering against Yuriko’s Anima.

The bolts fell like raindrops, without ceasing. From the gurgling sounds above, Drosk had been turned into a pincushion. A bit of red seeped into the interior, through the small gap near the driver’s seat.

Rhox managed to arm her crossbow but she dared not peek out of the window. There were that many bolts flying their way. Yuriko focused on her weapon, but it would still be a few seconds before it would complete. She could have summoned Fri’Avgi instead, but that was too big to fit inside. And her instincts had always been to keep the artefact concealed.

A few more seconds…there!

Yuriko looked at Rhox, whose face had paled even under her scales.

“Time to fight back,” she said grimly. Rhox’ eyes darted to the glowing sunblade and her pupils dilated with both hope and fear. “Follow me,” Yuriko said as she got off her seat.

She quickly strapped on her backpack. There was no telling what would happen. She left the duffel bag. If she could, she would return for it. Then she leapt through the window, and rolled on the ground, quickly coming to her feet. Just in time to bat away the bolts coming her way. And now, she finally got a good look at their assailants.

Some hundred paces away, atop the hills and across the grass, were hundreds of hooded figures. But even with those, their faces were quite clear, and Yuriko stared at feline features and glowing irises.

They aimed their crossbows directly at her, then shot a veritable wall of arrows.