The first story translated into English and my tactician Ceniro collide in an unfinished half-scripted novelization.
EDIT: I first published these chapters in 2007. Having gone back to them in preparation for writing Anima’s Seal this NaNoWriMo in 2015, I no longer feel this first volume stands up and I feel no regret over completely rewriting it without leaving a copy of the original on my blog (that no one reads anyway : D). And hey, it’s kind of refreshing to be able to write chapters that are under 5 pages long, can you believe it??
EDIT2: based on feedback from my beta reader and the fact that I can’t sleep, I’m editing this fic so that it sucks less.
Prologue: A Girl From the Plains
The young man walked steadily on his way, striding through the knee-deep yellow grasses of the Sacaean plains. He was rather short, and his pace was unhurried. The sun beat on his pale-green cloaked back, and suddenly he looked around and narrowed his grey eyes.
He was being followed.
He gripped his staff tighter and continued on.
“Here, you!” called one of his followers.
The young man turned, washing his face clean of the look of apprehension that had crossed it. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”
“You’re crossing our land, stranger. You have to pay the toll or forfeit your life!”
“A bit harsh, isn’t that?” the young man asked mildly. “I didn’t know it was your land, and I’ll be gone soon. Anyway, I have no money left. I don’t look like a rich man, do I?”
“Don’t play the fool with us,” growled the other man, brandishing a large waraxe. “Everyone’s got some money. Give us twenty gold and we’ll forget we saw you.”
The traveler took a step back, his worry beginning to break through. “I don’t have any. I told you.”
“Then we ain’t got no use for you. C’mon, dispose of him.”
The young man took another step back, flipping his cloak back over his right arm to give him free range of motion. He couldn’t outrun these bandits, and he couldn’t outfight them, but if he could defend himself with his staff long enough they gave up on him…
Although his weapon of choice wasn’t a deadly weapon, he was holding his own, for the moment. He bashed the knuckles of one bandit, making him drop his axe and howl with pain, and deflected an attack from the other bandit. His breath was quick and uneven, and his heart was pounding so hard he could barely hear, but his hands were steadier than an onlooker might have expected.
He felt a sudden, dull blow to the back of his head, and felt sudden weightlessness. Stupid, stupid, he told himself. The disarmed bandit had gotten behind him. The last thing he sensed was the bandits shouting urgently.
He came to, lying on something quite comfortable. As he stirred and groaned, the back of his head throbbing, he heard a woman’s voice calling to him. “Hello? Can you hear me?”
“Nngh,” was his terribly coherent answer, and he opened his eyes and sat up with effort.
He was lying on a cot in a small, round, one-roomed house that seemed to be made out of felt. Something that smelled really good was cooking over a fire in the centre of the hut; the smoke escaped through a lattice in the peak of the ceiling. But all these things were irrelevant in light of the fact that the most beautiful woman he had ever seen was leaning over him with an anxious expression in her large blue eyes.
He gawped like an idiot, then realized he was staring, blushed crimson, looked at the floor, glanced back at her, and back to the floor. But even in that brief look, he’d seen plenty. Her hair was dark-green, like most Sacaean people, and tied in a high ponytail on top of her head; it fell almost to her knees. She was dressed in a long traditional teal-coloured dress with slits in the sides of the skirt to enable easy movement, and as she turned back to the pot on the fire, giggling a little at his reaction to her, her movements were precise and graceful.
“Well, it’s good you’re awake, traveler,” she said. “I’m glad I showed up in time to chase away those ruffians. Are you hungry?”
For answer, his stomach rumbled like an angry lion and he blushed some more, curling into himself to try to make it stop.
“My name’s Lyn,” said the girl, handing him a bowl of stew and a spoon. “What’s your name?”
“C-ceniro,” he stammered. “I-I’m from Lycia…” Stupid, he told himself. She didn’t care about that.
“Lycia, hmm? What brings you to Sacae?” Or maybe she did?
“I was… I’m a wanderer, I want to see the world. I-I’m also a tactician by trade…”
“Can’t be much call for that in Sacae, unfortunately… My mother was from Lycia,” she said, and her bright, cheerful face fell for a moment. He was about to muster up the nerve to ask her what was wrong when she tilted her head. “Wait. I think I hear bandits. It must be those two again. Stay here while I check it out.” She grabbed a pair of gloves, stuck a sheathed katana into her sash, and headed for the door of the hut.
“W-wait,” Ceniro said. “I’ll… I’ll help.” Stupid, he told himself. She didn’t need his help.
“Are you sure?” she asked, pausing and looking at him with those blue eyes. “You had a nasty knock on the head.”
He nodded. “Even if you don’t need tactical advice, I can at least distract one of them and make it a fair fight.”
“Only if you’re sure,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to get killed after you escaped them once already!”
“I’ll be all right,” he assured her, and promptly tripped over his own feet while reaching for his staff.
Her face was full of concern, but she didn’t stop him from following her.
He was half-blinded by the sunlight when he stepped out of the hut, but he could see well enough that the two bandits were jogging in their direction, talking loudly about what horrible things they would do to Ceniro and Lyn and the little hut.
“Any advice, my tactician friend?” Lyn asked, half-teasing, as she loosened her sword in its sheath. “They ran when they saw me coming last time, but I don’t expect that to work twice.”
“I’ll distract the one on the left; you take the one on the right. There’s not much terrain to work with here, so it’s pretty straightforward.”
“Got it,” she said with a confident – and blindingly beautiful – smile, and darted ahead of him, her sword flashing and hair streaming. He broke into a run to catch up with her, to prevent the other bandit from flanking her.
She was much faster than the man she was facing, and her sword more nimble than his axe. She deftly blocked his attacks and slashed at him, her strikes deadly accurate. The bandit drew back, bleeding heavily from the left arm, and swung his axe down on her head. She jumped to the side as the axe whooshed past her, but that left the bandit wide open.
Ceniro was very distracted. He really wanted to watch Lyn, who was like no other swordfighter he had ever seen, but a poor block of his bandit’s axe left a deep gouge in his staff; too much more and it would break and he would really be defenseless. He just had to bide enough time that Lyn would be able to take over; he trusted she could handle the other man without input from him.
Then she was there, her sword slashing through the bandit’s throat cleanly. Ceniro stumbled back, swallowing hard. He had seen violent death before, but he was still in no way used to it. He told himself that the bandits would have killed them both, and it helped a little, but… there were still two fresh corpses on the plains. He swallowed again and looked away. Maybe if he told himself it wasn’t real? But that would lead too far in the other direction. He didn’t want that.
“They won’t bother anyone anymore,” Lyn growled, wiping and sheathing her katana. When she looked at Ceniro, her face became worried again. “Are you all right? You’re very pale. Is your head hurting badly?”
“It’s not that,” Ceniro tried to say, and fell to his knees to retch.
“Oh dear,” Lyn said, hovering awkwardly. “You… haven’t been in many battles, have you?”
“N-no,” Ceniro confessed, recovering physically, but hoping the earth would swallow him up at some point soon. “I actually haven’t had any employment yet…”
Lyn patted his shoulder comfortingly. “Well, come have some dinner and rest. You can sleep in my ger tonight.”
“Your what?”
“The hut,” Lyn said, pointing at it.
“Oh,” he said stupidly, and nodded several times.
She was so kind. And strong and brave. She must think him a complete dunce. At least he’d be able to flee tomorrow.